by Nicole Maggi
“Thanks.” I turned my head to Mom. She was still watching me like I might explode at any moment. “I’m pretty tired, actually. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
Her face softened and she reached for my hand. “Maybe I should leave you alone to nap. Rest is the most important thing for you right now.”
“Okay.” I leaned back on the pillows but my whole body was tense. The minute the door closed behind Mom, I sat straight up and wrapped my fingers around my head, pressing into my skull like I could touch my thoughts.
How could I simply forget a lifelong allergy? And it wasn’t just that. I distinctly remembered strawberry being my favorite flavor of anything—ice cream, Jell-O, Pop-Tarts. I knew the taste of strawberry, could even recall the feeling of strawberry seeds in between my teeth. How could I know that if I’d never eaten them?
It was the meds. That had to be it. Drugs did things to your brain. My parents had been drilling that into me ever since I could understand the phrase “peer pressure.” I eased back onto the pillows. Without effort, a memory surfaced—not of an allergy, but of a cake. Three layers of shortcake dripping with strawberries…a big number FIVE candle flickering at the top. I lean over to blow it out, a voice whispering in my ear. “Happy birthday, baby…”
I blinked. The memory was so vivid that I could smell the whipped cream on that cake. But if I’d been allergic to strawberries since I was nine months old, that could not have been my fifth birthday cake. It couldn’t be my memory. There was no way.
And in the quiet of the room, that little catch in my heart swelled like a symphony.
• • •
I spent the entire time I should have been napping trying to ignore the sound of that catch and racking my brain for any memory of an allergy. It wasn’t there. It was just—gone. Was Vicodin really that strong? A little squirmy something inside me told me it wasn’t. But that had to be the reason. There was no other logical explanation.
Mom returned after “naptime” with Dad and Colt in tow. “Nice hair,” my little brother said when he saw me.
Considering that it hadn’t been washed since I’d been admitted to the hospital, I could only imagine how my hair looked. “I almost died and all you can come up with is ‘nice hair’? You’re slipping.”
Colt sat on the edge of my bed and pinched my leg. “Can you feel that?”
“I’m not paralyzed, you moron.”
“Okay, stop it, you two,” Dad said. He kissed my forehead. “How are you feeling today, sweetie?”
“Like someone cracked my chest open, ripped my heart out, and put in a new one.”
He winced. “Not funny, Georgie.”
“I thought it was hilarious,” Colt said. He was still pinching my leg. I kicked him. It was a nice distraction. Maybe the strawberry shortcake was at a birthday party that I’d been to when I was five. Memories faded after a while… I had to be remembering it wrong. Except I could remember biting into that cake…could still remember the sweet taste and the feel of the strawberry juice dribbling down my chin. I kicked Colt again and pulled my mind into the present.
The door pushed open and Dr. Harrison bustled in. “How’s your new room, Georgie?”
“Great. Thanks.”
She read the printout on the monitor next to the bed. “Everything’s looking good, really good.”
“You’re sure?” I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth. Mom and Dad looked terrified, and Colt leaned in closer to me like I might sprout wings at any moment and how cool would that be? Dr. Harrison lowered the printout, her eyes narrowed.
“I mean, I just wondered, because I feel…” I trailed off. Dr. Harrison looked like she was about to wheel me back into surgery.
“Yes? You feel?” she prompted.
I cleared my throat. “Nothing. I mean, I feel fine. Physically. I just feel…I don’t know. Off.”
Dr. Harrison half smiled. “It’s natural to feel that way. Your body has been through a major trauma. But according to this”—she waved the printout—“everything is absolutely on track.”
Mom and Dad relaxed, and Colt pulled back, disappointed. “Okay,” I said, eager to get off this train of thought. “So when can I go home?”
Dr. Harrison pulled a pen out of her coat pocket, wrote something on the chart attached to the monitor, and tucked the pen back into her pocket. “At least another week.” I groaned and she gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know, I know. But we need to make sure all your other organs are cooperating with your new heart. And we have to get you used to your new regimen.”
