by Emma Scott
From outside, the car horn blared again.
“My brother, the epitome of patience,” Jonah said. “See you in few.”
He was at the door, turning the knob. In another few seconds he’d be gone and I still had unfinished business. I mustered my courage. “Jonah?”
He stopped, turned. “Yeah?”
“…I’m sorry about last night.”
He stiffened. “It’s fine. No big deal.”
I wet my lips that had gone dry, and slipped off the stool, moving to stand behind the couch, a barricade.
“No, it is a big deal. To me. I’m really sorry that I tried to… It’s not a sex thing.” I plucked at a piece of non-existent lint on the upholstery. “Okay, it’s a little bit of a sex thing. Who doesn’t like sex, right?” I laughed weakly, then coughed. “But mostly it’s just the comfort. The afterward. Being held by a man while I sleep. I’m sure that sounds pathetic but it’s what I like, and I’m sorry I tried to do that to you. You’re more than that.”
Jonah shook his head, his expression pained. “I can’t be more than that, Kacey.”
“No, I meant, you’re a friend. Or maybe we could be friends. If you want. And that’s all I want. Honest, I can’t be with anyone right now even if I wanted to. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a mess.”
“You’re no more a mess than anyone else,” he said in a low voice.
My chest tightened, pushing tears to my eyes. “Thank you for saying that, even though it doesn’t feel true.”
He smiled, and while it wasn’t the mega-watt smile that lit up his whole face and thrilled me, it was warm and kind. And comforting.
“I really gotta go,” he said. “I’m late.”
“Thanks,” I said as he opened the front door. “For the coffee and letting me stay here. Thanks for all of it. I mean it.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I mean it too.”
Theo’s black Chevy Silverado was idling on the curb. “About damn time,” my brother said, scowling as I got in. “That chick is already throwing you off.”
“It wasn’t her,” I said. “It was the damn Gengraf.”
“Nausea?” Theo said, his tone instantly morphing from anger to concern. “You okay?”
I shot him a look. “That chick got me some water and I felt better.”
Theo snorted. His eyes gave me a final once over, then he maneuvered his truck through the light Sunday morning traffic toward the glass studio. I watched North Las Vegas go by my window—strip malls and gas stations, apartment complexes smaller and older than mine—but my thoughts were on Kacey’s apology.
I can’t be with anyone right now…
Perfect. Neither could I.
So why did my chest ache like an old bruise?
“You thinking about her?” Theo said.
“Kacey?”
“No, Mother Theresa. Yeah, Kacey. Who the hell is she?”
“Why are you so hostile? She’s just a girl crashing on my couch.”
Theo watched the road, his shoulders jerking up in a shrug. “I don’t want to see another fucked-up situation like you had with Audrey.”
“I was with Audrey for three years. I’ve known Kacey for all of twenty-four hours. You can chill out.”
“How much did you tell her about your situation?”
More than I should have. I shifted in my seat. “She knows I had the operation.”
Theo gaped at me so long I thought he’d crash his truck. He turned his eyes back to the road, his expression grim. “Okay, spill it. What’s the deal with her?” he said. “For real.”
I rested my elbow on the door, rubbing my chin. “Her deal is she’s got a few days off until her band leaves town on tour. She’s taking a break. That’s it. For real.”
“Why doesn’t she just stay in a hotel? And since when do you tell total strangers about the operation?”
“She doesn’t do well on her own.” I glanced at him. “It’s not a big deal. I’m giving her a break and she’s good company. She’s got a good sense of humor. We get along well.”
We just…clicked.
“You met her yesterday.” Theo’s voice was low but I could hear his temper rumbling within it, like a distant thunderstorm. He kept his gaze steadfast to the road. “Are you fucking her?”
“Jesus, Theo.” Yet the image of Kacey splayed out on my bed reached for me. I’d wanted her last night, wanted to give in to her, have a woman’s arms and legs wrapped around me one more time. I wanted to feel a woman’s soft body beneath mine, to be on top of her and inside of her and…
“Dude. Are you fucking her?”
