Then I remember that she thinks I’m a reporter. So she’s going to get some questions.
I thank her for writing and express my deepest sympathies for everything she’s gone through. I tell her that I’d like my article to help people understand her experience, both physical and emotional. She didn’t say which organ she had replaced and I wonder if it’s rude to ask—too personal, according to some spectrum of medical inquiries—but I figure I can find out later, if she’s even one of Nate’s recipients. I ask her what she knows about her donor, if anything, and whether she thinks about that person. Hidden behind my mother’s name and the story I’ve made up about who she is, I tell myself that these questions are necessary.
And I pray that the answers are what I need.
—
I ride my bike home from school. My parents aren’t there, and I wonder if Hunter has notified them yet of my insubordination. If he called yesterday, or today, they have opted not to say anything. At least, not right away. Maybe they are sitting on the information like a cat with a mouse, waiting to see what the mouse does next.
With Matty threading songs into my head, I get myself an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and rub it against my jeans until it’s shiny, reflecting light I didn’t see before. I hold it in front of me all the way up the stairs like a beacon and drop my backpack on my bed. I’m about to bite into the apple when I hear a noise behind the music. At first I think it’s part of the song, but when I take out one of the earbuds, it’s still there, separate from all the other sounds. Short taps like staccato beats, mixed with quick little scrapes. It’s coming from my closet. Still holding the apple, I open the door. The tapping stops, then starts again. It sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the wall. From Nate’s room. It’s probably an animal, a squirrel or something, that climbed in through the attic. But it sounds so familiar, almost like—
Morse code.
Nate and I used to ask for our rooms to be connected. We wanted my dad to cut a hole through our shared wall so we could crawl back and forth and visit each other, but we always got one of those noncommittal parentisms like “Oh, that would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
Eventually we stopped asking and tried to send each other messages in Morse code instead. Nate got a book from the library with a chart of the Morse version of the alphabet, and he eventually taught me how it worked, how the taps were measured. A dot is the quickest, one short beat, and a dash equals three dots. A one-dot pause between the parts of a single letter, a three-dot pause between letters, and a seven-dot pause between words. On a telegraph, someone could hold the signal longer for the dashes, but we had to figure out another way. Nate came up with scrapes for dashes, mixed with taps for the dots. I could never think quickly enough to understand his messages as he tapped and scraped but I got better at recognizing the patterns, and by the time I was ten or eleven, if I listened closely enough, I could write the “words” down and then look up the translation. Which was usually a lot less exciting than what I expected. THE CROW FLIES AT MIDNIGHT. SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT. MEAT LOAF FOR DINNER.
I step into the hallway and listen for signs of life from downstairs, but it seems that I am still alone in the house. Or at least that my parents aren’t here. Nate’s door swings wide without noise or resistance, just like any other door. I have been in his room plenty of times since the accident, but only when my parents were sleeping or gone. A few rules were established after it happened, rules we never discussed but that were somehow understood between us, and staying out of his room was one of them.
The first time I snuck in, I thought maybe the door would be stuck like the sword in the stone, locked under some mystical spell. I was almost disappointed when it was so easily opened.
Now I close it behind me, just in case my parents come home.
Everything in Nate’s room looks the way it did before, like a museum exhibit preserved behind glass. When I took things after the accident, I was careful not to move his stuff around too much so Mom and Dad wouldn’t know anything was missing. Not that they ever spend any time in here. The room smells stale. I flip the latch on the window and slide it open a few inches. Dust bunnies emerge from the corners and dance across the floor, animated by the breeze. My mother would be appalled. I gather them up with my fingers, and when I bend down to tuck them into the little trash can next to Nate’s desk, something catches my eye.
There’s a kind of pocket stapled to the back of the desk. Nate must have swiped one of Mom’s fabric swatches and her staple gun to attach it. I reach inside and pull out a book.
I recognize the red cover. I turn it sideways and see a white tag at the base of the spine. Little black numbers.
It’s the codebook from the library.
He was so sure that we’d learn Morse code, that we’d be able to communicate with it someday, and he never got impatient when I couldn’t figure it out. But we hadn’t talked about it in a long time, so I thought he’d given up.
I sit down on Nate’s bed and open the book’s cover. There are notes written in his careful capital letters, a list of words he used a lot and their Morse translations: and, with, music, everyone. My name is at the top. I close my eyes against the sight of it and flip to the back of the book instead, then let the pages flip forward past my thumb until I feel them skip. I open my eyes and see a folded piece of paper tucked into the middle of the book.
Nate is written on it in rounded print, the letters of his name huddled close together.
I’ve seen this print before, on notes passed to me in classes every year of middle school. On birthday cards and silly drawings and lists of boys’ names at sleepovers.
I open the note fold by fold, my breath catching on the edges.
Dear Nate,
I don’t know how to tell you this in person. I mean, I’ve tried, but I just feel bad and I can’t get all the words out. So I’m really sorry to be doing it this way, but I think we need to break up. I really do like you. You’re a great guy. But I can’t lie about my feelings anymore.
