heart string's part three (Tom)

It’s been eighteen months since Marie died and every time Tom walked into 32 Waterway Park, all he could only see his wife laying at the bottom of the stairs. They had bought the house together as a vessel to raise their family in. It was supposed to be a serene place, a happy place, but all it did since Marie passed was bring Tom sorrow.

‘I’m selling it!’ He told his best friend in the world, Paul, when he asked him over for a pizza night.

‘I don't blame you dude!’ Paul replied, ‘you bought it with a dream in mind and all I can see it bring you is sorrow. You need a clean break. You’re only thirty-two years old and if I knew Marie as well as I thought I knew her, she would want you to move on with your life and remarry!’

‘I’m far off the remarrying stage but I agree with you when you say I need to move on!’

‘Look man, you know I’m a confirmed bachelor, but if I walked up to the woman of my dreams tomorrow, the last thing I’d want to do is bring her back to somewhere I associate with my dead wife!’

‘But Marie was the woman of my dreams!’

‘Oh, I know man, but even Marie would be egging you on to live the dream and have the kids that you’ve been wanting for as long as I’ve known you!’

‘Yeah, I guess….’

‘…. there’s no guessing about it man! She was one cool chick your wife, but we all deserve a bit of loving by an actual person and not a memory!’ Paul picked up his beer bottle and the pair clinked the necks of the bottles together.

‘Right,’ Tom said, ‘this may be the beer talking but I’m going to put the house on the market tomorrow and find somewhere I don't see Marie everywhere!’

‘Where do you think you’ll move to?’

‘Well, I grew up in Skerries and always imagined bringing my kids to the beach on a warm summers day like my dad brought me, so I guess I’ll stay within the town anyway!’

‘I just saw the old Connolly place in Springs Court put up a for sale sign!’

‘Really? Only now? I went to his funeral with Marie and they’re only putting it up now?’

‘There was an issue over the inheritance and how it was to be split…plus I think they thought by keeping it a couple more years the price would inflate.’

‘And has it?’

‘No, if anything its up for less now than they could have gotten years ago!’

‘It’s a real buyers’ market, isn’t it.’

‘Sure is!’ Paul looked into space pensively. ‘Hey, why don't you rent out your house until the market picks up and look at it as an investment?’

‘Well, the mortgage is paid off and I have quite a nest egg from Marie’s life insurance settlement, so yeah…that’s definitely a possibility.’

‘You can think of it as a college fund for your potential kids!’ They clinked bottle necks again.

When Tom got home that night there were a dozen thoughts swirling through his mind. None were spinning quite like the message Paul was trying to hit home with. He didn’t know about the letter Marie had written to Tom. She left it with the solicitor, unbeknownst to Tom, who looked after their will’s when they got married. It read:

 

My dearest Tom,

If you are reading this then I have passed on, hopefully towards heaven. I love you more than the moon and the stars, but no matter what age you get this letter at, I want you to pay heed to my words.

You have made me the happiest women in the world by making me a part of you. I want you to do that again now! Not today, or this week, but someday in the future, when you are ready, I want you to put my death aside and go and start dating again. I mean you’ll never find another me, but I want you to be happy and fulfilled. I want you to have babies and do with them all the things you want to do with our kids. I want your house full of excitement and laughter, but most of all I just want you to be happy.

Please pay heed to these words Mr. Murphy. If I know you, you will wilt with grief the rest of your life and that is not something I want for you!

So go out and enjoy yourself. You might even find it freeing.

All my love,

Marie

 

Tom sighed and held the letter close to his chest. He had been putting dating off for so long now that he had run out of excuses. He knew he wanted to love again, but he also knew that he still loved his wife.

The next day he went down to the estate agent and asked to see the old Connelly place. He got a viewing for that afternoon and chills went through him when he put his foot over the threshold. He felt good about the place, he could see its potential. The estate agent told him that it’s only been on the market for five days and had two offers in already. Tom really liked the place. He saw it as a fixer upper which was good because he needed a project to get his teeth into.

‘What are they asking?’ He asked the real estate agent.