“Regimen?”
“Well, you’ll be on medication for the rest of your life—”
“The rest of my life?” I clamped my lips together. I hadn’t meant for my voice to go up that high.
“To ensure that your body doesn’t reject your heart.” She made it sound so matter-of-fact but that word—reject—was a punch in the gut. “You’ll need to learn the signs of rejection—fever and chills, kind of like the flu—and come in immediately if anything like that happens. Most of the time it’s just a matter of adjusting your medication.”
Most of the time. My face must have registered my anxiety because Dr. Harrison gave my shoulder a little pat. “Don’t worry, pretty soon you won’t even think twice about it. People who have heart transplants can have healthy, normal lives.”
“Yeah, but what’s normal now?” Everything seemed to have a new definition. Would I graduate on time? Ace my Juilliard audition and start there in the fall?
“Kelly Perkins climbed Mount Everest several years after receiving a heart transplant,” Colt said. We all stared at him. He shrugged. “I looked up how long people live after getting a new heart and she came up.”
“How long?” I took a deep breath. “How long can I live?”
“A long time,” Dr. Harrison said firmly. “And your brother is right; some heart transplant survivors have gone on to do extraordinary things.”
“She also climbed Mount Fuji, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the Matterhorn,” Colt said. He dug a piece of gum out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “Dwight Kroening competed in Ironman competitions after getting his. And Erik Compton qualified for the PGA tour after getting his second heart transplant.” He chewed loudly.
“Thanks, Wikipedia.” I rolled my eyes at him but I’d never been so grateful for his obsessive web-searching tendencies. Still, I wondered if Kelly Perkins heard a little catch in between her heartbeats. “So I’m assuming that if I can climb Mount Everest, I can play my oboe, right?”
“Your oboe?” Dr. Harrison raised an eyebrow.
“My Juilliard audition is in six weeks,” I said. “I can still do it, right?”
“Let’s just take things one day at a time,” Dr. Harrison said. “Your prognosis is excellent. I see no reason why you can’t eventually return to your normal activities.”
Eventually? What the hell did eventually mean? “But the audition—”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about that now,” Dr. Harrison said. “You need to be focused on your recovery.”
My entire family snorted in unison. Dr. Harrison raised her eyebrows. “Georgie has been focused on Juilliard since she was ten,” Dad explained. “It would take nothing less than a heart transplant to make her think about anything else.”
“Well, she’ll have to,” Dr. Harrison said. She looked down at me, and her impassive face cracked a smile. “But I anticipate a full recovery. You’re doing better than most heart patients I’ve had. That is one strong heart you have in there now.”
My insides shuddered. I didn’t want a strong heart inside me. I wanted my old heart, no matter how weak it was. And as if in answer to my thoughts, I heard IT. That Catch. I was starting to think of it with a capital C. I sucked in air and looked up at Dr. Harrison, but she was talking medical jargon to my
parents. If nothing showed up on the monitor, then it was all in my head. Great. Now, on top of everything, I was crazy. The last thing I wanted was for them to wheel me right into the psych ward. That would definitely cancel out Juilliard.
Before they all left, Mom gave me my phone so I could slog through all the get-well emails and Facebook messages. The minute my family was out the door, I did what Colt would do and looked up “pneumonia and side effects” on the Internet. Maybe the fever I’d had with the pneumonia caused memory loss. I searched that too but came up with the answer that memory loss caused by a fever usually equaled a brain tumor. I clicked out of that right away and went to my Facebook page.
That, at least, I could make sense of. All my friends had posted well wishes, and now that I was in a regular room, some of them were planning to visit and there was a back-and-forth conversation about what worked for everyone. As I read through it, I realized how much I had missed. Days of music lessons and orchestra practice, an audition for a community orchestra that my best friend, Ella, had gotten accepted to, classes and tests that I’d have to make up, Sydney’s birthday party that had apparently spawned a dozen inside jokes I wasn’t privy to, and a class trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that I’d been looking forward to for weeks.