I forgot Theo could read my face like the front page of a newspaper. “No,” I said. “Not that it’s your business. She’s crashing until Tuesday, then she’s going back on tour with her band. She’ll be traveling all over for months.”
“And you’re cool with that?”
“Of course I’m cool with it. What could possibly happen between us? Or between me and anyone for that matter?”
Theo’s jaw clenched. “Don’t start with that doomsday shit. You don’t know for sure if…” He shook his head, unwilling to voice the possibility. “The meds might be working. They probably are working.”
“Then why were you such a dick to Kacey?”
He jerked his shoulders in a shrug. “I give a shit. The doctor said you had to be careful.”
“He said I had to not overexert myself. He didn't say I had to become a monk. I miss being with a woman. Being intimate with her.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t do one night stands…” Theo said. “Something I’ll never get.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, if you want to get laid, get laid. I just don't want another Audrey situation. I don’t want some chick to bail on you when you need her to fucking stick around.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “What Audrey did…it hurt, but I wasn’t in love with her.”
We’d come to a red light. Theo turned in his seat. “What?”
“I loved Audrey, but I wasn’t in love with her.” I listened to my own words, waiting for some pain to follow. But the only pain wasn’t for what I had with Audrey and lost, but for something I never had at all. “I’ve never been in love.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “You weren’t in love with Audrey? Really? Because you sure spent a shitload of time with her.”
“I loved her but she didn’t…consume me. I didn’t lose my train of thought when she walked into a room, or feel that feeling you get…” I shook my head, searching for the words. “We were a good match.” Like a pair of shoes, I thought. “But I didn’t have that feeling.”
“What feeling?” Theo asked dubiously.
“That feeling you’re supposed to have when you’re with the woman you’re in love with. I can’t describe that feeling because I’ve never felt it. Have you?”
Theo gave me an arch look. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”
I snorted a laugh. “I think you’ve got that backward.”
Theo’s eyes hardened again. “So you weren’t in love with Audrey. And you’re having this revelation now? Because of Kacey?”
I turned my eyes to my window. “I just met her for chrissakes. No, I just meant…since we’re on the subject. It’s something I missed. Being in love.”
“You haven’t missed it,” Theo said. “You might not be missing anything. If you’d go back to Morrison and get another biopsy…”
I sighed, exhausted from having this same conversation for the millionth time.
“What would happen if I did? I would find a miracle waiting for me? The atherosclerosis isn’t going to reverse itself.”
“No, but it might've slowed the fuck down, or stopped altogether. Maybe you have longer than you think. A lot longer. If you weren't so goddamn pessimistic…”
He held on to a hope that wasn’t there, but I knew the truth. I felt it in the marrow of my bones, in the weakening pulse of my heart, its walls and passageways hardening slowly l
ike cooling glass.
“If I get another biopsy,” I said, “I’d lose at least one full day at the shop.”
Theo said nothing and anger flamed red hot in me.
“I’ll go back after the gallery opening, okay? Dammit, Theo, I’m just trying to talk about something real for a goddamn change. I miss having someone in my life. I’m not selfish; I know it’s too late now. But I missed it and it sucks, okay?”
“Yeah, man,” Theo said, retreating to a quieter tone. “That's cool. We've just never talked about it before. About what you want.”
“You mean what I want before I die? You can say it, Theo. I wish you would.”
“What for?” he snapped. “What fucking good does that do anyone?”
“Me. It does me good. So I don't feel like…”
“What?”
So goddamn alone.
We pulled into the parking lot of the hot shop and Theo killed the engine. He sat straight, eyes forward as he spoke.
“Look, if you want or need anything… just tell me, okay? You're always saying don't bucket-list me. But if there’s something you want and I can give it to you, tell me, okay? Anything at all.”
