Mending Defects

by Lynn Galli

  “I did, but she was in the middle of unpacking.” I left out the part about Lena being a little standoffish. People should form their own opinions about her.

  “Hmm,” she mused. “Haven’t heard anything about her other than the McGraths got an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  “Been watching The Godfather again, Hazel?”

  Her eyes twinkled as she let up on the inquisition. No wonder Lena had felt cornered yesterday.

  I headed into the kitchen to start some coffee and ran into Brooke. A pen perched on her ear, shooting through the short strands of brown. She’d had lots of hair styles since I’d started working for her in college, but this one suited her best. It highlighted her dark blue eyes and complimented her tapered oval face.

  “Hey, Glory. How was your weekend?”

  “Great, yours?” I shortened any of our conversations during stock market hours. Until the closing bell, Brooke watched her screens like a Vegas surveillance spotter, surfacing only to grab a cup of tea before heading back up to her command center on the second floor.

  “Got in some good skiing. I’ll tell you about it later.” She tipped her head and rushed out of the kitchen. At forty-four, she could compete with Ashlyn on energy levels. I often got tired just watching her.

  I started a fresh pot of coffee and headed back into the foyer to find Ashlyn waiting already. “Let’s hit the track, youngster.”

  Her face, maturing into what I guessed would be striking, broke into a sparkling smile. Dark blond hair that she kept in a permanent ponytail got covered by the knit cap she shoved down over her head at my order. We traipsed out the back door to the storage shed where I kept Slick, my snowmobile. Anything that fun to play with deserved a name.

  Helmets on, we took turns straddling the seat. Ashlyn reached forward to grip my waist when I pressed the start button. Revving the engine, I eased out onto the yard, skating along the side of the driveway and onto the street. Riding snowmobiles wasn’t legal on public streets in town, but the police let most of the locals get away with it.

  A few turns later, I burst into the forest that lined the main highway and slowed to a stop. Ashlyn’s hands loosened their grip. She slid back on the seat, thinking she’d crowded me. She was like a lot of people in town, worried about my physical state. It used to bother me, but now I realized it was all part of living here.

  “Want to drive?” I asked.

  She grinned and practically leapfrogged me to switch places. As soon as my hands locked around her waist, we were off. Two miles whizzed past us before we pulled up to the side of the school. She kicked off the front of the snowmobile and lifted the helmet from her head. “Thanks, Glory. That was a blast.”

  I tipped my visor up to say goodbye as the first bell rang in the distance. “Have a great day, kiddo.”

  “See ya.” She waved and headed toward the nearest group. They let her catch up before turning as one to go inside.

  A lone figure stood out from the rest, long and lean in a business suit that looked both casual and elegant. So out of place for the standard just-came-off-the-mountain faculty attire. She waited with watchful eyes as most kids moved in slow motion toward the start of their school day. Her eyes landed on the one group who’d probably wait until the last second to head inside. Most of the faculty would have ignored them, but she didn’t give them any room. Heading straight for them, she called out something from two steps away. The group turned in surprise, not expecting to be challenged. I recognized a few of them. No, they wouldn’t expect to be challenged, but within ten seconds, they were headed inside.

  Interesting.

  When the woman’s gaze turned toward me, I straightened on the seat. The new principal. The one who replaced our dearly loved, long tenured principal who’d suffered a massive stroke and passed away two months ago was now in place. Beatrice L. Coleridge, great name, but not why I’d voted for her and mine had been the deciding vote. The school board couldn’t decide if it wanted to promote from within or bring in someone from the outside. Her résumé was impressive. I hadn’t needed to sit in on the interviews to know she’d be perfect. With my vote, the board moved forward to extend an offer.

  I doubted she knew that as she gave me a stern glance. A glance that said it was time to start school and she didn’t care if I was a worried parent or a vagrant. I had no business being there once the second bell rang.

  It was the same glance she’d given me last night on her doorstep when I’d welcomed her to town.

  Chapter 3

  Being stared at by toddlers was never fun. Having it occur in a doctor’s office that catered to kids didn’t make it any less awkward. At least there was a teenager in the waiting room this time, so I wasn’t the only giant being stared at today.

  “Come on back, Glory,” the nurse, whose name was either Sydney or Stacy ended the staring contest I was having with a five-year-old named Jeffrey, or so his mother’s repeated warnings to him let me know.

  I burst out of my seat, sparking my heart rate into a racing clip. Not the best move when going into a cardiac examination, but I didn’t care. I wanted out of this office. It didn’t matter that I’d been in this room every year for the past thirteen years. My nerves never got any better no matter how many times I got good news with my annual checkup.

  She left me in the room to strip down to the gown. I studied his office while I changed. He’d brought in all new cartoon posters this year. I didn’t recognize the characters anymore. Some even had Japanese symbols in the conversation bubbles. Trends change, I guess.

  A soft knock on the door heralded my doctor. “How are you doing, Glory?”

  “I just out-stared a five-year-old without blinking for two minutes, Doc. Feeling pretty good.”

  He sat and slid the rolling stool into motion in one movement. “Good competition, no aerobics.”