I’m sorry,
Amy
My head is spinning. I lie down, without even thinking about it. I lie down and put my head on his pillow and even with the fresh air coming through the window it all smells as dusty and stale as a tomb. Everything whirs through my mind like a lightning-fast slide show: the playlist he made for her, the kiss I wasn’t supposed to see, this note, Amy crying at the Sip’N’Dip, going to Principal Hunter, yelling at the carnival. All this time, I’ve been trying to help her, trying to make up for what I took away from her.
And she’d already thrown it in the garbage.
wednesday 10/8
All I can think about is Amy’s note, how much there was that I didn’t know. That Nate hadn’t told me. How many other secrets did he keep from me? What did I keep from him? I ask myself over and over on the walk to school, desperate to remember, to keep score.
“Who doesn’t have secrets?” I say aloud.
“Who doesn’t what?” Chase says from behind me.
I whip around. “Taking this Houdini thing a little far, aren’t you? What’s with the disappearing act this week?”
“I have bad news and good news.” He doesn’t ask which I want first.
“Hit me,” I tell him.
“The bad news is that I am the worst hacker in history. I have obviously watched too many movies on the subject, and I grossly overestimated my skills.”
“What happened?”
“I got caught. Completely and totally busted. I’m probably grounded until after I graduate from college. My dad was so pissed that he wouldn’t even let me come to school until today.”
“So what’s the good news?” My ears wait for words I want to hear. We found the rest of Nate. We know where he is.
“My dad is a lot smarter than I thought.”
“That’s good news?”
Chase shrugs one shoulder. “If you need surgery when he’s on call, yeah. Very good.”
> I give him what feels like a grim look. “I hope never to be in that situation, thank you.”
He looks sheepish. “I confirmed that Dr. Fikri is doing a study with organ recipients. She meets with them every Monday at four o’clock. And I have her email address. Maybe you can interview her for your ‘article.’ ” He puts heavy finger quotes around that last word. Which is only fair.
“Chase, I’m…” I’m a lot of things. Sorry. Grateful. Furious. Confused.
He studies me for a long moment, and I wonder what he sees. The girl who caught his eye at the coffee shop? The girl who ambushed him with this whole crazy plan? Or something else? I can’t read his face. He just looks like a picture of himself.
Finally, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’m sending you her email,” he says.
“You still have your phone?” Mine is the first thing my parents take away when I’m being punished for anything. When I used to be punished for things.
“Just so he can check up on me. I’m not allowed to turn off my GPS. He claims to be checking on me at all times.”
“It’s like you’re some kind of supervillain,” I say.
He arches an eyebrow, smiles a little. “Maybe I can finally perfect the art of mind control and get him to give up on this. But until then, I better lay low.”
My phone pings and Chase’s name flashes at me from the corner of the screen. “Thank you,” I tell him.
We let those thoroughly inadequate words hover between us for a moment.
“Could Houdini do mind control?” I ask.
“In a way,” Chase says. “He was very good at getting people to think what he wanted them to. But I think that alienated him from everyone, in the end.”
“Why?”
“Because when you know you’re deceiving someone, you can’t be happy when you’re with them. Even if you don’t feel guilty, there’s part of you that knows it’s all based on tricks and lies and it’s not…it’s not real. Too many secrets kill the joy, y’know?”
I do. Without knowing it, Chase has just articulated my current existence, and I suddenly feel unspeakably sad. And so, of course, I start crying.
I hate crying. I hate that it ever happens anywhere, but I especially hate when it happens in public, in front of other people. Real crying isn’t pretty like gentle soap-opera tears with a soft-focus lens. Real crying is ugly, it’s messy, it’s your nose running and your eyes getting red and swelling up and your ragged voice choking you as you try uselessly to pull yourself together.
To his credit, Chase does not freak out or run away, even though by all appearances I have been reduced to a blubbering mess at the thought of Harry Houdini’s loneliness.
“It’s okay,” he tells me quietly. “He was happily married. He didn’t die alone or anything.”
Clapping my hand over my mouth to silence myself, I nod and take a few deep breaths. I wipe my nose on my arm. I am neck-deep in humiliation, so what difference does a little sleeve-snot make?
“Okay?” Chase asks.
I nod again. “Sorry,” I manage to say. “I don’t know what that was all about.”
“Yes, you do,” he replies. “But you don’t have to tell me.”
“Another hole in the story,” I say.
He shrugs. “As long as I’m not going to fall into it.”
—
We’re not supposed to have our phones out in class, and that rule I will follow because if mine gets confiscated, it goes straight to Principal Hunter. So I have to wait until after biology to write to Dr. Fikri. Then I decide I don’t want her to see that I’ve sent the email from my phone, in case it makes me seem less serious as an aspiring journalist, so I decide to skip gym and use my school laptop. I sit at the same desk in the library where I told Chase the truth about Nate and hope it brings me luck again this time. Best to keep it simple, I think. Don’t jump the gun and sound desperate.
