Eastern Lights

by Brittainy Cherry

  It took over forty-five minutes for the doctor to arrive, leaving me with nothing but anxiety-packed thoughts.

  “Hi, Aaliyah. I’m Dr. Brown. It’s nice to meet you.” The doctor walked in with a half-grin and a few others followed, including the nurse who greeted me before. “I hear you are a bit confused about everything that’s going on.”

  I wrapped my arms around my body in a protective stance because I felt emotionally exposed and needed the tight hug I’d given myself. “Yes. I don’t understand why I’m here.”

  “Do you recall what happened?”

  “I remember being at work and then blacking out. I woke up here. That’s all I know.”

  He pulled up a chair next to my bedside and clasped his hands. The somber look on his face worried me.

  “What is it?” I asked, panic clenching my insides.

  “It’s your heart.”

  “What do you mean? What do you mean it’s my heart?”

  He grimaced and nodded once as if he was preparing for his next words. “Your heart is failing at this time. Your blood has backed up in the pulmonary veins, which transports the oxygenated blood from your lungs to your heart. This means your heart cannot keep up with the supply, causing fluid to leak into your lungs. This is diagnosed as congestive heart failure.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” I placed my hands against my chest, terrified of what he was saying. My mind began to spin as he spoke those words to me. Had he said my heart was failing? “What does that mean? How do we fix it? I’m only twenty-two. This doesn’t make any sense. I’m healthy. I’ve always been healthy. Oh, my goodness, am I dying? What do I do? How do I—”

  “Calm down…it’s okay,” the doctor told me, placing a comforting hand on my forearm.

  I ripped my arm out of his grip as tears formed in my eyes. “You can’t say calm down after telling me my heart is failing! Oh, my gosh. This can’t be happening. What do we do? What do I do?”

  “I understand this can be a scary diagnosis, but we will come up with a plan to help manage your condition. There are different medications we can—”

  “Manage or reverse?” I cut in.

  His eyes looked heavier than his frown, and I knew nothing good was coming next. “With the stage you are at, managing the condition and making sure it doesn’t worsen are our best bets.”

  Which meant there was no reversing what’d happened to me.

  It was all adding up.

  The swollen ankles. The exhaustion. The shortness of breath…

  How long had my heart been struggling to beat?

  The doctor kept speaking, using words I couldn’t understand and also tossing in words I should’ve comprehended. But none of it was sticking because I was stuck on one main fact: my heart, the heart I’d carried inside my chest since the day I was born, the one that moved me through life and made it possible for me to exist, was breaking.

  My heart was breaking, and I feared there was no way to put it back together.

  One moment.

  It only took one moment for my whole world to change. A diagnosis that would live with me for the remainder of my life. How long was that? How much time was left for me? And would I be able to achieve all the things I wanted to achieve now that I had this impending doomsday clock ticking in the back of my chest?

  I went home, and I pulled out my laptop and began searching for more information on heart failure. I dived deep, and by the end of my searches, I felt a level of fear I wasn’t certain how to face.

  Five years.

  Only half of the individuals who’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure survived past five years. Ten percent made it ten years.

  Ten years.

  I’d only be thirty-two in ten years’ time.

  Time.

  It would have been almost comical how time worked if it hadn’t been so tragic.

  Six weeks earlier, I had been heartbroken over a man who never truly loved me. One week earlier, a stranger had reminded me how to love myself. Then that afternoon, I’d found out my heart was truly broken.

  Funny how a real broken heart hurts more than any pain a boy could cause me.

  I grieved that night. I grieved for all the life I’d miss out on. I grieved the loss of my future goals and dreams. I grieved the idea that I might never celebrate my thirtieth birthday. I allowed myself all the time I needed to truly sit with my grief, and I let it swallow me whole for a bit.

