Heart of the Matter.

by Emily Giffin.

Acknowledgments.

Deepest gratitude to Mary Ann Elgin, Sarah Giffin, Nancy LeCroy Mohler, and Lisa Elgin for their unwavering generosity from page one. I couldn't do it without you and could never thank you enough.

I owe so much to my editor, Jennifer Enderlin, and my publicist, Stephen Lee, along with everyone at St. Martin's Press, especially Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, John Murphy, Matt Baldacci, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Nancy Trypuc, Mike Storrings, Sara Goodman, and the whole Broadway and Fifth Avenue sales forces. Because of you, I feel lucky every day.

I am indebted to my superb agent, Theresa Park, and her team: Emily Sweet, Abigail Koons, and Amanda Cardinale. You are the consummate professionals, yet you make the journey fun, too.

Thanks also to Carrie Minton, Martha Arias, Stacie Hanna, Mara Lubell, Mollie Smith, and Grace McQuade for their support; to Allyson Wenig Jacoutot, Jennifer New, Julie Portera, Laryn Gardner, and Brian Spainhour for their input; and to Dr. Christopher A. Park and Joshua Osswald for their insight on matters of medicine and tennis, respectively.

I am grateful to my readers for their warmth and enthusiasm, and my friends for their good humor and love.

Finally, a huge, heartfelt thank-you to Buddy Blaha and my entire family, for more reasons than I could ever name.

And to Edward, George, and Harriet-you can come up to my office and interrupt my writing anytime.

Heart of the Matter

1 .

Tessa

Whenever I hear of someone else's tragedy, I do not dwell on the accident or diagnosis, or even the initial shock waves or aftermath of grief. Instead, I find myself reconstructing those final ordinary moments. Moments that make up our lives. Moments that were blissfully taken for granted-and that likely would have been forgotten altogether but for what followed. The before snapshots.I can so clearly envision the thirty-four-year-old woman in the shower one Saturday evening, reaching for her favorite apricot body scrub, contemplating what to wear to the party, hopeful that the cute guy from the coffee shop will make an appearance, when she suddenly happens upon the unmistakable lump in her left breast.

Or the devoted young father, driving his daughter to buy her first-day-of-school Mary Janes, cranking up "Here Comes the Sun" on the radio, informing her for the umpteenth time that the Beatles are "without a doubt the greatest band of all time," as the teenaged boy, bleary-eyed from too many late-night Budweisers, runs the red light.

Or the brash high school receiver, full of promise and pride, out on the sweltering practice field the day before the big football game, winking at his girlfriend at her usual post by the chain-link fence, just before leaping into the air to make the catch nobody else could have made-and then twisting, falling headfirst on that sickening, fluke angle.

I think about the thin, fragile line separating all of us from misfortune, almost as a way of putting a few coins in my own gratitude meter, of safeguarding against an after happening to me. To us. Ruby and Frank, Nick and me. Our foursome-the source of both my greatest joys and most consuming worries.

And so, when my husband's pager goes off while we are at dinner, I do not allow myself to feel resentment or even disappointment. I tell myself that this is only one meal, one night, even though it is our anniversary and the first proper date Nick and I have had in nearly a month, maybe two. I have nothing to be upset about, not compared to what someone else is enduring at this very instant. This will not be the hour I will have to rewind forever. I am still among the lucky ones.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Tess," Nick says, silencing his pager with his thumb, then running his hand through his dark hair. "I'll be right back."

I nod my understanding and watch my husband stride with sexy, confident purpose toward the front of the restaurant where he will make the necessary call. I can tell, just by the sight of his straight back and broad shoulders navigating deftly around the tables, that he is steeling himself for the bad news, preparing to fix someone, save someone. It is when he is at his best. It is why I fell in love with him in the first place, seven years and two children ago.

Nick disappears around the corner as I draw a deep breath and take in my surroundings, noticing details of the room for the first time. The celadon abstract painting above the fireplace. The soft flicker of candlelight. The enthusiastic laughter at the table next to ours as a silver-haired man holds court with what appears to be his wife and four grown children. The richness of the cabernet I am drinking alone.

