Second Hand Heart

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  I stood, stunned by her last sentence.

  She gently indicated with her body language that she was done. She shifted her gaze up the aisle to the person behind me and pointed slightly. As if to say, “Next.”

  But I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.

  A moment later the young man behind me reached around me and pulled the mic off the stand and back to his lips.

  “Dr. Matsuko …” he said.

  And I peeled away back to my seat.

  I had read as many as seven books on the subject of cellular memory. I had read Dr. Matsuko’s book twice. Nowhere in any of them had anyone suggested that donor memories in a transplant recipient could be a temporary phenomenon.

  If Dr. Matsuko was right, I had only just so much time to share this bizarre bond with Vida. And I had no idea where she was.

  • • •

  I expected Dr. Matsuko to exit from the stage when it was over. Duck behind a curtain and disappear. I was wrong.

  I stood in front of my seat, my thighs leaned on the seat-back in front of me, and watched her gather her notes and tuck them into a soft-sided, natural-colored leather briefcase. I watched a student, a young man, approach her, and wait for her to finish gathering. I waited for her to brush him off. Act busy, and brush by him and out of the auditorium.

  She didn’t. She stopped and talked to him.

  I’d been sitting close to the back wall, a testament to my inability to appear front and center in my own life, so by the time I made my way through the crowd to the podium, there were at least a dozen people waiting to talk to her. A dozen twenty-year-old students and me.

  I stood, looking away. I wanted to pretend to be looking at something else, but what? I settled for scanning the room as if trying to locate a lost companion. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe for the same reason that people who are dining alone will attempt to fix their attention on some imaginary interest or concern.

  It took a good ten minutes before I realized that this was going to take a long time. I rubbed the worry stone hidden in my pocket and waited.

  I glanced at my watch. It was nearly nine. For some irrational reason I had thought I’d drive home after the lecture. Pure insanity, as it was nearly an eight-hour drive. I’m not sure what I was thinking, other than having been away from home for a day and a half already. Which was perhaps a thousand times longer than I’d been out in the world since Lorrie’s funeral.

  I gave up locating my imaginary companion, and instead just half-leaned, half-sat on a table on the stage, my arms crossed, looking down and pretending to be lost in thought. Distantly hearing the chatter of the doctor and whoever remained of the students, but not really focusing on words.

  I have no idea how much time elapsed.

  I know only that at some point my charade of deep thought turned over on me, and I became lost in genuine thought, almost without noticing. Crazy though it sounds, even to me, I was weighing the possibility of contacting a valid psychic — if indeed such a thing exists — regarding Vida’s whereabouts.

  It took me a moment to register the silence.

  Then I heard Dr. Matsuko’s voice slice through it. She said, “Are you the recipient?”

  I looked up. Surprised. I glanced around to see if she could be addressing someone besides me. But everyone else had finished engaging the doctor and wandered away.

  “No. I’m not. I’m the donor.”

  She stood before me, briefcase dangling from both hands in front of her. Smiling in a way that felt surprisingly familiar. I don’t mean to suggest that there was anything familiar about her to me. There wasn’t. More that she was treating me with a familiar air. Not like the total stranger I so obviously was.

  She raised one eyebrow. “Living donor? Kidney? Partial liver?”

  “Oh. No. I guess I don’t mean I was the donor. I mean, I donated my wife’s organs. After her death.”

  “Recent?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. So am I.”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You’re confused because I suggested it might be temporary. I could see the way it hit you.”

  “I haven’t read that in anybody else’s research.”

  “Well, they’re not sure. And, actually, neither am I. There’s not much hard evidence to go on. It gets down to that wacky, unpredictable world of quantum mechanics as it relates to the increasingly holographic view of human anatomy. And just between you and me …”

  It took me a second to realize she was pausing so I could supply my name.

  “Richard.”

  “Between you and me, Richard, if anybody tells you he or she fully understands the subject on anything other than a gut, instinctive level … hell, even that … he’s either a liar, or his brain needs to be studied. Except, look what I just did. I passed it off as relating to his brain. Which is the old-school science. The old way is to believe all knowledge and understanding comes from the brain. Even after all my research into how every cell in the human body carries the memory and experience of the whole. But those old habits die hard. For so many years we thought our brain was the determinant. That the heart could only beat if the brain told it to. But we know for a fact that the heart will beat valiantly for a time after disconnection from its brain. Literal disconnection. In fact, the new school is that, if anything, it’s the heart that runs the show. You know. Puts the ‘us’ in us. Please don’t repeat what I said to an actual MD. Not to say they’re old school, though God knows some of them are. More like it’s not even the same school. Medicine doesn’t think the heart runs the show. Just the oddballs like me.”

  She stopped and looked at my face. I think it had turned white. I thought I could feel the blood draining out of it.

