The Forgetting

by Nicole Maggi

  Chapter Three

  Finally, eight days after waking up from surgery, I got the okay from Dr. Harrison to check out. Maureen gave me my last vitals check before Mom and Dad arrived to pick me up. The thermometer slipped out of my mouth twice as I clenched my jaw up and down. “Stay still,” she admonished.

  “Sorry.”

  The blood pressure machine beeped. “Whoa. Maybe we need to get your oboe out.”

  “That high?”

  “Yeah.” Maureen adjusted the band around my arm. “Take a few deep breaths.”

  I concentrated on inhaling and exhaling. In, out…catch…in, out…catch. There it was. In between every breath, every heartbeat. It was so obvious to me. How could no one else hear it?

  Maureen ripped the band off my arm. “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re definitely anxious about something.” She waved the band in the air. “This doesn’t lie.”

  I squirmed. “It’s nothing.”

  “Georgie, I’m going to have to tell Dr. Harrison and she’s probably going to want to keep you here another day for observation.”

  “No!” I bit my lip and looked down at my lap. The sooner I got home, the sooner I could surround myself with the noise of my life and drown out the sound of the Catch. I couldn’t stay in the hospital another minute or I’d lose myself.

  “Then tell me what’s up.”

  “Okay.” I toyed with a loose thread in my sheets. “I keep feeling this…thing. It’s sort of in between my heartbeats. Like a…a catch or something.” She didn’t say anything so I shook my head. “Forget it. It’s probably just in my head.”

  “Let me take your pulse.” Maureen picked up my wrist and counted my pulse against her watch. Her yoga beads brushed my skin. A gentle, calming heat emanated from them. After a minute, she set my hand down. “Your pulse is good. Strong. Steady.”

  “I’m sure I’m just imagining it.”

  Maureen tapped her finger on the side rail of my bed. “Maybe. Or…maybe not.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean?”

  She pressed her mouth into a thin line. When she spoke, it was deliberate, like she was thinking a lot about what she was saying. “Some transplant recipients say they can feel the organ of their donor, that it feels…different. Like it’s slightly out of step with the rest of their body.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “Exactly like that! Does that mean something’s wrong?”

  “No,” Maureen said firmly. “But you do have someone else’s heart in place of yours now.” She sat down in the chair closest to the bed and rested her forearms on the rail. “The human body is a marvelous piece of machinery. It’s designed to work beautifully together. And it does, when everything is working right. Then something goes wrong with one part, and the machine fails.

  “You can replace that one part and the machine will work again. That’s science, and it’s amazing what science can do.” Her lips curved into a half-smile. “But there’s something beyond science. Call it God or mystery or whatever you want. It’s the metaphysical. And I think that’s what happens after an organ transplant. Some part of your donor was imprinted on her heart, and now that’s inside of you.”

  I shivered. So I was a different person now. “Who was she?” I whispered.

  Maureen shook her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “If part of her is imprinted inside of me, I have a right to know.”

  “Georgie, there are rules—”

  “Please.”

  Her features softened. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t tell you.” She looked over her shoulder and leaned in closer to me. “I really can’t,” she said, her voice so quiet it was barely there, “because she was a Jane Doe.”

  My breath froze somewhere between my throat and my mouth. A Jane Doe? As in, unidentified? What kind of person was so alone in this world that no one claimed her, even in death? A lost girl…

  Maureen rose from the chair and perched herself on the side of the bed. “Listen, I need to take your blood pressure again, and it needs to be in the realm of normal before I can let you leave. You can’t reach for your oboe every time you feel anxious, so let’s try this.” She put both her hands over her heart and moved them in small circles. “There’s a word in Sanskrit—sukha. It means sweetness. Close your eyes and just imagine sweetness flowing in and out of your heart.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is this some yoga thing?”

  “Yes, and it’s been known to work. Just try it.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, I closed my eyes and put my hands over my heart. The warmth of my palms seemed to sink through the layers of skin and bone that separated them from the heart within. After a minute, I felt Maureen gently wrap the band around my arm. I kept up the motion until the machine beeped. I opened my eyes. “One-thirty over eighty-five,” she said. “I’ll take it.”

  She rolled the machine toward the door and paused. “It doesn’t matter who she was, Georgie,” she said. “The heart is yours now. It’s what you do with it that matters.”

  I shook my head as she left the room. How could that be? If part of Jane Doe was imprinted on her heart, how could I ever be myself again? As long as I heard the Catch, as long as I could still feel her echo there, the heart would never be mine.

  • • •

  Our house had never looked as inviting as when we pulled into the drive. The Christmas lights twinkled merrily in the falling dusk. “You guys still haven’t taken the lights down?” My parents procrastinated about this every year, but this was a little late even for them.

  Mom twisted her head back to glance at me. “We’ve been a little preoccupied.”

  “Besides, we thought it would be festive for your homecoming,” Dad said.