  The S nurse came back in and slipped the blood pressure cuff on me. An arm squeeze later, she related the stats to Dr. Pickford.

  “Blood pressure’s high,” he commented.

  Damn. That was never good news, but what mattered was the ultrasound.

  Dr. Pickford rolled the machine over as the nurse handed him the gel and arranged my gown for the test. The gel was cold as it went on. I never got used to that, but the wand helped warm it up as he pressed down and swiped it over my heart. Grey blobby images appeared on the screen. I could see the shape of my heart and even make out one of the chambers without his assistance. Flashes of red and blue overlaid the grey blob. This gave him my blood flow rate. I tried not to look now that I understood what the colors meant. It kept me from getting worked up at the sight of too much blue.

  His head swung back, and he looked right at me. I felt my heart thud. He only looked at me when he had news. “Oxygen levels aren’t great. You’re at 91%. See here,” he said, pointing to a dark thin line surrounded by grey, “one of your stents needs replacing. There’s leakage around the sutures in the shunt.” He showed the blood flow again and sure enough, lots of blue in that area.

  Double damn.It had been eight years since I’d needed a stent. Another five years since I’d had my last open heart surgery. I knew I should be counting my blessings. I’d been reminded of that since I was born, but it didn’t make the sick feeling I had in my stomach any better.

  “We’ll try the femoral artery again.” He stepped over to his computer to bring up his schedule.

  “Didn’t work last time,” I muttered as S nurse handed me a wipe to take off the gel.

  It amazed me how quickly I became seventeen again whenever he gave me bad news. Not that this was as bad as the news I’d received when I was in high school, but any heart procedure was bad news. After six open heart surgeries and three stent replacements, I’d had my quota of bad news from this man.

  “We can use the carotid instead.” This he directed to his computer screen. He didn’t have to worry about his screen giving him a snarky reply. He knew I’d weigh the options of scarring and pick t
he femoral. I wanted to avoid adding a second scar near the one that looked like a vampire missing a fang had bitten my neck.

  “Can it wait a year?” I asked.

  He rotated to face me, sympathy in his eyes. “You must have noticed a drop in your energy levels. It can’t wait a year. Three months at the most.”

  Three months put me smack dab in the middle of summer. As much as I wanted to put off this procedure, I couldn’t go through the heat without good oxygenation. This should be an easy decision. It really should, but the worst part about having congenital heart disease was that if you lived long enough, you had to make the hard decisions instead of leaving that to your parents.

  “After tax day.” I pulled out my phone and checked my schedule to set a date that wouldn’t affect my work and allowed me a full week’s rest afterward.

  “The last one did its job for eight years, Glory. We’ll use a covered stent to lessen any leakage in the future.”

  Yippee. But he didn’t need my sarcastic reply. The man was nice enough to keep me and a handful of other adults as patients despite being a pediatric heart specialist. I didn’t need to throw sarcasm at him. The other bad thing about having a rare congenital heart defect was that no adult heart surgeon knew as much about my condition as pediatric surgeons. Kids had never lived long enough to be treated as adults. I’d stick with my doctor as long as he’d keep me. He was the reason I was alive, the only reason. He was stuck with me until he kicked my defective heart out. Motivation enough to hold back on my sarcasm.

  After deciding on a date, I made goodbye sounds to get out of the office. Outside, I took a long breath. I could feel my heart rate slow. Just getting out of there always helped, but the dread remained. This procedure meant a three hour surgery if everything went well. If they had to try both the femoral and the carotid to go through, I’d be on the table for six or more. A day and night in the hospital would be followed by a week of not exactly comfortable recovery. I wanted to get through tax day and go skiing one last time for the season. It would give me just enough time to psych myself up for this.

  The last time I’d gone through this, I’d been on summer break from college. My mom and dad had been by my side. I didn’t have to worry about studying or keeping up with anyone on campus. This time, I was a functioning adult, and I couldn’t put off my responsibilities for more than a week.

  Having half a heart sucked.

  You heard me right. Where most people were born with four heart chambers, I’d been born with three, one of which was underdeveloped. Through a series of surgeries, they’d closed off the left side of my heart and built functional pathways in my chambers and vascular system to redirect the flow of blood to work with a two chamber heart. Unfortunately, the shunt, valves, arteries, and veins were overworked, which required some reinforcement from time to time. This was one of those times.

  Another deep breath later, my head tilted toward the sky. The sun was shining today, but it was still very cold. My breath plumed out in front of me. I was alive. Anyone born with this condition a year or two before me would have died before they reached the age of one, some within weeks.

  So, I needed a new stent. I was alive at the age of thirty when my parents had been told I’d be lucky to make it a year, then three, then six, then past my teens. Once I’d broken through my teens with a new valve, I was granted longevity. As long as I followed a healthy lifestyle and stayed within my limits, minor tune-ups should be all I had to face. I was grateful. This stent wouldn’t take me down.

  “Hi, sweetie.” My mom picked up on the first ring. “How’d it go?”

  “Time for another stent.”

