Second Hand Heart

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. Yelling to be heard, and kind of directing the words over his skinny right shoulder. “Really near where we’re going. The Portal Road is, like, ten miles from Manzanar.”

  Esther winced and put one hand over her left ear because he’d been yelling in it.

  Esther is usually pretty patient with me, but not always, and she is definitely not patient with everybody. Believe me.

  I said, “I’m sorry?”

  Thing is, I’d heard him. I just wanted not to talk. I wanted to look at the amazing real mountains in peace, and not be part of Esther getting her left ear yelled into. So, even though I didn’t actually say, “I didn’t hear you,” I said something that definitely gave the impression that I didn’t. Which is further from the truth than I usually let myself get.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  So I just looked at the mountains and petted Jax, and thought about how that was the second time I’d said something that maybe wasn’t one hundred per cent true, and how both times were recently. Both since I got the heart. It made me wonder if always telling the truth was a thing only for people who are about to die. And who know it.

  That would explain why it’s not such a common thing.

  Manzanar Again

  This time I don’t have to only write about talking about going to Manzanar. I get to write about actually being there.

  The first thing I want to write is that it was hot. Very hot. The second thing is that even though I think there were lots of buildings at one time, they are now almost all torn down.

  There was a wooden guard tower, though, which was sort of creepy.

  We tried to get Esther into the interpretive center (which is what they call it), but she didn’t seem interested. Victor and I went inside, and I thought it was sad, but worth seeing.

  “There’s a movie,” Victor said when we came out.

  “I don’t need to see a movie,” she said. “A movie I can see at home. Victor, take us on the driving tour. Please. I wish to see the cemetery.”

  So we started driving down these dirt roads, with signs that mark what buildings used to be where, before they tore them all down. It looked … what’s the word I’m searching for here? Desolate. Like one of those patches of land the government gives to the Indians for a reservation, because they don’t want it for anything else. Nobody would.

  “I’m not sure where the cemetery is,” Victor said, pointing at the map in Esther’s lap.

  “Well, it isn’t hard to know,” she said. “Don’t you see that memorial?”

  We all looked, even Jax, and there was the top of a white stone memorial. I think you call the shape an obelisk. It was huge. I’m not sure how tall it was, but maybe twice as high as a person. I’m guessing. It had some Japanese alphabet symbols on it. I don’t read Japanese, in case that doesn’t go without saying.

  We drove to that, and we all got out to look.

  There were a few graves around it. Just a few. And a fence most of the way around that was made out of sticks in a criss-cross pattern. At the open part, where you can go in, there was a big rock right in the middle of the dirt in the entryway, and it was all covered with change. Coins, I mean. Money. I put about fifty-two cents on it, but I’m not sure why.

  We walked in the dirt, in the sun, up closer, to see what was all over and around the memorial. Turned out to be things people had left, like rocks and coins and lots and lots of different-colored origami cranes.

  Esther was being really quiet, standing in front of the few little graves.

  I stood there beside her, kind of worrying about how hard she was breathing, and listening to Jax panting real loud on the other side of me, and watching those surreal waves of heat that rise up in your line of sight when it’s, like, a hundred degrees.

  I said to Esther, “Did you know it was almost all torn down?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Always when a camp is not needed they tear it to the ground. Because no one can deal with the memories. Because all the excuses are gone, and then nothing is left but the shame, and then it must go.”

  “Oh,” I said. Then I listened to the panting some more. From both sides of me. “But you still wanted to see it?”

  “Not exactly,” she said. “I wanted to feel it.”

  Before I could ask her what that meant she turned her head and looked past me to Victor and Jax. “Get some water for that dog,” she said. “He has a fur coat. It’s inhumane.”

  And Victor hurried off without saying a word. I asked Esther, “Was it hot at Buchenwald?”

  “Maybe it was,” she said. “But that’s not what I remember. What I remember is the cold. I can never forget the cold. When you have almost no food, almost no fat on your bones, the winter cold is unbearable. And unforgettable. Maybe there was summer heat and I have forgotten. I have forgotten a lot about Buchenwald. As much as I can.”

  “Maybe we should find some shade,” I said, because I was starting to worry about Esther.

  “In a minute. Right now I need to feel what’s here. Even though it’s in the sun.”

  I just waited for a really long time without saying anything. Because, you know. If she was feeling something, I didn’t want to interrupt.

  I watched her take out a lacy white cloth handkerchief and wipe the sweat off her forehead and neck.

  Finally I asked, “What are you trying to feel, Esther?”

  “I have always believed,” she said, “ever since I was a young girl, that the spirits of the people who were entrapped in a place like this get to go free. But the spirits of their jailers return, and stay. And are chained here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying God is vengeful and does this terrible thing to them. Only that guilt is very powerful, and must be served.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  Just then Victor and Jax got back.