  I stayed sad and depressed for a good while. Sofia couldn’t stand my mood, she said I was bringing down her energy, so shortly after I found out about my heart, she moved out. Never in my life had I felt more alone. During the silence, my anxiety hit new heights. Still, each day I woke up. If only I could’ve realized what a blessing that had been.

  After some terrible nights and harsher days, I pulled myself together the best I could. I took a deep breath and tried to find a way to be grateful for the sunlight that poured onto my skin to wake me up each day. I returned to a place I’d told Captain I wouldn’t visit to avoid us crossing paths, but I needed to go back to Wish Alley to write down another wish upon a Post-it. This time my wish was simple.

  I wished for more time.

  6

  Aaliyah

  Two years later

  I could count the number of facts I knew about my mother on one hand. Two fingers, as a matter of fact: I knew she gave birth to me, and I knew she gave me my name. That was the extent of my knowledge about the woman who brought me into the world. Everything else, I made up in my mind, millions of fictional stories I told myself throughout the years. For example, maybe I’d gotten my eyes from her, or perhaps my nose. Maybe she had named me after the gone-too-soon musician Aaliyah, which was why I listened to her soundtracks throughout my teenage years, wondering if song my mother would’ve dedicated a certain song to me.

  My fictional mother loved brunch, which was why I found a new brunch spot each week, and she loved to travel, too. I didn’t have much time or money to travel the way I wished I could’ve, but I had a vision board with photographs of Greece, Spain, and Bora Bora hanging over my desk at home. Fake Mom must’ve hated spicy things, she couldn’t stand Brussels sprouts, and the way she loved? She probably loved so much it hurt her. She loved me so much she let me go.

  At least those were the lies I told myself.

  In my thoughts, she had tight coils of hair dipped in black ink. Her laugh was infectious, the kind that made others chuckle just from the enjoyment of her sounds. She danced, too—poorly, like me, but oh, how her body swayed. Sometimes, I pretended she was African royalty and was forced to give me up after an affair with some B-list Hollywood actor. They’d met on a Roman holiday and fallen in lust within days. Then he’d left her behind to pursue his dreams of becoming an A-list star.

  At least those were the stories I’d tell myself throughout my adolescence. I didn’t create many stories about her now that I was in my early twenties. Most of the time, I only thought about her whenever a big life event happened, during which I wished to have a mother by my side. I wondered how she would’ve felt about how my life was shaping up recently. I wondered if she would’ve been proud of the choices I was making that afternoon.

  Get out of your head, Aaliyah, and pull yourself together.

  “You can’t be serious,” Maiv said, staring at me as if I were the most idiotic woman to ever exist in the world. “You’re quitting your job here, at Passion Magazine, a position any sane human would kill for, in order to—I’m sorry, explain your reason again,” she said as she waved her hand toward her head as if trying to recollect my words.

  “To get married to my fiancé. I recently learned we’ll be moving to California full-time, and since we’re getting married, I figured it would be best to be in the same location as newlyweds,” I explained as my stomach twisted in knots.

  The disapproval of my answer and the way her lips turned upside down made me want to vomit. With one look, she made me feel like a child who’d misbehaved. I
n reality, the only misbehaving I’d done was falling in love.

  Maiv Khang was terrifying. She was one of the most successful women in all of New York, but completely coldhearted and a hard one to read—which was ironic because she ran a magazine about following one’s passion in life. We covered athletes, scientists, politicians, social businesses, restaurants, etc. Anything that had a passion behind it, we were writing top-of-the-line articles on the subject. You would think someone who ran such a business would, oh, I don’t know, be a bit passionate themselves.

  Not Maiv, though. She always appeared empty. Bored of life. She did a fantastic job with the magazine, but her people skills were yikes.

  Maiv’s hair was gray and always pulled back into a perfect bun. She wore her most expensive jewels on a daily basis, and although she was in her seventies, everyone who worked for Passion assumed she would never step down from her CEO position to pass the company on to her daughter Jessica. She was more than willing to hold on as tight as she could, like Queen Elizabeth, while Jessica was a solid Prince Charles.

