Second Hand Heart

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  The sun wasn’t even up yet, but it was just barely light.

  We came around another curve, and I turned my head even farther to look and Jax kissed my nose.

  • • •

  We had to park in the overflow extra trailhead parking. There weren’t too many people around, and I couldn’t figure out who owned all those cars. Usually when you see that many cars parked you see a few people to go with them.

  “Where are all the people to go with these cars?” I asked while he was locking up his mom’s car.

  “They’re on the mountain.”

  “They went up in the dark?”

  “Some of them. Some people start at midnight or one in the morning to get up there before noon. Some camp on the trail and do it in more than one day. This is the most popular time of year for Mount Whitney. Because there’s so much snow on it the rest of the time.”

  I looked around at all the gray, granitey-looking mountains on each side of us, and the little seams of snow in them. I could hear a waterfall somewhere but I couldn’t see it.

  I felt weird being up here in just sandals.

  We walked kind of slow to the trailhead, which was pretty steep uphill, and already I was getting really out of breath. It was scary. Like all the air got sucked out of my lungs, no matter how hard I tried to breathe in. Like it used to be.

  I stopped and leaned my hands on my knees, and bent forward and tried to catch my breath.

  When I looked up, there was a group of three hikers walking by very close to us. Two guys and one woman. They had those huge packs that look really solid and go up higher than your head, and they had rolled-up stuff — maybe sleeping bags or pads — strapped to the packs. And they had poles, those kind that are like ski poles but they’re for hiking. And they were wearing shorts, and very big solid boots, and incredibly thick socks with thinner socks underneath. You could see their underneath-socks sticking out at the top.

  I looked at the packs, and I looked at the woman’s legs. They had these muscles in the back that were really nicely visible. They were all ropey and fit-looking. And I got this attack of something, but I swear I don’t know what it was. It just hit me. But I’m still not sure exactly what it was. Just that it hit me.

  It’s like I really missed having legs with ropey calf muscles, and a big tall pack on my back. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because I never did. But that’s what it was, even though it was impossible that it could have been that. I’m sorry, it just was anyway.

  I know how it feels to miss something. And I missed ropey calf muscles and big backpacks. It made a spot inside me ache. I mean, really ache. A big, ugly ache.

  And then all of a sudden that missing made me miss Richard. Not that I didn’t usually. Not that I didn’t in general. But suddenly, and much more. In fact, it hit me so hard that I said it out loud.

  I straightened all the way up and said, “Oh my God, I just miss Richard so much.”

  I didn’t mention backpacks and ropey calf muscles. Just Richard.

  It was just light enough that I could see the look on Victor’s face. It wasn’t good.

  “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” he said.

  “Well. I don’t know that he’s my boyfriend. But I sure miss him.”

  “You feeling OK to walk some more?”

  “Yeah. OK.”

  I thought we’d talk about Richard some more, but I guess Victor didn’t want to. I took a bunch more steps uphill, and right away my lungs emptied out again. I wondered if Richard missed me, and if he was scared for me.

  “Don’t let me forget the postcards,” I said. It was hard to even breathe enough to say it. I mean, to say it well enough that he could understand.

  “OK.” Long pause.

  I was starting to think I couldn’t walk any more. Then he said, “Is the postcard for Richard?”

  “One is. And one is for my mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t think I can walk any farther.”

  “But that’s the trailhead right up there. Here. Take Jax’s leash. He’ll pull you.”

  I took the leash and it did help a little bit. At first. But it also made me walk faster than I wanted to.

  But we got to the trailhead.

  I sat down on a bench and tried to catch my breath. “I can’t do this,” I said. “I don’t have strong muscles like you do. And like those people that went by us. You need to practice to be in shape. I’ve never been in shape, not once in my whole life. And I can’t breathe. And I can’t do this.”

  “We’ll just sit a while,” he said.

  The sun was almost up, and it was pretty there at the trailhead, even though I had to watch guys with big calf muscles go by. At least seven of them. I mean, at least seven guys. Which would be fourteen calves. At least. But I guess I sort of lost count.

  “Maybe I’ll just go get some postcards,” I said.

  “You see that shelter?”

  I looked up. The trail went up a few switchbacks to sort of a … well, I don’t think I would call it a shelter. I’m not sure what it was. Just sort of a big framework of wood that you walk through. But it was made of slats, so it wouldn’t shelter you from much. I’m not sure what it was supposed to be for.

  “Let’s just try going up there,” he said.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  I swear, I must have made the worst showing of anybody who ever set their feet on the Mount Whitney Trail. Because this shelter thingy was like about as far from the trailhead as your car is when you park in a parking lot to go to the store. I mean, if you can’t get a close space. And I barely made it, even with Jax pulling me.

  Maybe it was the lack of air, or the fact that it was pretty steep uphill. Maybe it’s because I was letting myself get scared. Oh, yeah, and the recent heart-transplant thing might factor in there somewhere. That and the fact that I really never got a lot of exercise pretty much anytime in my whole life.