‘€425,000, but there’s an offer in for €430,000.’

Tom scratched the back of his head. He really wanted this house! He looked at his arms and the hairs were standing up on them. He threw caution to the wind and put in a bid of €445,000, a very competitive number. He was told there would be an answer by the end of the day, so obviously he went to Paul’s house to await the news.

As he was there, he got very fidgety looking at the clock.

‘Calm down man!’ Paul tried to reassure him. ‘They’re probably just trying to make you sweat!’

‘Well, it’s working!’ Tom answered curtly.

Once five o’clock hit, Tom was sure they were going to let him sweat into tomorrow. Then suddenly, his phone came alive and he jumped on it. Paul stopped him from answering straight away. He told him to stop and take a breath for a second so he didn’t sound desperate. When he finally did answer, he was as cool as a cucumber and didn’t give off any vibes either way to Paul. He hung up the phone with a, ‘thank you very much.’

Paul looked at him and was just about to say that he’d get the next one when Tom erupted ‘I got the house!!’ And began jumping around the kitchen. Paul called him every name under the sun before jumping around with him.

 

Six weeks later Tom received the keys to 78 Springs Court Skerries. He had decided to take Paul’s advice and rent out the house on Waterway Park. The new house needed to be painted and have new floors put down. It also needed a new kitchen and bathrooms. Tom decided to do the demolition work himself. He saw it as cleansing the house as the kitchen and bathroom presses were being custom made. He was moving the bath under the window, putting in a wet room as an en suite and he got someone in to extend the length of the window in the kitchen to attract more light. The house got fitted with all new windows and gutters and he wanted the fireplace replaced.

Only because he was on the ball and had the workers in the day after he got the keys, he was able to actually move in after four weeks. He had picked out all the furniture in the one shop and they were delighted to delay delivery for a small fee. He got new everything. He presumed that the house was going to reek of a bachelor pad but he didn’t care. All of the kitchen appliances were chrome and the backsplash above the dark marbled quartz countertops looked very masculine. That was why he ordered plain white shaker cabinet doors for the cabinets to contrast with all the grey. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but he did pick it out all by himself. There was Paul of course, but he was less than useless.

Once the furniture was in and the place was staged, he packed up all of the belongings he decided to bring from the old house. He didn’t need a moving truck or even a van, he was able to fit everything in in one car journey. He gave a lot of Marie’s belongings to her family and then he gave the rest to the charity shop. He did so with trepidation. Obviously, he kept some of her things but only the bare minimum.

The day he opened his new front door and first planted his foot on the new hardwood floor, he broke down in tears. This was the new chapter of his life, a chapter without Marie.

 

As the houses on Springs Court were all semidetached and all the neighbors had been there since the dawn of time it wasn’t long after he transferred his belongings from the car to the house, that the doorbell rang. Tom opened it with a smile that grew when a beautiful woman named Emily handed him a plate of scones. Toms heart skipped a beat the first time he laid eyes on her. He invited her in and gave her the tour even though her house mirrored his in layout seeing as she was his next-door neighbor. She humored him nonetheless.

‘Jeez,’ she began, ‘old man Connolly had never done anything with the place since the house was built…you really had your work cut out for you here. And in four weeks no less! Wow!’

Tom asked Emily to sit as he boiled the new kettle for the first time. He looked in the press and there were literally six mugs in it, all mismatched but personal to him.

‘I didn’t know if you were gluten free or dairy free so I went and made half vegan and the other half normal,’ Emily explained.

‘How do you like your tea?’ Tom asked her.

‘Strong with a lot of milk please.’

Tom got shivers down his spine. That’s exactly how Marie liked hers. As he brought over the two mugs, he asked Emily what she did for a living.

‘I’m an architect,’ she replied before sipping her tea. ‘Oh my god this tea is perfection!’

Tom’s shivers grew, another thing Marie would say. He had to stop himself there. ‘You can’t keep comparing her to your dead wife!’ He chastised himself.

Once he sat down opposite Emily, he couldn’t help but look at her scar. She caught him and he àpologized profusely.