  “So you’re quitting your job at the top magazine line in the world to go be a housewife for some guy?” she asked, but it came off as more of a disdainful statement.

  “Not just for some guy—for Jason, my fiancé.”

  “You’re young. What is this, your third fiancé? Fourth?”

  I snickered until I saw the seriousness in her stare. I cleared my throat and moved around in my seat. “Um, my first actually.”

  She rolled her eyes again and waved her hand in dismissal—again. “Never quit a job for the first man who proposes to you. Not the second or third either. Seventh maybe, but that depends on his status.”

  I smiled an uncertain grin and shrugged. “Well, I think I’m going to take this chance with Jason.”

  She laughed.

  Yup. Maiv laughed out loud—a sound I hadn’t known she was able to create. “How long have you been in a relationship?” she questioned.

  “We are going on a year and a half.”

  The way she burst into a laughing fit almost made me want to cry. Tact wasn’t her strong suit.

  Please go back to the nonlaughing boss I know and fear.

  “Well, it’s your life. You’re free to make all the mistakes you want, but remember, each mistake turns into a forehead wrinkle, and Botox is expensive.” She waved me away and went back to reading whatever it was that sat in front of her.

  “Um, okay…but I do have one more thing to say.” She looked up from her paperwork and arched an uninterested brow. “I won’t be becoming a housewife when I move out to California in a few weeks. I am in search of another journalist position. I am hoping to ask if you could maybe write me a letter of recommendation?”

  “You should probably leave my office now.”

  “Okay, right.” I stood swiftly from the chair I’d obviously stayed in a second too long. As I was walking away, I turned back to face her. “I hope you know, Maiv, that I am so honored and thankful for you giving me the opportunity to work for your company. This has been the best job I’ve ever had and the experience of a lifetime, and—”

  She held her hand up to silence me, took off her glasses, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “You told me when you came to work here that working at Passion was your biggest life dream, and you are throwing that away for probably an average-sized dick of a man you’ve known for less than two years. Did he ask you how you’d feel about giving up your dream for him?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t expect your dreams to go any further when you’re married to a man who doesn’t even try to come up with a way for both of your dreams to come true.”

  I stood there, completely quiet and baffled by her words.

  She looked back down at her paperwork and cleared her throat. “I’m also assuming my invitation got lost in the mail.”

  “Your invitation…uh, right. Yes, of course. Your invitation definitely got lost in the mail.”

  “Then you better make sure I have a seat at a table. Send the information to my assistant. I don’t require a plus-one, but I’ll be in attendance.”

  “Why?”

  She looked up eerily slow and cocked an eyebrow at me, forcing me to speak again.

  “Why that is wonderful news,” I said, trying to shift the why that left my mouth.

  “Why are you still in my office?”

  “Right. Of course. Goodbye.”

  I left a bit stunned, uncertain what to say and unsure of how I should’ve felt. Had Maiv just invited herself to my wedding? Had she said she was coming? Oh gosh, the seating chart was already done. I’d have to call to get that shifted around. Luckily, right after work, I was on the way to my soon to be mother-in-law’s home, where she’d help me fit Maiv into the chart without issue.

  If I’d ever gotten a shot at having my own mother, I’d have wanted her to be just like Marie Rollsfield. When I first met her, she talked about her son a lot, about how she and her husband adopted him when he was five-years-old. I told her about how lucky he was to be adopted by a great woman, and I’d never forget how that comment made her eyes fill with tears.

  “I’m not a great woman, but I try to be a good mother,” she explained, wiping the emotions away from her eyes.

  I disagreed, though. Anyone kind, filled with love, and willing to take in a child who wasn’t biologically their own was a hero in my mind. I would’ve killed to be adopted by parents as loving as Walter and Marie.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rollsfield were my favorite kind of love story. They’d just celebrated thirty years of marriage the summer before, but if you looked at them, you’d think they were still squarely in the honeymoon stage. I’d never seen two people who loved so loudly at all times. From the handholding to the forehead kisses, Marie and Walter were relationship dreams come true.

