Second Hand Heart

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  “Well, at the time she swore that, it was true.”

  “I am going to give that woman a piece of my mind,” she said.

  It made me tired. It reminded me how incredibly tiring it is to be around my mother. I almost didn’t have enough energy to answer.

  But I understood how she felt and all. I’d left her pretty much completely out of the loop, which I guess is a very bad place for a mother to be left. I should have known that. Well, I guess part of me did. It must have been hard for her to suddenly find out that Esther was in the loop all that time, when she wasn’t.

  I should’ve done better.

  Interesting how when I’m talking about my mother I use the word “should” a lot. Interesting to me anyway. I just can’t help noticing that lately.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think you can give Esther a piece of your mind.”

  “I’d like to see you stop me. I’d like you to tell me what’s going to stop me.”

  I looked over at Victor. I couldn’t be the one to say it. And I told him so with my eyes. Now, at the moment I did that, I really didn’t know Victor well enough to know if I could tell him something with my eyes. Some people you can do that with. Some you can’t. But he seemed to pick it up just fine.

  Score one for Victor.

  “Esther passed away,” he said. “She’s down there in my mother’s car. You can tell her anything you want, but I don’t think it’s going to make much difference.”

  My mother gave him the evil eye, one eyebrow raised. She looked over her shoulder. Down the stairs, toward the car.

  Then she went down there and looked for herself. Jax growled at her. Like he was protecting Esther. It was so sweet.

  My mother came bounding back up the stairs. “Well, don’t just sit there!” she said. “Call somebody! Do something!”

  “I already did,” Victor said. “I called the police, and they called the medical examiner. We’re just waiting for them to show up.”

  I thought it was weird that he seemed completely unintimidated by my mother. How could anyone find Esther intimidating but not my mother? It’s weird how we’re all scared of such different things.

  She was still staring him down. “Who are you?” she said.

  I said, “That’s pretty rude,” but she didn’t pay any attention.

  “I’m Esther’s driver,” he said. Without much emotion. I could tell that my mother definitely got it that she was getting nowhere with Victor. She turned her wrath back to me.

  “You missed an EMB.”

  “Yeah. I know. But it’s going really well. You know that. You know what Dr. Vasquez said.”

  “What did he say?” Victor asked. Like he’d been very interested in my health, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask until now.

  “She. Dr. Vasquez is a she. And she said I’m showing less of a tendency toward rejection than any patient she ever treated. I haven’t had one single rejection episode. Not one. Which is so far above the curve I can’t even tell you. And you were right there when she said it, Mother. So I don’t see what you’re so worried about.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have a right to miss an EMB.”

  “Mother. I just turned twenty. I have a right to do anything I want. Including go someplace else. Someplace that isn’t home.”

  “You had a birthday?” Victor asked. “When?”

  “While we were on our trip.”

  “You should have told me. We could have celebrated.”

  “We had a nice trip. I mean, until Esther died it was nice. So, that’s a celebration. Sort of.”

  “You should have told me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. There was a lot going on.”

  Speaking of which, my mother was getting even madder, if such a thing is possible, because we were talking about something that had nothing to do with this important thing that was all she could think about, and that she wasn’t done talking about yet.

  “Vida! Pay attention! Are you going to stay and have the EMB?”

  “Yes. I will. I promise. Now, please, Mom. Please. My best friend just died. And I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’ll come in and talk to you soon. I just can’t talk right now.”

  “I was worried out of my mind,” she said.

  And Victor kind of stood up — but only figuratively speaking, because actually his tall body was still sitting there on the stairs — and said something really brave.

  He said, “You obviously didn’t hear what Vida said. She said her best friend just died and she doesn’t want to talk right now.”

  Amazingly, my mother backed off two steps’ worth. For a long time she just stared. Her eyes were kind of narrower than usual.

  Then she said, to me, “I’m going to go back in now, but I’ll expect you in soon.”

  “Well, I don’t know how long this will take. Because I never turned a dead person over to the medical examiner before. But when I’m done, I’ll come in.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Mom,” I said, and she turned back around. “Here. I have a postcard for you.” I dug it out of my overnight bag and handed it to her.

  She turned it over in her hands twice. “There’s nothing written on it.”

  “I couldn’t think what to say.”

  “Oh. Well. Thanks, I guess.” Then she went back inside.

  I sat watching the empty spot where she had just been. Kind of amazed and grateful for the silence.

  “So that was my mother,” I said.

  “Yeah. Got it.”

  “You were really good. You didn’t let her back you down at all.”

  “I’m sick of being intimidated,” he said. “I’ve had it with that.”

  “Good. Good for you.”

  “What’s an EMB?”

  “Oh. Endomyocardial biopsy. Yeah, before you say it, I do realize that doesn’t answer the question. It’s this really yucky test where they go in through a vein, like my jugular. They’re monitoring for allograft rejection. Oh, my God, listen to me. Talk like a human being, right? It kind of warns them if my immune system is trying to kill the heart. Which I’m pretty sure it isn’t. But they still like to run a lot of tests. You can’t just tell them you’re pretty sure it isn’t. They want answers they can take to the bank.”

