Chapter Text
A pair of leopard print heels clacked across the hexagon slabs of a stone pathway. The woman wearing the heels carried nothing more than a turquoise handbag that was just large enough to store her makeup and her latest addiction; a nonfiction novel titled ‘Satisfied with being Single.’ Stuyvesant Square Park was her go-to reading spot, for it often supplied more peace and quiet than Gramercy or Union-- at least during this time of the day.
Each park was just an afternoon stroll away from her beautiful townhouse, but that day, she’d chosen to grace Stuyvesant with her presence. She’d visited the park for years --ever since she was a child-- and felt entirely comfortable in it. It was practically her backyard. A community backyard. Her friends walked their dogs and jogged along this route. She’d never felt fearful of her home neighborhood. As always, the park was full of its most frequent inhabitants, with merely a handful of newcomers.
One such newcomer was sitting on her favorite bench. It was the bench that offered just the right ratio of sunlight and shade at this particular hour. The woman didn’t consider choosing another one. The irresistible force of human habit bound her to that specific bench, and the stranger occupying one end of it didn’t appear anywhere near as questionable as most strangers in Manhattan did.
In fact, he appeared like an entirely ordinary man.
The man was around her same age, or perhaps a few years older. Two giant books lay open on either side of him. He pressed a pen down on a notepad over his leg, beside which a third book was sprawled. A pair of headphones were nestled in his hair, the cord trailing down to a Walkman beside him, where a cassette tape rolled.
At first glance, his denim Levi’s appeared to fit him rather nicely, but after noticing how much of his socks were exposed, the woman identified that the jeans were a little too short. He wore white sneakers that were probably three years old, but not terribly worn or hideous. Yet. They were getting there. His shirt was a three-button red polo with a white collar and blue and white stripes across the chest, which might have looked nice on him if not for the bomber jacket he wore over it. The mud-colored jacket clearly came straight from a thrift store.
In a strange way, he almost looked like a boy. An overgrown boy, with only a healthy dark beard to show for his maturity. Even that was slightly overgrown around the edges. If they had known each other better, she would have recommended that he purchase a shaving razor before his facial hair sprouted completely out of control.
With mild annoyance, she noticed that his belongings took up a fair amount of space around him. It was easy to assume that strangers were inconsiderate and selfish creatures, but she tried not to judge him too quickly. Fortunately, as she took a seat upon the opposite end of the park bench, he grabbed a corner of one of his books and slid it closer to himself to give her more room. At least he had enough decency to think about accommodating for her personal space.
He glanced at her, then her book, and perhaps smirked faintly at what it said about her. Then he replaced his focus on his own reading material. She found the page in her novel where she’d previously left off, but eyed him from her peripherals, discerning that he was surrounded by an array of textbooks. In the midst of her subtle spying, she also saw that the man was holding an apple.
Except, it wasn’t an apple. The woman performed a double take, then stared at the object in the man’s hand. “Good God.” She pulled her Chanel sunglasses down her nose, revealing her horrified expression.
The man again glanced over at her, entirely clueless as to what the problem was. He removed his headset, allowing the muffled music of Bruce Springsteen to crackle quietly through the open air.
“Is that a heart?” she gasped, pulling her sunglasses off her face completely.
He looked back at the object in his hand and answered plainly, “It is.”
She was in shock.
“Not a real one, of course,” he chuckled, humored by her overreaction.
Her alarm dispersed at the sight of his brilliant smile, which somehow managed to pull her attention away from the heart.
He turned over the organ in his hand. The short tubes extending from nearly every side of it jostled like Jell-O with the movement. “It’s a synthetic model.”
She blinked at the thing, still taken aback. “It looks real.”
Between staring at the rubber heart, she glanced at the man’s features. He had a distinct nose and kind eyes. Handsome. Friendly. Captivating. Not a supermodel, certainly. Not necessarily attractive enough to earn a second glance when one passed him in a crowd --but more the type of handsome that increasingly made itself apparent the longer one looked at him.
“Actually, it doesn’t,” he chuckled again. “A real heart--” he was about to inform her of the difference, then thought better of it. “Ah… Never mind.”
The woman stared at him.
After an awkward pause, he kindly offered, “Would you like to hold it?”
She gave the heart a disgusted look, shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and drew her eyes back to her book with a disbelieving shake of her head. “No thank you.”