‘Don't be sorry, it’s my badge of honor,’ she smiled at him, ‘I had a heart transplant almost two years ago.’ She smiled at him as his face dropped and he turned pale.

Tom remembered looking at the piece of paper he was handed as he exited the hospital after his wife died. He remembered the words Emily (28) - heart.

‘Are you ok?’ Emily asked Tom.

‘Yea, yea I’m grand. It just…’ Tom caught himself and choked back the tears, stopping himself because he didn’t want his first interaction with the new neighbor to be one of sorrow.

‘Go on…. what were you going to say?’ Emily pushed.

‘It’s just…. well, my wife…my wife who died, well she…she donated her organs almost two years ago and…and the person her heart went to was an Emily who was twenty-eight years old.’ Tom caught himself looking at Emily’s scar again and shook his head and apologized again.

‘Was her name…no sorry…sorry I shouldn’t…’ Emily stopped herself.

‘Were you told the first name of your donor?’ Tom asked boldly.

Emily nodded her head and bit her lip. Tom noticed that her hands were shaking in front of her. He grabbed them in his and smiled at her. Both of their eyes were filling up with tears.

They said in unison ‘Marie.’

A kaleidoscope of butterflies spread through Tom’s blood. He removed his hands from Emily’s and rubbed them through his hair. He stood up as Emily’s head was in her hands crying. He couldn’t believe that sitting at his brand-new kitchen table was living proof that his Marie didn’t die in vain. She was literally living on in Emily. He let the news sink in and walked towards his new next-door neighbor and enveloped her in a hug.

‘I’m so sorry!’ Emily cried.

‘What are you sorry for?’ Tom asked. He took Emily’s face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. He smiled at her; his eyes soft. He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb and she mirrored his smile.

‘Thank you!’ Emily said and Tom pulled her close. She wrapped her arms around his waist and there they stood for what seemed like an eternity, Emily grateful for Marie’s heart, Tom grateful for Emily’s life.

When they finally broke apart, both of them in floods of tears, they started laughing. Tom didn’t have anything other than toilet roll for them to blow their noses on but neither of them cared.  

‘Wow,’ Tom said, ‘I wasn’t expecting that!’ He blew his nose and went for another batch from the toilet roll. He noticed Emily turn away when she blew hers.

Once the two of them were calm again, they sat back down at the kitchen table, their tea stone cold.

‘Would you like to have a beer with me?’ he blurted out.

‘I can’t because of the anti-rejection meds,’ he bowed his head not knowing another way he could ask her out.

‘But I do drink diet coke!’ he lifted his head and smiled at her.

‘Would you be open to having a diet coke with me sometime?’ he asked and they both giggled.

‘I’d love to!’ she replied. ‘Does tonight sound ok?’ she asked. It was a bold move, but his smile confirmed that they were going out on a date tonight.

‘I’d better go home and shower,’ she smiled bashfully at him.

‘Yea, I’d better do the same!’

‘Can you pick me up in a couple of hours, does that suit?’

‘Absolutely,’ he beamed up at her and walked her to the door.

It took almost the whole two hours for Tom to get ready. He was nervous and sweaty and had to put powder on after he went through three shirts. He wanted the diet coke to be perfect. He had so many questions for Emily, and presumed she had one or two for him also. What are the odds that the woman of her dreams is keeping the potential other woman of his dreams alive. He found it ironic that he was gravitating so hard towards Emily. He felt like he knew her his whole life.

He had an alarm on his phone set for 17:55. When it began to ring, Tom knew it was go time. He sprayed on some cologne and took the forty steps from his house to hers. He was nervous meeting her again as she made his heart flutter. An older man answered the door.

‘You Tom?’ he enquired.

‘Yes sir, I am.’

‘Well, what are you standing there for come in and take a load off. Emily is just doing her hair!’

The man held out his hand, ‘John Tucker’. Tom took it, ‘Tom Murphy’.

‘Welcome Tom, John led him into the cluttered house and began telling Tom how Emily came to be.