If I dream, I don’t know it.
thursday 9/25
Mom is already gone when I wake up. She has an interior-design company with her friends Susan and Michelle—the three of them always liked to shop together, and while my father maintains that their business is just an excuse to flash their business cards at fabric stores, my mother insists that there’s “more to it than that.” Of course, she never actually explains what the “more” is. Maybe she can’t remember now. She stopped going for a while after the accident, and I had started to wonder if she felt the same way about Susan and Michelle that I did about Amy. But a month ago, on the first day of school, I came into the kitchen and found Mom showered, dressed, and ready to go. She’s been working two or three days a week since then.
Dad leaves while I’m eating breakfast. I still have some time before I need to get ready for school, so I walk into Dad’s study and wake up his computer. He never totally shuts it down—no matter how many times my brother lectured him about backing up his files and program updates and all that, Dad just can’t be bothered. So all it takes is a shake of the mouse, and the screen lights up. It’s not even password-protected.
Poor Dad. Does he really trust everyone so much?
The browser history, of course, has never been cleared. There’s the usual list of sites and links to videos about electrical wiring and shower tile installation, and I’m just about to quit out when something new catches my eye. A search.
COMPASSIONATE COMPANIONS
A little bell rings inside my head. I know a grief-group name when I see one. If there’s anything I’ve learned from Bridges, it’s that talking endlessly about how sad you are, how much you miss the person who’s gone, doesn’t change anything. It might give you a good feeling for a little while, like you’re doing something about your unhappiness, but it’s really just the illusion of action. There is nothing to show for it at the end of the meeting.
I don’t want Dad to get sucked into that vortex. He needs real results, he needs materials and supplies, tangible achievements. I make a mental note to tell him that I would like crown molding in my bedroom. If I can keep him working on this house, maybe he’ll forget he wants a different one.
I take a quick detour on my way to the shower to check Mom’s journal for new entries. Like Dad, she doesn’t make any effort to hide it—it lives in her nightstand drawer, waiting to be written in. And then to be read. I know how wrong it seems that I do this, but I think of it this way: My parents have become like mannequins of themselves, like characters flattened in a book, and I need to follow their story. Sometimes I even need to direct it a little, push it in the right direction, because there’s one thing we all agree on: None of us like surprises anymore.
And I’ll admit there’s a slightly more selfish motivation, too. I want to know if Mom and Dr. B. are talking about me.
Only one new installment since the last time I looked. Naughty Mom. She’s supposed to write in it every day. (I know this because the first entry says, Dr. Blankenbaker wants me to write in this book every day.)
Drove past the Victorian on Sycamore Street today, it says. They painted the trim a new shade of blue again. It seems as if they can’t decide on what color would be best. I could tell them. I know exactly what blue they should have there, and exactly what flowers should go in the planters. All they have in there is trailing ivy. It’s such a waste. Everything seems like such a waste.
I close the book and set my hand on its cover for a moment, like a blessing. Then I tuck it away again, leaving it in its dark drawer home.
—
School proceeds in its pleasantly predictable way. I think I see Chase a few times among the sea of faces, but I don’t allow myself to actually look for him. Now that the door to feeling has opened a crack, I’m not as insulated as I was before. A riot of noise and color hits me when I walk into the gym to help with the carnival prep. I manage to get Mel’s attention with a wave.
“You are my only hope,” she says as she walks toward me. She is wielding a hammer in a vaguely threatening way. “No one here respects my authority.”
“That’s because they’ve never seen you handle a chipmunk,” I hear myself tell her.
She taps her chin thoughtfully with the clawed side of the hammer’s head. “Maybe I should suggest a taxidermy exhibit for the carnival. That’d shut them up.”
I nod, though we both know that displaying Mel’s skills would probably cause more social harm than anything else. It wouldn’t help me renormalize, that’s for sure.
“Oh well. At least, I can order you around.” She winks elaborately, then yells, “Back to work, lackey!”
Her instructions are forceful, but not very specific. I look around for something to work on, something that doesn’t require excessive risk or noise. There’s a group of kids arguing about paint colors for the game booths, and I’m about to walk over and offer my services when I see Amy.
She’s using a nail gun to put the booths together, the staccato shots ringing off the gym walls in a way that both excites and terrifies me. The fluorescent lights cast a glare on her safety goggles, so I can’t see her eyes, but her jaw is set in a way that I recognize. She is squatting, and her whole body is tense, like she’s an animal ready to take off running. There is nothing about her posture that says, This would be a good time to come talk to me. But I see her so rarely that I decide to chance it. I wait until she pauses between nail shots and cautiously walk over to her. My heart is hammering in my chest, but I won’t let it show in my voice.
“Hey.”
It seems that I’ve been a bit too cautious, because she jumps back on her heels and then falls on her butt. The nail gun wobbles in her hand and threatens to hit the floor, but Amy grabs hold of it with both hands and sets it down carefully before she stands up and pushes her goggles onto the top of her head.
She squints at me for a second and then says, “Something I can do for you?”
Talk to me, I think. Tell me how you’re doing.
Instead, I say, “I found the playlist.”
