Heart Sister

by Michael F Stewart

I can see why the nurse asked about the television. His is set high in the corner and would be difficult for me to plug into. Coming into the room, I am doused in the reek of urine. I unzip my bag.

  “Any particular type of game you like?” I ask.

  “To be honest…” He takes a break. “I’d like to blow…some stuff away.”

  I smile, and he looks back sadly, focused on breathing.

  “You have full use of your arms and hands?”

  He lifts his arms. They move slowly, as if passing through water, and wave like kelp stalks, fingers wriggling, tubes trailing. Tattoos rope up his arms.

  “Nice tats,” I say.

  “You have…any…?”

  “Ink?” I swallow. “Nah, my parents won’t let me.” The tattoo on my shoulder burns as hot as my cheeks. “All right, let’s take out some alien nasties.”

  “I hate alien nasties,” he replies and chokes on his own laughter. When he’s done coughing, I hold up the headset.

  “You ready?”

  “What’s your name?” he asks, pulling off his headphones and setting them beside him.

  I had to give Fatima my real ID, but I can’t use my real name here. “Emerson,” I say. I have to pray no one talks to each other. It feels like I’ve started a ticking clock. It’s only a matter of time before I’m caught in one of my lies or someone starts connecting the dots.

  “Emerson, I’m Tom. I have renal failure. Sorry about the smell. It’s because stuff builds…in me that my kidneys can’t…process.”

  “Didn’t notice,” I say.

  “Then you need a nose transplant…as much as I need a kidney.” More choking laughter. “My mom and sisters will be in later.” I think he’s telling me that he’s not alone, as if he knows I’m here to fill people’s time. But loneliness is a wound as real and festering as any other.

  “They can try it too, if I’m still around.”

  “Or I’m still around.” He laughs. I don’t. “Sorry,” he adds. “It’s just that more people die on the kidney list than any of the others.”

  “What do you miss most?” I ask. “Being in here.”

  “Hanging with friends,” he replies. “And video games.” He smiles.

  For a second I think maybe Tom should have had Minnie’s kidney instead of Eileen. But it’s impossible to know if that was even an option. Maybe he had the wrong blood type. Maybe he wasn’t on the list yet, or the kidney was the wrong size. I may not like Eileen’s values, but I can’t make those sorts of choices either.

  Tom takes the headset and slips it over his eyes. His hands scrabble at the air for the controllers. “Watch out for the multi-legged aliens. They come from behind,” I say as I secure the loops over his wrists in case he drops the controllers.

  I catch the sounds of him gearing up—weapons, armor, profile choices. Each one chunks heavily through the headphones. The two-dimensional version of his playing field shows on my laptop, but it’s not the same thing as being in it—not even close. Tom flubs around. It’s the same for everyone new to virtual reality. It takes a while to adjust to the controllers and the environment. The controllers are relatively simple. Two triggers. The thumb uses a trackpad to select different weapons and shields. He’s learning, but at this rate I won’t have time to hit all the rooms I’m allowed to visit.

  I have to be back home soon if I’m going to call Joey, start dinner for my mom, ventilate my family. At best I can share one more VR experience before leaving. I decide to investigate the other rooms while Tom plays, so I can be sure to hit Rebecca’s next. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I tell him.

  Lost in the game, Tom doesn’t respond.

  Outside the room, I sip relatively cleansing breaths of the hospital’s filtered atmosphere. Keep moving. I walk casually by each doorway, peeking in as I pass by.

  The staff hardly gives me a second glance, despite my colorful uniform. I spot Dr. Lebow and duck into 218. The room farthest from the nursing station. The one on which I called the code. I tuck into the door frame, and Dr. Lebow strides past.

  “I understand,” a voice whispers. “They keep poking me too.”

  I glance up and flush. “Sorry,” I say. “Just playing hide and…”

  Black hair fans out on her pillow. She scratches at blotchy skin with black painted fingernails. Red bloodshot eyes peer as if through a fog. I’ve seen corpses on newscasts that look healthier. Her bloated cheeks and body seem like those of a drowning victim.

  “Hide and hide?” the girl finishes for me.

