A Disconnected Heart: A Play

By C. G. Gardiner

Forty years after he returned to America and abandoned his fiance Cora Williams, Saul Metzger returns to St. Sabastian, hoping to rekindle a relationship with her. But things have changed. St. Sabastian is no longer the Caribbean paradise he remembered. And Cora is no longer the naive young woman he once knew. Other complications present themselves. As Saul and Cora travel the road to reconciliation, they grapple with expectations, responsibilities, and hurtsold and new.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543420388

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by C. G. Gardiner.

Jacket design by Jacqueline Sealey of Dawn Affiliated Services, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland, USA.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/09/2017

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Contents

Act I—Scene I

Act I—Scene II

Act I—Scene III

Act I—Scene IV

Act I—Scene V

Act II—Scene I

Act II—Scene II

Act II—Scene III

Act II—Scene IV

Act II—Scene V

Epilogue

Dedication

To love.

A Disconnected Heart was initially presented as a staged reading at the Black Box Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland, from March 3 to 5, 2017. It was directed by Wanda Whiteside. The cast was as follows:

• Cora—Cody Jones

• Saul—Jim Epstein

• Paul—Omar Bah

• Rachel—Amanda Morris

• Prime Minister—Ian Edwards

• Sarah—Holly Trout

• Narrator/Waitress—Holly Trout

Note: St. Sabastian is a fictional Caribbean country.

Act I—Scene I

It is the autumn of 2008. The scene opens on a couple—a man and a woman—seated at a table in a private room of the Good and Plentiful restaurant, overlooking the harbor. A huge cruise ship is moored at the dock, unmoving on the glass like surface of the water. It dwarfs a number of yachts, sailboats, and smaller service boats nearby. A swarm of tourists, mostly white, stream down its gangplank like ants on the march. They are dressed in colorful shirts and shorts, and most are wearing hats and sunglasses to blunt the attack of the blazing sun. Some have cameras slung over their shoulders.

The man, Saul Metzger, is white and of medium height. Although he seems fit, he has developed a visible paunch. Cora Williams is slim and toned, with a milk-chocolate complexion and graying hair. The beauty of her youth is still visible. Like Saul, she is in her midsixties. Their food has been served. They talk as they eat.

Saul (Looking around the restaurant and out to sea): This is a very nice restaurant. I love the view of the harbor.

Cora: I’m a part owner here with two others.

Saul (Raising an eyebrow in surprise): Wow! You must be doing well. Good for you.

Cora (Obviously pleased with herself): I’m doing okay.

Saul: And you look like you haven’t changed a bit since I last saw you.

Cora: Oh, trust me; I’ve changed a lot.

Saul: Do you still play tennis?

Cora: Yes, I do. What about you? You used to be pretty good.

Saul: I haven’t played much in the last few years. I brought my racquets with me. Maybe we can play some—like we used to.

Cora: That was a long time ago… I never expected to see you again; at least not in this life. For years I wondered how I’d kill you if I ever did.

Saul (With a nod): I guess that’s understandable… I hope you don’t still feel that way.

Cora (With a wave of her hand): Oh, I got over that a long time ago.

Saul: So how have you been?

Cora: Quite well actually.

Saul: Are you married?

Cora: I was; my husband died many years ago. He went fishing one day, and never came back. The rescue service found his boat the next day, but they never found him.

Saul: How old was he?

Cora: He was forty-five.

Saul: You never remarried?

Cora (With a tilt of her head): I could have, if I wanted to. But I was a young mother with two children, including a twelve-year-old girl. And I was a working lawyer. (Shaking her head.) Besides, I’ve seen too many cases of stepfathers behaving inappropriately with stepdaughters. I didn’t want to expose my daughter to that kind of risk. And my son wasn’t about to accept another man in my life at the time.

Saul: That’s quite a sacrifice.

Cora: Oh, I never thought so. I’d been married for thirteen years. That was enough for me. I didn’t see a need to marry again. Financially I was very secure. Herbie, my husband, and I had made some good investments in real estate and the payout from his architectural firm was very good. And he had a good life insurance policy.

Saul: So you’re a judge now?

Cora: I’ve been on the bench for the past ten years.

Saul: That must be interesting… being a judge.

Cora (Nodding): It certainly is. You do get to see all shades of human nature. And often times it’s not pretty. There was a time when crime in St. Sabastian was almost none existent—except for the petty kind: breaking and entering; malicious wounding; public intoxication, etc. You’d have your occasional murder because of drunkenness or a fight over a woman; but nothing like we’re seeing now. There is a sense of casualness towards violence in general that is frightening. Young men, in particular, have no fear of going to jail. They’ll kill at the drop of a hat, in broad daylight, with multiple witnesses. Drive by shootings are almost commonplace, and rape is almost a national past time.

Saul (Surprised): Come on… in St. Sabastian?

Cora (Shaking her head): St. Sabastian isn’t the tropical paradise you remember. The country is awash in guns… from America. Drugs are everywhere and people—young people in particular—don’t go to church like they used to. They don’t fear God or man. The moral and social fabric of the country has been ripped apart.

Saul: What are the schools like? I really enjoyed my time teaching here.

Cora: The students, on the whole, are aggressive, confrontational, and not interested in learning. They’re into material things. Young girls are selling their bodies for trinkets and the boys are trying to get the money to buy the trinkets. With the economy being as bad as it has been for the last twenty, thirty years, I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.

Saul: What do your children do?

Cora: My son was educated as an architect; like his father. But he abandoned that profession to become a very successful artist. His paintings are in great demand. He’s also a political and social activist. He has a son. His wife is an executive with one of the hotels. Lillian, my daughter, is