Another moment of awkward silence dominated the air between them. It was populated only by the rock music that quietly murmured from his discarded headset.
The man attempted an explanation. “I’m a doctor.”
She raised her eyebrows, but continued skimming the page of her novel. “I should hope so.”
Perhaps what she really should have done, was be kinder to him. She had been the one to interrupt his studying, after all. The woman rested her book on her leg and sighed. Looking at him again, she attempted to repair the conversation and correct her needlessly sour attitude. “Where do you...?”
His smile told her that he forgave her.
“St. Edwards,” he pointed in the direction. “I’m a resident there.”
The poor went to that hospital. The drug addicts, those without insurance, those who assuredly needed the medical help more than anyone else in the city. It was practically a charity hospital. For the first time in quite a while, some kind of humanity crossed the woman’s face, and she almost smiled. “Oh, I know St. Edwards. My family’s a huge sponsor.”
The man quirked a curious expression, then murmured, “You’re kidding.”
She smiled proudly, but also like she kept a devious secret. “Have you heard of the Miltons?”
His mouth gaped in mild shock. “Well, who hasn’t?” He turned his body to face her, scoffing in merry disbelief, “They’re practically royalty.”
The woman smirked at the trees across the walkway in front of them. “Yes, well, you’re speaking with their sole heir. So to speak,” she grinned, tossing her fluffy auburn curls.
The man looked at her. Really looked at her. He looked at her metallic cube earrings that sandwiched her earlobes like blocks of gold. He looked at the pale blue shine of her blouse and the expensive black pants that she wore. He looked at her long double-layered pearl necklace and her giant glasses and her Gucci bag. More than anything else, he looked at her eyes-- looked past the mascara and eyeliner and colored eye shadow. He looked at her.
And smiled.
“I’m honored.”
She smiled back, having grown so accustomed to being looked at --in all sorts of ways, by all sorts of people-- that she no longer was able to recognize the natures of the various looks. “How long have you been at St. Edwards?” she asked, preparing a mental portfolio of influential names to drop.
“Only a few years,” he answered, then explained, “After my residency, I’ll go through a fellowship somewhere else, and, eventually, I will become a bona fide surgeon.” His smile brightened, looking very excited for that day.
His expression wavered, but his overall demeanor remained positive. “And then I can begin paying off my… colossal student debt.” The man nearly sighed, but instead reinforced his smile. “It’s a very long and tedious process.”
She empathized with a groan. “Ugh, you must be fed up with all of that schooling.”
“Oh, I am,” he admitted with a small laugh. “But….” He shrugged. “It keeps me busy. And the work is….” He narrowed his eyes and smiled like he kept a devious secret. “Interesting.” He held up the fake organ that was in his grasp and shrugged. “I mean, what other profession gives out latex hearts to study?”
She smiled politely, but did not laugh. Shaking her head, she opened her book again. “None that I can think of.”
He continued to carry on his conversation with her, though he warily glanced at the novel that threatened to steal her attention away from him. He spoke very carefully, as if he only had one chance to say the right thing and establish a stronger connection with her before she’d condemn herself to being a total stranger forever. “And what, uh... better way to spend one’s life… than saving the lives of others?”
Her ruby lips smiled and she coyly eyed his eager gaze, appreciating his valiant effort to retain her interest. “A noble profession indeed,” she purred playfully with a lift of one shoulder.
The man grinned at his success, then inquired, “What about you?” He closed the textbook in his lap slowly, like he feared that closing it too quickly would spook her away from him. “What do you do, as the... royal heiress of the Milton bloodline?” he teased.
She scoffed, “Oh, nothing.” The woman ran a painted nail under her puffy bangs, then shook her head again, “Well, nothing that requires eight years of rigorous education. I simply organize charity events... host elaborate dinners, and… do whatever I can to keep all of my wealthy friends happy and entertained!” she declared arrogantly, unafraid to flaunt her lavish lifestyle.
He returned an empathetic look. “That sounds just as rigorous.”
The woman laughed.
It was a laugh powerful enough to make her glow, and she lifted a hand to cover her mouth. She regained control over herself in no time and sighed, “Ohhh, yes.” There were joyful sparkles in her eyes. “But nowhere near as noble,” she complimented teasingly.