  “Oh,” she said. “Right. Sorry. You donated your wife’s heart. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should think before I talk.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have. If I had known all this. You know. That it was still alive and still … her. You know?”

  “But your only other option was to let it die and then bury it in the ground, or throw it in the cremation furnace. Does that really sound like a more appealing option?”

  “When you put it like that, I guess not.”

  “Look, Richard. I like talking to you. But I’m absolutely famished—”

  “Right. I understand. Absolutely. Thanks for your time.”

  I turned and began to walk off the stage, not wanting her to see that I was stung by her abruptness.

  “Richard.”

  I stopped, but did not turn. I still wanted to hide my reaction.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re jumping ahead and ending up in all the wrong places. I wasn’t brushing you off. I was about to ask you if you’ve eaten.”

  I turned back, and looked into her face. It seemed open. Impassive, yet somehow invested. Curious.

  “Actually, no. I haven’t. Not since breakfast.”

  “Do you have a car here?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Good. Because I don’t.”

  “This is very generous of you.”

  “No, it’s very generous of you. You just volunteered to pick up the check.”

  My mouth smiled without warning. Without permission. It felt out of place, as if I had suddenly begun speaking a foreign language.

  “My pleasure,” I said. “The least I can do.”

  Connie, Or Else

  “Tell me about your wife,” she said, tearing into a fresh, hard-crusted roll and then buttering it with a molded pat of butter which had not been properly softened.

  “What about her?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Do you really want to know about her?”

  “I want to know about you. And she’s obviously the biggest part of you there is to know about right now. And I know from experience that people who’ve lost loved ones are comforted by sharing about them. And we do have time …�
�

  I sat without speaking for a moment, and she held the basket of rolls in my direction. I could well have reached for them myself. I got the impression that she was encouraging me to eat. I knew I should. My blood sugar must have been regrettably low.

  I took one, but then just set it on its little plate and forgot all about it again.

  I wanted to ask why she wanted to know about me. But it was too loaded a question. It suggested, hinted at, a subtext I was pretty sure did not exist. I was convinced I would only make a fool of myself, and perhaps embarrass her as well, if I asked.

  “I don’t know what I should tell you about her.”

  “Tell me how you met.”

  “OK,” I said, gathering up the story inside me. I sat back and smiled slightly. She was right. It was a comforting memory.

  “She was a big hiking enthusiast,” I said. “And so was I. And so one early October I was camping up at the North Rim Grand Canyon, and then I hiked down to the river and spent one night at the bottom. And that was where I first saw her. At Phantom Ranch. I never even talked to her. Not then. I just saw her there. I was camping at Bright Angel, right nearby, but I had reserved meals at the ranch. And I guess maybe she was in a women’s dorm. I didn’t really know, but I was guessing, because she seemed to be alone. Anyway, I saw her in the dining room at dinner, and I noticed her, but it wasn’t a big deal. I just noticed. And then at the first breakfast — the five thirty breakfast — I came in and there she was again, but she was at a table with all other women and there were no empty seats near her. I guess it’s easy to gravitate toward the people in your dorm. Maybe you don’t really know them, but there’s some familiarity.

  “So then after breakfast we took off hiking. I was headed back to the North Rim, and so was she. Which is interesting, because probably more than nine people out of ten hike from and to the South Rim. I found out later that she was hiking rim-to-rim. South Rim to North Rim, and then she was going to take a shuttle bus back, but I ended up driving her back. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyway, I had this insane, chauvinistic notion that I’d slow up my pace so that we’d keep passing each other every time one of us took a rest break. Which turned out to be really funny. Because I nearly killed myself trying to keep up with her.”

  Dr. Matsuko laughed, and in nearly that same instant the waiter arrived.

  “Well, now,” he said, “are we ready to order or do we need a little more time?”

  I’m not fond of those who use the editorial (or royal?) “we,” but maybe if I were to be completely honest with myself, I might have had a chip on my shoulder because I’d been lost in my story, and happy there, and did not like being bumped back into my current reality.

  I said, “Dr. Matsuko, are you ready to order?”

  “Connie,” she said. “And I’m going to be incredibly sinful tonight and eat red meat. The New York strip steak. With salad. Whatever you serve as your house dressing will be fine so long as it’s not made with soy oil.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said. “How would you like your steak done?”

  “I know it’s very gauche, but I would like it as close to well done as I can get it without making your chef cry.”

  I smiled and so did the waiter.

  Then he turned his attention to me, and I realized I’d done no homework whatsoever pursuant to ordering dinner.

  To get out of it, I said, “I’ll have the same. Medium rare.”

  “Soup or salad?”

  “What’s the soup?”

  “Cream of mushroom and leek, or clam chowder.”

  “Clam chowder.”

  He whisked away our menus and blessedly retreated.

  “Now let’s see,” I said. “Where was I, Dr. Matsuko?”