Minutes later, Nick returns with a grimace and says he's sorry for the second, but certainly not the last, time.

"It's okay," I say, glancing around for our waiter.

"I found him," Nick says. "He's bringing our dinner to go."

I reach across the table for his hand and gently squeeze it. He squeezes mine back, and as we wait for our fillets to arrive in Styrofoam, I consider asking what happened as I almost always do. Instead, I simply say a quick prayer for the people I don't know, and then one for my own children, tucked safely into their beds.

I picture Ruby, softly snoring, all twisted in her sheets, wild even in her sleep. Ruby, our precocious, fearless firstborn, four going on fourteen, with her bewitching smile, dark curls that she makes even tighter in her self-portraits, too young to know that as a girl she is supposed to want the hair she does not have, and those pale aquamarine eyes, a genetic feat for her brown-eyed parents. She has ruled our home and hearts since virtually the day she was born-in a way that both exhausts me and fills me with awe. She is exactly like her father-stubborn, passionate, breathtakingly beautiful. A daddy's girl to the core.

And then there's Frank, our satisfying baby boy with a cuteness and sweetness that exceeds the mere garden-variety-baby cute and sweet, so much so that strangers in the grocery store stop and remark. He is nearly two, but still loves to cuddle, nestling his smooth round cheek against my neck, fiercely devoted to his mama. He's not my favorite, I swear to Nick in private when he smiles and accuses me of this parental transgression. I do not have a favorite, unless perhaps it is Nick himself. It is a different kind of love, of course. The love for my children is without condition or end, and I would most certainly save them over Nick, if, say, all three were bitten by rattlesnakes on a camping trip and I only had two antivenin shots in my backpack. And yet, there is nobody I'd rather talk to, be near, look at, than my husband, an unprecedented feeling that overcame me the moment we met.

Our dinner and check arrive moments later, and Nick and I stand and walk out of the restaurant into the star-filled, purple night. It is early October, but feels more like winter than fall-cold even by Boston standards-and I shiver beneath my long cashmere coat as Nick hands the valet our ticket and we get into our car. We leave the city and drive back to Wellesley with little conversation, listening to one of Nick's many jazz CDs.

Thirty minutes later, we are pulling up our tree-lined driveway. "How late do you think you'll be?"

"Hard to say," Nick says, putting the car into park and leaning across the front seat to kiss my cheek. I turn my face toward him and our lips softly meet.

"Happy anniversary," he whispers.

"Happy anniversary," I say.

He pulls away, and our eyes lock as he says, "To be continued?"

"Always," I say, forcing a smile and slipping out of the car.

Before I can close the door, Nick turns up the volume of his music, dramatically punctuating the end of one evening, the start of another. As I let myself in the house, Vince Guaraldi's "Lullaby of the Leaves" echoes in my head where it remains long after I've paid the babysitter, checked on the kids, changed out of my backless black dress, and eaten cold steak at the kitchen counter.

Much later, having turned down Nick's side of the bed and crawled into my own, I am alone in the dark, thinking of the call in the restaurant. I close my eyes, wondering whether we are ever truly blindsided by misfortune. Or, somehow, somewhere, in the form of empathy or worry or a premonition deep within ourselves, do we feel it coming?

I fall asleep, not knowing the answer. Not knowing that this will be the night I will return to, after all.

2 .

Valerie

Valerie knew she should've said no-or more accurately stuck to no, the answer she gave Charlie the first dozen times he begged her to go to the party. He had tried every angle, including the "I don't have a daddy or a dog" guilt trip, and when that got him nowhere, he enlisted the support of his uncle Jason, who was longer on charm than anyone Valerie knew.

"Oh, come on, Val," he said. "Let the kid have a little fun."

Valerie shushed her twin brother, pointing toward the family room where Charlie was building an elaborate Lego dungeon. Jason repeated himself verbatim, this time in an exaggerated whisper as Valerie shook her head, declaring that six years old was too young for a sleepover, especially one outdoors in a tent. It was a familiar exchange as Jason habitually accused his sister of being overprotective and too strict with her only child.

