The Heart Between Us

by Lindsay Harrel

  As it turned out, showing up at the fund-raiser on Friday had resulted in more than just smoothing things over with Caleb. The several hours they’d spent reminiscing and talking had far exceeded her expectations. His pep talk had given her the courage to finally call Janice Harding and get the Abbotts’ number, then phone the Abbotts on Monday.

  Mrs. Abbott had answered Megan’s call and gently requested Megan visit them at home. Her husband, a physician, was off on Wednesday—would that work?

  She’d expected more time to prepare herself but supposed sooner was better. Less chance of chickening out. Mom had offered to come with her, but Megan knew she was supposed to do this alone.

  Megan reached the Abbotts’ large front door, where a lion’s head knocker stared at her. She opted for the doorbell instead. As soon as she pressed the button, the sound of chimes rang inside, merrily announcing her arrival.

  A woman of medium height opened the door wearing pressed blue slacks, a sweater, and a strand of pearls around her throat. She looked to be in her mid-forties, and her hair was pulled back in a low bun. Her lips quivered as she took in Megan. “I’m Charlene. Charlene Abbott.” The woman’s words tumbled out in a light Southern accent. “You must be Megan.”

  “Yes.” For a moment, she was frozen to the step. Behind Charlene a large staircase rose and split in two directions. A dazzling chandelier hung overhead, casting little beams of light every which way as the sunlight reached through the doorway.

  Charlene extended her hand. “It’s so nice . . .” She gulped. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”

  “It’s okay. Me too.” Megan felt instant compassion for this woman who had lost a daughter. It didn’t matter how big her house was or how much money she had. Charlene would never get the one thing she truly wanted. Megan took Charlene’s hand in hers and without thinking, pulled the woman into a hug.

  Charlene’s arms tightened around Megan. She was shorter than Megan and her head rested near Megan’s chest. For a moment, the woman leaned her head in, as if—oh. Megan’s heart picked up speed.

  Charlene shuddered in her arms. She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “I’m so sorry. It’s just . . . Thank you. I never thought I’d hear Amanda’s heart beat again.”

  Heat welled behind Megan’s eyes and she couldn’t keep a sob from bubbling up in her throat. “It’s my pleasure.”

  Shaking her head, Charlene straightened. “Look at us, a couple of bawlin’ Bessies. Come in, please, and meet my husband.” She led Megan down a high-ceilinged hallway to a living room decorated in a country chic design. Charlene indicated for Megan to sit on the light-brown loveseat. “I’ll fetch him from his study.”

  She left and returned with a tall man who had a salt-and-pepper mustache and a full head of hair. “I’m Gary Abbott, Ms. Jacobs.” He shook Megan’s hand, and he and Charlene sat opposite her on the sofa.

  “Call me Megan, please.”

  “Megan. Thank you for coming.” Gary reached for his wife’s hand and took it in his own, gently stroking it with his thumb as he leaned forward. “We appreciate you coming here. I know this must be difficult for you as well, but we were finally ready to meet the people Amanda helped.”

  It was common for organ donors to save several lives, depending on the nature of their death. “How many were there?”

  “Six. One didn’t want to meet, and two are out of state. We’ve met the other two—and you make three.” Charlene’s lips pulled into a thin line.

  “I’m glad I could come.” Hard as it was to be here, that was the truth. Megan owed Caleb for encouraging her to step out in faith and contact the Abbotts. Maybe this would help them all move forward. “I’d love to hear about Amanda, if you’re willing to share.”

  “Of course.” Charlene looked at Gary, her lip caught between her teeth. Then her gaze swiveled back to Megan. “Would . . . would you like to see Amanda’s room?”

  A room was an intimate thing. What would Megan discover about the sort of person her donor had been? She nodded her assent.

  Charlene beamed, and she popped up from her place on the sofa. “Follow me.”

  Megan rose and followed Charlene down the hallway and up the front staircase. She ran her hand along the smooth railing as she climbed, imagining Amanda doing the same thing day after day. “How long have you lived here?”