His eyes mirrored the happiness in hers.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself,” he realized abruptly, setting his books aside before offering his heartless hand. “I’m Martin.”
“Jessica,” she grinned, extending her hand to accept his.
Martin’s hand was perfectly warm, and Jessica was almost struck by how much his hold felt like home. She couldn’t explain it, but she was actually somewhat sad when he let her hand go.
“Jessica,” he repeated, listening to the sound of it. “What a lovely name.”
It was a lovely name. Especially when he said it.
Jessica Whitly settled herself on a viridian bergère in the parlor and crossed her legs before smoothing out any wrinkles in her dark pants. Her manicured nails fiddled with the lavalier mic on the collar of her opal blouse and she tossed her glossy hair over one shoulder. An LED light fixture blinked to life in front of her, and her fake eyelashes blinked in response.
“Ugh. Torture device,” the woman muttered through a cringe.
“It’s not a torture device. It’s a key light, and it’s very important for an interview,” her daughter smiled from behind the fixture, then adjusted the focus of her camera. “I know you hate the paparazzi and this is probably giving you PTSD, but it’s just me.” The young blonde plopped down onto the dining chair she’d placed to face her subject. “I’m not that scary, I promise.”
“Does it wash out my face?” Jessica fretted, wishing she had a compact mirror handy. “Do I need more makeup?”
“You look beautiful, mama,” Ainsley grinned. “As always.”
Jessica’s alarm dispersed with the brilliance of her daughter’s smile.
“Just pretend like you’re talking to me for real. Without all this,” Ainsley gestured at the tripod and the lights. She prepared a small notepad in her lap, glancing over her notes from class.
“Now, it’s standard to give the subject a heads-up about what they’re gonna be asked, so that they’re in the right mindset and have time to think about their answers,” she explained, reciting what she’d learned from school. “At least, that’s the polite thing to do. Sometimes journalists don’t do that, or they divert from their questions --if their intention is to catch their subject off guard and get a raw reaction from them.”
Her mother gave her a wary look.
“But I’m not going to do that,” Ainsley assured her quickly.
“Thank goodness,” Jessica sighed, refraining from rolling her eyes. “When you become a real reporter one day, sweetie, promise me that you’ll report on good things, not terrible ones. We don’t need to attach our family name to even more devastation.”
Ainsley hesitated to inform her mother, “Well... murder is the number one thing that attracts viewers....”
Jessica released an exasperated breath.
“And sex,” the blonde added with a half shrug and a smirk.
“I’d rather you report on sex,” Jessica decided. “Lots and lots of sex, and very little murder.”
Ainsley laughed. Her cheeks swelled and her eyes crinkled at the corners.
Jessica watched her daughter’s face light up with a sad smile. The girl looked so much like her father when she was happy. “What questions are you going to ask me, dear?”
Ainsley’s smile sobered, and she glanced down at her notebook. “Oh, just... basic things.” She hesitated before sloppily reading through her bulleted list. “Um… about you and dad. How did you two meet, what dating was like, the wedding. Marriage. Kids. Blah, blah, blah, that sort of stuff.”
“Oh.” Her mother blinked, then nodded distantly, processing.
“Is... that alright?” the young reporter-to-be asked timidly. The last thing she wanted was to make her mother uncomfortable or cause any bad memories to resurface. But the second-to-last thing Ainsley wanted was to lose the chance to get some answers.
“We can talk about… something else, if you’d rather,” she offered, looking down at her small list of giant questions. “I just figured that this was something you knew really well. They call it a primary source. And….”
She lifted her eyes to her mother’s shocked face. “I’ve always wondered about some of these things, myself.” The young woman really didn’t want to go through her whole life and not know the story of how her parents met and fell in love. “I won’t share this with anyone, I promise. This is just practice.”
Jessica blinked again, shook her head, and waved away her daughter’s concern. “It’s alright, sweetheart.” They were simple questions, and they were nothing that she hadn’t answered before --to a wide variety of inquiring vultures. But her daughter was different. Her daughter was not interested in digging up dirty secrets or exploiting her past. She was only curious, and she had a right to know some of the story.
“But,” Jessica held up a finger. “Disclaimer, I won’t have all that great of things to say about your father.”
