What Hearts

The novel follows Asa, a sharp, perceptive boy, across four connected stories spanning first grade to seventh grade, tracing his life through his parents' divorce, his mother's remarriage to a man named Dave, and the instabilities that follow.

In "As If," six-year-old Asa runs home on the last day of first grade with treasures: straight A's, a secretly gifted copy of The Little Prince, and a bunch of radishes he grew himself, their impossible redness filling him with pride. He is eager to share everything with his parents, but he finds his mother on the stoop in a coat wrong for Maryland in June, perched on a black suitcase. Inside, the apartment is completely empty. He assembles fragments of his mother's words: his parents no longer love each other, there will be a divorce, his father is gone, and soon he will be too.

A taxi takes them to an airport, where his mother's boyfriend, Dave, meets them. Asa launches into fabricated stories about school triumphs; Dave tolerates this briefly, then exposes the lying with a mean-spirited remark. Asa falls silent, relieved: He is now free to hate Dave. That evening Dave pays a ride operator to put Asa on a roller coaster that plunges over the dark ocean. Asa notices his mother has disappeared and sees Dave gesturing toward the operator. He shrieks until the ride stops; Dave retrieves money from the operator. Asa's weeping mother pulls him out. Dave calls him a sissy, but Asa's mother intervenes. Later that night, Asa slips out alone, returns to the pier, and pays for another ride. A realization unfolds: The things he has left behind are already hiding inside him. His life now has a past, and anything could veer off unexpectedly. He is not on tracks. He pushes the safety bar off and stands into the warm wind.

In "Not Blue," Asa is in fourth grade at yet another new school. His teacher, Mrs. Brock, assigns him a role in a unit on ancient Rome, and he delivers a rousing report on war elephants that leaves his classmates cheering. Over many moves, he has refined the art of social entry, finding openings in each personality and slipping through without seeming artificial. When Mrs. Brock announces a variety show, Asa is the only student without an act. She pairs him with Joel Prescott, a tall, eagerly friendly boy who has chosen to recite "Little Boy Blue" by Eugene Field, a sentimental poem about a child who dies. Asa hates the poem's pathos but cannot shake its sadness. He stumbles onto "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, a dramatic ballad, and persuades Joel to switch.

Asa gives Joel the most exciting stanzas, but Joel cannot retain the archaic vocabulary and misses practices. When Asa bikes over one Saturday, he finds Joel ecstatically pelting younger children with water balloons. Watching Joel's uncomplicated joy, Asa cries and leaves unseen. The evening before the show, Joel's mother calls to propose keeping Joel home so Asa can perform alone. Asa agrees, though his scheming mind has wanted this all along. On show night, just as Asa opens his mouth onstage, Joel bursts through the rear door, panting. His triumphant grin fades when he reads Asa's face and grasps the betrayal. Pain flickers across Joel's eyes, replaced by cheery acceptance; he shrugs and looks for a seat. Asa makes his decision: He and Joel will recite "Little Boy Blue" instead. Joel hustles down the aisle, lips moving over the words he knows.

In "Out," Asa's relationship with Dave finds a neutral zone through sports. After the family moves into a two-story house, Asa's tenth move at barely eleven, Dave appears one Saturday with a football. They throw for three hours, and for the first time their natural tendencies operate cooperatively. In spring, Asa asks to play Little League. Dave reluctantly agrees, but batting practice tightens into something adversarial. Dave starts throwing at Asa when the boy hits too well. One day, after Asa admires a long fly, Dave throws a baseball directly into his ribs. Asa drops screaming, then in fury hits a ball toward Dave's back. It sails over Dave's head. Neither speaks of it.

The next afternoon, Asa's mother appears carrying his bat and becomes his fielding coach. On the Friday before tryouts, she sees the bruise on his ribs, still bearing the purple imprint of the ball's stitching. That night, Dave wakes Asa: His mother has taken pills. Dave claims she confused sleeping pills with aspirin, but Asa finds a nearly empty bottle of Seconal, a powerful sedative, and no aspirin anywhere. He threatens to call the hospital; Dave slams him into a bureau; Asa punches Dave on the temple. They spend hours pouring coffee into his mother, then drive her at dawn to the state hospital at Butner. When Dave remembers that Asa's tryout is the next morning and begins directing anger at Asa's mother, Asa lies to defuse it: He was never going to try out.

In "What Hearts?," Asa is in seventh grade and in love with Jean Williams, a girl who has been in his class since fifth grade, the longest he has stayed anywhere. He asks his mother, recently home from the hospital and stabilized on medication, what you do when you are in love. She tells him love is built, not accidental: a choice crafted bit by bit. Knowing someone loves you, she adds, is a gift. Then she reveals the pill he brought her, unswallowed in her palm. The medication makes her feel good about nothing, she says, whereas his love makes him feel good about everything. She is ready to stop the pills. They agree to keep each other's secrets.

A week later, Asa finds Jean alone in the classroom and says, "I love you, Jean" (173). Her cheeks flood with color; he bows and withdraws. That afternoon he smells Dave's after-shave at a wrong hour and knows what is coming. In the dark living room, his mother delivers the familiar words: decision, respect, no love, divorce. They leave for Raleigh tomorrow. That night, Dave pulls Asa close in the backyard and says he loves him. Asa replies that Dave does not know who he is, that Dave loves the kid he wishes Asa were. When Dave pleads for Asa to return the feeling, Asa stands in the dark and realizes he does not want to know the answer. He walks silently back to the house.

The next morning, Jean's friend Brenda presses a wadded napkin into Asa's hand containing two candy hearts printed with "I love you," together reading: I love you, too. In class, Jean's face turns toward him, open and unguarded, but Asa senses that to accept what she offers he would have to stop moving. His teacher, Mrs. Halterman, announces that today is Asa's last day. Jean seems to perceive his inability to meet her; she rushes out in tears of rage. A flat tire delays the family's departure, and they return home for one more night. Asa calls Jean, but she answers brightly and tells him about Robert Pontiac, a boy who has sent word that he likes her. Before hanging up, Asa tells Jean the hearts will always mean everything to him. She asks, with the simplicity of a memory already overwritten, "What hearts?" (199).

Sitting alone in the darkening living room, Asa pulls out the candy hearts and reads them. He reflects that words can rise away from their circumstances, carry their meaning, and move right along with you. Somewhere down the road, these words will be made good.