  “We’re originally from Georgia. We moved here when Amanda was ten.” Charlene turned left at the top of the stairs and abruptly stopped at a row of pictures. Her hand moved to swipe a speck of unseen dust off one of the frames.

  As Megan got closer, she could see that each frame held a photo of a blonde-haired girl with a huge smile. Amanda Abbott had been a knockout, the kind of beauty every other girl wished she could be. But something in her eyes radiated kindness—and so she also seemed like the type of girl Megan would have felt an instant connection with. In one picture, a young Amanda rode a horse, pride and confidence evident in her stance astride the animal. In another, the girl grinned as she threw her arms around the neck of her daddy.

  Megan’s heart leaped in her chest—almost as if it recognized the picture and longed to be nearer to it, nearer to the memory.

  Megan tore her eyes from the pictures and saw Charlene watching her. She cleared her throat. “She was beautiful.”

  “Inside and out.” Charlene swiped another tear and motioned farther down the hall. “Her room is this way.”

  Megan followed the woman into the bedroom at the end of the hall. She circled the room and took in all the knickknacks, including framed photos by Amanda’s bed of her and her friends, and one of her and her parents. She turned to Charlene, who had picked up a jewelry box with Amanda’s name engraved along the front edge. “Do you have any other children?”

  Without looking up, Charlene shook her head. “We lost a few babies in the womb before Amanda came along. She was our miracle.”

  Grief socked Megan in the gut. All of their children, gone.

  The things God allowed to happen . . . They sometimes made no sense.

  Megan turned to leave the room, but a bulletin board with a huge photo collage caught her eye. She walked closer. Each photo featured something from a different country: flamenco dancers in Spain, gondolas in Venice, Buckingham Palace in London, and more.

  “She always wanted to travel abroad.” Charlene stood just behind Megan, and her gentle voice floated on the air, almost reverent here in Amanda’s world. “She dreamed of being a doctor, you know. Like her daddy. Planned to go to Harvard.” Megan had always wanted to attend an Ivy League school, but instead completed her English degree online over the course of eight years in between bouts of illness. “She’d just found out she was accepted on early admission, when—well, the accident was two days later.”

  Megan touched the edge of the nearest picture, where a herd of animals flooded the Serengeti plain in Africa. “What happened to her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I don’t mind.” Charlene walked to the bed and sat. “It was just before Christmas, as you know. We were on our way to a party and were T-boned in an intersection. All Gary and I suffered physically were a few broken ribs. But the main impact occurred right where Amanda was sitting.”

  Megan stared at the picture of the flamenco dancers. The reds and greens and oranges blurred together thanks to the tears forming in her eyes. The dresses seemed to spin, as if the performers were really there, dancing for her. Dancing for Amanda. “I’m so sorry.”

  “A nurse actually told me I was lucky I didn’t experience more severe injuries, since Amanda and I were sitting on the same side of the car. Lucky.” Charlene choked on the word. “Can you believe someone would say that to me?”

  “People say dumb things when they don’t know what else to do.” Megan had certainly heard her fill of platitudes over the years.

  She pulled her eyes from the photo collage and turned to Amanda’s mom, who’d begun to cry. Megan was only making it worse for this poor woman by being here. �
�I should go.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” Charlene cleared her throat, stood, and straightened her blouse. “Let’s go back downstairs. We want to show you something.”

  She followed Charlene through the hallway, past the photos of Amanda, and downstairs to where Gary waited. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the sofa.

  “Sit, dear. I’ll be right back.” Charlene scooted out of the room toward the kitchen.

  Gary stared at the clock on the wall—or maybe at the family photo beneath it. How difficult this must be for him.

  They sat in silence until Charlene swung back into the room with a plateful of cookies, a book of some sort, and a cup of ice water, which she placed in front of Megan on the glass-topped coffee table. “Please. Take a treat.”

