Sara frowned and concentrated on squeezing the bulb that tightened the cuff around my arm. “The donor is anonymous for a reason. The family has just suffered a great loss.”
I had that feeling, the one where you realize you said something embarrassing in front of your mother’s friends, and you know you should apologize but you don’t.
“I keep thinking my donor was a girl. It’s a gut feeling I have. And I just want to know something about her, that’s all. Like how she died. And,” I paused, “if she was an athlete.”
Sara’s hand stopped midsqueeze. Her eyes widened a second. Then she resumed squeezing until my arm felt like it would burst. She slowly let out the air, her eyes focused on the flickering dial of the gauge. Finally she spoke. “What makes you think she’s an athlete?”
“My heart feels like it wants to run, like it’s used to moving a lot. Like it belonged to an athlete.”
Sara’s eyes darted back to the monitor. I’d seen something in her eyes, and now she was trying to act like I hadn’t just caused her own blood pressure to jump. Could she know something about my donor? I doubted it, but still …
“Maybe you’re not used to the feel of a healthy heart.”
Was she trying to convince me or herself?
“No, it’s more than that. Really it is.”
She unfastened the cuff and hung it next to the bed. “Well, kiddo, that’s something you should ask the family. Did you write a letter?”
I handed her the envelope.
Sara put the letter in her pocket. “I’ll make sure Mrs. Lewis forwards this to the donor’s family. There’s a waiting period, though, before she can send it.”
“Oh. How long?”
“I’m not sure. It might be a year.”
“A year! I can’t wait that long.”
“They have their rules.” She set the end of the stethoscope on my heart and listened. I concentrated on being still, which had never been a problem before.
Sara nodded and jotted down some numbers on my chart. “Sounds good. You’ll be out of here in no time.” She patted my arm. “Can I get you anything?”
I shook my head. “Sara, could I ask you something?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
“If your child had died, would you want to talk to the girl who had her heart?”
She paused a moment, and yawned, stretching her arms in a circle above her. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Yes, I’d want to meet her. I’d want to put my ear to her chest, to listen to my child’s heart beating, to know that in this very unique way my child was still alive to the world.”
“Then tell Mrs. Lewis to send my letter now. I think they need to read it.”
“You’re really persistent about this. I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though.”
Sara put her hands back down. The sight of her standing there with her arms stretched above her head in a circle had felt familiar. I knew that sensation. But how?
19
EAGAN
She’s looking straight at me. A girl. She stands out because she’s not pasty gray like everything around her. Like me. She’s wearing a frilly dress the same shade as the marigold bushes in Mom’s garden. Her black curly hair is glittery. It reminds me of the stuff we put on our hair before competitions.
“Can you see me?” I ask.
She nods and waves like she wants to come over but needs to be invited.
Finally. Someone to talk to. My heart feels lighter. Maybe she can help me find my way back to my life.
“Hey,” I say.
She doesn’t need more of an invitation. She’s next to me in a flash.
“I’m Eagan. What’s your name?”
She’s younger than I am; I’d guess she’s about twelve or thirteen. She’s petite like me and has the prettiest smile, the kind that melts hearts. “I don’t have one.” She says it with that smile still on her face.
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “No one ever gave me one.”
I recognize her voice as the one I’d heard before, but she’s older than she sounded. It’s her voice. She sounds so happy. Maybe too happy.
Her wide eyes zone in on my skating dress. She stares at the rhinestones, which are now gray and flat. But her eyes brighten as though she can see the sparkle. She reaches a hand out to touch one.
“No name? That’s terrible.” Who has a kid and doesn’t name her? I’d be mad if I didn’t have a name. How strange that she’s gone all these years without one. I feel as though I need to fix this awful indignity. “How about if I call you Miki? It’s a name I wanted for myself when I was little.”
“Miki.” She repeats the word, exaggerating the M sound with her lips. “Yes. That’s a good name,” she finally announces. “Names are important on Earth.”
“What is this place?” I ask her.
She wrinkles her nose. “You know, I’m not sure what it’s called. Do you want to name it too?”
“No. I want to get out of here.”
She smiles as if I’ve said something dumb. “This is an in-between place.”
“In between what?”
“Life and death.”
I feel a shudder work its way up my body. “Are you saying I’m … ?” My voice breaks. I can’t say the word.
“This is where many souls come. They don’t stay here, though,” she says.
Souls. That word definitely sounds like I’m dead. “This place seems huge. How many ‘souls’ are here?”
“More than a million people die each week on Earth. Many of them end up here.”
She fingers a rhinestone, then touches the fabric of my dress. “I’ve never seen it up close,” she says.
“No. I don’t believe you. There’s no one else here. Just those people on the other side.”
“Oh, them. They’re waiting for you.”
I’m still trying to take it all in. Am I really dead? Fresh tears fill my eyes. I didn’t think I had any left.
“Are you dead?” I say in a soft voice, almost a whisper.
She nods. “People die all the time,” she says in a cheerful voice, as though it isn’t the terrible thing it really is.
When she says that, a memory flashes in front of me, and I’m back in the hospital.