  Victor brought Esther a folding chair. And he brought us each a bottle of cold water. Where he got a chair, I don’t know. It looked too big to be from his trunk. I figure he must have told the ranger or whoever was at the visitor center … I mean, interpretive center … that he was worried about Esther. He tried to set it up for her, but she pointed to the only shade there was, a little patch cast by the obelisk.

  “Maybe over there. I have felt here long enough, I think, and the sun is too hot.”

  She actually looked like she was about to pass out. Victor tried to take her by the arm to lead her over there, but she wouldn’t walk that close to Jax. So I took hold of Jax’s leash and walked behind them. I was feeling a little woozy myself. While Victor was setting up the chair in the shade, Esther looked at my face.

  “You don’t look good,” she said. “Victor, you should have brought a chair for Vida. She had a heart transplant, you know. She’s no stronger for this trip than I am, even at her young age.”

  But then she sat down in the only chair. So I guess she meant he should have brought another.

  He ran off again to get another chair, and Jax pulled hard and jumped and whined to go with him, so I let go of the leash and he ran and caught up to Victor.

  I squatted in the shade next to Esther’s chair. “So … what do you feel?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Nothing. This place is in absolute peace. Isn’t that interesting? A place like this. Where people were imprisoned just for their ancestry. People who were born in this country just like you, people who had done nothing, rounded up as if they were cattle. And now all is at peace. You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I thought a minute, but I wasn’t sure I did. “Not really.”

  “I think it means that the slates are wiped clean after we die. That we get to leave our guilts and our sins behind with this old piece of real estate,” she said, indicating the body she currently sweated in. “And if they can leave their guilt, surely we can leave our wounds. Wouldn’t you think so?”

  “That’s a nice idea,” I said.<
br />
  “I have never in my entire life been so happy to be wrong,” she said.

  The Mountain Victor Climbed

  It was late. Victor and I were out sitting by the pool. The motel where Esther got rooms for us (two — one for Victor because he’s a boy, and one for her and me, and Jax had to sleep in the car) is in Lone Pine, and it has a pool. I didn’t bring a suit, and neither did he. But it was nice out there, because everybody else was asleep, and it was super quiet and kind of cool compared to earlier that day, and the moon was a few days before full, and you could see the mountains. Almost as well as if it had been light. Well, not the same as during daylight. But you could really see them.

  Victor was telling me all about hiking Mount Whitney.

  He showed me which one it was, too. There’s a special way you can tell which one is Mount Whitney, because on the left it has these spires, and then it’s sort of like a spire itself, only wider, sitting just to the right of them.

  The weird thing is, it doesn’t look like the highest. But Victor told me it’s not just the highest in the Sierra Nevadas, it’s the highest in the whole United States, unless you count Alaska and Hawaii, and then it’s not.

  I asked why it didn’t look like the highest. He said it’s because it’s a lot farther back than the others that look higher.

  He talked a lot about the hike. And about how it felt to be on top of Mount Whitney, looking down. He told me it took ten hours to get up there, and he didn’t get to the top until nearly four in the afternoon, which is dangerous, because a lot of times there’s lightning in the afternoon, and it was a cloudy, sort of stormy day. He said it took him another seven hours to get down, and then he had to walk most of the way down in the dark.

  “Didn’t you keep tripping?” I asked. “Or get lost?”

  “I had a little headlamp.”

  “What kind of a lamp is that?”

  “It’s like a flashlight, but you wear it on your head.”

  “Oh.”

  We were quiet for a while in those nice cool lounge chairs, and I could still see which one was Mount Whitney.

  “Do you like to hike?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I love it.” And then I just sat there trying to figure a few things out. Because I have never once gone hiking in my whole entire life. “Actually,” I said, “I don’t know. Because, you know. With my heart and all. I never got to go.”

  “But you just said you loved it.”

  “I know. That was weird, huh? I guess I meant I always thought I would love it. You know. If I ever got to go.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll get up super early. And we’ll drive up to Whitney Portal. And I’ll show you the trail.”

  “Victor. Don’t be stupid. I can’t climb Mount Whitney.”

  “Well, I know that. But you can walk up the trail. Maybe a mile. Maybe half a mile. Maybe ten feet. I don’t know. But at least you can say you were on the Mount Whitney Trail. Even the drive up there is really cool. The road goes up to over eight thousand feet.”

  “You said you need a special permit and it’s hard to get.”

  See? I was paying attention.

  “Not from the trailhead to Lone Pine Lake. Anybody can do that as a day hike. Beyond the lake you need a permit. But we can do the first part of the trail, and Jax can go as far as the lake, too. I really want you to see it. It’s amazing.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “What about Esther?”

  “She looked like she was feeling really crappy. I think she’ll sleep in. We could leave her a note and say we’ll be back by nine. We could leave before the sun comes up.”

  “I don’t even have good shoes,” I said, pointing to my sandals.