I tossed my phone to the foot of the bed and lay back. The big sci-fi machine had followed me to the new room, and I was still hooked up to it for monitoring. But I was allowed to get up and go for a walk. I buzzed the nurse and she helped me to the elevator.
It was hard to go more than a few steps without having to rest. I sat in front of a huge plate-glass window that looked out over the Healing Garden in the middle of the hospital complex. Sunlight sparkled on a rock fountain. The garden looked warm and inviting, but the bare branches that clacked together in the wind told the truth. Boston was freezing in January, and no matter how badly I wanted a breath of fresh air, the nurses would never let me outside.
An old woman in a hospital gown shuffled slowly past me, using her portable IV like a crutch. I shivered and sat on my hands. I wanted out of this place. I needed to be home in my room filled with my own stuff, living my normal life. Maybe then I would stop feeling the Catch. Maybe the reason my heart was out of step with everything was because I was out of step with my old life.
A nurse bustled by, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum. I drew my hands out from underneath me and looked at my fingers. It had been days since I’d held my oboe, the longest I’d ever gone without it. Even when we went on family vacations, I took it with me. My fingers tingled with the desire to play again. Yes…that was the answer. Everything that made me Georgie was at home, and once I got back there I would be myself again.
• • •
On the afternoon of my fourth day out of the ICU, my sulking routine was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Georgie? Are you decent?”
I recognized Ella’s voice and sat up in bed. “Yes! Come in!”
Ella entered with my other bestie, Toni, on her heels. They both squealed when they saw me and crushed me into the bed in a bone-crunching hug. Literally bone-crunching—my chest incision felt like it was going to split open. “Ow! Open-heart-surgery survivor here!”
“Sorry, sorry!” As Toni pulled back, I saw tears glinting in her brown eyes. “Oh my God, Georgie. You have no idea. We were so worried.”
Ella nodded and climbed right up into the bed next to me. She tucked her arm in mine. “It’s been awful,” she said. “Life really sucks without you in it, you know that?”
I leaned my head on her shoulder. “Thanks, El.”
“She’s right.” Toni sat at the foot of the bed and folded her legs up underneath her. “We all miss you.”
“I miss you guys too,” I said, trying not to sound glum but failing. “It sucks in here.”
Ella grinned. “Well, this oughta cheer you up.” She hoisted her backpack onto the bed and slid out a familiar square, black case.
“My oboe!” I snatched it from her hands and held it tight against me. All was right with the world again. “How did you—”
“We have our ways,” Ella said, tossing her hair back.
“We snuck into your room when we were dropping off flowers,” Toni said.
“Toni!” Ella punched her arm. “I wanted her to think there had been plans and blueprints and secret meetings.”
I laughed. “Thanks, you guys. You have no idea…” I stroked the brass rivets on the corners of the case. “I don’t feel like me without it.”
“Well, you can’t afford to lose the practice time,” Ella said. “I am not rooming with some random stranger at Juilliard.” Ella played flute. We’d been concocting our Juilliard plan since the fifth grade.
I bumped my knee against hers. “Hey, congrats on getting into the Roslindale Symphony.”
“Thanks. I bet I can get you in too.”
“Really? But I missed the auditions.”
Ella tossed her hair. “So what? They know how good you are. You’ll have to go in and play a little something for them, but that’s no big deal.”
“It might be a big deal getting past my parents, though.” I flopped back onto my pillows. “You guys won’t believe what they’re pulling.”
“What?” asked Toni.
“They said they’re keeping me out of school for at least a month after I get home.”
“Are you freaking kidding?” Ella shrieked. “Why?”
