I get that Minnie was their favorite. She was my favorite person too.
My parents hadn’t said anything when I started clearing the walls and shelves of my room. Movie posters of Chinatown, Brazil, Citizen Kane. A papier mâché horse head, modelled after the iconic one from The Godfather. (Minnie had promised to make me an even more realistic one as soon as she found the right “supplies.”) Christmas lights I’d strung on the wall to copy the setup from Stranger Things with SLEEP spelled out instead of RUN—Minnie’s idea. Maybe my parents understood. All of us pulled the plug on my life at home, just as they had done on Minnie six weeks earlier.
I’ll set the scene.
After the accident, Minnie hadn’t drawn a breath on her own for two days, but that didn’t mean she was dead.
The doctors weren’t hopeful. Minnie had severe traumatic brain injury from when her head struck the pavement. The ER staff had worked for two hours to resuscitate her before getting a stable heartbeat, but they’d told us later that Minnie’s prognosis was poor. I hadn’t given up. I had snuck close to the room where they treated her. Through the window I could see Minnie was a web of tubing. “Head injuries make for good organs,” I heard one doctor say. I swear he rubbed his hands together. Fingers long and delicate like those of a pianist. Perfect for the tender motor skills of excising and suturing.
This had been a dark hour.
Two days later, in the pediatric intensive care unit, signs of the accident were already sliding away. Bruises had gone from red to purple to yellow. On the ventilator, Minnie was healing. Not dead. Her skin was pink and warm.
I had yet to leave the hospital. If she was there, I was staying.
I watched the first test for brain death. We were all encouraged to. Said it might help. I had gone into a rage at the mention of Minnie’s wishes for organ donation. “But she’s not dead!” I had cried.
New staff—not part of Minnie’s PICU team, not Dr. Lebow, but a doctor who said he was a respiratory therapist and a new nurse—explained that they would now test for a permanent loss of all integrated brain function.
The respiratory therapist, a man with the hint of an Eastern European accent who looked like he tossed medicine balls around in his free time, knuckled my sister’s sternum with meaty fingers.
I glanced at my parents, expecting them to object, but they looked on, eyes wide and expectant, watching for a miracle. With the machines’ alarms off, silence hung thick. I turned back to the two strangers poking at my sister.
“We are looking for any form of response,” he said. “Increases in heart rate, vocalization, a grimace.” He leaned across Minnie, and I imagined her cringing from his breath. With his thumbs on her brow ridge and his fingers gripped around her head, his knuckles whitened as he pressed, arms trembling with force. I reached up and pushed a thumb into my eyebrow, feeling the pain. I gritted my jaw. Minnie didn’t budge, but the marks from the thumbs remained red and angry against her brow.
“You’re hurting her,” I said.
“She can’t feel it,” the nurse said.
“We’re making sure she can’t feel it,” the doctor with the meaty hands clarified.
He shifted to her hand, pinched one nail bed and then another, watching her face and then breathing noisily through his nostrils.
“I’ll do cranial nerve tests next,” he explained, bringing out a slim light and prying open Minnie’s eyelids, first one and then the other, the light flashing in and then away. Always her pupils remained wide. That was what they were looking for. I’d seen enough cop shows to know. They were looking for her pupils, the black holes in the center of her eyes, to constrict with the light. Minnie’s endlessly gaped.
My mom reached for Minnie. Her fingers twitched at the touch.
I leaped up, pointing and gawking.
“There,” I cried, joy so ready to push past the fear in my chest. “Her hand. It moved.”
My mom snatched hers away, crying out.
The doctor shook his head no. “Spinal reflexes,” he said. “It’s not a sign of life. I’m sorry—I should have explained that you will see these. Minnie’s spine has nerves, and what you’re seeing is a signal traveling from the hand to the spine and then back to the hand.”
“But never to the brain stem,” the second doctor added.
The nurse poured water from a pitcher filled with ice into a measuring cup. More tests. Hope remained.