"Right," he said, smirking at her. "I've heard that bear attacks are on the rise in Boston."

"Very funny," Valerie said, going on to explain that she didn't know the boy's family well enough, and what she had gleaned of them, she didn't much like.

"Lemme guess-they're loaded?" Jason asked teasingly, pulling up his jeans, which had a way of sliding down his spindly frame, exposing the waistband of his boxers. "And you don't want him mixing with that kind?"

Valerie shrugged and surrendered to her smile, wondering how he had guessed. Was she that predictable? And how, she wondered for the millionth time, could she and her twin brother be so different when they had grown up together in the same brown-shingled house in their Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Southbridge, Massachusetts? They were best friends, sharing the same bedroom until they were twelve when Jason moved to the drafty attic to give his sister more space. With dark hair, almond-shaped blue eyes, and fair skin, they even looked alike, often being confused for identical twins as babies. Yet according to their mother, Jason had come out of the womb smiling, while Valerie emerged scowling and worried-which was how things remained throughout their childhood, Valerie the shy loner, riding on the coattails of her popular, outgoing, older-by-four-minutes brother.

And now, thirty years later, Jason was as happy as ever, an easygoing optimist, flitting from one hobby and job to the next, utterly comfortable in his own skin, especially since coming out of the closet just after their father died during their senior year in high school. A classic underachiever, he now worked in a coffee shop on Beacon Hill, making friends with everyone who walked through the door, making friends wherever he went, just as he always had.

Meanwhile, Valerie still felt defensive and out of place much ofthe time, despite all of her accomplishments. She had worked so hard to escape Southbridge, graduating at the top of their high school class, attending Amherst College on a full scholarship, then going to work as a paralegal at a top Boston law firm while she studied for the LSAT and saved money for law school. She told herself that she was as good as anyone, and smarter than most, yet she never truly felt a sense of belonging after leaving her hometown. Meanwhile, the more she achieved, the more she felt disconnected from her old friends, especially her best friend, Laurel, who had grown up three houses down from Val and Jason. This feeling, subtle and hard to pinpoint at first, culminated in a complete falling-out one summer during a barbecue at Laurel's house.

After a few drinks, Valerie had made an offhanded remark about Southbridge being suffocating, Laurel's fiance even more so. She was only trying to help, even suggesting that Laurel move into her small Cambridge apartment, but she regretted it as soon as the words were out, doing her best to suck back the comments and apologizing profusely in the days that followed. But Laurel, who had always been quick-tempered, summarily wrote Valerie off, spreading rumors of her snobbishness among their old circle of friends-girls who, like Laurel, lived with their high-school boyfriends-turned-husbands in the same neighborhoods they'd grown up in, frequented the same bars on the weekends, and worked the same dreary nine-to-five jobs their parents held.

Valerie did her best to counter these accusations, and managed to fix things on a surface level, but short of moving back to Southbridge, there was really nothing she could do to return to the way things once were.

It was during this lonely time that Valerie started acting out in ways she couldn't explain, doing all the things she'd vowed never to do-specifically, falling in love with the wrong guy, getting pregnant right before he left her, and jeopardizing her plans for law school. Years later, she sometimes wondered if she had subconsciously tried to sabotage her own efforts to fully escape Southbridge and create a different kind of life for herself-or perhaps she just didn't feel worthy of the Harvard Law School acceptance letter she hung on her refrigerator along with her ultrasound photographs.

In any case, she felt caught between two worlds, too proud to crawl back to Laurel and her old friends and too embarrassed by her pregnancy to maintain her college friendships or forge new ones at Harvard. Instead, she felt more alone than ever, struggling to make it through law school while caring for a newborn. Jason understood how tough things were for her during those early months and years of motherhood. He could plainly see how overwhelmed she was by constant exhaustion and work and worry, and had endless respect for how hard his sister worked to support herself and her son. Yet he couldn't understand why she insisted on walling herself off, sacrificing any semblance of a social life except for a few casual friendships. Her excuse was lack of time, as well as her devotion and singular focus on Charlie, but Jason didn't buy this, constantly calling his sister out, insisting that she used Charlie as a shield, a way to avoid taking risks, a way to avoid more rejection.