  “We don’t have to go very far.”

  I felt like I was running out of excuses. But I still didn’t want to go. So I had to ask myself why. Why didn’t I want to go up there and see Whitney Portal and walk on a tiny bit of the trail?

  The answer was pretty simple. “I think I’m scared,” I said.

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just all new, and I’ve never done anything like that before, and it’s just scary, that’s all.”

  He didn’t answer. I guess because he didn’t have the kind of answer that would get me to go.

  We sat there for a while and looked at the mountains, and the way the moonlight made the snow glow white, like it glowed in the dark all by itself. Like snow was its own light source. I could hear Jax whimpering from the car because he wanted to be with us, but dogs are not allowed in the pool area.

  “Why didn’t you get him water?” I asked.

  “I did.”

  “I mean, until Esther told you to. It just seems weird. You love him, and Esther hates him, but you didn’t go get him water until she told you to.”

  “I thought maybe I wasn’t supposed to leave,” he said. “I thought maybe she was going to pass out from the heat, and I felt like I couldn’t leave if she didn’t say I could. She can be really … intimidating. You know?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t think she’s intimidating?”

  “Not at all. She’s just my friend.”

  “Wow. That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “Being afraid of Whitney Portal, but not being afraid of Esther. I just can’t picture that at all.”

  More sitting quietly, and then I said, “I’m going to go away soon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going.”

  “Do you know where you want to go?”

  “There’s a place,” I said. “I can almost see it in my head. But I don’t know exactly where it is.”

  “But it’s a real place?”

  “I think so.”

  “How will you find it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but isn’t that a lot scarier than driving up the Whitney Portal Road?”

  I thought about that for a while, and then I said, “Yeah, I guess I see your point about that.”

  “So you’ll go?” He sounded all happy and excited.

  “Is there a place up there to buy postcards?”

  “Yeah! There is. There’s a really cool little general store.”

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  I’m going to need to get a whole lot braver, and I’m thinking that’s one of those things that you just need to keep working on. You know. Like if you wanted to play the piano. Like practice.

  Esther Snores

  So when she’s quiet, I have to figure she’s awake.

  So I was just lying here writing in my book about Victor and Mount Whitney, and then I got that she was awake, and then she talked to me.

  “So, I’m thinking you are less nervous and scared,” she said.

  And it was weird, because just for a second I thought she knew everything about tomorrow morning. Already. Which would have been a little spooky.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you used to rub the worry stone all day long, and now you don’t.”

  Sometimes I hate being someone who always has to tell the truth.

  “It’s at Richard’s,” I said.

  “Richard?”

  “The heart man.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “I dropped it by mistake when I was at his house. And he’s keeping it safe until I can get back to get it.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “It was just an accident. It doesn’t mean I love it any less than ever.”

  “I know that. I understand.”

  “Esther? Are you really OK with finding out that all the slates get cleaned after we die? Or are you partly mad because that guard doesn’t still have to be suffering?”

  “I am mostly happy to know I will not need to be bumping into him again.”

  “Oh. OK. Good.”

  “You are almost a third of the
way through that book,” she said. “This is good.”

  “There’s been a lot going on to write about. Oh. By the way. Really early in the morning Victor is going to take me up to Whitney Portal. Maybe I’ll hike just a little tiny bit of the trail.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You just had a heart transplant.”

  “Well, not just. It was months ago. I mean, I had my eight weeks of follow-ups. And everything is fine. And anyway, I’m not going to go very far on it.”

  I did not mention that, although it’s true that for eight weeks you have to do follow-ups twice a week, after that you still have do them, just farther apart. And I had already missed one.

  See? There I go again.

  “Be careful. Because it’s very high altitude. Not much air up there. Be very careful.”

  Poor Esther. She’s spent so many years being careful that she doesn’t know how to stop now. Like my mother.

  Somebody should put a warning label on everything in life that’s about fear. Being afraid to die, being afraid your daughter will die, being afraid of getting hurt in love. It should all have a warning label to let people know it can be habit-forming.

  Once you decide to put all your energy into being scared of something, you might wake up one day and find out you have no idea how to stop. It happens to people. More often than anybody seems willing to admit.

  The Portal

  The road was very winding and tight, and it looked most of the time like Victor was about to drive right over the edge. Which is why I closed my eyes.

  “Isn’t it beautiful from up here?” he asked.

  And I said, “I don’t know. I have my eyes closed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a scary road.”

  “I’m not going to drive off it, if that’s what you mean. I’m being careful. You need to look. You’re missing a really nice view.”

  I opened my eyes and we were about two-thirds of the way up to the top of the road.

  I looked down. It made me dizzy, but it was pretty, too. Like just a little wedge of high desert below us, because the mountains on both sides covered up the view of the rest, and a lake that was almost all dry, and the little town of Lone Pine, which was not so little compared to Independence, but it was little.