We were taught to pray when we were young, and taught to write business letters, and the two always seemed very much the same to me. Begin with a greeting, introduce yourself, state your problem and supporting arguments, sign off. Be polite. Be concise.
Dear Dr. Fikri,
My name is Taliesin McGovern. I am a high school student, and I am researching organ donation protocols for a newspaper article.
I pause, debating whether to use Dr. Abbott’s name, then realize that I don’t know his first name. But how many Dr. Abbotts can there be?
Dr. Abbott kindly offered to put me in touch with you and suggested that your current research study might be of interest to my readership.
I have unintentionally lapsed into writing like my mother. Which is maybe not a bad thing, since my mother almost always gets people to do what she wants.
If you would be willing to answer a few questions, I would be deeply grateful. Please reply at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,
Tallie
I end on a friendly, casual note to appeal to her humanity. I read it over, checking for mistakes but also because the pit of my stomach feels fluttery and weird, and I wonder if this entire thing is just completely hopeless. To make myself feel better, I pick a Kinks song—“Superman”—on Matty and listen with my eyes closed. And then a memory floats into focus, like the rituals reviving themselves.
Nate’s basketball friends used to come over all the time after practice, and even though I was only a year younger than them, they would always treat me like a little kid. They liked to make me play a game called Doorknob. Whenever one of them yelled “Doorknob!” I had to run as fast as I could and touch a doorknob before they caught me. If I didn’t make it, they all stood in line to punch me in the arm. Nate felt bad, I think, but he wanted his friends to keep coming over and I refused to let them see how much the punches hurt, so he probably thought it was no big deal. But then the game changed. They started yelling things like “Toilet,” and “Top step!” and chasing me all over the place.
One day Jason Rice yelled “Ceiling!” and I took off running as fast as I could, desperately trying to think of something I could climb to reach the ceiling, but there was nothing and they were getting closer and they were just about to catch me when Nate jumped in front of me in the hallway. I stopped cold and stood there, waiting to see what he was going to do. And just as Jason reached for me, just before his fingers latched on to whatever part of me he could grab first, Nate swung his hands out, caught me under the arms, and lifted me up as high as he could. And the sound of my hand smacking the ceiling was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
When I open my eyes, my stomach feels better. Everything feels better, even my head. No new mail in my account, so I check the one I set up for Mom.
There’s a message from SparkleCat76. Thank you, lucky desk.
But my elation withers as I read.
The main thing is that I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, so make sure that whatever you write about me doesn’t make me sound sad or pathetic or anything, okay? I’m also not really sure I want everyone to know that I have part of a guy now, so maybe you could leave that out. Anyway, all I know is that he was young—like, seventeen—and I feel shitty about that even though it wasn’t my fault he died. He was in a car accident. Oh, and they told me his blood type. O-negative. They call that “the universal donor.” Isn’t that cool?
No gratitude, none of Gerald’s optimism or deference. The facts point to Nate as her donor, but I can see now how little of the story those facts actually tell. She doesn’t understand how it happened, that someone else was in the car, that the roads were wet, that I bullied my way into the driver’s seat. And it doesn’t matter, because she can build any story onto those flimsy details, can tell herself anything at all, any version of Nate’s death that will make her feel the most okay. They all can.
Heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, corneas.
There’s more.
Do you ever come to Boston? We could talk or get coffee or something. I’m not re
ally supposed to drink coffee anymore but sometimes I cheat. Here’s my cell number.
The digits swim on the screen like tadpoles I can’t catch. I hit reply, more out of habit than anything else, but I can’t think and my fingers are shaking, so I save a draft. I’ll send it from my phone later, I tell myself, after I calm down.
And then Amy walks into the library.
By the time she sees me, I’ve positioned myself between her and the door. Ms. Huff is tucked away behind the glass wall of her office—she’s used to me being here and she leaves me alone. She thinks I won’t cause trouble, but Amy obviously has a different expectation.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” she says, as if I might just have the wrong idea.
“I wasn’t looking for you either. But here we are.” My hands are steadier now, adrenaline pulsing through me. “And we have so much to talk about.”
Amy twirls her hair and tries to look unaffected. “No, we don’t.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Then I’ll do the talking. I know you told Principal Hunter I was harassing you. I know you broke up with Nate. And I know you regret it because I saw you crying into your ice cream. Vanilla fudge dip.” Those three words have probably never been used as an accusation before, but I fire them at top speed. And wait for blood.
Instead, I get laughter.
“You don’t know anything.” Amy’s voice is shrill, like a bird out of tune. “Principal Hunter came to me because your father has been checking up on you and Hunter is helping him. And I wasn’t crying because I miss your brother. I was crying because no one knows I broke up with him, and now I can’t tell anyone without them thinking I’m a total bitch. And no one else will date me because I’m, like, socially mummified now. The dead kid’s girlfriend.”
Some of the Parts Page 16