She thought about her brother's theory now, as she turned back toward the stove, pouring a dozen perfectly symmetrical silver-dollar pancakes. She wasn't an accomplished cook, but had mastered all breakfast dishes thanks to her very first job, waitressing at a diner, and her infatuation with one of the short-order cooks. That was a long time ago, but to Jason's point, she still felt more like that girl refilling coffee than the woman and successful attorney she had become.

"You are such a reverse snob," Jason said, ripping off three paper towels to use as napkins and then setting the table.

"I am not," Valerie retorted, turning the term around in her brain, sheepishly admitting to herself how often she drove past the stately homes on Cliff Road and assumed that the people inside were superficial at best, and at worst, unflinching liars. It was as if she subconsciously equated wealth with a certain weakness of character and shifted the burden of proof on these strangers to show her otherwise. It wasn't fair, she knew, but there were a lot of things in life that weren't fair.

In any event, Daniel and Romy Croft had done nothing to prove her wrong the night she met them at the open house at school. Like most families at Longmere Country Day, the private elementary school in Wellesley that Charlie was attending, the Crofts were intelligent, attractive, and affable. Yet as they skimmed her name tag and made adroit small talk, Valerie had the distinct feeling that they were looking past her, right through her, scanning the room for someone else-someone better.

Even when Romy spoke of Charlie, something rang false and patronizing in her tone. "Grayson just adores Charlie," she said, purposefully tucking a strand of white-blond hair behind her ear, then pausing, hand in the air, seemingly to showcase the mammoth diamond on her ring finger. In a town full of big rocks, Valerie had never seen one quite this impressive.

"Charlie really likes Grayson, too," Valerie said, crossing her arms across her flamingo-pink blouse and wishing she had worn her charcoal suit instead. No matter how hard she tried, how much money she spent on her wardrobe, she always seemed to choose the wrong thing from her closet.

At that moment, the two little boys ran across the classroom hand in hand, Charlie leading the way to the hamster cage. To even a casual observer, they were best buddies, unabashed founders of a mutual admiration society of two. So why, then, did Valerie assume that Romy was being insincere? Why couldn't Valerie give herself-and her own son-more credit? She asked herself these questions as Daniel Croft rejoined his wife with a plastic cup of punch and rested his free hand on her back. It was a subtle gesture she had come to recognize in her relentless study of married couples, one that filled her with equal parts envy and regret.

"Honey, this is Valerie Anderson . . . Charlie's mother," Romy prompted, giving Valerie the impression that they had discussed her prior to this evening-and the fact that there was no father listed in the school directory alongside Charlie's name.

"Oh, sure, right." Daniel nodded, shaking her hand with boardroom vigor as he made fleeting, apathetic eye contact. "Hello."

Valerie returned the greeting, and a few seconds of empty chitchat ensued before Romy clasped her hands and said, "So, Valerie, did you get the invitation to Grayson's party? I sent it a couple weeks ago?"

Valerie felt her face grow crimson as she replied, "Yes, yes. Thank you very much." She could have kicked herself for not RSVPing, feeling certain that not responding in a timely manner to an invite, even to a child's party, was among Romy's chief pet peeves.

"So?" Romy pressed. "Can Charlie come?"

Valerie hesitated, feeling herself caving to this impeccably groomed, endlessly self-assured woman, as if she were back in high school and Kristy Mettelman had just offered her a drag of her cigarette and a ride in her cherry-red Mustang.

"I'm not sure. I'll have . . . to check the calendar . . . It's next Friday, right?" she stammered, as if she had hundreds of social engagements to keep track of.

"That's right," Romy said, her eyes widening, smile broadening, as she waved to another couple just arriving with their daughter. "Look, honey, April and Rob are here," she murmured to her husband. Then she touched Valerie's arm, flashed her one last perfunctory smile, and said, "It was so nice to meet you. We hope to see Charlie next Friday."