“Oh, of course not.” Ainsley shook her head and smiled in relief, pardoning, “I don’t expect you to.” She reached up to press the record button on her camera. “Alright.” She was clearly trying very hard to hide her excitement, and act professional. “Don't worry about looking into the lens. Just look at me,” the young lady instructed pleasantly. “It's supposed to be like a conversation.”
Jessica nodded, having been interviewed plenty of times before. But she admired her daughter’s enthusiasm. This was her first interview, after all.
Ainsley cleared her throat and adjusted her grip on the little notepad she held in her lap. Then, she began. “Hello, Miss Whitly. I am... Ainsley Whitly of….” she tossed a hand up and picked, “New York One.” As if she’d ever score a job for a news channel like that.
They shared a silent giggle before Ainsley moved on. “And... I wanted to ask you a few questions about... you and your ex-husband.” She spoke carefully, as if she only had one chance at this, and had to do it right, or else she’d be forever condemned to not knowing.
“First question,” the blonde beamed. “How did you two meet?”
Jessica gave a long sigh as if buckling up for one hell of a road trip down memory lane. “It was at a park.” The park she didn’t go to anymore. “I was… reading a book, and he… struck up a conversation,” she shrugged, smiling falsely.
“What was the book?” Ainsley asked.
“Oh, I don’t remember. Some self-help book.” Jessica’s gaze wandered over to the entryway of her dining room, where some alcohol was stashed. She had a feeling that she would ask Louisa to fetch some for her before the hour was finished.
“What did he say to you?”
Perhaps she’d call for Louisa sooner than that. “Well, he….. asked my name. Said I looked nice. All the usual things.” She rolled her eyes. “Everything you’d expect some cardboard cutout hunk to say in a cheesy chick flick.”
“Do you remember any specifics?” Ainsley prompted gently. “Anything that… stood out to you?”
“Not really,” Jessica lied. Shamefully, she realized her daughter deserved more than avoidances and generalizations. “He mentioned school, and I mentioned my charity work. It turned out, we had a few mutual acquaintances. We started talking, and...” she shrugged, her voice trailing off. “Things just snowballed from there.”
“What was he like?” Ainsley asked with a curious half smile.
“He was….” Jessica took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Completely normal.” Slowly, she allowed her thoughts to creep back into the past. “I had no idea that anything was wrong with him.”
Ainsley needed more. “What else was he like?”
“He... was a good student.” Jessica fiddled with her hands in her lap, feeling the smooth texture of her nails, squeezing each finger, rubbing each joint. “Smart. Funny. Attractive.”
She remained composed and in control of herself. But when she looked up at her beloved daughter, Jessica allowed a resentment and a numbed pain to show through her bitter smirk. “That bastard stole my heart the second he smiled at me.”
“It goes here. In the thoracic cavity, between the lungs.” Martin held the object against his chest, using himself as a physical diagram. “About one and a half centimeters to the left of the midsagittal plane.”
Jessica smirked as she watched him. He handled the organ as if it were a puzzle piece that could easily plug into an empty slot --a cog in a system of clockwork. The circulatory system. She listened to him with a layer of indifference, expecting to become lost with all the medical terminology and soon thereafter, become bored. But neither of those things happened.
“Basically, the lungs provide oxygen to your blood, and the heart acts as the gatekeeper and driving force of that blood. The left side of the heart receives the oxygenated blood from the lungs and sends it throughout your body, forming the systemic circuit. The right side of the heart receives your used-up, deoxygenated blood and sends it back to the lungs to re-oxygenate, forming the pulmonary circuit.”
“The... right side, and the left side?” Jessica repeated. “There are literally two halves to a person’s heart?”
Martin searched for an accurate answer. “Well, sort of. They aren’t perfect halves. The left side is actually larger, because, as I said, it pumps blood through your whole body. From your head to your toes.” He brought a finger up to his head, then down to his stomach. “While the right side only supplies deoxygenated blood to each of the lungs,” he gestured to each side of his chest, almost appearing as if he were crossing himself in a blessing. “So, it’s a bit smaller.”
Perhaps that was more of a detailed explanation than she needed. “But, yes. The heart is literally split into two parts,” he yielded with a gentle nod.
Jessica mused about the poeticism of that fact, finding it both sweet and sad.