  Festive was an understatement when we walked into the house. A huge banner proclaiming WELCOME HOME, GEORGIE hung across the archway leading to the living room. Candles covered every surface, alongside dozens of vases filled with flowers. Colt and half a dozen of my friends stood clustered under the banner, cheering and clapping as I entered. Our closest family friends were there too, along with—

  “Grandma!” I lurched forward and buried my face in my grandmother’s hair. I breathed in her Shalimar scent, the smell I’d forever associate with her. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, giving me a kiss that I was sure left a perfect imprint of red lipstick on my cheek. “Though your mother wanted to tell you because she was worried about the shock to your heart.” She winked. “I told her you could handle it.”

  “I’m so happy to see you.” My throat was tight and the edges of my vision blurred a little. I swallowed hard several times and eased out of her arms. I didn’t want my friends to think I was a complete sap who cried over a visit from Grandma. She seemed to understand and gave my arm a little squeeze before disappearing back toward the kitchen.

  My friends dragged me into the living room and started the party. They sat me in the oversized armchair and piled presents on my lap. Tray after tray of heart-healthy food came out of the kitchen (the avocadoes must’ve cost a fortune this time of year), music was turned up, and at one point I looked up to see my parents kissing in the corner. The relief and happiness on their faces mended something inside me, that piece of guilt for the dark circles under my mother’s eyes, for the fact they hadn’t had time to take the Christmas lights down, that my mother worried about the shock a surprise as lovely as my grandmother might give me. I was home, and we were whole again.

  It was very late before everyone left, and even though I begged to have Ella stay over, Mom put her foot down. “You need your rest and I know you’d stay up all night talking,” she said. “It’s your first night back. You can have a sleepover next weekend.”

  “I’ll call you in the mo
rning,” Ella promised. Face half-hidden in a thick woolen scarf, she galloped down the front steps to Toni’s waiting car by the curb.

  I shut the door and leaned back against it. The house was quiet now, with just the soft whoosh of the central heat and the murmur of voices from the kitchen. Without the pulse of music and the loud chatter of my friends, I heard it again. The Catch. I pressed my hand to my chest. No. Not here. I was home, I was safe. It was just my imagination…

  I pushed away from the door and walked back to the kitchen. Grandma stood at the sink, working through the massive pile of dishes. “Need some help?”

  “No, sweetie. You sit down.”

  I sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table without arguing. I was tired. Being in the hospital was boring, which was exhausting in its own way, but being home took energy too. I set my elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hand. “When did you fly in?”

  “This afternoon. I was going to come last week, but Liv thought it would be more helpful to have me here after you got home.”

  “You’ll be here a while, right?”

  Grandma stacked the last bowl in the dishwasher and smiled at me. “As long as you want, sweetie. I have an open-ended ticket.”

  I smiled back. Having Grandma in the house always made it seem more lively. Most of my other friends had cozy grandmas, ones who knitted and baked and had short hair. My Grandma was, well, cool. She lived in an off-the-grid house just outside of Santa Fe that was covered in solar panels and overrun with rescued animals. She practiced yoga and attended meditation workshops. She didn’t knit but she made her own candles, and almost everything she baked had ingredients like sprouted wheat and sunflowers. And she wore her hair in long braids that she spiraled up at the crown of her head.

  Mom and Dad sauntered into the kitchen, each with an almost-empty glass of red wine in their hands. “Thanks for cleaning up, Mom,” my mother said.

  “I’m here to help.” Grandma wiped her hands on the dishcloth and tossed it lightly onto the counter. “Anyone up for a game of Hearts?”

  “I am!” Colt appeared behind my parents and pushed into the kitchen past them. “Hey, that’s appropriate, isn’t it? Hearts!” He poked me in the arm. I slapped at his hand while my parents groaned at his obvious joke. Grandma, though, looked a little stricken.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t even think—”

  “Oh please,” I said. “‘Heart’ is not a dirty word. We can talk about it. Right?” I looked at each of them in turn, at their faces. Could I talk about it? Could I tell them about the Catch? Right off, I knew I couldn’t talk to my mom. There was still a shadow around her face, the shadow of almost losing her daughter. It was too raw. My dad would pull something like Shelley or Dante or Kipling off the shelf and flip open a page that he thought explained exactly what I was going through. It was like he didn’t trust his own words to relate something to me.

  Colt would get excited and start looking up all the sci-fi blogs he read and probably tell me that what I was experiencing was most definitely an alien invasion.

  But Grandma… I watched her watching me, her bright blue eyes so inquisitive and curious. She hadn’t spent Christmas with us because she’d been at an ashram in India. Yes, she was a possibility.

  The thing was, I wasn’t sure there was anything to tell. It could be the meds or my own overactive imagination. Or I could just be crazy.

  I looked at all of them and suddenly wanted nothing more than to be alone. Faking a huge yawn, I got to my feet. Immediately, my parents were at my side, helping me to my feet. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

  “Of course, sweetie—”

  “You need your sleep—”

  I hugged Grandma on my way out of the kitchen. “We’ll play Hearts tomorrow for sure. Okay, Grandma?”

  “Of course.” She kissed my temple. “Sweet dreams, love.”

  I climbed the stairs and paused at the top to catch my breath. Dr. Harrison had said it would feel like an anvil on my chest for a while, and she wasn’t kidding. I pushed myself away from the wall and headed to my room. The dim hall light cast shadows along the walls, and the ancient floorboards creaked under my feet. It was strange, but my gut twisted and my palms tingled as I approached my room, like I wasn’t quite sure what I’d find when I opened the door.