“Some of our cranial nerves have direct connections, and we can try to stimulate them. The optical nerve with the light. The vestibular nerves with cold-water irrigation.” The doctor pointed to the nurse. “I’m looking for eye movement.” With a nod, the nurse trickled the icy water into Minnie’s ear. We all watched Minnie’s eyes. They didn’t move.
“That’s it then,” my dad whispered.
“There is one more test. It’s called the apnea test,” the doctor explained. “We withdraw ventilator support and look for signs of respiration.”
The nurse dabbed at Minnie’s ear with a cloth while the second doctor wiggled the breathing tube. That was when the respiratory therapist turned down the ventilator, and I watched as Minnie’s breathing slowed, then stopped. It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to prepare.
Choked silence. A checked watch.
No breath.
Breathe, I urged.
Still Minnie remained pink and warm.
Breathe!
The heart monitor flashed and then flatlined. “You’re killing her!” I screamed. “You’re killing—”
But I didn’t have a chance to say more. Dr. Lebow was in the room, pulling me out and herding my malleable, agreeable parents.
“The oxygen level dropped too low,” Dr. Lebow said. “It happens. We’ll complete the whole test again,” she replied, as if that would appease me.
“You touch her, and I’ll shove a breathing tube down your throat.”
She blanched, swallowed and then said to my parents, “It might be best for Emmitt to sit the next test out.”
I wasn’t invited for the final round. I was relegated to the waiting room.
While I waited I wondered if any of the other families were already here, waiting for Minnie’s organs. It was good I wasn’t in her room. The next doctor I caught knuckling my sister’s sternum would have my knuckles cracking against their jaw.
I slumped in a light blue plastic molded chair, one of a row bolted to the floor. They were surprisingly comfortable—until you lay across the row of them to sleep. Then the curves in the plastic dug into your hip, calf and neck.
My mom was in watching the tests. My dad was out for a walk. Which meant he was smoking, a vice he had given up the day we were born—I guess it had really been for Minnie.
Every year when my mom had cut up the wallet-sized school pictures, I’d tucked the photo of my sister into that back fold where I stored assorted loyalty cards for coffee shops and movie theaters, a climbing-gym membership and long-expired coupons. I pulled the collected photos out. Was this why my mother had given them to me? Just in case I needed to remember my sister? I had four. Four years had elapsed since I’d bought this wallet from a vendor on Queen Street. I regretted the other photos I had tossed, frayed and faded, along with the old wallet and its collection of illegible receipts—receipts that had been important enough to carry around for years.
It used to be that there might be an organ donation card with the receipts. Now you needed to register online. I hadn’t—hadn’t realized I could at sixteen—but Minnie had. Minnie who wasted nothing, not even a skunk much loved by car tires. Minnie had registered not two weeks before the accident, on our birthday. My parents had hesitated in their decision until they’d been informed of her registration by the liaison. It is what she wanted. Wants.
The double doors leading to the ward swung open, and my mom stepped through. When she caught sight of me in my usual chair she stopped, her shoulders slumped, and she sobbed. Minnie had failed the test. She had never failed a test
in her life.
She was dead. Clinically so. Brain dead.
On a scrap of paper, I sketched out a planned tattoo.
Minnie’s heart was still beating. Not dead, not dead, not dead.
In my bedroom I kneel beside the outline I’ve drawn of Minnie and pick up the green marker. I drop it, open the box of markers and grab a brown instead. I draw big brown-colored moths over her eyes.
On my shoulder the tattoo still aches, even now. A large Do Not Recycle sign in green and red. I had to lie about my age to get the tattoo. I’m old enough to donate a kidney, but not to put a bit of ink on my skin.
I lie down and place my hand on Minnie’s paper one.
“I’ll find you,” I promise her and the ceiling’s glow-in-the-dark stars.
I want to find more Mothmans. Eight Mothmans equal one Minnie. I turn on my side and place my palm over her missing heart. I will find my heart sister.
