A Heart in a Body in the World

by Deb Caletti

  “I had no idea.”

  “Oh, every person is a book with chapters. Some are glorious and some are dark and ugly. Every person survives something. We should get a patch for it.” She smacks her arm where her patch should be. “Like Cub Scout Troop one sixty-three.”

  “I just keep thinking of Ernest Shackleton and his crew on that ice. . . . Did you read it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know how at the end of the book, they finally come across that whaler? I keep thinking of him, the whaler, how he breaks down and cries when he realizes that the haggard man in front of him is the great Ernest Shackleton, who’s made it after all.”

  “Can you believe what they went through, just to survive?” Dawn Celeste says. “How awful and terrifying, that trip. Yet I imagine there were nights in Antarctica that were as beautiful as this lake is right now.”

  “Probably.”

  They sit quietly. Annabelle loves the quiet with Dawn Celeste, how it is absent of anxiety or expectation. Grandpa Ed loves that, too, it seems. Annabelle hears him laugh his big laugh when Luke cracks some joke over there. Grandpa Ed, in his socks and sandals, turns the sausages. On this trip, he’s crossed the land and become a romantic hero, who would have guessed.

  This is hard to say, but she has to confess it to someone. It’s a big weight, growing bigger. “I feel like I need to study the heart.”

  Dawn Celeste looks over at her. She leans forward a bit in her chair. “Study the heart?”

  “Before this, I was thinking of studying something science-related anyway, maybe astronomy. But now I think I have to study the heart. How to repair it. To maybe be, I don’t know, a surgeon, I guess. Because of . . .” These words are difficult to speak. It’s fine to run across the country and make speeches and face The Taker in a courtroom, but when she closes her eyes at night, she still sees Will and Will’s parents. She sees Tracie, crying and staring at her with hate in her eyes. She sees Kat, who never got to fall in love; and Becka, Kat’s sister; and Patty, Kat’s mom, the way Annabelle saw her last, in a QFC, looking like a ghost, looking ruined, buying a box of cereal and a frozen dinner.

  “I can understand that. But do you want to study the heart and become a surgeon?”

  “I don’t know. No. Not really. I just want to take some time to see what I want.”

  “I think you have studied the heart already. I think you will go on studying the heart, Annabelle, no matter what you do.”

  • • •

  “What do you think ‘going for a walk by the lake’ means?” Annabelle asks Luke, who sits beside her. He’s trying to whittle something using a pocketknife. It’s almost dark. But after the hot days of summer, it feels good. It’s cool there, on the bank by that lake. Annabelle’s toes are in the water.

  “Having a quickie, for sure,” Luke says.

  She socks him.

  “You set me up for that,” he says.

  “Can you believe I only have a hundred and thirty-eight miles left? Nine days.”

  “Only? Only a hundred and thirty-eight miles?”

  “I’ll be done. I’ll be there.” There. Washington, DC, where she’ll spend three days meeting her senators and the members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, thanks to Olivia. “The thought of going home seems so strange.”

  “I bet.”

  “What then?” She is thinking a lot about this tonight.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, will I ever see you after that?”

  He sets down his knife and the little piece of wood. He looks at her, and she looks at him, and she knows what is about to happen. About to happen? No. She is not a passive participant, being acted upon. She is choosing, setting in motion. Her palms start to sweat. She wants to tap her fingers with sudden nerves. Will a kiss ever be simple for her again? Is a kiss ever simple for anyone? Every kiss is a story. And stories have befores and afters and . . . well, damn it, stories keep unfolding more than anything, don’t they, and so she leans in, and so does he. The kiss is great and gentle, and it promises more, but the best part of it is that it is a bridge safely and sweetly crossed that she’d like to cross again. “You most definitely will, as long as you want that.”

  “I want that.”

  They hold hands. Her toes make circles in the water.

  “I’ll be in my new apartment in Portland, going to school. You’ll be in Seattle, doing whatever comes next. One hundred and seventy-three miles between us. After twenty-seven hundred miles, that seems like no distance at all.”