  Mom always taught Megan and Crystal to be polite, so she took a cookie. This was the first bite of sugar she’d even contemplated eating since her doctor had given her a strict post-transplant diet regimen. She slipped a bite of the sweet into her mouth and let a chocolate chip sit on her tongue. Wow. She’d forgotten how good chocolate tasted.

  Settling back onto the couch, Charlene looked at her husband with raised eyebrows—a cue of some sort. Gary straightened and nodded. “Megan, we are so thankful you’ve come today. You don’t know how much it means for us to see how Amanda’s death was not in vain. That others were saved because of her.”

  Megan swallowed her bite. “Of course.”

  He hesitated. “Our daughter had trials in life, ones not of her own making. She did her best to deal with them . . .” He stopped, swallowed hard.

  Next to Gary, his wife nibbled the edge of a fingernail and stared at her feet.

  Gary finally spoke again. “Ever since we moved here, she was in therapy to overcome those trials. Her therapist encouraged her to journal, you see. We discovered the journal from the last year of her life in her desk after her death.”

  “Not that we were snooping.” Charlene leaned forward suddenly, as if desperate for Megan to know they weren’t those types of parents. “I found it when I finally got up the courage to tidy her room.”

  She pointed to the book on the coffee table. It was spiral-bound with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on the cover. “I know it seems a bit unconventional to let you see something like this. After all, it’s deeply personal, at times raw. But we decided that if you chose to come see us and asked to know more about Amanda, we’d show this to you.”

  Megan picked up the journal and traced the picture. She opened to the front, where Amanda’s name was scrawled across the page in typical teenage bubbly letters.

  Gary cleared his throat. “In this particular journal, she created a bucket list for herself. Things she wanted to do, places she wanted to see. It was Amy’s—her therapist’s—idea, a way for Amanda to replace her losses and grief with something else. Joy. Hope. Something to look toward instead of always looking backward.”

  Megan’s gaze careened upward and connected with Gary’s. Oh, how she could relate to that last statement.

  “That’s her bucket list on the first page.”

  She scanned it and saw a lot of dreams—from things as silly as kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland to adventurous goals like running with the bulls in Pamplona. Number nineteen made Megan giggle: Kiss a handsome stranger in the rain.

  “Take a look at the last item on Amanda’s bucket list.”

  Megan flipped the page and saw a few more items. When her eyes hit number twenty-five, her mouth fell open.

  25. Give my heart away.

  Megan covered her mouth with a hand. The air buzzed with premonition. It did not feel like a coincidence that she was here.

  Charlene twisted the huge ring on her finger. “We know it’s not how she meant it, but she did that—for you. She gave her heart away. She completed one item on her list.”

  “And you don’t know how grateful I am.” A tear slipped from Megan’s nose onto the paper, thankfully missing the print. She smoothed it away with her thumb.

  For a moment, Charlene studied her. Something in her gaze seemed to read something inside of Megan. She glanced at Gary and worried her lip. “Would you . . . would you like to keep the journal for a bit?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. It’s precious to you.” And yet something in her knew that she wanted nothing more than to read Amanda’s words, to know more deeply this girl who had given her heart away to a stranger.

  Charlene stood, approached Megan, and squatted next to her. She reached out, hesitant for a moment, and placed her hand over Megan’s—Amanda’s—heart. “It is indeed. But I feel a prompting to let it go for a while, to allow someone else the pleasure of knowing my girl, struggles and all.”

  “Are you sure?” The words came out a whisper.

  Charlene glanced back at Gary, and he nodded. She faced Megan again. “I’m sure.”

  And Megan had the strangest feeling that this visit wasn’t going to be the end of one chapter as she’d hoped. It was going to be the beginning of something else entirely.

  Crystal was going to be fired. She just knew it.

  Come to my office. Now. That was all Tony’s instant message had said. Crystal’s head spun as she headed down the hallway. It had been two days since she’d bombed the Hoffman presentation. She thought maybe she’d skated by. But by now, Tony would have had a chance to talk with the other partners and realize Crystal wasn’t senior architect material.

  Maybe she wasn’t even junior architect material anymore.