I push myself upright, draw a deep breath and pull my laptop from a canvas backpack. I begin to search different social-media platforms for news of happy parents, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts—anyone who might have a piece of Minnie. I scan back as far as the day of Minnie’s death. The day the doctors harvested her organs. Keywords: new heart, heart transplant, gift of life heart, heart donation. The organ registry is national, but, given the millions of people who live in Toronto, there’s still a good chance Minnie’s organs went to nearby recipients. I scour the internet first for my heart sister and then review her letter—for the hundredth time—in search of identifying information.
It’s surprising how few mentions on social media there are from organ recipients. Is it because they know this joy has come at someone else’s expense? Do they fear that their joy dishonors the loss of others?
It doesn’t. I know. As my mom pats another tuft from glassy-eyed Sirius, she knows. As my dad painstakingly colors tofu to look like barbecued chicken skin, he knows. The recipient’s joy could lessen our grief though, right? The sum of the joy might replace the loss of the whole. Mom’s an accountant, so I know about balance sheets and income statements. Assets and liabilities. Profits and losses. If we add all the joy, we will cut our losses.
I spot a tweet about a brother who received a new heart in Tampa, Florida. One about a mother who died on the wait list. Another transplant recipient in Canada, a girl who received a liver, but the donor was the living father. That made the press. They could talk about it.
I try other organs—kidneys, pancreas, all of them—until finally I find a public Facebook post from a woman who received new lungs. She lives in Peterborough, a couple of hours from Toronto. Close enough that I can take the bus if I can figure out where she lives.
I post on all the platforms I can think of.
Seeking: Recipients of my sister’s organs. If you or someone you know received an organ on July 1, please contact me. I sound so crazy. Please share. I only want to know that my sister helped others.
I notice Mothman has tagged me on an Instagram post. It’s a photo of a tiny gray moth on a large pink flower—a peony, I think. The flower stem is bent by the weight of the flower, but the way he’s captured the moth on the verge of taking off makes it look like it’s holding the flower up. #goodday is the hashtag.
I smile and message the lungs lady, asking if I can meet her. I get the familiar sense of butterflies in my stomach, and I start to think perhaps it’s my sister telling me I’m doing the right thing.
Nothing can stop me now.
FIVE
With the VR headset tight over my eyes, I look across the campfire at Minnie and then twist to Gerry. They’re both frozen. He’s mid-laugh, face bright. She is leaning forward, legs folded like a yogi. I’ve been up for a few hours, testing the footage. The software has neatly spliced Gerry from the greenscreen video shot on the park bench and placed him on one of the six logs that surround the fire. My point of view is just in front of the fire itself, so that if I try to look down at my feet, they’re nearly in the flames. I press play on the hand controller, and Minnie says, “If I were to—”
At a bleep on my phone, I pause the playback and push up the headset.
A reply to my post: Hi, my brother got a new liver around then. Maybe it was your sister’s? I need you to talk to him.
I set the headset down on the desk and message her. Thanks! Can you give me his info, and I’ll set it up?
The response is quick. He doesn’t want to meet you.
With my thumbs poised over the phone’s keyboard, I frown. ???
I’m not sure how else to respond.
The person adds, Would you mind showing up though? You’ll understand when you meet him.
Perhaps if I had more to lose I would argue, but I don’t. This meeting with the liver guy might be weird, but it’s another hit, someone to add to the cast list while I work toward tracing the star of the show.
Where are you, and when do you want me?
We’re in Hamilton. I’ll send the address. The earlier the better.
Their profile pic shows a young woman captured in mid-jump on a beach. Any other details are hidden. She flips me the address.
I smile at the actor squirrels and turn to the Minnie sketch on the floor. Her liver looks like a giant lima bean.
I hit the washroom, then the kitchen. I peek into the living room. Sirius’s eyes sparkle at me from near the couch, tail stuck mid-wag, rubber tongue lolling. “Hey, boy, thanks for taking care of Mom.” She won’t be up for hours.