  “Can I help you?” A man at her bedside folds a magazine, the one from the waiting room.

  “Ebola fighters,” I say, scrambling to make conversation. “Time magazine’s Person of the Year 2014. That’s a…good one.”

  The man shows the girl the magazine. I was right.

  “What is he, some kind of clown savant?” the girl asks the man.

  “No, no, I’m sorry, I was—” I stop. Pinned to a corkboard on the wall with several Congratulations! cards are my letters. Around them are drawings—drawings and paintings signed by Dark Heart. My eyes dart to the girl in the bed and back to the board, heat rushing through me. It’s Rebecca. Becca. I try to cover my surprise by studying the art.

  “Wow,” I say. A heavily armored woman riding a fusion of dragon and lion. Despite her musculature, she battles an impossibly large foe, the entire background consumed by the beast’s chest, the woman’s jagged sword burning through its sternum. There’s a charcoal sketch of the same woman climbing a cliff, and another has her gripping the mast of a ship tossing in the sea. A half-finished doodle shows her sleeping, tucked into the flank of her dragon. Brought together by their shared wounds. “These are incredible.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “Who are you?”

  Suddenly I remember that Becca told me in one of her letters how important trust is to her. And I’m a clown spy.

  “Umm. I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah.” I run a hand through my rainbow curls. “I… um…have a virtual-reality headset.” I point at the open door. “I’m supposed to show it to you.”

  “I’ve tried them before,” she says and then clears her throat. “Sorry, they finally removed the breathing tube. Still getting used to speaking again. Forget the cracking of my chest—the breathing tube was the worst.”

  “Oh, sorry?” Now that I’m here, I have nothing to say. She’s less excited about virtual reality than I would have hoped.

  She shrugs and chuckles. “No, no, don’t be. Not too long ago, I was mostly dead.”

  I cringe. Now she’s not dead. But Minnie is. Rebecca’s expression sours. “It’s not pretty, I know,” she adds. “I’m still reanimating. I think they actually waited until I was fully dead before deciding to find me a heart.”

  “Ouch, that’s blunt.”

  “You are a funny clown,” she says.

  The man snorts. “Virtual reality, you were saying?”

  “Oh, yes.” My head’s about to burst. “The nurse thought you might like the positive distraction.”

  Another of her laughs rings out. Among the bleeps and pumps it’s a rare, fragile thing. She shrugs. “Sure, why not.”

  When one of her monitors gives another bleep, I realize it’s her heart-rate monitor. It’s my sister’s heart beating. Right here. Eighty-four beats per minute.

  “Okay,” I say. “I have to go get the gear.”

  I head for the door and then pause. “What’s your name?”

  “Rebecca,” she replies. “Becca.”

  “I’ll be right back, Becca.”

  “And I will stay right here.” She laughs again.

  I turn and stride as fast as I can down the hall.

  “Hey,” someone calls.

  I keep moving.

  “Wait up, clown.” Dr. Lebow points at me from where the hall turns the corner. “I need to talk to you.”

  I’m caught. She stares at me as she strides down t
he hallway.

  “You’re the kid with the VR system, right?” she asks when she’s closer. I swallow, tense, ready to bolt.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve heard it’s very popular with the patients. I’ve always wanted to try it. Can you come set it up in the staff room?”

  “But there is another patient who—” I start.

  “I only have a few minutes to spare.” She points into the room marked Staff Only.

  I bite back my anger and remind myself how far I’ve come. I’m so close. “Okay, Doctor. Give me a minute.”

  TWENTY–THREE

  Dr. Lebow follows me into Tom’s room. “Time’s up, Tom.”

  “More gallows humor. Thanks, Doc,” Tom replies, both hand controllers pointing at the doctor as he pulls the triggers. “You were right. The multi-legged ones totally get me.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dr. Lebow replies. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

  “He’s talking about the aliens,” I say.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “If you listen hard, you can hear them coming—all those feet.” Tom eases off the headset, his cheeks ruddier than I recall. “Thanks…what’s your name again?”

  “Uh…” I glance up at the stained ceiling tiles.

  Dr. Lebow laughs. “These trick questions, always tripping up you kids.”