  It wasn’t until Marie invited me over for Christmas dinner that I was introduced to Jason. Marie recalled it better than either of us did, but I remembered being in the Rollsfields’ home and feeling as if I belonged.

  Sometimes I wondered if I loved Jason’s parents more than I loved him. Especially his mother, Marie. She was the definition of motherly love, and she welcomed me into their family with arms wide open. When I still worked at the coffee shop, she was the one who actually called 9-1-1 for me when I had the episode, and from that moment on, she had a special place in my heart. After that, to keep myself distracted from my health situation, I joined Marie’s book club, and we grew closer and closer.

  The best part of Jason’s and my love story? Not only did I find a fiancé but I also received two dedicated future in-laws who made me feel like I had always been a part of their family. Being welcomed with arms wide open was the dream I’d always wished for—to have a family, to be a part of a strong unit, to create traditions we could share with one another. For example, Marie and I still had our weekly coffee dates. I always looked forward to them, too. If I could’ve grown up with a mother, I would’ve dreamed of one like Marie.

  “I cannot believe it’s really happening!” Marie squeaked as we stood in her living room while I got my last fitting done for my wedding dress. Every detail of the wedding had been handled by Marie and the wedding planning team she’d hired. She was hands-on in walking me through all the details I didn’t really care about.

  All I wanted, all I’d ever wanted was to walk down the aisle and say the only two words that mattered—I do.

  I didn’t care about all the ins and outs of the wedding day. I cared about the happily ever after that came afterward.

  I smiled at the overzealous Marie. For the past few days, she’d been jumping up and down over the excitement of Saturday. “I can’t believe it either.” I stared in the mirror, feeling every butterfly form as I stared at the white gown custom-designed for me.

  Marie and Walter had covered the cost of the gown. They’d covered the cost of the whol
e ceremony and reception. If it had been up to me and my wallet, I’d have gone down to the courthouse with a dress from a thrift shop.

  “I can’t thank you enough for everything you and Walter have done for this wedding, Marie—for me. I don’t deserve all of this.”

  She walked over to me as the seamstress finished working on the hem of my dress. Marie placed her palms against my cheeks and smiled that bright smile she always shared with me. “You deserve the world, Aaliyah. You will never understand what you coming into our family has done to my heart. You are nothing less than the light we Rollsfields needed, and soon enough, we’ll share the same last name.”

  I fell into her arms and hugged her tightly. When she pulled away from me, I laughed at the tears flooding her eyes. “You can’t start crying yet. We still have to make it to the wedding day.”

  She waved a dismissive hand my way. “I think we’ll just have to realize I’m going to be a hot mess that whole weekend. Thank goodness for waterproof makeup and a makeup artist on staff for the entire evening.”

  As I gazed at myself in the large mirror in the living room, I took a deep breath. A million emotions rushed through my mind, but only one was sitting at the forefront. And that was the fact that after all these years, I was finally going to be a part of something bigger than me.

  I was finally going to have a family.

  That alone made me want to tear up, too.

  “Hello?” a voice called out, breaking me from my stare. “Mom! Where’s Dad? I’ve been calling him for—”

  I shouted as I turned around to see Jason staring at me with a tuxedo in his grip. “Oh my gosh! Get out of here! You can’t see me in the dress before the wedding!” I ordered, darting behind the couch to try to hide.

  “You don’t really believe in those silly traditions, do you?” Jason said, brushing his thumb against his nose. “Just get up, Aaliyah. I already saw it.”

  “No!” I said, feeling silly for hiding but not wanting him to get another peek at the gown. I wasn’t extremely superstitious or anything, but one thing I did believe in was that it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding day.