Amy crosses her arms, a shield. “What playlist?”
“The one that—the one he made for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But I know she’s lying, because whenever Amy lies, she twirls her hair, and as she says this, her right hand creeps up over her shoulder and entwines itself in her ponytail and starts flipping strands around and around.
She sees me watching, and stops. “Just leave me alone,” she hisses, and yanks her safety goggles back down, to hide her eyes, to close the door.
I back away slowly, my heart still pounding, and peer around the gym to make sure no one else was listening, to search for some task that I can perform. My eyes skid across the collection of bodies in the bleachers and settle on a single figure at the top. A boy. He looks back at me.
This has happened to me before, seeing someone who looks so much like him that I am stunned into a kind of reeling panic. It’s just like one of those dreams where something terrible is about to grab you and you think, frantically, How do I wake myself up? But you’ve forgotten how to walk or run or do anything but stare at the beautiful, menacing thing that is going to be the end of you. Closing your eyes is the only recourse you have. But this time, because Amy’s voice is still ringing in my ears and I want so much to be able to undo what I did, and that boy up there looks so much like—I want so badly for it to be—
I don’t close my eyes. And even though I know that the boy I’m seeing isn’t my brother, I make myself believe for just a second, just long enough to say his name.
“Nate,” I whisper to myself, just to myself. I say it, and it stings, but it doesn’t unravel me. I say it a little louder. “Nate.”
There’s a crash from across the gym, and I look toward it by reflex.
“Scud!” hollers Mel.
When I look at the bleachers again, the boy is gone. New loss washes over me.
Act normal. I fin
d a paintbrush. I find a wooden board with outlined letters waiting to be filled in. I do what I am supposed to do.
That empty space in the bleachers looms over me as I paint.
I get all the way home before I can breathe without feeling like there’s a snake tightening itself around my neck.
I’m caught between wanting to forget how Amy sounded and wanting to get another jolt of the anxious energy her anger shot through me. I’m becoming an addict, a junkie for feelings. It doesn’t even matter if they’re good feelings or not.
Maybe this is what everyone likes so much about doing drugs. But it’s all a matter of finding the right one.
What can I do to make myself feel something again, right now? Everything in the house has been sanitized, reminders removed, pictures and trophies carefully boxed up by my father to “give us some time.” There’s nothing here that will shock me. I think about throwing myself into Nate’s room, going through all of his stuff in the hopes of finding more secrets.
Then I remember the mail in my desk drawer.
My hands are shaking with doubt by the time I get to my room, but I don’t care. I take the whole pile out and flip it over. Start from the bottom and work my way up. It’s all mass-produced, there’s nothing of him in it, but I open everything and stare at his name on every piece of paper. I hear myself breathing too quickly but I keep going, opening everything, until I get to the Life Choice envelope.
It looks so much more official, somehow, than the other mail and for a split second I start to tell myself that I’ve gone far enough for one day.
Then I rip it open anyway.
There are two letters inside. One is in a plain sealed envelope, and the other is loose, just folded up like all letters are—the bottom edge folded up to the middle and pressed, the top edge folded down over it. It’s just regular white printer paper. I pick it up even though my arm feels suddenly like lead, as if the rest of my body is conspiring to paralyze it. I lift the top edge and see words, but they jumble as I read them, as if my eyes, too, are trying to keep this secret.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. McGovern:
I look at the envelope that holds the other letter. Handwritten on its smooth paper skin is simply To the family. The letters are shaky, tremulous, and the same writing is all over the lined paper I withdraw from the envelope. Words swimming in place, pushing against the confines of their wide-ruled lanes.
Dear friends,
I do not know your names. I do not know the name of the son you lost, but I know that your tragedy enabled me to live a new life, and for that, I thank you.
My doctors said that my chances of survival without a lung transplant were basically nonexistent. I would certainly be dead by now if it were not for the sacrifice that your son made by donating his organs to people like me, people in desperate need.
There are no words strong enough to express my gratitude, but I hope that the knowledge that your son did not die without purpose will bring you some small measure of comfort.
Sincerely,
Gerald R.
I go back to the other letter, the typed one, with LIFE CHOICE printed in blue at the top. Underneath that, in a smaller font but still in blue, it says TRANSPLANT SERVICES DIVISION.
Because your son was in excellent health, the letter says, and possessed type O-negative blood—the universally compatible blood type—we are honored to report that we found recipients for the following organs. Then comes a list:
heart
liver
lungs
kidneys
corneas
There is more, but my eyes won’t move from the list. I whisper the words to myself over and over again. There’s a certain rhythm to them, like a poem or a song. As I say them, I start to see them, shapes extracted from the body. The heart like a fist. The liver like the head of an ax. The kidneys, a pair of quiet creatures, rounded toward each other. I loved the map of the human body in my biology textbook. Now all I can see in my mind is a butcher’s diagram, dotted lines directing where the different cuts of meat begin and end.
Waves of nausea push at me. This is the other side of feeling again. It can’t all be smiles and sunshine and happiness. There’s messiness, there are dark edges and hurt. There’s a toll to pay on the bridge out of limbo. And here it is.