  We were quiet for a little while longer.

  Then I said, “I really am going to go away now. Well, not right now. I’ll go see the doctor, like my mother wants. Make sure everything is good with the heart. But then I’m going. I can’t stay here without Esther. She was the only thing keeping me here. It would break my heart to be here when she’s not. I just don’t know how I would cope.”

  “Wow, you were really close to her, huh? I could go away with you. Let me go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why would you want to go off all alone? It’ll be safer this way. And not so lonely. And you don’t even have a car. I have a car.”

  “Which car, though? Your car? Or your mom’s?”

  “Oh. Well. I can’t exactly run off in my mom’s car, now can I? She’ll need it.”

  “Yeah, but you told Esther your car might not even get to Manzanar without breaking down.”

  He chewed on his lip for a minute.

  “Well, which would you rather have when you want to go away? A car that might break down, or no car at all?”

  “That’s a good point,” I said. Then I thought about it a while longer. “But what about your band?”

  “Screw the band. Who cares? They suck. They can get a new bass player. They’re never going to amount to anything anyway. I’d rather go with you.”

  And, you know, really, it was pretty terrifying thinking of running off all by myself. I’d walk away from the front door and then … what? What would I bring with me, and would I have to carry it all? How could I carry it all? Where would I go to lie down when I got tired? At least you can sleep in a car. Even if it breaks down, you can sleep in it.

/>   “Maybe,” I said. “Only … just friends, right?”

  He squirmed a little. But then he said, “Yeah, OK. If that’s the only way it can be. Just friends, then.”

  “OK. I guess that would be good. If you’re really sure you want to go with me. Leave me with your phone number. When I find out how soon I can get this lovely EMB experience done, I’ll give you a call.”

  “We need to go through her place,” he said. “See if there’s somebody to contact.”

  “Esther doesn’t have any family. They’re all dead.”

  “Oh. Well, what do you think she would want for a funeral?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, and right away started to cry again.

  So Victor waited on the stairs for the police and the medical examiner, and I went through Esther’s stuff. It didn’t take long. She wasn’t what you might call a pack rat, like I guess I’ve mentioned before. She lived like a person on a camping trip in a solid wood tent in the city. Only what she needed to survive.

  I found some bank statements in a file. The most recent one showed she had $148 in a checking account. And I found a certificate for a pre-paid cremation.

  Cremation.

  Doesn’t that seem like a weird choice for somebody with Esther’s background? Cremation.

  But that’s what she wanted.

  I took it back outside to show to Victor and whoever was about to show up.

  When I Went Back In

  Of course, sooner or later I had to go in and talk to my mom.

  I hit what I hoped was a happy medium. Not so much sooner that I couldn’t bear it, but not so much later that she exploded or anything.

  “OK, I’m back,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She had calmed down quite a bit by then. Not that she was any less mad. She was just mad in a way that made a lot less noise.

  “Just out of curiosity,” she said, “which part are you sorry about?”

  So I said, “Well, I guess the part where I didn’t handle leaving very well, and also the part where you were worried out of your mind. Which I guess isn’t really two parts, exactly. I guess it’s really more like one part. One thing pretty much being the result of the other and all.”

  I was making it a point not to look at her eyes. Because she was using them to punish me. Maybe I deserved some punishment, but I was still a little raw and sort of in shock about the whole Esther thing.

  Didn’t she know that Esther was really important to me? She should have.

  Then again, I should have known that being told where I was going and when I’d be back were really important to her.

  There I go with the “shoulds” again.

  But really, I guess you can’t go around knowing nothing about other people and expecting them to know everything about you. It’s common enough. And it’s easy enough. But it isn’t really fair.

  “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

  “Because if I had, you’d have run right out there and dragged me home by the ear.”

  “You need to be home taking care of yourself.”

  “So you admit that’s what you would have done.”

  “I would’ve done what needed doing.”

  “So that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  I braved a quick look at her eyes. They were busy wrestling with something, which I guess had made them lose that intense focus on making me feel bad. Just to be safe, I didn’t look for long.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “I’ll tell you my decisions if you’ll respect them.”

  “Only if they’re decisions worthy of respect.”

  “You don’t get to be the judge of them. I’m twenty, Mom.”

  Then nobody said anything for a long time. So I went to my room to lie down.

  On my bedside table I found this huge bouquet of dead flowers, with a teddy bear sitting next to them. I opened the card. It was from my dad. He said he was sending a teddy bear with the flowers because “nobody should have to be a grown-up at a time like this.”

  Then I felt bad because I went off and became a grown-up without ever hugging the teddy bear, and because the flowers were dead by the time I saw them.

  I curled up on the bed with the little brown bear, and, sure enough, I found a part of me that still didn’t want to have to be grown-up yet. It made me cry again.

  After a while my mom stuck her head in and said, “We didn’t really settle anything.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “We really didn’t.” But at least I could say I’d tried.

  On Calling Richard

  I called Richard three times in the three days before I left. I was hoping I could go get my worry stone back. To have with me on the road. And of course seeing him would have been nice.