Dying, I learned, is a not a team sport. It’s a solitary endeavor. Everyone I loved was standing on dry land, while I was alone on a boat as it slowly pulled away from the shore, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it but watch it happen.
I immediately felt shitty for letting my anger out on Theo, or telling him what I missed or wanted or could never have. What were they but just another burden for him to carry? One more thing he could do nothing about. The pain of it was written in every line of his face.
“Okay, thanks, Theo. Thanks for looking out for me.” I mustered a smile, and smacked his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get to work.”
Theo could’ve been a glass artist if he’d wanted to. He was talented, and utterly fearless. He loved the fire, but hated the fragility of the glass afterward. Theo liked permanence. He worked with thick black ink that punched the skin, made it bleed, then remained imbedded forever. Our father thought he was wasting his incredible ability to draw and sketch by working with tattoos, but it was just right for my brother.
We worked in near silence; but for the roar-hiss of the furnace, the hot shop was quiet and my thoughts drifted to our conversation, to Theo, who had been with me through my illness, through Audrey’s betrayal. She hadn’t broken up with me, she’d told Theo, and then skipped town, leaving him to break the news.
I rolled the pipe in my hand, watched as the flames enveloped it, made it glow hot and white…
I sat on a chair in Dr. Morrison’s office. Not the white exam room where he usually saw me, with its long, white-papered table and the little tray of instruments, latex gloves, and individually-wrapped syringes. That room was for patients who were receiving treatment. Patients still in the fight.
Today, I was in the private office of Dr. Conrad Morrison—cardiovascular surgeon and cardiac transplantation specialist. Rather than a battlefield, this was where victory champagne was popped…or where white flags of surrender were thrown.
Theo sat next to me, slouched down, gnawing on his thumbnail, his leg jouncing. I could feel my younger brother’s energy radiating out. He took the yellow glow of his fear and burned it until it was red hot and ready to combust.
I expected to be wracked with dread. I felt nothing. No dread. Not even fear. I was beneath fear. Numb.
We waited for five minutes in that office—I watched the clock circle off each one. Five minutes that felt like years and also no time at all. The door opened and Dr. Morrison walked in, a file folder tucked under his arm and a grim look on his face. My borrowed heart slammed against my rib cage, shattering the numbness. I immediately wanted it back. Feeling nothing was better than this bone-deep terror.
Dr. Morrison had the appearance of an eighth grade social studies teacher—late fifties, receding hairline, tall and somewhat lanky. His eyes were sharp. Surgeon’s eyes, with a vast wealth of medical knowledge and expertise behind them.
He offered me a thin smile and extended his hand to shake. “Jonah. Good to see you. Sorry to have kept you.”
I half-rose to my feet on watery legs and shook his hand. “No trouble,” I said, eyeing the file folder tucked under his arm.
That file that told a far-fetched story of a perfectly healthy young man—who’d never been sick in his life but for a bout of tonsillitis in the fifth grade—struck down by a virus that destroyed his heart. It was thick now, filled tissue-type analyses, diagnostics, blood work, lab work, an urgent surgery, a mile-long list of immune-suppressant medications, and finally, biopsy results. Seventeen of them. Number eighteen was the day before. Its results would be on top.
“Theo,” Dr. Morrison said with a nod. He didn’t offer his hand and Theo didn’t rise from his seat, only nodded in return. His leg jounced faster.
Dr. Morrison moved behind the large mahogany desk to sit in the leather chair. He set the folder on his desk but didn’t open it. He folded his long-fingered hands. Those hands had removed my diseased heart from my body fifteen months ago, and then cradled a new one. They’d gently lowered it into the empty space, reattached all that needed reattaching, put my rib cage back in its rightful place and sewn me back up.
Instead of welcoming the new heart, and despite the various cocktails of immunosuppressant drugs I’d been taking religiously for the last thirteen months, my body attacked. A slow but relentless attack, hacking away at this foreign intruder piece by piece, leaving behind wounds that became scars. Ultimately it was the scars that were killing the new heart. And killing me.