My parents donated Nate’s organs.
They gave him away.
This is what they were talking about in the kitchen. My mother said these people could write letters to her. These people for whom the doctors divided my brother up and took the parts they wanted. It’s in the letter.
The nausea subsides and then rises again. I throw myself at the cookie tin, grabbing for Matty, but my fingers brush something softer. His wallet. I let them close around the leather, pull it out, and open it before I lose my nerve.
His driver’s license is there, held behind clear plastic. I haven’t looked at it in a long time. After he first got it, I used to stare at it through the plastic but he never let me take it out. Now I break that rule, too. I pinch my fingernails underneath the plastic and draw it out of its pocket. Flip it over and there it is.
A tiny red heart, in the bottom right corner. Tiny white letters.
DONOR.
So he wanted this, I think. But did he really think about what that meant, checking that perfect little box at the RMV? Surely, he never imagined that anyone would take him up on this particular offer.
My parents did, though.
Cross my heart.
He taught me that when we were younger, how to make a promise that way. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. We had to do it quietly so my mother wouldn’t hear. It always bothered her, even though it never meant that much to us. Now, though. Now it means something entirely new.
His heart is still alive, in someone else’s body.
I wanted to feel. Now I feel too much. It’s a jumble, anger mixed with aching sadness mixed with…relief.
I thought I had to let him go, but now I know that he isn’t really gone.
I tuck the letters back into their envelope cave, slide it under my pillow, and start the music.
friday 9/26
I am bursting with secrets. I carry them with me to the carnival like a collection of breakable and precious artifacts. I do not want to show them to anyone—I am already a novelty in my school and would rather not become known as a lunatic on top of everything else. Act normal. My mission. Still, it seems a shame to keep these things all to myself.
I navigate between the bodies, floating, buoyant. So many heartbeats in one place that I can almost feel them synchronizing with each other like a chorus of bass drums. Everyone seems vulnerable now.
Be careful, I want to tell them. Anything can happen. You are the key to someone else’s survival. I see their pieces, their eyes and openings, their precious bones holding everything together. They have no idea.
Mel is a tornado, marking a path of angry instruction from booth to booth. “Wake up!” she hollers at her inattentive volunteers. “Haven’t you ever been to a carnival before? You’re not supposed to let everyone win every time.”
I look for Amy, wanting and not wanting to see her in equal measure. Maybe she’s at home, listening to the playlist I tortured myself with for hours last night. The one she claimed not to know about.
Chase appears, another solitary ship on the sea. Other, cooler girls—accustomed to having first dibs on any boy who is new to Molton and at least passably attractive—track him with eyes as hard as stone and whisper to each other when he stops next to me. I feel like all sorts of people are staring at us, but he is oblivious, focusing instead on Mel.
“Wow,” he says, watching her.
“I know,” I say. “She is really in her element, isn’t she?”
Even though she is yelling, she has a huge grin on her face. She spins around, stopping every few feet to take a picture with her phone. She points it at me and Chase for a half second but then turns away and tucks the
phone into her back pocket.
“Having fun?” Chase asks.
I nod. Can he see the secrets? Are they writing themselves on my skin? It feels like it. He takes my silence as a chance to say something else.
“I just wanted to tell you—” But I cut him off, grabbing his hand. I can’t let this elation go to waste, can’t let even a hint of serious conversation take it away.
“Chase,” I tell him. “Life is short. This is a carnival. And it has a truly excellent beanbag toss.”
“Is beanbag one word or two?” he asks me.
“Exactly! Let’s go.” I drag him farther into the gym, weaving through the crowd at breakneck speed.
“Whoa, Nellie!” Chase grabs our joined hands with his free one and pulls us to a stop. “You passed the beanbag toss, like, three booths ago.”
Sure enough, we are parked in front of Fiona and Zoey’s kissing booth. CHEEKS ONLY says a sign. Zachary Burlie is threatening to lower his pants. “I’ve got two cheeks right here,” he crows.
Fiona and Zoey roll their eyes. “Ew,” they protest halfheartedly. “Don’t.”
Ms. Doberskiff arrives to rescue her cheerleaders. “Zachary,” she says, “if I see even a hint of your underclothes, I will personally escort you out of the school. Or better yet, I will install you in the dunking booth and let the girls’ softball team have their way with you.”
Zachary slinks away, pants in place, and Ms. Doberskiff notices me and Chase standing there.
“Tallie, Chase, I am sorry you had to witness that.” Ms. Doberskiff seems to think that once you’ve been traumatized, just about any little thing can send you spinning off the rails. “I’m not sure this booth was even sanctioned by Principal Hunter….”
“We’re fine,” Chase assures her. “But I think it would do us some good to release our unexpressed emotions at the beanbag toss.”
“Very constructive,” Ms. Doberskiff says. “Tallie, are you all right?”
She probably asks this because I am craning my neck to see over the carnival booths and into the bleachers, in case that boy I envisioned is there again and I can get another feelings fix. I reassume a normal stance and assure her that I am. But after Ms. Doberskiff walks away, Chase takes my hand again.
Some of the Parts Page 7