  “You looked it up.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You’re not expecting me to run that, are you? I may never want to put on a pair of running shoes again.”

  “I have a pickup truck. I have a tent and sleeping bags. I am thinking nights like this.”

  It smells so good out there. The sky is black with shimmers of glitter, and in the lake, there’s the sky’s rippling twin. “I like nights like this.”

  “Olympic National Forest. I want to show you this wolf tree out there I saw once.”

  “A wolf tree? Right.” She thinks he’s setting her up.

  “No! It’s a real thing! An awesome thing. A nature thing, just like you love. A wolf tree is formed when it stands all alone in an area. Everything around it has been destroyed, by fire, by a natural disaster. . . . It’s the lone survivor. Out there by itself, it gets damaged bad, usually from being hit by lightning. It should be dead. Burned up. Gone. You can see that it’s been damaged in the past. It tilts from wind, since it has no shelter. Its heavier branches have been snapped off after ice storms. Those trees, let me tell you, they’re gnarled and broken, twisted into some fantastic shapes.”

  “They sound hideous.”

  “Hideous? No way. The most beautiful creatures you’ve ever seen. And way up at the top, way up there, nearest the sun, new branches grow.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yep. The truest kind of beautiful.”

  “I will take your word for it. Oh man. Mosquitoes.” She slaps her arm. “We should go in.”

  “Wait. I have something for you first.” He hands her the little block of wood.

  She laughs. “Raccoon turd of love?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t really have ears or a tail or even a head, so maybe it should be just a turd of love.”

  A sweet kiss; a turd of love. Annabelle’s heart fills. She feels choked up. There is so much good here that she aches. “It’s one of the best things anyone has ever given me,” she says softly.

  She means it. And Luke can tell she does, so he puts his arm around her and pulls her close.

  34

  There are songs about the heart and poems about the heart and legends about the heart and facts about the heart. And, it’s true—the heart sings and speaks and tells its story. There are exact miles of arteries; there is the exact force of its beat. But the heart is also quiet. It is also a mystery. No one really knows how it goes on after being broken.

  How does it happen?

  No idea.

  How do we endure?

  No clue.

  What Annabelle does know now: The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, meaning heart. The ba-bump of the heart leads to the next ba-bump. One step leads to another step. We go forward. Sometimes against our will, sometimes against all odds, we go forward. We have crossed the glacier, the dark land of grief. We have gone to the outer edges of our atmosphere and returned. The glacier and the dark land of grief will always be there behind us. The atmosphere will always be around us and above us. We’ll feel all of it there like a presence. What has happened will be a wind to fight against and a force that propels; it will be a guiding light in the blizzard, it will be a wrong turn. The trip across the glacier and through the dark land of grief is crooked and dangerous but sometimes beautiful. The voyage past the last edges of the universe is frightening and impossible but sometimes astonishing. Regardless—the steps, the ba-bump of the heart, push us to wha
t’s next.

  Annabelle feels these things right now, right this minute—the thump of her heart in her chest, her feet driving her forward. As Loretta steers her around Dupont Circle and down Massachusetts Avenue, Annabelle feels the wind, the force, the guiding light, the history, the story, the exhaustion and the grief and the triumph of the crossing.

  Just keep going. Just a little farther, Kat says, or maybe that’s the Antarctic wind, or the whisper of space, or maybe that’s a gust through her own wolf-tree branches.

  At Scott Circle, Loretta tells her to hang a right. Down Sixteenth Street NW, Annabelle runs. Her heart is galloping. She knows what this street is: her last one. And she knows what’s at the end of it.

  My God, she cannot believe it. Everywhere she looks, there’s a postcard of an image that’s here-and-now real. Her heart goes a million miles an hour and her feet fly. She has forgotten the ever-present pain in her heel and her knee. She has no idea what she looks like, her small, thin self shuffling forward in her red tank top, her ponytail still bobbing, her lips cracked, and her skin so tan after these long weeks in the sun. She focuses only on what’s ahead, because there it is: Lafayette Square, President’s Park. There’s a statue in the center of a rectangle of beautiful red flowers. It is Andrew Jackson on a horse. The horse is up on its two back legs. Andrew Jackson tips his hat in the air.

