Chapter 12: Let Me Keep Her Heart

"It's Deirdre," I said. "Slow down. What's stopping?"

"My heart. They say it's the rejection." Maeve's voice came in thin gasps.

"I'm in the unit. Nobody's telling me anything. Please come."

"Where's Dad?"

"On the phone. With lawyers."

I looked at the road.

A black car had come around the bend a hundred yards back and was idling at the curb with its engine on.

Dermot leaned across and opened the passenger door without getting out.

"I'm only the car," he said. "He said if you want to go to her, I drive you."

He looked at the dashboard.

"He said you're free to go home, Deirdre, and nobody here will stop you."

"Did he say it himself?"

"He said it very politely, which is how I know it cost him."

I got in.

Dermot drove me to St. Brendan's without a single joke, and he stayed in the lobby in his cap with his arms folded.

The cardiac intensive care unit was a long, bright room with a glass wall.

Maeve lay in the nearest bed with a line in each arm and a monitor beside her climbing in uneven green peaks.

She looked tiny.

My mother sat beside her, holding her hand with both of hers.

She looked up when I came in, and her whole face changed.

"Deirdre," she said. "Oh, honey. You came."

She stood and reached for me.

I stepped back.

"I came because Maeve called," I said. "I'm not here for you."

My mother lowered her hands.

"They've started the steroids," she said. "She'll be all right if she stays calm."

She wrung the handkerchief.

"Your father says it's the stress, from all the things you've been saying. If you came home and took it all back, it would help her."

"Mom." I kept my voice level. "I'm not taking anything back. Not the safe, not the dinner, not a syllable of it."

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