  “Dappy,” I reply.

  “Real. Name.” Lebow’s grin slowly withers as she regards me. The fake name I gave Tom is stupidly close to my real one.

  “Emerson.”

  “Well, Emerson, let’s go.” Dr. Lebow carries the headset out, and I need to keep up or pull the cords from the laptop.

  “Hey, Doc,” Tom calls behind us. “Find me that kidney, okay?”

  Dr. Lebow offers him a thumbs-up. I grit my teeth.

  When we enter the staff room, I keep my head lowered. Several other people are in here. They’ve cleared a ten-by-ten area in the center for the perimeter setup. A TV screen is positioned on a table off to the side, and chairs are stacked in a corner. A coffee maker spits coffee as it brews a pot. Beside it a doctor grips a cup of coffee and stares off at the floor. He’s pale and haggard, but it’s the haunted eyes I notice.

  “Success?” Dr. Lebow asks him. He slowly nods, eyes flicking to the status of the coffee maker. “Recovery in Thunder Bay, right?”

  “Twelve hours total. Wish it had been a fit for 212 though. He’s a DNR now.”

  “Such a shame.”

  I focus on the job, plugging in the gear and ensuring the connection to the television screen.

  “What reality will I be entering, Emerson?” Dr. Lebow asks.

  I squint at the options, annoyed that she’s keeping me from my heart sister. “Cooking?” I suggest.

  “No, no, I want to do something I’ve never done before.”

  I decide on a travel experience. Impressive but hopefully not too time-consuming. “How about a trip to Mount Everest?”

  In the middle of the open space, Dr. Lebow has her hand controllers stretched out, and she slowly shuffles in a careful circle, as if concerned with her footing. On the screen, she gazes from Everest’s peak.

  “Amazing,” she murmurs. “Absolutely amazing.”

  At the chink of an ice hammer, she turns. A heavily loaded Sherpa climbs into view, grinning, goatee frosted like my morning Mini-Wheats.

  Dr. Lebow already has a handle on the controllers. Suddenly she’s flicking through the travel library, and then she enters a Borneo jungle at night. The jungle floor sparkles, lit by thousands of pinpricks of light. She bends to inspect the pretty lights and jumps right back up again—a blanket of spiders surrounds her. Several people cry out. She giggles. Actually giggles.

  “Not on your life,” Dr. Lebow says, brushing one hand controller across her shoulder.

  The screen flashes, and now she is paddling a canoe on a river safari—a broad sweep of the Zambezi stretches before the bow. Nearby half a canoe lies overturned on the bank. Paddles splash. Muddy water brushes near the gunwales of the gear-laden canoes. A hippo spots her entering his harem’s territory. The mottled purple hide submerges like a submarine, moving more and more rapidly toward its target. A wake of water speeds toward the canoe as the paddler takes frantic strokes. A nurse calls, “Hippeedo!” and everyone laughs.

  Dr. Lebow is serious about canoeing. She glances back once as the canoe moves on. The hippo surfaces where the canoe had been.

  Finally the doctor nudges the headset up. “Thank you,” she says, with a sincerity that causes me to blush beneath my makeup.

  “That’s the most vacation time you’ve taken in a year,” someone jokes.

  Dr. Lebow hands the headset to someone I recognize. It takes me a moment. The orderly who used to change Minnie’s sheets.

  “You have anything more actiony, Emmitt?” he asks.

  Emmitt. He called me Emmitt. I fumble the game options, dropping a hand controller. As I bend down to retrieve it, I use my free hand to keep the wig in place, trying to hide my panic.

  “It’s Emerson,” Dr. Lebow says.

  “Sorry. Anything with a bit more action to it, Emerson?” From the floor, I switch the experience to a first-person shooter game. “That’ll do.”

  Sweat trickles down my back. No one appears to have caught the orderly’s slip, but the longer I spend in close quarters with these people, the greater the likelihood I’ll be caught.

  “I have an idea,” a nurse says. I glance away quickly. She’s the one who caught me hacking the computers. She got a good look at me right before Dennis ran in naked and singing. I focus on the screen as she continues, “If each interested patient writes down their dream spot to visit, do you think you could take them there with this thing?”