  Her stomach clenched as she opened Tony’s door and peeked her head inside.

  Her boss sat hunched over his desk, fingers to his temples as he studied a report. He’d discarded his tie.

  “Knock, knock.” Crystal tried to sound confident, but her voice betrayed her.

  Tony looked up. “Come in.” He began clicking his computer mouse and the printer whirred behind him. “Grab some coffee if you want.”

  So he wanted her to get comfortable. Maybe this wasn’t a worst-case scenario after all. Crystal headed for Tony’s personal Keurig and brewed herself a cup, adding a tiny dash of hazelnut creamer. She took the mug between her fingers and the warmth seeped into them. With a sip, the coffee slipped down her throat. But the sweetness of the drink couldn’t soothe the sourness in her soul.

  Crystal took a seat across from Tony, who was still occupied with something else. As he snatched papers from the printer and stapled them, her eyes roamed his office, took in the wall full of awards, each one lauding his tireless efforts in building the Manhattan skyline as one of the city’s best architects. The couch in back where he spent many nights after working like a dog. The framed picture of his boys, now thirteen and fifteen, who lived full-time with their mother. They’d been married for eighteen years when Carrie divorced him last year—because he worked too much, or so Crystal had heard.

  A stab of anxiety rolled through Crystal’s veins. But that would never be her and Brian. She wouldn’t let it. They’d figure out their differences, settle into a better routine soon.

  He’d been sweet on Monday night, comforting her after she’d bombed the Hoffman project. He’d made her favorite dinner, and one thing had led to another . . .

  Her cheeks warmed at the remembrance. It was the first time they’d been together in weeks. Or was it months?

  Maybe doing so poorly on the Hoffman presentation was a blessing in disguise.

  Although she couldn’t help but wonder—and hate herself for it—if Brian secretly hoped her failure would mean she’d move on from her goal of advancing at the firm. He supported her dreams, yes, but she knew he also longed for a wife focused on the same things he was. Career advancement had never been at the top of his priority list.

  It hadn’t always been at the top of Crystal’s either. But the last few years especially had lit a fire in her, and more and more she’d become attached to the idea of gaining a promotion to senior architect, then achieving partner by the age of forty. And now that a spot had finally open
ed for senior architect, she could practically taste the victory.

  Or had been able to, before the Hoffman presentation had gone awry.

  Tony finally swiveled in his chair, holding a file. “Knowing you, you’re still reeling from the Hoffman rejection.”

  She forced a chuckle. “I guess you know me pretty well.”

  “I’m not going to lie. It would have been a decent-size account, and Landon and the others are not happy about losing it. They questioned my decision to trust a junior architect with such a large venture in the first place.”

  She gulped. There was nothing she could say to defend herself. Even her promise to do better seemed inadequate.

  He continued. “However, I reminded them how talented you are and that everyone is allowed one screwup. That was yours. Let’s move past it.” Tony held out the file toward Crystal. “I just heard about this exciting new opportunity.”

  She set her mug on his desk and took the file from his outstretched hand. Inside was a call for proposals from the Jeff Lerner Corporation. “Isn’t this one of the top investment firms in New York?”

  “It is.” Tony leaned forward, light and extra energy in his eyes.

  Crystal scanned the proposal and got a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. “They want to tear down the James Lawrence building?”

  How many times had she walked past that run-down building in the heart of Manhattan on her way to work, often stopping to stare at it and imagine what it once was—what it could be, with a little help?

  “No, no, not tear it down. Refurb it. Expand it. Revive it, if you will. There are several surrounding apartment complexes the company has purchased as well. They want to make it into an entire community unlike anything else in the city.”

  Every architect had a dream project: add a skyscraper to the Big Apple skyline, or create a glitzy gallery frequented by the elite, or build monuments to great leaders. Something in Crystal told her that this project was why she had become an architect. She’d seen the James Lawrence building’s potential the first time she’d discovered it as a first-year grad student new to the city. It was a hidden treasure, overshadowed by the buildings around it.