  When we got inside the thing, there were all these signs with pictures and information about all the horrible stuff that could happen to you when you hike up to Mount Whitney. I couldn’t figure out how anybody could walk by signs like that and not be afraid.

  Except …

  Except I remembered something. Only I’m pretty sure it was something that never happened to me. I mean, it didn’t. I know it didn’t. It couldn’t have. But I know how it feels to remember something, and I remembered this.

  I remembered a sign with a drawing on it of a man staggering from exhaustion. He had one hand up to his head, like he was in pain. And under that were the words: “Warning: Do not attempt to hike to the river and back in one day.” Or maybe a slightly longer version of the same message. And then under that it had some more stuff on it in other languages.

  And I walked by it. And I wasn’t afraid. Well, maybe a little. But I didn’t stop. Maybe partly because I wasn’t coming back that same day.

  Except none of that ever happened to me.

  But I still remembered it. I could actually see a picture of the sign in my head.

  “Let’s go back now,” I said. “I just want to get some postcards and go back.”

  I was feeling a little weirded-out and confused.

  On the way back down, I said, “Have you ever missed something that never happened to you?”

  “Well, sure,” Victor said. “I think everybody sits around and thinks about stuff they didn’t get to do.”

  I don’t think that was what I meant. But I didn’t want to try to explain it. It made me tired even thinking about trying to explain it.

  “Have you ever remembered anything that never happened to you?”

  “Uh. No. That would be impossible. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess that would be impossible.”

  • • •

  While we were driving back down the terrifying Portal Road, I took a pen out of the glove compartment and wrote on Richard’s postcard.

  I wrote, “Dear Richard,
I miss you so much. I hope you miss me even a little bit. I was on the Mount Whitney Trail today, but don’t worry about the heart, because I didn’t go very far. Did Lorrie like to hike?”

  I swear I didn’t know I was going to write that last sentence until I did.

  Then I wrote, “Well, I guess you can’t answer. But I’ll be back. Sometime. Love, Vida.”

  Maybe he was off looking for me. Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing?

  Then I tried to do the one to my mother, but I couldn’t think what to write, so I had to save it for later.

  About Germany

  When I got back to the motel, it was still only about eight o’clock in the morning. Esther was snoring.

  I lay down on the bed real quietly, but she seemed to figure out I was there, even in her sleep, because she stopped snoring and then she talked to me.

  She said, “It’s early yet. Did you go up the mountain?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t walk very far.”

  “Just as well,” she said.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think it would have been better if I’d walked farther. I could have. I could have just stopped and sat down on a rock and rested as long as I needed to, and then I could have gone farther. I just got scared. And I have to stop doing that.”

  “What do you have to stop doing?”

  “Getting scared.”

  “I wish you all the best of luck with that,” she said. “I’m not sure fear is a part of life that can be stopped at will.”

  “Oh. Well, then, maybe I’ll just have to start getting scared but not letting it stop me.”

  “You’re a better woman than I am if you can.”

  I think neither one of us really knew what to say after that, so we just lay there, each on our own little beds, and stayed quiet for a while.

  Then Esther said, “You know where I really wanted to go, don’t you?”

  And I said, “No. You said it was Manzanar.”

  “Well. That’s where I wanted to go that was possible. But you know where I really wanted to go, right?”

  I thought about it for a while. But I definitely didn’t. “Not a clue,” I said.

  “Really? I thought you would guess right away.”

  “Sorry. You’re going to have to tell me.”

  “I wanted to go back to Buchenwald. But I knew I didn’t have the money to go all the way back to Germany, plus I’m too old now for such a long trip. I should have done it while I had the chance. I see that now.”

  I was surprised, so it took me a while to say anything.

  Finally what I said was, “Why would you want to go back there?” I was thinking, with all the time it took me to talk, I should have come up with something better than just that.

  “Two reasons. One, for the same reason I came to Manzanar. To feel it. To see who is still hanging around. But now I know the answer to that. Because what is true at Manzanar will be true at Buchenwald. Not that they are the same thing. But they are different degrees of the same thing. And I don’t think that the degree of a wrong will change anything so basic as whether or not it can be wiped clean. The second reason is to tell it something. I wanted to look Buchenwald in the eye — figuratively speaking of course, because Buchenwald has no eyes — and tell it, “I won and you lost.’”

  “Does it still have the buildings and all?”

  “Not many, no. It is much like Manzanar in that respect. All the barracks were blown up or burned to the ground. There is still the fence, and the gate, and the guard towers. A few buildings, I think, but I’m not sure which ones. But the ground is sacred because so many died there. So many spirits, or so I thought. So much energy of what came to pass. So people still go to visit. To work out their own feelings about such a thing, I suppose. But I have missed my chance now. I will never go.”

  “You might live long enough to go.”

  “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  I didn’t want to argue with her about a thing like that. What did I know about it, anyway? But it made me sad.

  “Maybe I’ll go,” I said.