  I nod. “Yup. Most of them.”

  “Yup...” She cranes her neck to look at me. “You seem so familiar.”

  “Yeah, well, you know, clowns. We’re a dime a dozen.”

  “It’s not that. Have you been here as a clown before? I can’t place you.”

  I shrug.

  Shouts erupt beyond the door, and the nurse reacts. She turns and moves toward the noise, ahead of the crowd. The whole room swivels, everyone heading out into the ward to see what’s happening.

  I’m in front of the crush, pushed through the door as staff scramble into the hallway. I swing to the side of the hall and press myself against the wall. I’m across from 218.

  Becca’s bed is empty. Her father stands at the door, wringing his hands.

  “Is she okay?” I ask.

  Even though it’s a hospital clown asking the question, he nods. “She puts on a brave face, but she’s so scared. It’s the heart biopsy. She really hates it. I can’t blame her.”

  “Wait—they take an actual piece of her heart?”

  He turns to me. Eyes dark and clouded with fatigue.

  “They make an incision in her neck, stick a giant needle down a vein, pinch four or five pieces of the heart and then yank the needle out.”

  “Holy…”

  “Yeah.” His focus returns to his hands. “We weren’t prepared for any of this. Not even close.”

  I hear my father in him. My one job.

  I’m silent for a minute while I think. What if Becca could be doing her favorite thing in the whole world? That would make all of this easier, wouldn’t it? “What’s something that she’d love?” I ask. “The wildest thing you can imagine?”

  TWENTY–FOUR

  By the time I reach Fatima, the PICU nurse has already called her with a list of places patients wish to see.

  “Antarctica! Me too!” Fatima holds the list as she reads from it. “Do you know the story of Shackleton?” I offer a blank stare. “Marooned on ice, forced to launch a lifeboat across the Antarctic Ocean?” She clucks her tongue but then frowns. “Hey, this nurse who called is from the PICU. I thought we’d agreed to focus on the general pediatric unit.” Her eyes search mine. “What’s so interesting about t
he PICU?”

  The best lie has elements of the truth. “My sister was in the PICU,” I say. “I want to give back somehow. This seemed like a good way.”

  Her expression softens. “How’s your sister doing?”

  I shake my head. The pain rushes back, unexpectedly sharp.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Are you sure you want to keep doing this?”

  “Yes.”

  She hands over the wish list, eyes understanding now rather than suspicious. “Well, maybe a virtual adventure will help. Not only will you be brushing up against the icebergs of the Antarctic, but you’ll also be entering the Great Pyramid, climbing Machu Picchu and plumbing the Great Barrier Reef.”

  I scan the list. In addition to the ones Fatima mentioned, there’s Alien shoot-out—this one, I’m betting, is from Tom. And at the bottom is view from my rooftop.

  “Not sure I can do the last—the rooftop one.” Whose rooftop?

  “Do your best. I’m sure whatever you come up with will be better than nothing.” She checks an iPad calendar. “Think you can have it together in a few days?”

  “How’s tomorrow?” I ask. She looks at me, surprised, so I quickly scramble to cover. “Jeannie told me that some of the kids don’t have much time left.” The truth is, I’m the one on borrowed time. Someone will unmask me soon.

  “Okay, Emmitt. You’re doing a good thing.”

  I force a smile. I’ll convince Becca to be part of the video. I’ll tell her it’s for a school project or something—and then cut my losses. I can track her down again after she’s out of the hospital and explain it all later.

  On the subway, men and women sit or stand, sweating in their suits in the thick of afternoon rush hour. Must, mildew and body odor stifle the air in the older cars. The suits sway, unperturbed. They read. Stare at the ads lining the bulkheads. Or listen listlessly through their earbuds. I wonder what everyone here would be doing if they had someone else’s heart in them. Would they be walking home instead of riding on the subway, laughing at everything and giving passersby two thumbs-up for no particular reason but the glory of life? “I live!” they’d shout. “Me too! Isn’t it amazing!” Would they be doing the same thing? Would I? This quest of mine feels important to me. But what comes after?