  “First of all,” she said, “if you call me Dr. Matsuko one more time I swear on my honor as a scientist that I will shamelessly bitch-slap you in front of this entire restaurant full of people, as loudly and flamboyantly as possible. It’s either Connie or suffer the consequences, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Secondly, you were struggling to keep up with the pace of your future wife, you chauvinistic, overconfident male hiker, you.”

  “Right,” I said, shaking off the fact that it was hard to know how to react to her effusive, joking candor. “I was just getting up to Cottonwood. Which is a campground part-way up to the rim. Supposed to be sort of a halfway point, but it’s really closer to the river. I had fallen behind by then, but when I got up there she was there, and it was clear she was going to set up camp. And my plan had been to hike to the North Rim all in one day. But I changed my plan.”

  “Ah. And that’s where you talked to her.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. That would be a much better story. The real story is very embarrassing. We were there most of the afternoon and all evening — along with dozens of other people of course — and I smiled and said hi to her once at a water spigot, and she said hi back, but I never actually got up the courage to talk to her.

  “When I got up in the morning, it was just barely light, but she had already broken camp and gone. I practically ran up the trail, but I never saw her. She had a head start, and she was fast. So, that was it. I’d blown my chance. I was absolutely morose. I got up top, and I was just going to go back to my campsite, but then I suddenly got it in my head that an iced drink would be nice. Even though it was pretty cool out. You know, North Rim. Eight-thousand-plus feet in October. But still, I was heated up from the hiking. So I walked over to the lodge. Well, limped over to the lodge. And they have this thing called the sun porch. Have you ever been to the North Rim Lodge?”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “I’ve never even been to the Grand Canyon.”

  “Oh, you should. You must. Anyway, the sun porch. Part of it is inside, but with big windows. And then there’s this big open outdoor stone patio. It’s right at the edge of the canyon. And I mean that literally. Right at the edge. So you can sit out there, near a low stone wall, and drink your cold drink, and stare out into that beautiful red-rock abyss … So, anyway, I got myself a lemonade and limped out there, and—”

  “And don’t tell me. Let me guess. There was your future wife.”

  “No. She was not there. And I sort of had it in my head that she might be. But she wasn’t. Not yet. There were only two seats left, and they were together. Literally. Like a chair for two. So I took one side. And about two minutes later I heard this woman’s voice asking if the seat next to me was taken. And I looked up …”

  “Please tell me you at least got up the nerve to tell her the seat was not taken.”

  “I did. Indeed. I said it wasn’t. And she sat down and then she asked, ‘Aren’t you that guy I kept seeing on the trail …?’”

  “And the rest is history,” she said. “Her recipient is very lucky. To get a hiker’s heart.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Too much reality too fast. I pulled you up out of your happy place so fast you got the bends. It’s written all over your face.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I do have a bad habit of dumping the truth on people like ice water from a very large bucket. Ask anyone.”

  But I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to ask. And I had no idea what to say any more to Dr. Matsuko. Connie.

  She caught my stress and talked right through it. “What’s that thing in your hand? If you don’t mind my asking. That thing you keep fiddling with.”

  I opened my left hand, exposed the worry stone, and looked at it blankly, as though surprised to see it there.

  “Oh. That’s a worry stone.”

  “Ah.”

  “It’s not mine, actually. It belongs to … the recipient.”

  “Ah,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a story behind that.”

  “There is,” I said.

  But I didn’t tell it.

  Unintended Consequences

  “So, let me explain why I said what I said. The thing that made your face turn gree
n.” She sawed a long slice through her decidedly crispy New York steak. Looked up at my confused face. “About the first few months.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said. “That.”

  “Here’s what we know. And what we don’t know. We know that cells die. That’s a given. So, after a good long length of time … seven years is an acceptable rule of thumb … there won’t be one living cell in the heart that was alive at the time of donation. Now, does that mean those cells, aggregate that heart, will now bear no relation to your wife’s heart and be purely a product of its new host? No. It does not. The cells will still be the daughter cells of the donor heart. Cardiac stem cells may never die. And they’re the seed for new cells, but the new cells will be raised by the new host. And a cell is not an island. It’s constantly influenced by conditions external to it, which is to say, conditions in the new host body. Everything from what he eats …” She paused. “He?”

  “She.”

  “Right. She. No wonder it’s so complicated for you. Everything from what she eats, to what she worries about, to her opinions about herself. Stress. Environmental factors. Cells are constantly being bombarded by nourishment — or lack of same — information, energy, including what we call ‘non-local’ energy: biochemical influence, hormones, drugs. The more time goes on, the more the transplanted organ becomes some combination of its original owner and its new owner. But what combination? How much of each? And when? That’s the part we don’t know. There hasn’t been a lot of pure scientific research on this. Most of what we know about it is entirely anecdotal. All I can tell you for sure is that your wife’s heart is most purely your wife’s heart closest to the actual date of transplantation. Everything else is still a mystery at this point.”