The Look of Love: A Novel (22 page)

J
ane, thanks for returning my call,” Dr. Heller says. “The surgeon from Johns Hopkins can fit you in next month,” she says. “I’ve had to move mountains to make this happen, and you’d have to fly to Baltimore for the operation, but I pray that you’ll consent. Jane, if you don’t have this surgery, I fear you will regret it for the rest of your life.” She sighs. “That is, if you have the brain function left to even feel regret, or any other conscious thought. Jane, this is real. This is serious. If we don’t operate, you will fall into irreversible cognitive decline.”

I set a bucket of rosehips down and motion to Lo to help the customer who’s just walked into the shop as I step into the back room. “I’ve trusted you my whole life, Dr. Heller,” I begin. “And I have no reason not to trust you now. And, believe me, there are days I wake up and I just want to end all of this. I want to believe in science and let you fix me. But I can’t. I can’t, Dr. Heller. I have to see this through, even if it means a great health risk.”

“I see,” she says. “I feared you wouldn’t change your mind.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she replies.

I set my phone down and walk out to the shop, where I sit on the stool behind the counter and feign calmness.

Lo knows me too well. “What just happened?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Basically, my doctor says my brain is going to spontaneously combust if I don’t have surgery.”

She frowns. “And I’m assuming that this surgery would obliterate your . . . gift?”

“Yes,” I say.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to talk to Colette. You need to check in with her. Because, Jane, you don’t have much time left. Didn’t she say you had to complete all of this stuff with the book before your thirtieth birthday?”

I nod.

“Honey, that’s in a month.”

“I know.”

“Go see Colette. She’ll give you some perspective.”

I knock on Colette’s door. When I hear footsteps, I’m grateful that she’s home. I didn’t call in advance; I simply left Pike Place and walked, deep in thought, to her building, where I stand on her doorstep.

“Jane,” Colette says, smiling. “What a surprise.”

“May I come in?” I ask. “I . . . I’m so lost, Colette. I could use some advice.”

“Come with me, dear,” she says. I follow her into the apartment, which looks more disordered than I remember. There are two boxes beside the dining room table and stacks of books all around. “I apologize for the mess. I’m . . . in the midst of . . . cleaning.”

I sink into the threadbare velvet couch and sigh.

“How can I help you?” Colette asks, sitting beside me.

“I believe in this gift,” I say. “I believe everything you told me. And yet, there’s a logical side to my brain too. And a fearful one. My doctor says I need surgery, and forgoing it could mean grave health consequences. I have to be honest, that’s weighing on me.”

“Yes,” she says. “But, Jane, you already know what you must do.”

“Do I?”

She nods. “What would you tell yourself, if you were me?”

I sigh. “That the mind has an excellent way of causing us to second-guess our choices, but it’s the heart that knows. The heart is always right. We just have to learn how to listen to it.”

“Yes,” she says, smiling at me like a proud teacher with her pupil.

I nod. “Then I think my heart is telling me to continue on my journey. I’m so close. I know I am. I’m nearly ready to record the names in the book.” I take a deep breath, thinking about my contribution to its storied pages, passed down through the years. I’ve studied it carefully in the past months. Beneath each name, each woman with my gift wrote an account of the love she’d observed. Sometimes recorded in French, sometimes English, the vivid descriptions moved me, and in each case, I could hear their voices, feel the love they so intricately and intimately described. I’ll have to do the same. Soon. “Colette, you said that if I fail, if I don’t complete this journey, I will spend the rest of my life regretting it. I can’t stop thinking about that.”

She nods. “If you fail, you will end up like me.”

“Like you?”

“Yes,” she says. “I did not complete my journey.”

I did notice that Collette’s section of the book had been left blank, and yet I hadn’t made the connection until now.

“I didn’t believe in the gift until it was too late,” she continues. “My time ran short.”

“And what were the consequences, for you?” I gulp.

“A life without love,” she says.

I shake my head. “You mean, you’ve never been in love?”

“Oh, I have,” she says nostalgically. “There was a man, a long time ago, Pierre. I was twenty-nine, living in Paris. He walked into my life one day and, I suppose, my heart, and never left.”

“And did he return your love?”

“No,” she says. “It’s the curse I live with. No one I ever love will return my love. It is my consequence, my destiny, now. It’s why I came to America after my thirtieth birthday. I couldn’t bear to live in a place where he was, if he could never love me.” She closes her eyes tightly, then opens them again. “Jane, I don’t tell you this to elicit sympathy. I only want you to succeed, and I hope you will learn from my mistakes. Because . . .”