Two days later, holding the tent-shaped invitation, Valerie dialed the Crofts' number. She felt a surge of inexplicable nervousness-social anxiety, her doctor called it-as she waited for someone to answer, followed by palpable relief when she heard the automated recording prompting her to leave a message. Then, despite all of her big talk to the contrary, her voice rose several octaves as she said, "Charlie would be delighted to attend Grayson's party."

Delighted.

This is the word she replays when she gets the call, only three hours after dropping Charlie off with his dinosaur sleeping bag and rocket-ship pajamas. Not accident or burn or ambulance or ER or any of the other words that she distinctly hears Romy Croft say but can't begin to process as she throws on sweats, grabs her purse, and speeds toward Massachusetts General Hospital. She cannot even bring herself to say them aloud when she calls her brother from the car, having the irrational sense that doing so will make everything more real.

Instead, she simply says, "Come now. Hurry."

"Come where?" Jason asks, music blaring in the background.

When she does not answer, the music stops and he says again, more urgently, "Valerie? Come where?"

"Mass General . . . It's Charlie," she manages to reply, pressing the gas pedal harder, now going nearly thirty miles over the speed limit.

Her grip on the steering wheel is sweaty and white-knuckled, but inside, she feels an eerie calm, even as she runs a red light, then another. It is almost as if she is watching herself, or watching someone else altogether. This is what people do, she thinks. They call loved ones; they speed to the hospital; they run red lights.

Charlie would be delighted to attend, she hears again, as she arrives at the hospital and follows signs to the ER. She wonders how she could have been so oblivious, sitting there on the couch in her sweats with a bag of microwave popcorn and a Denzel Washington action flick. How could she not have known what was happening at the palatial home on Albion? Why had she not followed her gut about this party? She curses aloud, one lone, hoarse fuck, her heart filled with guilt and regret, as she peers up at the looming brick and glass building before her.

The night becomes hazy after that-a collection of disjointed moments rather than a smooth chronology. She will remember leaving her car at the curb despite the NO PARKING sign and then finding Jason, ashen faced, inside the glass double doors. She will remember the triage nurse, calmly, efficiently typing Charlie's name before another nurse leads them down a series of long, bleach-scented corridors to the PICU burn unit. She will remember bumping into Daniel Croft on their way, and pausing as Jason asks him what happened. She will remember Daniel's vague, guilt-filled reply-They were making s'mores. I didn't see it-and her image of him typing on his BlackBerry or admiring his landscaping, his back to the fire and her only child.

She will remember the first horrifying glimpse of Charlie's small, motionless body as he is sedated and intubated. She will remember his blue lips, his cut pajamas, and the stark white bandages obscuring his right hand and the left side of his face. She will remember the beeping monitors, the hum of the ventilator, and the bustling, stone-faced nurses. She will remember her raw appeal to the God she has all but forgotten as she holds her son's good hand and waits.

But most of all, she will remember the man who comes to examine Charlie in what feels like the middle of the night, after her worst fear has receded. How he gently uncovers Charlie's face, exposing the burned skin beneath the bandages. How he leads her back to the hallway where he turns to her, parts his lips, and begins to speak.

"My name is Dr. Nick Russo," he says, his voice deep and slow. "And I am one of the leading pediatric plastic surgeons in the world."

She looks into his dark eyes and exhales, her insides unclenching, as she tells herself that they would not send a plastic surgeon if her son's life were still in danger. He is going to be okay. He is not going to die. She knows this as she looks in his doctor's eyes. Then, for the first time, she considers how Charlie's life has changed. How this night will scar him in more ways than one. Feeling a fierce determination to protect him no matter what the outcome, she hears herself ask Dr. Russo if he can fix Charlie's hand and face; if he can make her son beautiful again.

"I will do everything I can for your son," he says, "but I want you to remember something. Will you please do that for me?"

She nods, thinking he will tell her not to expect miracles. As if she ever dared to do so, even once in her whole life.

Instead, Dr. Russo holds her gaze and says the words she will never forget.

"Your son is beautiful," he tells her. "He is beautiful now."

She nods again, both believing and trusting him. And only then, for the first time in a very long time, do her tears come.

3

Tessa Tessa