  “Well, if you do,” she said, “give it that message from me. Tell it, ‘Esther Schimberg won and you lost.’ I would have preferred to tell it myself. But that will be better than nothing.”

  The Ride Home

  Esther wasn’t feeling too good. I had to help her get dressed, which was kind of weird and embarrassing. Not that I minded. I mean, it’s just life. It just is. But I think she might have minded some.

  And then when she was decent, I had to go get Victor, and he had to help her out to the car.

  I think we might have had a plan to go see more of Manzanar in the morning before we left. We had talked about that, anyway. But it was so obviously out of the question that no one even brought it up again. We just headed for home, where she could rest.

  We gave her the whole back seat, and Jax rode up front between Victor and me, which was a tight squeeze.

  She fell back asleep almost right away.

  I asked Victor if we could stop at a mailbox on our way through Independence. So I could mail my postcard, but I didn’t volunteer that part. I just wanted to mail the one. To Richard. I still hadn’t thought what I was going to say to my mother.

  “Why, so you can send a postcard to that Richard guy?”

  “Right.”

  I knew he didn’t like it, but what was I supposed to do about it? I can’t be in charge of what he likes, and my life just is what it is, no matter what he feels about it. I can’t stop loving Richard just to make Victor feel better.

  He stopped at a mailbox in front of the post office, but he didn’t say a word. I had to get out and walk around. For one awful minute I got it in my head that he might drive off without me. Esther was already asleep and wouldn’t be able to tell him to stop.

  All my medications were in my overnight bag in the trunk, and I have to take them every day. For the rest of my life. I could literally have died if he drove off with them. Depending on how long it took me to get home, I guess.

  But he didn’t do that, of course. It was just my brain playing tricks on me.

  We drove north for about an hour, and the mountains were on our left now, so to look at them I had to look past Victor’s face. He kept looking back over at me, like maybe I was looking at him and not the mountains. And, I mean, he did that so many times that I started to wonder why he wasn’t getting it yet.

  Finally I gave up and just closed my eyes and saw the mountains in my head instead.

  Then something weird happened. Something very weird.

  Jax sort of whimpered once, and then he jumped into the back seat with Esther. And he lay down with his head on her lap.

  “Holy crap!” Victor said, and started looking for a place to pull over. But there wasn’t anywhere. “Oh, God, if she wakes up she’s going to have a fit. She’s going to kill me. Jax!” He kind of hissed it. Like, trying to sound really mad, and strong, so the dog would obey him, but without making too much noise. The dog looked up at him. His eyes looked guilty. But he didn’t come. “Jax!” A little louder this time. He sounded really panicky. I wondered what it would feel like to be so scared of Esther. “Jax, goddamn it! Get up here!”

  That last time was too loud. He woke up Esther.

  She stirred a bit. Her eyes flickered and she looked down.

  She picked up her hand and patted Jax three times on the head. Nice firm, thumpy pats. Then she went back to sleep.

  Victor and I looked at each other. For as long as we could before he had to look back at the road. You know. Watch where he was driving.

  “What do I do?” he asked. “Should I stop? Should I try to get him back up here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess not. I guess it’s OK the way it is.”

  I could just feel how nervous he was, though. I started to write that he was nervous the whole ride home. But I don’t really know that. Because moving cars put me to sleep. Like I said before. So after a while I was aslee
p. And I really don’t know how Victor felt after that. But if I had to guess, I would guess that he was nervous.

  • • •

  Next thing I knew, Victor was shaking me by the shoulder. Still all panicky. Still or again, I’m not really sure. He wasn’t in the driver seat any more. The passenger door was open, and he was on the sidewalk by my shoulder, trying to get me to wake up.

  I opened my eyes and we were in front of our building. We were home.

  I was wondering why we didn’t have a plan for getting back in without my mother noticing.

  “What?” I said. “Yeah, we’re home. I get it.”

  “We got a problem,” he said.

  “Yeah? What kind of problem?”

  “The kind where I’m pretty sure Esther’s dead.”

  On the Stairs

  We sat on the stairs outside where Esther and I used to live. And where I used to live with my mother. And where my mother still did. Waiting.

  I cried. A lot.

  Victor didn’t cry. I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to. He wasn’t really Esther’s friend. He was just her driver.

  Jax was still in the back of the car with Esther. He wouldn’t leave her.

  We were waiting for somebody to show up, but I’m not sure who. Victor made the calls. Not me.

  I was busy crying.

  After a few minutes my mother came out and stood in front of me with her mouth open. It was like she wanted to say so many things at once that they jammed up and got stuck, and then she couldn’t say anything at all.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. I think I was hugging my own knees by then.

  She didn’t seem to notice that I was crying.

  When she finally got unstuck, she shrieked at me. She shrieked, “Vida, where on earth have you been?”

  I didn’t really feel like fighting or anything. Because, you know, Esther just died. And I wasn’t feeling so great.

  So I just said, “I went to Manzanar with Esther.”

  “You were with Esther?” The shrieking was getting louder. I was wishing she’d get stuck again. “She swore you weren’t!”