Deceptions of the Heart

by Denise Moncrief

  “Will you ask him if he’ll see me?” I pled for her indulgence. “Tell him…” The lie stalled on my tongue. Before I could fabricate something to coax an interview with my husband, Alex appeared at the door. He looked good—not at all like a grieving widower. He’d kept his weight off. Toned muscles flexed beneath his shirt sleeves. His neatly trimmed brown hair was cropped close around his ears. His gray eyes glittered, no shadow of pain dimming the spark of intelligence.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked, and then spotted me standing on his front porch. He turned his pale gray eyes upon me and my heart melted as it used to when we were young and dating and in love. When I didn’t speak, he looked to his wife for an explanation. The two exchanged a meaningful glance.

  “Please, Alex. I need to talk to you,” I begged, barely suppressing the panic that rose within me. “You remember me, don’t you?” Surely he could sense Rhonda’s presence in me. “We graduated together in pre-law from Cal-Berkeley.” I offered him this tidbit to nudge his memory along.

  “Okay.” He didn’t sound as if he believed me.

  “I never finished law school, because I got pregnant. But you did. Remember the party when you passed the bar exam?”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “My wife and I had tons of friends at Cal. There were a lot of people at that party.”

  His new wife wasn’t at Cal with Alex. He referred to me—Rhonda—as his wife. We had tons of friends, just as he said. I drew a deep breath and dropped a bomb in the middle of his new life. “It’s me…Rhonda.”

  “I thought I recognized you. You’re the woman who came here before. Leave. Now.” He pushed his new wife out of the doorway, leaving his old wife on the porch to crumble and melt.

  I was at the top of a precipice, and one poke from someone’s pinky could have toppled me over the side into an abyss so deep I would have never climbed out. “Wait. Please. Just hear me out.” The words scrambled from my mouth, one stacked almost on top of the other. “I know I don’t look like Rhonda, but I know things.” The door stuck on the throw rug. He yanked at the doorknob. “Please, Alex. It’s me. Rho-Do.” I tossed the diminutive at him—the one he called me—a contraction of my first and maiden names.

  He shook his head so hard I was afraid it would fall from its stem. “Now you’re claiming to be my dead wife? You know she’s dead, don’t you?”

  A frisson of electricity passed through me. The side of the house wobbled, the white clapboard siding shimmied and straightened. The ground beneath my feet tilted until I braced a hand on the porch support.

  “How did you get this address? Didn’t Crane tell you to stay away from us?”

  His angry questions penetrated the buzzing in my ears. “I…I don’t know.” My vision cleared. “I know I don’t look like Rhonda, but I am Rhonda.” My argument poured from my mouth without an already prepared speech. Hot tears pushed against my eyelids. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me and I can’t trust the people in Virginia to help me figure it out. You’re the only one I can turn to. You should know if I’m really Rhonda.”

  He remained quiet, as if weighing my words, looking for the slightest hint of credibility. I was offering him the incredible. He nodded for me to continue. His silent encouragement produced a small flicker of hope. “I am Rhonda. Would she…I…tell anyone about your birthmark or the way you scrunch your nose when you—”

  “Stop,” he demanded and glanced at his new wife.

  I continued down memory lane, seeking any minor incident that might be unique to our history and ours alone. “What about the time in Santa Barbara when you got so upset you ran the car off the road? We had a hard time explaining that to the cops. They thought you were drunk because you had cough medicine on your breath. You remember that, don’t you?”

  His face brightened at the mention of that horrid incident. Although it wasn’t funny at the time, later we laughed about it as if it was the funniest thing that ever happened. Emboldened, I let a hint of excitement show, smiling to entice him out of the land of uncertainty. “We barely made ends meet while you were in law school so we went through people’s trash, collecting junk so we could resell it at a yard sale.”

  “Yeah, those were tough times. But we managed,” he said, a familiar husky quality winding in and out of his words. He wagged his head, an incredulous grin suffusing his face.