Dr. Morrison inhaled. “The results of your latest biopsy are not what we were hoping for…”
He spoke and I heard the words, a string of medical jargon that I had become infinitely familiar with over the last year so that I didn’t require a layman’s translation. Words like atherosclerosis, stenosis, cardiac allograft vasculopathy, and myocardial ischemia. A bunch of Latin spliced with English, sewn together with science and authority, and distilled into the most final of bottom lines.
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” Dr. Morrison, his voice heavy and low. “I wish I had better news.”
I nodded mutely. I’ll have to tell my mother.
The thought burrowed deep into my guts like a boiling poison, burning the last numbness away. I nearly puked in my lap. Somehow, I spoke instead.
“How long?”
Dr. Morrison steepled his fingers on his desk. “Given the rapid progression of the CAV, six months would be a generous estimate.”
I nodded, mentally doing the math.
Six months.
My art installation was due to be finished for the gallery exhibit in October, five months from now.
That’s cutting it close…
Theo bolted from his chair, bringing me back to present. He paced behind me like a panther, his dark eyes fixed on Dr. Morrison. The anguish in his voice struck me with every syllable.
“Six months? What happens in six months? Nothing. Screw your six months. He goes back on the list, right? The donor list? If this heart is failing then you give him another.”
Dr. Morrison pursed his lips. “There are some ethical implications—”
“Fuck the implications,” Theo said. “If he’s on the list, he’s on the list. A new heart comes up, he gets it. Right?” He turned to me with blazing eyes. “Right?”
I couldn’t take another heart from someone else on the list who could live a long and happy life with it. I had a rare tissue type. The rarest. Finding a donor who was a close match was almost impossible. Thirteen months ago, in a rush to save my life, they’d given me the best heart they could, the closest match, and my immune system was wrecking it. It would only do the same to another.
I wasn’t a martyr by any stretch, and I didn’t need to be. Medical ethics and procedures would take the decision out of my hands. Dr. Morrison’s next words confirmed it.
&nbs
p; “Yes, Jonah is back on the donor list.” He turned to me. “But your rare tissue type will again be a factor, and the chronic rejection manifested here, as well as the way your kidneys are handling the immunosuppressant medications. I can’t say I’m optimistic the Board will approve a replantation…”
I could feel Theo’s rage like a hot wind at my back. “What do you mean they won’t approve it? They’ll just…they’ll let him…”
He was on the edge, I could hear it, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to protect my little brother, just as I always had. Keep him safe.
I rose to my feet, my legs strong now. “Thank you, Dr. M.” I offered my hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
Dr. Morrison stood up as well, but didn’t shake my hand. Instead he patted my cheek in a grandfatherly manner. “You’ll be in my prayers, Jonah. Tonight and every night.”
“Prayers.” Theo spit the word in the parking lot. “What the fuck good will prayers do? He’s a scientist. He needs to get his ass in the lab or something and figure out how to stop that goddamn rejection.”
Then it hit me. All of it. Like a lightning bolt striking the top of my head and tearing straight down, nearly cleaving me in two.
I gripped Theo’s arm and he stopped with a jolt.
“What is it? Jonah? Talk to me…”
I pulled him close, the blood flooding my brain and my words coming out on shallow puffs of air. My head swelled. I could feel time racing past me, second by second, and I couldn’t be done yet. I wasn’t done yet.
“Help me, Theo.”
“What is it?”
“You have to help me.”
“Are you…Do you need doctor…?” His head whipped around the rows of parked cars, ready to call for help.
“No doctors. Not anymore. Theo, listen to me. I need your help.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What do you need? Anything, Jonah. Anything.”
“Help me finish it,” I said, my eyes boring into his. “I have to finish it, Theo. The installation. No matter what. I have to leave something behind.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere…”