Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 11 published books of fiction and poetry and 5 stage plays. She has been nominated 21 times for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry. Her play ‘Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. ‘Crooked Heart’ will be featured in Origin Theatre Company’s May Play Festival this year in NYC. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. http://www.susantepper.com
HEARTS
By Susan Isla Tepper
A doctor once told me that he had a patient dying of broken heart syndrome. We happened to be in his kitchen. He was opening red wine. I pictured the heart quivering on his butcher block center island, as if about to be skewered. He was my doctor before he became my lover. It happens. I had gone through a series of unexplained fainting spells. I loved him but I don’t think he had the capacity for return love. Other than to his son. His son had a sweet indescribable quality. He’d left for freshman term college a month earlier.
Just about to pour the wine, his phone beeped and he made a lunge for it. He’d raised the son all on his own from toddler age. Some sort of mystery surrounding the mother. I don’t know if they ever actually married. Maybe for a short time.
But it wasn’t his son calling, and he got off after a few moments. We took the wine to the living room and snuggled on the sofa.
I told him I’d never heard of broken heart syndrome. He said it wasn’t that rare. And it usually affected old people, mostly women of eighty and higher; though in this particular instance the woman was only in her fifties. I thought about it as we quietly sipped listening to jazz. Most jazz I didn’t care for including what was playing. When the time came and we split apart, as was inevitable, would my heart end up broken? As I aged, would my heart end up on a chopping block in someone’s tony brownstone? I shivered and he asked if I wanted the heat raised.
The next morning he was up and out early, making his usual hospital visits before going to his cardiac practice. I stayed in bed until 8. The housekeeper didn’t come on Tuesdays. Not that it mattered. If there were room darkening shades, I probably would have slept in longer. My freelance fabric design job gave me latitude.
I pushed deeper under the fluffy comforter, pictured him visiting his broken heart patient in the hospital. And what he might say to console her. His calm manner belied a tumult that only revealed itself during love making. My own heart kept creeping into my thoughts— once broken, could it heal itself back?
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