  My unrelenting recital of shared experiences gained momentum. “We didn’t have a Christmas tree the first year we were married because we couldn’t afford one. They cut off the electricity right before finals so we studied by candlelight.” I chuckled at the memory of the two of us huddled together in the kitchen, our books and notes spread across the top of the tiny Formica-topped dining table, the torn vinyl chairs, eating take-out Chinese and thinking we could change the world. “We were stupid enough to think it was romantic. You were too proud to ask your father for money and my mother refused to help us because—”

  “Stop,” he yelled. “Stop messing with me like that.” He shoved his hands in front of him as if pushing the memories away.

  “Don’t you get it, Alex? I’m not a stranger. I know you. Whether you recognize me or not.”

  “You are not Rhonda. She could have told you all of this before she died.”

  “Why would I tell anyone these things? They were our secrets. The ones we laughed about and—”

  “What do you want from me? I’m not giving you money.” The vehemence in his voice forced me back a step.

  “I don’t want your money. I want someone to explain why I woke up in another woman’s body. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see me. I’m living a life I don’t remember. The last thing I can recall is putting new sheets on our bed.” Desperation pushed me to beg for understanding. “I don’t know how I got inside her. Can’t you imagine the hell I’m living in? Trying to be someone else when I know I’m me?”

  The rag doll at his side came to life. “Alex, do something,” his wife demanded. Tears streamed down her face. “I don’t know who told you all this stuff about Rhonda and Alex, but…how can you pretend to be her? Don’t you know how much he’s suffered? How can you be so cruel?” she asked.

  “Yes, Alex, do something. Explain to me why I have Rhonda’s memories and Jennifer’s body. If Rhonda is dead, tell me where her memories are supposed to live?” I shook with resentment toward Jennifer, toward him, toward his new wife.

  “I’m calling the police.” He stomped into the house.

  His wife followed, huddled behind him—a mousy mess. She looked back at me with large, frightened eyes. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Her squeaky voice unnerved me. I wanted to shake her petite frame, but was afraid she would break into two pieces. She was fragile, like porcelain. A poor trophy wife.

  Alex grabbed a cordless phone from the table in the foyer. He punched numbers on the pad as if punching sense into the senseless. His hostility shook me out of my lethargy. An image nudged at the corners of my awareness. The memory wanted its recollection, spewing from my mouth before I could stop it. “I know what you did for Jackson.”

  He stopped, his breath hitching in his chest. “What?” The single word was barely audible. He replaced the receiver on the base. His wife stared at the phone as if it was a serpent ready to strike.

  “Alex! What are you doing? Call the cops.” She reached for the phone, the first evidence of grit I’d seen in her.

  “Back off, Kristen!” He smacked her hand. “We call the cops if I decide we call the cops.”

  She withdrew like a child shrinking from a parent’s wrath. I stepped between them, so close his breath heated my skin. Face to face. “You never told anyone. You never even told me. But…I know what you did.” Despite the fact I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, the words jumped from my lips, ringing with the clarion peal of truth.

  “Alex, what is she talking about?” Kristen asked from over my shoulder.

  He quieted her with one flic
k of his pointer finger. She retreated without even a whimper. He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the living room. “Sit down,” he commanded and pushed me onto the sofa. “Where is he?”

  I assumed he meant Jackson. I shook his hand off my elbow. “I don’t know.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t remember ever seeing him…not as Jennifer. But he was at the party. “In Virginia,” I offered the simple answer.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. Well, at least if he did, I don’t remember what he said. You see—”

  “Then how do you know about…that?”

  “I was here when he asked you to…do what you did. I was in the kitchen listening. I heard you. And I saw the two of you leave together. You should have never let him talk you into—”

  “Shut up before you say too much.” He turned toward his new wife. A cold, calculating sneer crept over his face before he returned his attention to me. “What do you want?” he asked again.

  “I told you already. I want you to help me figure out what happened to me. I want you to go with me to see Dr. Crane.”