“The heart has two lower chambers, called ventricles, and two upper chambers, called atria.” Using his finger, the doctor traced the outline of each chamber over the heart, then pointed to some of the rubbery tubes sticking out of it. “Draining into the left atria, there are four pulmonary veins, which carry blood into the heart from the lungs.”
He looked up at her, and her gaze locked onto his. “As I’m sure you already know, that’s what veins do. Carry blood towards the heart. While arteries carry blood away from the heart.”
His smile was intoxicating. It was a good thing he gave it to her in small doses.
Jessica patiently nodded, indeed already knowing the difference. But she admired the man’s enthusiasm, and she liked the way he led her through the introductory lesson.
“Each side of the heart has two valves. On the left side, you have the aortic valve and the mitral valve.”
He was a remarkable teacher. He spoke at just the right pace, and with just the right balance of wonder and expertise. He spoke succinctly, plainly, warmly, and he used his hands to create and show her visual references.
“This large vessel is called the aorta.”
“The ay-orta?” she repeated, testing out the new word.
“Yes. It is the artery that delivers oxygenated blood out to the rest of you.” The doctor dragged a finger gently across the latex tube as he explained, “It curves up, branches off to the left and right, and continues down to your abdomen, running along your spine.”
Jessica cringed lightly as she watched him trace the invisible lines throughout his torso. He was incredibly skilled at painting a vivid picture of a person’s insides. She was quickly learning much more than she ever wanted to know about the subject, but she had to admit that it was unexpectedly exciting. The woman was effectively engrossed in his gross tutorial.
“Moving over to the right side of the heart,” he adjusted the way he held the object against his chest so he could show her the other part of it. “This tube is the vena cava. Superior, and inferior. It drains deoxygenated blood from the body into the right atrium.”
She grinned, perplexed by how he straddled the border between a total geek and a sexy intellectual. A pair of round glasses would have tipped him over to one side, while a nice pair of slacks, a lab coat, and a tie would have shoved him over to the other.
“This vessel, which is also split into two branches, is called the pulmonary artery, which means it carries deoxygenated blood….” he trailed off and looked up at her again, catching her by surprise.
Jessica realized that he was opening up the lesson for her to pitch in and test her knowledge. “Oh,” she laughed at herself, having been caught completely red-handed in a distracted daze. “Um….”
“Artery….” he aided her.
“Away from the heart,” she translated.
“Deoxygenated….” he helped her again.
She believed she caught on to where the piece fit into the system, and guessed, “To the... lungs? To be 're-oxygenated?'”
He rewarded her with a bright smile. “Very good!”
The satisfaction she felt was embarrassing.
His gentle touch identified the location of the last pieces within the heart. “Here we have the pulmonary arterial valve and the tricuspid valve. Now, these valves are very important. The papillary muscles connected to each of them receive electrical signals telling them to tug and release. This closes the valves, and then allows them to open.”
“Wow. You sure know your stuff, doctor,” she scoffed, shaking her head. She felt it brimming full with new knowledge that she’d probably never again need to regurgitate.
Martin noticed that she was beginning to lose interest, and offered, “I’m sure you’ve heard of the term, ‘heartstrings?’”
Jessica curiously nodded.
“That’s where those are,” he smirked.
“They’re real?” she gasped.
“They are,” he grinned proudly. “You might say that ‘tugging at one’s heartstrings,’ could be synonymous with making one’s heart beat.”
Jessica rolled her eyes, but smiled. Who would have known that she’d have a stranger flirting with her over anatomy, of all things?
Martin added, pointing around the organ, “However, the outer muscle of the heart, the myocardium, does all the heavy lifting. It compresses the atria and ventricles in turn, creating a pressure system and forcing the blood through the body.” He closed his grip around the latex object, demonstrating the clench of the muscle.
The doctor concluded his lesson with a tilt of his head, a lift of his brows, and a surreptitious smile. “Annnnd that is a very simple overview of how your heart works.”
She smirked and pointed a delicate finger at the heart. “So... those outer muscles squeeze the heart and create the ‘bu-bump, bu-bump’ of your heartbeat?”
He grinned at her child-like evaluation. “Precisely.”
The doctor performed another couple of clutches around the object, simulating its beating. Jessica couldn’t stop herself from laughing, but she waved her hand through the air in front of her. “Oh, God, stop it!” The action was unnerving and hilarious all at once. “Lord,” she shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, chuckling. He was such a dork. Why was she talking to this man?