I search her eyes. “Because what?”

“Because I saw you . . . with your date, at your friend’s wedding.”

“You did?”

She nods. “I was collecting some discarded flower arrangements from a previous reception, donated by the hotel, and I glanced into the ballroom, and there you were, dancing with him.”

I swallow hard.

“Jane,” she says. “I saw love.”

“You did? You really did?”

Colette nods. “And I don’t want you to lose it the way I did. I have never forgiven myself for that.”

I shake my head. “But that’s not how love works,” I say. “Love is forgiving. Love is unconditional. It perseveres, and gives second chances. Colette, couldn’t you be granted a second chance?”

She nods. “There is one way,” she says. “Flip to the back of the book, and read the inscription on the last page.”

“What does it say?”

“It says that those recipients of the gift who fail at following its mandates will be given one final chance. On the night of a full moon, when snow is falling, love can be restored.”

“Do you believe that for you and . . . Pierre?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But I will admit that I am hopeful. I have thought about the possibility often over the years. But I try not to dwell on it. After all, time has passed. I don’t even know if he’s still living. And if he were? It’s foolish to think I could return to him and that he’d love me the way I have loved him all these years.”

“But it’s worth a try,” I say.

She nods. “Love is always worth a try, yes. Even after my great failure. And it’s worth a try for you, too.”

I nod. “Colette, why did you choose me? Of all the babies at the hospital that day, why me?”

The edges of her mouth form a soft smile. “It was your mother,” she says. “She exuded love in a way that I so admired and longed for. And I thought that anyone who was born from a woman with such a spirit had a legendary capacity to love and be loved.”

“She had love in her eyes, yes,” I say, wiping a tear from my cheek. “She always said that when you love someone once, it changes your heart forever. That it lives on in you. I never told her, but the idea of that frightened me. I knew what her love for my father did to her. I heard her weeping in her room late at night, or in the mornings when she thought I was still asleep. Her love persisted like a wound that wouldn’t heal. It tormented her.”

Colette gives me a knowing look. “And it’s why you’ve closed yourself off to love.”

“Yes,” I say. “But something is changing in me. It’s scary, and also wonderful.”

“I know,” she says in almost a whisper. I see tears in her eyes. “Enjoy every second of it, for to give love and feel it returned is life’s greatest gift.” Her nostalgic expression melts away as she straightens her shoulders. “Now go, and live out the final days before your thirtieth birthday, acting in accordance with the responsibility you have been given. And don’t be afraid. I believe in you in a way that I never did in myself.”

“Thank you,” I say, giving her a hug.

Beside the door, I linger near the old flower cart. Its emerald green paint is buffed to a glossy shine, but I can see layers of rust where the topcoat has bubbled and chipped away.

“It was hers,” Colette says.

“Whose?”

“The first woman who had our gift. Elodie, the flower cart girl. I found it at a flea market in Paris. Her name is etched on the underside. I knew it wasn’t happenstance that I found it, and I’ve kept it with me, always, as a reminder of the beauty and love she shared with the people of her city. All around her, she saw the same love that we see.”

I run my hand along the edge of the cart, which is when I notice the French words engraved at the front: “Amour vit en avant.”

“What do those words mean?” I ask.

Colette smiles. “Love lives on.”

It’s cold but clear, too nice a day to hail a cab, so I walk back to the market along First Avenue. When I pass Mary’s salon, I peer into the window and see her sweeping the floor, alone, so I stop in.

“Jane!” she says, setting the broom aside.

“Look at you,” I say, rubbing her belly.

“I’m huge, aren’t I?” she says.

“And why are you here and not in bed with your feet up?”

She frowns. “Honestly, I hate being home. It’s lonely.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It must hurt so much that he’s not even going to be here for the birth of your baby.”

She nods.

“My mom mourned the man who left her, my father, until the day she died. The sadness lived in her heart. She could never rid herself of it. I don’t want that for you.”

“Me, either,” Mary says, sighing.

“Then don’t be so focused on the past that you forget to see what’s in front of you. My mother could never love anyone else because she was too busy looking backward. You must look forward to the life you are building, to the joy you have ahead.”

“Yes,” she says. “You’re so right, Jane. And when I look forward, you know what I see?”

“What?”

“I see Luca.”

I smile. “Did you tell him that?”

She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t. It’s too late, anyway. He already went home to Italy.”

“It’s never too late,” I say. “Remember that.”