I blew a hard breath out through my lips. The discussion had gone down that morning, with me being overruled by several variations on We’re the adults and we know what’s best. “My doctor doesn’t think it’s a good idea for me to go back right away. ‘It’s too stressful,’” I said in a high-pitched mimic of Dr. Harrison’s holier-than-thou tone. “And of course they’re following her advice to the letter. My dad’s getting one of his professors to tutor me.”
Toni’s eyes widened. “Seriously? That’s amazing.”
“Amazing? Uh, no.”
“Georgie! You’re going to have a Harvard professor tutoring you. What kid at our school wouldn’t kill for that?”
I scrunched up my face. “Not me. I’d rather be in classes with all of you.” It wasn’t just that I wanted to go to school; I needed to. School was my second home. I fit in there. It was part of who I was. How could I return to my old self without it?
“Will you still get to graduate with us?” Ella asked.
“I freaking hope so.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe this happened and screwed everything up.”
“Georgie, everything’s going to be fine.” Toni put her hand on my knee. “I know this wasn’t part of the plan—”
“The plan, the plan!” Ella said, laughing. “God forbid anything gets in the way of Georgie and her plans!”
I gave her an evil look. “Shut up. You’d be the same way if it happened to you.”
She put her hand over her mouth in mock offense. “I like to think I’m a little more devil-may-care than you.”
“I can be devil-may-care,” I said. Ella and Toni exchanged a look and burst out laughing. I kicked at them halfheartedly. “Fine, whatever. So I like to plan everything out. Big deal.” I laid my hand flat on the pebbled surface of my oboe case. “As long as it doesn’t affect my Juilliard audition. That’s all the matters.”
Ella squeezed my arm. “You have nothing to worry about. You’re as good as in.”
Sitting on my hospital bed, chatting about normal things, I started to feel better. Maybe the reason I’d survived was because I was meant to be a great oboe player like Richard Woodhams. As soon as Ella and Toni left, I flicked open the latches on the case and looked at the three pieces of gleaming rosewood that lay nestled in their blue velvet bed. I fitted them together, dug out a reed from the little case I kept strapped to the inside lid, and stuck it in my mouth to wet it. When it was ready, I slid it int
o the top hole.
I closed my eyes and breathed out into the instrument. My fingers moved on pure instinct; I had been playing the oboe since I was ten and there was not a fingering I didn’t know. It was like an extension of myself, and whenever I wasn’t playing, I always felt a little incomplete.
The music swirled around me like a tangible thing. It drowned everything out, and the sudden touch of a hand on my shoulder jolted me so hard, the reed banged against my teeth. “Ow.” I looked up to see Maureen smiling at me.
“You’re pretty good.” She wheeled the blood pressure machine up to the bed. “What was that, Mozart?”
“No, Vivaldi. He was earlier than Mozart.” Most people used Mozart as their first guess when it came to classical music. And, to be fair, sixty percent of the time, they were right.
Maureen wound the blood pressure band around my arm. “You must be pretty serious about it. I mean, you did just have a heart transplant.” She leaned in and winked. “It’s okay to take a break.”
I shook my head. “No. I can’t. My Juilliard audition is in March.”
“I’m sure you could postpone it. You do have extenuating circumstances.”
“You can’t postpone Juilliard. It doesn’t work like that.”
The machine beeped. Maureen squinted at it. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about Juilliard. Your blood pressure just shot through the roof.”
I picked up my oboe and started to play again. Maureen half smiled and started the machine again. I was so lost in the music that I barely felt the band squeeze my arm. After the beep, I laid my oboe across my lap. Maureen nodded. “Normal.”
“See?” My hands curled around the instrument like a beloved pet. “It’s helping me heal.”
She ripped the band off my arm, chuckling. “Okay, okay. Just don’t let Dr. Harrison see it. She’s not as into alternative medicine as I am.”
I played well into the night, the sky darkening outside my window. It wasn’t just that the oboe kept me calm. As long as I was playing, I couldn’t hear the Catch.