  Beyond him, Annabelle can see the White House. It looks astonishingly like the White House in photographs, but larger and living, and beyond that, there’s the familiar tip of the Washington Monument, looking astonishingly like the Washington Monument in the books. Goose bumps shiver up her arms.

  She made it. Her heart and her legs have brought her to this new place.

  Now, she hears the cheering. Go, Annabelle, go! You did it! Come on, Annabelle! They are chanting her name. Annabelle! Annabelle! Annabelle! She sees them—her people, her familiars. Her team. There’s a small crowd with them, on both sides of the street. Everyone is wearing red, and waving their arms, and jumping up and down.

  Galloping now, too—Malcolm. Her Malcolm. He can’t help himself. He runs, full speed ahead, his knobby knees pumping like pistons, the back of his T-shirt flying out behind him. He smacks into her like a linebacker. She picks him up. He is almost her size now; he’s grown so much these past months. But he’s still her little brother, and so she lifts him and she sort of carries him, and it’s the most awkward finish, his butt practically hanging down by her knees, but it’s the best finish, because he’s her number-one sidekick.

  There is a banner, and oh, it’s big, and oh wow, her mother is crying her eyes out, and so is Grandpa Ed. His glasses are off, and he’s rubbing his eyes, and it’s his victory, too. He’s been through so much with her. So many days and nights and miles in the RV, just the two of them. So many tins of anchovies, so much chainsaw snoring, so many tender offerings of water bottles and clean socks. So much silent, old-man presence, and loud old-man encouragement. Amid the shouting and cheering, she falls into his arms.

  “Bella Luna,” he says.

  “Grandpa. Thank you, Grandpa.”

  “Thank you, Bella Luna. Thank you for keeping on, mia cara.”

  “Thank God,” Gina says. Yes, Him too. Thank everyone. Thank Saint Christopher, protector of travelers, guardian against storms, holy death, and toothaches. Thank Grandpa Ed, thank Mom, who grabs Annabelle and squeezes her hard, thank Malcolm and Dr. Mann, and even thank Carl Walter, who Annabelle spots in the background, snapping photos. Thank Dawn Celeste and Luke, who is hugging her and lifting her right up off her feet. “You did it, Annabelle. You did it!”

  “Sweetheart,” Dawn Celeste says, her cheeks flushed with happiness. “You are a champion! A big, damn champion!”

  Thank Zach and Olivia, who are hugging her, too. Everyone is hugging her, holding her, lifting her. Her feet rise from the ground as Zach picks her up.

  “You are a fucking survivor!” Zach says. Tears roll down his cheeks.

  “You are.” She clasps Zach to her. They have been through so much together. And she and Olivia have, as well, and so has everyone who was there that night. The humidity is intense. Everything she is feeling is intense. My God, she is glad to be here. She is glad her heart and her feet have moved her forward to feel all of this.

  “See over there? Reporters,” Olivia says. It’s true. People are taking her picture. There is a news van with a satellite on top. “Danisha Prince,” Olivia reads from her notebook, which she’s already pulled from her backpack. “From the Washington Post. She’d like to speak to you after you catch your breath.”

  “You’re awesome, Olivia,” Annabelle says. “Look at what you’ve done.”

  “Look at what you’ve done!” Olivia’s eyes shine with tears.

  Gina shoves a bottle of water at her, and Annabelle drinks. It is the most delicious water she’s ever tasted. People are congratulating her. Strangers. They shake her shoulders and clap her back and ask her how she feels. It’s hard to take it all in. Her family and friends are wearing the red shirts, but so are these strangers. Run for a Cause shirts are everywhere. Thank her supporters, too. Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat, and her old bosses, Claire and Thomas, and the people from Sunnyside; her teachers from Roosevelt, her friends and their parents, her old neighbors, and so many people she doesn’t even know. Gina lifts Malcolm in the air next, and swings him in a circle.

  “I am so fucking happy,” Gina says.

  “Twenty-five cents, Mom!” Malcolm shouts.