  I heard the intake of breath and waited. She would work through this news on her own. The day I was born, she’d faced a difficult decision: subject her newborn to a series of open heart surgeries over the next several years, hoping for a good outcome, or let her baby die. Before every surgery, she was given the same choice. It wasn’t until I was seventeen and sat through the doctor’s discussion of my options that I understood what she’d had to face. I’d thought my end of it was bad, but it paled in comparison to what my mom must have gone through.

  Since then, advancements have gotten so great that they no longer needed to crack my chest open to make minor repairs. No longer was I dealing with ten to twelve week recovery periods. It would be a week of pain and very low energy. By the second week, I’d be limited in my activities but the pain would be replaced by soreness.

  My mom would work through all this. I just had to give her time. “Oh, sweetie, like the last time?”

  “Yeah, but he’s using a different type of stent.”

  “Okay,” she said, processing. She was thinking about all the time I’d spent in the hospital when I was a kid. All the nights she slept on a cot in my room, all the nurses she knew by name, all the other kids and moms who shared our floor. She’d remember all this and then send up a silent prayer of thanks that I was still living and a big plea to make this procedure go well. “When are we doing this?”

  My heart sped up at her words. Not that I doubted it, but it felt good to know that my mom would be going with me like she had the last time and every time before. She’d been my rock when my dad couldn’t come into the room without getting teary. The nurses said that always happened. The dads had a hard time dealing with seeing their kids so fragile. It was up to the moms to keep it together. No crying allowed on the pediatric ward. It was a rule among the kids.

  “Couple weeks,” I said.

  “You’ll stay with us.”

  “Thanks, Mom, but we’ll see.”

  She’d take the next couple of weeks to try to convince me otherwise, but I couldn’t always run to my mommy. I was an adult now, not a college student, not a junior in high school, and not a small kid. This would keep happening. At some point I’d have to learn to deal with it on my own.

  Chapter 4

  When I pulled into my driveway, I saw the back of a bundled figure on my doorstep. She turned at the sound of my car, and I recognized my new neighbor. My picnic basket hung from the bend of her arm. Her face showed a momentary flash of disappointment before a smile surfaced. I would have bet that she was hoping she could leave the picnic basket on my front porch without having to be neighborly.

  She started toward me as I parked. It had been a long drive back from the city and my nerves were still fried from my doctor’s appointment. I was eager to be home, not necessarily to host a guest, but happy for the company to keep from overanalyzing my health status.

  “I wasn’t sure if you were home.” Her voice met me when I surfaced from the garage.

  “I am now. Hello, Lena, nice to see you.” Even if you fooled me by using your middle name instead of the one I expected from your résumé. Had I known I’d be living next door to the woman I helped hire, I might have been more insistent with my offer to help her unpack.

  “Hi.” Her face colored, embarrassed at having not started with that. “I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to return your picnic basket.”

  I smiled with welcome. “Good timing. I’m about to make coffee.”

  “I should be going.” She extended the empty basket toward me.

  I smiled wider and stepped around her, ignoring the proffered basket. “You like coffee; you told me. I bet your house is still in boxes. Come inside, have a cup with me.”

  She glared, but under her breath, I heard, “Bossy.”

  “I am, thanks. It’s one of my best qualities.” I flashed another grin on my way to the door. She had no choice but to follow.

  Once inside, I shed my parka and boots then held my hands up for her jacket, hooking it on a peg. She looked down at her boots then at my hardwood floors past the mudroom. I pointed to the extra pair of slippers, stepping into mine. I left her to make the decision about getting comfortable, heading into the kitchen to start the coffeemaker right away. I’d be lucky if I kept her caged for the time it took to pour two cups.

  “Are
you settling in okay?” I called out, pulling down the mugs and setting them on the breakfast bar.

  “I am,” she said, not having grown any chattier since last week. She entered the kitchen and took a seat, placing her hands in her lap instead of resting elbows on the countertop. Either she was a graduate of a perfect posture class or trying hard not to make an impact on my space.

  She was even more attractive than I remembered. Her hair was pinned back at the sides today, smooth and shiny, showing every beautiful angle of her face. This was her third hairstyle in the three times I’d seen her. I wondered how many more ways she could arrange that magnificent mane of hers. My whisper fine locks looked best left alone to brush against my shoulders, but I found myself experiencing hairstyle envy. Add her snug jeans and form fitting cashmere sweater and it was all I could do not to eat her alive with my eyes.

  “Everything working okay in your house? Need any recommendations on repair people?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Is there something you know that I should?”

  “No,” I rushed to assure her. “But it’s been more than a year since the McGraths last came through. Lots of snow, below zero temps, unattended pipes and water heater, all sources of trouble.”

  A soft laugh came from her lips. It would have been a nice sound if the look on her face wasn’t haughty. “Only an idiot buys a place without an inspection.”

  “Ah.” I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Busying myself with pouring the coffee, I searched for another topic. “Where are you from?”

  Her look turned suspicious. “East coast.”

  How specific. Would I get a state out of her without running a background check? “I went to school in Philly. Loved it, but missed this place, so I moved back after a couple years in the workforce.”

  “It is lovely here.” Her gaze went to the sliders leading to my backyard, which doubled as a plush forest. At least we could agree on that.

  “Are you a skier?”

  “Yes, you?”