  He flinched at mention of the heart specialist that performed Jennifer’s surgery. “This is insane.” He seethed as he paced in front of me. “Okay. I get it. He sent you to blackmail me.”

  “No. I’m here because I need answers. I told you what I want from you. If you can’t or won’t help me…” I stiffened my upper lip to keep from calling him a few choice names. “I’m leaving,” I said and rose from the sofa. I almost made it out the door before my tears dripped down my cheeks against my will. I didn’t want Alex to see me cry.

  “Come back. Sit down,” he cajoled, adopting a long-suffering attitude as if resigned to helping me. “I promise I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

  It was pathetic how quickly he capitulated. I almost smiled, but kept my triumph to myself. I turned toward him once again, willing my face into a noncommittal facade. When I looked into his eyes, my joy disappeared. His gaze hardened as if he’d just captured a weaker being in his twisted trap. My victory proved hollow. My pitiful act backfired. Hot liquid filled my tear ducts and I almost broke down. I sucked up my misery. Exposing my weakness only made him stronger. Alex had always liked being in control. I should have known better. Never again would he witness my vulnerability.

  “Alex! Can’t you see she’s lying…or trying to con us…or something?” Kristen exclaimed.

  He waved off her objection and tugged me back into the house. “Okay. Start from the beginning.”

  I stalled in the foyer between him and the front door, then drew a deep, cleansing breath. It did me no good. I needed more than fresh air. A shudder coursed through me.

  “About a week ago, I woke up in Virginia. I didn’t recognize anything. Not the house. Not the man. Not the housekeeper. Not the furniture. Nothing. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see my face. I see hers. I don’t know her. Do you have any idea how frightening that is?” I waited for him to reply, but he stared at me with a dubious frown on his face. “They call me Jennifer, but I don’t remember anything about her or these people in her life. They all hate her. And I don’t trust them. I think something awful is going to happen to her—”

  “Look, it’s obvious. You have a difficult situation. Something must have happened to you. Maybe you have amnesia or something like that. But there has to be some other explanation. My late wife couldn’t possibly inhabit your body. That’s ridiculous.”

  “When did I die?” I asked.

  He glared at me.

  “When did Rhonda die?” I rephrased my question. If pretending my compliance gained his cooperation, I was willing to pretend for a moment I wasn’t Rhonda.

  “Three years ago. I told you that on the phone.”

  I blanched at the obvious. I’d pushed the pain away for days, but at that moment it grabbed me by the throat. His quick remarriage hurt—a deep, throbbing wound.

  Couldn’t he have missed me longer? Mourned deeper? Remained unmarried out of grief over losing me?

  “Jennifer had heart transplant surgery three years ago.”

  He backed away and dropped onto the chair arm. His brows drew together over the bridge of his nose.

  “Here in California. October 6, 2008,” I added.

  Kristen gasped. “That’s…that’s the day after she died.”

  Alex scowled at her.

  “I suspect that I…that Rhonda donated her heart to Jennifer.”

  He slid into the chair, pale as a ghost. “Rhonda…yes…he did harvest her organs.” He closed his eyes and scrunched his face as if pain had overshadowed his anger.

  Maybe I’ve been too hard on him. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. Wait! Who had harvested her organs? Crane?

  “Well, then it’s obvious. You are the recipient of Rhonda’s heart. I’ve heard about things like this. Transplant patients seeking out the family of their donors.”

  “It’s more than that. I have her memories and none of Jennifer’s. I mean, none of Jennifer’s. I remember nothing of her life.”

  He leaned forward. “This is incredible.”

  “Look at this.” I retrieved a web article from my purse and handed it to him. “It’s called cellular memory transfer. Usually transplant patients adopt the donor’s habits or feel their emotions. They like what the donor liked. Cut their hair the same way. Marry someone with the same name or something like that. They develop hobbies and interests similar to the donor—care about things the donor cared about. But I have actual memories. Solid memories. Not just impressions. I don’t think that’s ever happened to anyone before.”