  Actually, seeing him would have been wonderful. But he was never home. All I got was the machine.

  I think the third time I might have called just to listen to the outgoing message again.

  It was Lorrie’s voice. He still hadn’t changed it. It gave me goose bumps and tingles to listen to her voice. Like she was some long-lost love of mine or something.

  Not that I really know how it would feel to have one of those.

  I wondered if he was out somewhere looking for me.

  I left messages every time, and I thought maybe he would call me back before Victor and I hit the road. I was sure hoping he would.

  He never did.

  CHAPTER 4: RICHARD

  White Crows

  I stood in a fairly long line in front of the microphone, waiting to ask Dr. Matsuko a question. The mic had been set up at the front of the center aisle just seconds after she announced that the lecture portion of her talk was about to yield to Q&A.

  My face burned, I felt a little dizzy, and I couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching my left hand. I had my right hand in my pocket, rubbing the worry stone. More or less as usual.

  I missed most of the early questions due to my stage fright, and my inability to stop obsessing over whether or not I had felt this kind of fear before, standing up in front of classes all those years. I knew in the back of my mind I had felt some kind of fear in that professional forum, but could no longer recreate what kind it was.

  I’m not sure whether or not I felt any of what I felt until after I lost Lorrie.

  I also couldn’t help noticing that everyone in line ahead of me and behind me seemed to be college age. Students. The audience for this lecture appeared to be comprised of about eight-five or ninety per cent students. Based on my knowledge of university doings, I had to guess that some professor or other had offered extra credit for attending this lecture. I had made a point of sitting next to an older couple, because it made me feel like a fish out of water to be surrounded entirely by students.

  I was just reminding myself to breathe when the young woman in front of me peeled away, and I found myself staring directly into the microphone. And the face of Dr. Matsuko.

  She was a bit younger than I had thought, from this close angle. Not that she had looked older from my seat. More that I hadn’t been able to see her well, and had just assumed she was older. She was still a good bit older than me. Maybe late forties, I guessed. She was not what you might call pretty, but she was pleasant to look at. She appeared to be mostly, but perhaps not one hundred per cent, Asian. Very American-Asian. She spoke with not a trace of an accent, so I assumed she’d been born here.

  Meanwhile I wasn’t asking a question, which was problematic. I could feel the audience shift slightly in its collective seat.

  “Dr. Matsuko,” I blurted out suddenly, startling myself with the sudden amplification of my voice. I’d held my face too close to the microphone. I backed off an inch or two. “I noticed that in your book you made just a handful of references to cellular memory as it relates to transplant recipients. And that all such references were citations from other researchers. You never gave us your own opinion of the phenomenon of transplant recipients who seem to experience the memories of
their donors. Would you be willing to do that now?”

  To my surprise, she smiled broadly. And rather … humanly. As if genuinely amused and unguarded. As if she were a person and a woman as well as just a scientist and a researcher. Imagine that.

  “Well, well,” she said, still smiling. “I’ve been waiting for this moment. Sooner or later someone was going to pin me down on that in public.”

  “Sorry,” I said, once again too closely into the microphone.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I should have taken a bolder stance in my book. If I had it to write over again, I would. So here’s your answer: I’m a scientist. So I wanted to disbelieve it. I leaned hard toward disbelief. Which is my job, I think. If I’m not a skeptic, I can’t very well ask you to take me seriously when I say I believe something. Are you familiar with the theory of the white crow?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. At proper mic distance. “I’m not.”

  Some of the stage lights had been trained on the audience, and I was aware of sweat dripping down my forehead. If I’d had a handkerchief, I wouldn’t have hesitated to wipe it away, even while under scrutiny. But I didn’t.

  “It’s courtesy of the psychologist William James. He wrote, essentially, that if your goal is to upset the law that all crows are black, it’s enough to prove one single crow to be white. And I think it goes without saying that the transplant field has more than its share of white crows. Of course, the doctors pass it off as a response to the massive drug cocktails that are a part of the recipient’s life. But they can’t explain away something like the little girl who helped catch and convict her donor’s murderer by repeatedly dreaming the exact details of the crime. And there are others, but … just for the sake of conversation let’s call her our white crow. So then if another recipient comes to me and says his taste in food or music has changed, and then only later he asks about his donor, and sure enough, he has changed to the donor’s tastes … could this be a hoax or a coincidence? Yes. I suppose it could be. But I can’t tell this person, ‘No, that’s impossible. All crows are black.’ Because we’ve already established that there’s at least one white one. And there are so many reports of this … and I can only imagine how many more there would be if someone could lift the stigma and the disbelief these people face … I guess what I’m saying is that after a certain number of fairly credible reports, it becomes unscientific to believe too strongly in coincidence. Because the statistical likelihood of that many coincidences is simply unscientific. So, long answer to a perfectly simple question … I guess I’m stretching it out because I’m still not entirely comfortable with this … the answer is yes. I do, myself, believe that it’s possible for a transplant recipient to experience distinct donor memories as a result of cellular memory. At least for the first few months.”