I hear Dad’s footsteps thudding down the hall. His beard precedes him. Shot with gray, it matches his eyes. He stumbles to the coffee pot, sloshes yesterday’s coffee around, then seems to think better of drinking it.
“I’ll brew you some fresh,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Have to go.”
“Dad—”
“Emmitt, I have twenty cauliflowers to carve into sheep.”
He used to laugh when he said stuff like this, but now he seems stressed about it.
“You could call it a cauliflock,” I suggest.
His lips give the barest twitch as he grabs his keys and heads out.
I grind some beans and leave the fresh pot to percolate for Mom. After I eat a piece of toast, I write a note saying that I’m off to film a movie. She won’t read it, but it makes me feel better. On my way out I spot that familiar envelope in the mailbox, and I rip it open:
Dear Heart Family,
Your letter has probably been caught by the Gatekeepers of Nodo (sounds like a book title, huh?). Let me try to answer some possible questions. I am young. Although I have had a sick body, I am grateful for having had a decent mind. If I were to have a superpower, it would be to speed-read. The quality I most value is trust. I think it’s because so much of my life is out of my control. Trusting hasn’t failed me yet. But I also envy people who have courage. I think envy tells us a lot about who we are and what is important to us. I envy the brave. In some ways, I’m still searching for a heart.
Your Heart Sister, Heart Daughter
Trust. The only person I’ve ever trusted completely was Minnie. No matter if we were separated by distance or time, I knew she’d have my back. And she was oh so brave. But she’s left me. And now I’m also searching for a heart.
“Hi, Emm.” I glance up from the note and quickly fold it away. Divina and Hal stand at the base of the steps. Hal is holding a bag with a dead squirrel, quite possibly the one I saw yesterday flattened on the street. Divina clutches a wooden box with one hand and twists a braid with the other.
“Sorry for not calling,” she says. “We have something for your family.”
Six weeks have passed since I last saw these two roadkill scavengers. Before my sister died, we regularly hung out in Minnie’s garage workshop, me helping with the arrangements of their taxidermic scenes—the stories—them stitching and scraping. I’d thought we were friends. But it’s been six weeks.
“You’ve been working on stuff, I guess,” I say.
>
“Yeah, we went back to the scene of…you know…” Hal says, holding up the squirrel but looking at the house eaves.
“Sure.”
Divina lifts the box for me to take.
I flip the brass hasp and open the lid.
In the dull light, the raven’s feathers are oily and dark. A clock is set in its chest. I cringe from it. They’ve mounted the raven Minnie died trying to scavenge.
Hal says, “We guessed at when to set the time.”
The clock is brass with a white face and black hands.
“We thought your mom and dad would—”
“What the hell, guys?” I ask. “My mom can’t get off the couch. My dad can’t even say Minnie’s name. And you think they want to see a dead raven with a clock stuck in it?”
“We just—”
“No, we don’t need any more reminders that she’s dead. No more dead stuff. None!”
Divina grits her teeth, jaw flexing. “Minnie would have loved it.”
“I…am…not…Minnie!”
I slam the door on them and then realize I’m still holding the raven in its box. The lid snaps shut. Before my mom can ask what it is, I take it to the basement and shove it behind the Halloween decorations.
It takes about an hour to get to Hamilton by train, a real milk run with a dozen station stops and brief flashes of a silver lake between. I haul all my gear down the streets, heading toward the steel mills. Sweat courses down my back and neck. When I’m ten minutes out, I warn the sister that I’m close. She says she’ll meet me in front of the house. By the time I’m almost there, my sweatshirt itches and my jeans have rubbed my thighs raw.
Liver Brother lives on a street of single-family bungalows with well-tended red, pink and white rosebushes. My home feels far away, as if I’ve traveled overseas. Older men and women lounge on or sweep out porches that sport Italian and Canadian flags. Their brooms kick up puffs of white dust. Many eyes watch as I stop and lower my messenger bag to the sidewalk. The scratching brooms pause.
Heart Sister Page 3