He was very entertained by her squeamish reaction, but he did cease his joke.
She sighed, returned her gaze to him, twisted her ruby lips, and processed everything he’d just taught her. Then, reaching over with a manicured nail, she touched his heart.
Technically, that wasn't true. She didn’t dare touch the latex organ, and she certainly was nowhere near touching his actual heart, but she did venture to hover her finger around it, over his chest. Jessica lightly traced the lines from his body to the object, following the flow of the circulatory system.
“The blood comes from the… veins... into the… atriums?”
“Atria, yes,” he grinned, glancing to her eyes between watching her finger move over his chest.
“Then through the….” she struggled, then gave up on recalling the individual names of each. “Valves.”
They shared a silent giggle before Jessica moved on.
“To the… ventricles,” she grinned, moving her pointed finger to the bottom of the heart before floating it up to point at the buttons of his collar. “Then out into the… aorta, and…” She concluded her recital with a confident smirk. “Arteries.”
Jessica had passed the pop quiz with a near-perfect score.
“You have a fantastic memory,” Martin observed with a drawling pur, proud of her intelligence.
“So I’ve been told,” she bragged with a chuckle.
He held her gaze, and for a few seconds, they lingered in silence. This time, it wasn’t an awkward one. Finally, she broke their eye contact and glanced down to his false heart.
“Not so scary anymore, is it?” he murmured teasingly.
She decided that it was indeed no longer quite as alarming, now that she’d taken the time to get to know it and understand it.
“No, I suppose it’s not,” she hummed. Still, she found herself subtly grimacing the longer she stared at the organ. “It’s just... so….”
He eagerly attempted to finish her thought. “Fascinating?”
Her lip curled. “Grotesque.”
“No it’s not!” he laughed, mildly appalled. He appeared to hold the heart closer to himself, as if sheltering it from her judgmental glare. “It’s beautiful,” he professed, playfully wounded. Then, he took the opportunity to point out, “Almost as beautiful as you.”
She scoffed and closed her eyes. “Ugh.” How utterly unromantic. His failed effort to compliment her was atrociously comical. “Shall I compare thee to a raw lump of meat?” she mocked. It sounded like the beginning of a twisted Shakespearean verse --which Edgar Allen Poe had commandeered.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” he protested with another laugh. He then defended his heart, gesturing at it with a preaching, “This ‘grotesque, raw lump of meat’ powers everything you do! It’s the engine of life!”
She shook her head and ignored his claim, instead changing the subject by pointing out something he’d forgotten in his anatomy lesson. “Where does the love go?”
Confusion crossed his expression. “The... what?” he asked while trying to fix an uncertain smile.
“The love,” she emphasized teasingly, as if it was part of an inside joke that he should have understood.
He computed the context of her question --which seemed as if it was one of the stupidest questions he’d ever been asked, at least by a grown person. Finally, he gave an uneasy laugh. “That’s... not in your heart, that’s… all in your head.”
Her expression faded.
“Chemical reactions,” he elaborated. “In the brain. That’s all love is.” His weary smile did not cheer her. As she glanced back toward the novel in her lap, he quickly added with a dash of enthusiasm, “Very wonderful chemical reactions!”
It didn’t appear to work. She was packing her book in her bag. Martin struggled to come up with something to repair the conversation. “Um…”
“Can that be my next lesson?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow at him as she closed her purse.
“Y-you’d like to have another lesson?” A smile returned to his face as he dared to hope.
“I would,” she smirked, having enjoyed his brief panic.
“About the chemical reactions in the brain?”
“About love.” She lifted her chin and challenged, “Tomorrow? Same time?”
He grinned, appearing very relieved and excited. “Well, I’m no neurosurgeon --or as you might call it, love doctor, but… I’ll see what I can do.”
Jessica struggled to hide a humored smile as she stood up and adjusted the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "I look forward to it."
He stared up at the woman, soaking in the glorious sight of her.
"It was nice meeting you, Doctor...?"
"Whitly," he answered softly. "Doctor Whitly."
She twiddled her fingers in a wave as she walked away with a smile. "Until tomorrow, Doctor Whitly." Her leopard print heels clacked across the hexagon slabs of the stone pathway.
Martin watched her leave for as long as he was able to, then finally turned his attention down to the heart in his hand.