  Inside, everything seemed to be in its right place. The paisley bedspread, the clothes that I had thrown on the floor the day before I went into the hospital…it was all still there. My music stand and the tall stack of music at its base, just waiting for me. Everything was the same.

  But it all felt completely different, like a place I’d never been and had no memory of. Why was my room so pink? I hated that vile color. I walked in circles around the room, touching things here and there, trying to relearn them. I stopped in front of my dresser and fingered the jewelry tree with its jumble of necklaces and earrings. I slipped on a big cocktail ring. It rubbed against my skin, like I was borrowing it without asking.

  I pulled open the top drawer and fished out a pair of sweats and a tank top to sleep in. A good night’s sleep in my own bed… That would fix everything. I turned off the light and crawled under the covers.

  I jerked awake after what felt like only a minute. Darkness cloaked every inch of the room. I sat up. Panic snaked through me. This wasn’t my room. This room smelled sweet and clean, and moonlight spilled in through a window. I had never slept in a room with a window.

  I never know what time it is in my room because no light squeezes in. Even the door reaches all the way to the floor. Dankness clings to the walls and I can’t breathe deeply in here, not without getting a mouthful of mold. The air is too close, like there’s not enough of it. I grope for the flashlight I keep next to my bed so I won’t have to step onto the concrete floor to flip the switch by the door…

  But the flashlight wasn’t there.

  Pain seized my chest. My hand collided with the ornate lamp on the nightstand and I clicked it on. A soft circle of light pooled on the wall. I blinked. I was in my own room, with its plush carpeted floors and large bay window and lamps on each side of the bed. Why would I think I was in a room barely bigger than a closet, sleeping on a cot that was too small for me? Where had that memory come from? I closed my eyes and let the picture form. Clear and vivid, I saw that room. I knew every nook and cranny of that room. But as far as I could remember, I had never been there. How could I remember someplace I had never been?

  The middle-of-the-night hush closed in on me and the only sound was the Catch, breathing in between my heartbeats like it was its own being. I moved my hand in slow circles over my heart but there was no sweetness to be found. In the stillness of the sleeping house, I let myself think the unthinkable. The memory of that room didn’t belong to me, and neither did the memory of that strawberry shortcake.

  Those memories belonged to the previous owner of my heart.

  Chapter Four

  I eased back on my pillow and stared at the ceiling. Slivers of moonlight slit the dark, illuminating things in pieces. A shard of my closet door, a fragment of the dollhouse in the corner that I hadn’t played with in years. It was crazy. How could I have memories that didn’t belong to me? But they were there, as crystal clear as other memories I knew were mine. My heart donor had slept in that room. I knew it. Just as I knew she had loved strawberries and hated pink.

  I rolled onto my side and stared at the shadow the lamplight made on the wall. This was insane. Was it, though? Reports I’d found online often said that transplant recipients retained something from their donor, like a sudden sweet tooth. Was it that far of a leap from a sugar craving to a memory?

  Well, yes. It was a pretty big freaking leap. I stared at the old-fashioned alarm clock on my nightstand. The hands pointed to four thirty-three. Now fully awake, I could easily think that it had been a dream.

 
But it wasn’t. I knew the difference between a dream and a memory. And I hadn’t taken a Vicodin since the strawberry incident. Despite the whir from the heating vents, cold swept over my bare arms. I pulled the covers up to my chin but I was wide awake now and there was no way I could get back to sleep. Even under the heavy comforter I was cold, cold down into my bones.

  I leaned over and opened my nightstand drawer. The scent of lavender wafted into the air from the potpourri sachet Mom had given me for all my drawers for Christmas. I pulled out scarves and trinkets and funny cards that Ella had given me over the years and laid them all in a careful semi-circle on my bed.

  Each item represented something special: a birthday, making the National Honor Society, the summers I spent at Interlochen. This was who I was, not some stupid memory of a bedroom belonging to a girl I’d never met. What mattered was where I went from here, and where I was going was Juilliard.

  I picked up the music-note pin I’d worn to my very first recital. What mattered was the future—my future—and no one could take that away from me.

  • • •

  When I turned up in the kitchen the next morning for breakfast, Grandma handed me a bowl of oatmeal. “Heart-healthy and delicious,” she told me after I made a face at the mush.

  “I guess I have to learn to like it, huh?”

  “I put brown sugar in it to sweeten it up.” She sat down across the table from me, a steaming mug of coffee wrapped in her hands. “How are you feeling today, sweetheart?”

  I dug my spoon into the thick oatmeal, not meeting her eyes. “Okay, I guess. My chest still hurts a lot.”

  Grandma grimaced. “Didn’t they give you something for that?”

  “Yeah, but I hate taking it. It makes my head feel weird.” That was true. But I knew the drugs weren’t to blame for the memories.

  “Well, better that than being in pain, right?”

  I shrugged and swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal. It was actually pretty good, and I couldn’t really remember why I hated it so much. Great. Another thing I couldn’t remember.