  What does she feel besides guilt?

  Joy. She feels joy.

  • • •

  Her feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps that night at the celebration dinner at Morelli’s, where there’s a surprise. Her father has just flown in from Boston, and he’s wearing a dress shirt and jeans, and he looks like her father, not That Bastard Father Anthony. He looks like her father maybe because he’s been acting like one, with the notes and the calls and the support. He is shy. He hugs her hard. He smells like his old, same soap.

  “Way to go. Way to go. I’m so proud of you, Peanut.”

  She’s struck, because she hasn’t heard that name in years, the name he used to call her when she was a little girl, the name he’d use when she’d bring him her report card to admire, when they practiced her spelling words, when he’d cheer her on as she raced around the yard as he timed her with his stopwatch. She hugs him back. When they separate, he holds her arms, and looks at her in the eyes, and she looks at him, and they see each other. She gets that sense, that they really do see, and she is Peanut and she is the young woman she is now, and he is the lawn-mowing young father and he is the man who’s made mistakes and is trying to do better. He kisses her cheek. He sits down at the end of the table by Dawn Celeste and Malcolm. He compliments the waiter on the mostaccioli. It is maybe the beginning of something.

  Her feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps the next day, too, as she walks down a red-carpeted corridor of the US Capitol. It ba-bamps hard. Senate is in session, and she meets her senators from Washington, who invite Annabelle to the State of the Union address in February. She gets her photo taken. She meets elected officials from Oregon and California, before being led to the south side of the Capitol, where she talks with the chair and vice-chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, who also invite her to speak as a panelist at their upcoming forum in December. There is a student group the next day at George Washington University. Annabelle doesn’t think she can do it. Grandpa Ed pushes her out. She walks up to a microphone, which is tilted too high. The faces look at her, and she looks at them, and then she is honest. She remembers that everyone has a story. That the people in the audience have likely felt grief and confusion and powerlessness.

  Her feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps three days later, as she walks down the ramp to their airplane. Luke and Zach and Olivia have already left, and Grandpa Ed and Dawn Celeste are taking the long way home in the RV, via every national park they can hit until the trial starts
, but Annabelle is flying home. Gina and Malcolm sit next to her. Gina reads the plastic sheet about the emergency exits. Annabelle closes her eyes and feels the liftoff.

  Her feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps as she walks into her room at home that night. She is scared of her own house and her own room. She fears she’ll be transformed back into the girl she was. But, no. Bit hops around at her legs in joyous reunion, and she kisses him, and she holds her pillow to her face and smells its beautiful familiarity, but she is still the Annabelle Agnelli who ran across the country.

  And she is still that Annabelle the next week, too, when she walks into prosecutor Seth Greggory’s office. Her feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps even as the Antarctic wind kicks up. She walks hard across the glacier and her extremities freeze. Crystals form on her eyelashes, or maybe they’re just wet from tears. Seth Greggory is firm but gentle. He grills her, as The Taker’s defense attorney will. He brings her coffee. He brings Gina coffee. They start again. And again. She must remind herself—as terrifying as he is and this is, Seth Greggory is on her side. He is part of Team Endurance.

  Annabelle’s feet go forward and her heart ba-bamps, ba-bamps, BA-BAMPS three weeks later, when she walks into a courtroom. She remembers the muscles in her calves and the strength in her thighs, and she remembers the heat of the farmland and the slope of the mountains and the miles and miles she’s crossed. She remembers her strength. She tries to, because there are his parents, Nadine and Gavin, and there he is, The Taker—his hair is different, and he is wearing a suit and tie and, dear God, dear God, it is that tie he wore to the winter dance, and this is awful, awful, but Annabelle looks at him. She looks right at him, and she answers the questions about him, even though the microphone is tilted too far up and even though she’d been throwing up from stress all morning. She says the names of the people she loved. Kat Klein. Will MacEvans. And she looks right at The Taker, right at him, because he hasn’t won. He needs to know he hasn’t won. Her heart has. The way it keeps on beating, the way it survives in spite of how it’s been destroyed—it has won.