I’m in Grandpa’s room. It’s dark, and dots of light fill the Milwaukee skyline through the window.
I wasn’t allowed to stay long. Hospital rules. The nurses said Grandpa was stable, a good sign. Dad told me to go home and get some rest. I said I wanted to stay, but everyone else said no.
“It’s better this way,” Mom said. “I’ll take you home so you can do your homework.”
Mom hugged Dad for a long time and whispered in his ear. Then she handed me a tissue.
“Dry those tears, Eagan. You need to be strong.”
I grabbed the tissue. “Why?”
“Because your grandfather doesn’t want you to cry for him.”
“Yes he does.” I crumpled the tissue in my hand. “He wants me to cry and feel just like this.”
Dad gathered me in his arms. “It’s okay to cry. You two have a special bond.”
Mom just shook her head. When we got home, I flopped down on my bed, blew off my homework, and fell asleep with my headphones on. I dreamed of Grandpa bending over his workbench, whistling some made-up tune while he pounded a nail into a bent piece of wood.
“This is what it’s all about,” he said as he turned the wood over in his hands.
“What?” I asked.
“Life. It’s being able to use all your wood, not just the good, straight pieces.”
When I woke up, a gray darkness filled my room. Voices floated up from downstairs, and I remembered about Grandpa all over again.
I got up and wiped my eyes, then went downstairs, stopping near the bottom, where nobody could see me. Mrs. Voxler, our neighbor, was in the entryway. She held a covered dish.
“Just my goulash,” she was saying. “It heats up real nice at three hundred and fi
fty degrees.”
“It’s lovely,” Mom said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Mom hated goulash.
“How is everyone doing?” Mrs. Voxler asked.
“Richard is a real trooper. Eagan is having a difficult time, though. She didn’t realize all the health problems he had.”
What health problems? No one ever told me.
“Do you know his prognosis yet? Are they expecting a full recovery?”
Mom’s arms were folded. “It’s doubtful. Living alone in that big house has been hard for him the last few years, and he definitely can’t be left alone now. We’ll probably look into a nursing home when he’s better. Of course, we have the entire house to go through before we put it up for sale. I dread all that work.”
Knowing Mom, she’d start tomorrow.
The rocking chair. She’d see it.
I ducked out the back door and walked the six blocks to his house. I used the spare key hidden under the blue flowerpot and let myself in.
The rocker was downstairs in the basement. I couldn’t leave it there, not if they were going to clean out his house. I called Scott and asked if he could come over in his Jeep. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and waited for him.
The silence felt heavy. The kitchen was filled with Grandpa; the leftover smell of bacon. An open package of Fig Newtons. A half-finished crossword puzzle on the table. Half a cup of tea. A bowl of lemon drops in the middle of the table. I put one in my mouth and sucked. I thought of Grandpa’s puckered lips.
I half expected Grandpa to be there, to come around the corner tucking in his shirt, carrying the newspaper that he read every morning along with a cup of weak coffee, his glasses perched on the end of his nose.
Then he’d put down his coffee and stick out his hand. “Wanna dance?” he’d ask. He’d move side to side and raise his arms in the air like he thought kids my age danced.
I’d shake my head. “Stop doing that. You’re embarrassing me.” That would just make him move his arms in an even goofier way. Totally out of synch.
I got up and wandered through the house, stopping to run my hand along the pictures of him and Grandma, to smell the Mennen aftershave on his dresser, to tuck the plaid slippers underneath the end of his bed.
I went downstairs and looked at the tools on the pegboard above his workbench: the wrenches arranged by size; the hammers, clamps, saws, and drills framing the wrenches like a work of art. Grandpa knew every tool from memory, where it hung, and what color handle it had.
Everything was going to change. Without this house, Grandpa would change. Maybe he’d become one of those people in the nursing home who stared out the window and never talked. Maybe he’d become bitter and just sit there and wait to die.
Mom’s words still poked at me. She acted as if I was being too emotional about all this. How did she expect me to feel? Grandpa was the one I turned to the most.
She was already planning to sell his house and stick him in a nursing home before the doctors knew how bad he was or if he’d recover. I thought of our house with that empty spare bedroom. It would be perfect for Grandpa. Mom would never even consider it.
It’s funny. I’m the one who always worried about the future. When I thought of Grandpa, though, I didn’t see him dead or in a nursing home. I saw him living his life, making the most of every day. Always making plans.
It was Mom who could take another man’s future and throw it away. Of course, Grandpa knew that about Mom. And he still liked her. He saw such good in her.
Did you have to love your relatives? Mom probably loved me, even with our constant arguing. I guess deep down I loved her too. But I didn’t always like her.
I went back upstairs and looked out the window at the darkened street. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the rocking chair yet. But it sure wouldn’t be here when Mom came over tomorrow to get Grandpa’s things.
20
Amelia
His voice floated from the hallway through my open door. He sounded unsure. “Could you ask Amelia if she wants a visitor? Could you tell her it’s Ari?”
“No problem,” Sara responded. “I’ll ask her.”