  He scanned the article with a scowl on his face. “Why do you think you’re different? Why would you have actual memories?”

  “Jackson was at a party at the Cristobal’s house. When Jennifer argued with him, it must have jolted my heart. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, and then she passed out. The shock must have triggered some sort of reaction…something chemical that affected my heart.”

  “This is kind of far-fetched. Like a movie plot or something.”

  Kristen sprang from the shadow in which she’d been cowering. She resembled a lioness defending her territory. “You’re not buying this, are you, Alex?”

  “Shut up, Kristen. Whoever she is, she has a serious problem. I have to help her.” His angry reprimand suggested his willingness to help was more than a good Samaritan impulse on his part.

  “Why?” Kristen countered. “She’s not Rhonda. She’s nothing to us.”

  “Because somehow Jackson is involved.” He looked at me and rubbed his upper lip. “Have you talked to anybody in Virginia about this?”

  “No. They wouldn’t believe Jennifer. I can’t trust them. I think they’re trying to kill her.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Her housekeeper has been giving her two pills twice a day. One of them is a barbiturate and the other is an anticonvulsant. They shouldn’t be mixed. Ever. Jennifer is supposed to be taking medication to prevent her body from rejecting her new heart, but neither of the pills she’s been taking are cyclosporine. That really scares me because I’m depending on her heart.”

  “Aren’t you capable of handling your own meds?” he asked, referring to me as Jennifer.

  “Sudha said it was for Jennifer’s protection. I think she was lying.” I insisted on being myself, referring to the woman whose life I’d invaded as someone I’d come to know instead of who I was.

  “Your protection? That’s weird. Sounds to me like you need protection from Sudha.” He said Sudha’s name with a derisive bite. “Is there anyone you can talk to? Have you gone to the cops?”

  “I told a deputy sheriff I was having problems with my memory, but he didn’t believe me. That was before I confirmed Sudha was giving me the wrong medication.” I rolled my head on my aching neck. “I can’t go back to him—”

  “Why not?”

  “I think Jen
nifer and the cop have a history.”

  He rose from his chair and began pacing again. “This is serious.”

  “I can’t trust her housekeeper. I can’t trust her doctor. I can’t trust her husband or her stepdaughter. Or the local cops. I can’t trust anyone. That’s why I came to you. Because I don’t know them and I know you. You are the only person in the world I’ve ever been able to trust. You know that.”

  He looked sheepishly at Kristen. She turned pale, her face ashen as if they had a dirty little secret. He turned away from her.

  My stomach lurched. “Oh, Alex,” I stammered and rose from my seat, clutching my chest. “Oh, please. Tell me it isn’t so. You didn’t.” I scrutinized his new wife. “I recognize you now. I met you once. At a firm Christmas party. You’re a paralegal.”

  “I haven’t been a paralegal since—”

  “Shut up, Kristen,” he warned.

  She withdrew from his wrath, no longer a ferocious lioness but more like a chastised kitten.

  “You cheated on me with her,” I sputtered and pointed at the cheap, bottle-blonde tramp. “I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. Who will I turn to now?”

  He jumped from the chair and caught me before I bolted through the door, his hand wrapping around my wrist. “Please, Rhonda, don’t leave yet.”

  I clawed his paw from me. “Don’t touch me. As far as you’re concerned, Rhonda is dead. I’m sorry I came here. I don’t want your help any longer.” I smirked at Kristen. “If he cheated on me with you, he’ll cheat on you, too. And don’t let him get by with telling you to shut up. He’s a bully. All you have to do is stand up for yourself and he’ll back down.”

  I slammed the door behind me, making a hasty exit from the horror that was my life.

  Chapter Nine

  Dr. Crane leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Cristobal, you have presented me with an extraordinary story. This is incredible. In fact, it’s impossible.” He paused as if waiting for me to object, but I was still reeling from my narrative. Reciting all my experiences, my doubts, my fears, had exhausted me.