Sara peeked her head around the corner. “A cute guy is here to see you.”
“Can you give me a minute?” I was already reaching for a brush.
“Sure.” She looked at her watch. “But keep it short. Visiting hours are over in half an hour.”
I switched off the TV and brushed my hair. I was so glad Mom and Dad had left for dinner. I hoped they went to a real restaurant, not the hospital cafeteria. I hoped they wouldn’t come back too soon.
At least my baby blanket was tucked away. I thought of hiding the horse, but Ari had already seen it. He’d practically stared at it.
My hand shook as I studied my reflection in the mirror. I wished I was strikingly beautiful like Rachel with her perfect features, her shaped eyebrows, and clear skin. I wished I’d inherited Mom’s blond hair and blue eyes, the ones Rachel had somehow gotten instead. My straight brown hair and hazel eyes were so ordinary. A few freckles dotted my nose. Some annoying pimples sprinkled my forehead from the medicine I was taking. There was nothing striking about me except for the scar under my gown. And Ari was here because the social worker sent him, nothing more. He probably thought of me like he thought of Tomas. Just a kid. But I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I couldn’t help feeling excited. I’d never felt this way about a boy before, a boy I’d met for just half an hour.
I was straightening the sheet on my bed when Ari knocked lightly on the wall.
“Knock, knock.”
“Hi, Ari.”
“You’re a hard girl to track down,” he said. “I didn’t think to look in pediatrics.”
The word “pediatrics” made me sound even more like a kid. “Where’s Tomas?”
“Home. I was driving by and thought I’d stop in.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” So lame. I definitely didn’t know how to talk to a guy.
He took a deep breath. “To be honest, I wanted to talk to you without my little brother around.”
My heart fluttered. I searched his eyes, wondering if he was just feeling sorry for me, the poor girl with the bad heart. But then I remembered that I had a different heart now, a healthy one.
His dark brown eyes looked away, as though it had been hard for him to say that. He had large, serious eyes, the kind that drew attention to them. The kind of eyes I could dream about.
Ari tugged on his button-down long-sleeved shirt, a bluestriped one that he wore untucked over his jeans. I concentrated on the brown locks of hair that swept his collar, while stealing glances at his eyes without being too obvious.
A beeper went off in the hallway. I turned toward the sound, aware that the door was open. I wondered if anyone was standing outside the door listening.
Ari frowned. “There are a couple of reasons I wanted to see you. One is that I could tell you wanted to know more about your donor.”
“I do,” I admitted.
“So here’s the thing. I need to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“To be careful what you wish for.”
“Why shouldn’t I want to know who my donor is?”
Ari put a hand up. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But you need to know what you’re getting into first. Tomas was lucky. The donor family was great, and Tomas learned a lot about his donor. But you never know what you’re going to find when you start digging.
“There was another heart transplant recipient, a kid named Pompilio. He found his donor too. But it didn’t turn out so good for him.”
“What do you mean?”
Ari pushed the door shut before he spoke. He stepped close. His pants rubbed the side of the bed, and I thought for a moment that he was going to sit down right next to me. His voice was low. “Pompilio’s heart came from a girl who was murdered. The family said there was no way they wanted to meet Pompilio, and he became really depressed.
Plus, Pompilio kept having these nightmares.”
I hadn’t thought of that. What if my donor died that way? “That must have been hard for him,” I said.
Ari didn’t answer right away. “I’m not telling you this to scare you. But after that, Pompilio had a rejection. He’s okay now, but I sometimes wonder if that stress caused the rejection.”
He shifted up against the bed. “Tomas’s doctor said that there’s a human element to healing. I wouldn’t want this to be a bad experience for you. I wouldn’t want it to interfere with your getting better.”
Maybe that should have scared me. Maybe that’s what he really meant to do, after all. But it had the opposite effect. “You know what it’s like when you throw a stone in the water and the waves spread out farther and farther?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Well, that’s what’s happening to me. I’m getting farther and farther away from myself, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back. I’m sorry about what happened to that boy, but maybe he would have had the rejection episode anyway. I have a feeling that my donor wants me to find her. It sounds weird, I know.”
Ari shook his head. “No. Not weird at all. Tomas said almost the same thing.”
“You wanted to warn me. That’s why you’re here.” The flutter of my heart gave way to embarrassment. How could I have thought Ari was interested in me as more than just a heart transplant patient?
His voice faltered. “That was one reason I wanted to talk to you. The other was … I could help you find your donor.” He looked down. “If you want help.”
“Of course,” I said, and felt my heart soar again. His voice sounded sincere, and I thought I heard something extra. I couldn’t really tell what. Rachel knew about these things, not me.
Mom and Dad came in just then. Kyle was with them, wearing a white surgical mask. They didn’t require it here in pediatrics, but Kyle probably wanted to wear one, anyway.
“Meely!” Kyle ran next to my bed then stopped. “How’s your new heart?”
“Great. I feel all better,” I said, which was mostly true except for the lingering pain down my chest where they’d cut me open. I patted an empty space at the end of my bed with my foot.
In a Heartbeat Page 8