A Sky Full of Stars

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Let me spoil you, Molly,’ she said softly. ‘I’m still so very thankful that I can get to do it.’

  I couldn’t really argue with a comment like that. If this was what it took to keep her happy, then I would willingly eat an entire poultry farm of chickens.

  We’d spent a very relaxed morning looking through the photos from her cruise holiday, before she hesitantly confessed she was thinking of booking another one.

  ‘I know it’s a lot of money,’ she said, sounding guilty, ‘and that I said the last one would be a once-in-a-lifetime trip—’

  ‘Honestly, Mum, I think it’s a great idea, and you definitely don’t have to justify it to me.’

  She looked relieved, and her expression softened as she focused on something beyond my shoulder. I knew the topography of her lounge as well as my own, so I could tell she was looking at the bookcase where one of the last photos of my father was positioned.

  ‘Daddy would have wanted you to explore the world and make new friends. He wouldn’t have wanted you to spend your time alone, missing him.’

  I should have realised that I had just strayed into an area where Mum would surely follow.

  ‘Talking of new friends and people moving on…’ she began. I sighed, knowing exactly where this conversation was heading. ‘Are you still seeing the family of your donor and the other organ recipients?’ It sounded alien to hear them referred to in that clinical way. To me they were now just Alex, Connor, Mac, Jamie and Barbara. But I knew Mum was confused by our ongoing relationship. ‘Where is it all leading?’ she said.

  ‘Well, I don’t think they’re going to ask for any of the organs back,’ I told her, mistakenly going for humour.

  ‘This isn’t a joking matter, Molly. You all seem to be so… involved with each other.’

  Mum had never interfered before in my choice of friends, not even the couple of dubious boyfriend choices I’d made in my teens, so it sat a little uncomfortably with both of us that she was concerned about my relationship with Lisa’s family and the other recipients.

  But I honestly couldn’t see the harm in everyone keeping in touch on WhatsApp, or even occasionally meeting up – even if quite a few of those meetings had been unplanned. It was decidedly odd, in a city this size, how frequently our paths had crossed. I’d bumped into Mac twice: once in the hospital corridor on my latest check-up, when we’d grabbed a quick coffee before our appointments, and then again just last week in the foyer of the multiplex cinema.

  Kyra and I were there to see a cheesy romcom and were debating which excessively large popcorn to buy when I looked up and saw Mac leaning nonchalantly against a pillar. He appeared to be waiting for someone, and as he was standing near the Ladies, I suspected it might be Andi.

  Our film was about to start, so it was a fleeting hello and goodbye. The house lights were already dimming as Kyra and I slid into our seats. Under cover of the opening credits, Kyra leant across and squeezed my forearm. ‘I have just one word to say,’ she said in a whisper that still managed to earn her a frown from the woman in front of us. ‘Phwoar. Just phwoar.’

  ‘That’s three words,’ I hissed back, smiling in the darkness. Kyra and Mac? I’d mentioned it to her once ages ago, but could that actually become a reality? The idea distracted me so much, I failed to enjoy the film.

  The other random meetings had been more mundane. I’d seen Barbara in the supermarket and had given her a lift back home, ignoring her protests that she could easily wait for a taxi. And I’d spotted Jamie and a slightly downtrodden older woman coming out of a shop in town. From their facial resemblance, she had to have been his mother, although she didn’t fit the glamorous, coffee-morning-attending, horse-riding individual I’d pictured from his descriptions. She’d appeared quite distressed, and he was obviously comforting her. I was debating going over to say hi, when I noticed the shop they’d just left had three brass balls hanging over its entrance. Whatever they’d been doing in there, it had clearly upset them both and I didn’t want to intrude. Like a spy in a movie, I’d ducked into a shop doorway, skulking in the shadows and hiding from sight until they were gone.

  I was trying very hard not to give meaning to these random encounters, because I refused to face the glaring conclusion: that fate seemed determined to keep drawing us all together, like broken pieces of a magnet.

  However, there was one person I hadn’t seen recently, by either accident or design, and given what had happened at our last encounter, that was perfectly fine with me.

  Mum called out something from the kitchen, and I must have answered appropriately, although I had no idea what I’d said, because my thoughts were tugging me back to the last time I’d seen Alex.

  *

  His first apology had come via a text that he must have pulled over to send on his way home. The second came on a card, nestled deep within the foliage of a bouquet that was waiting for me when I got back from work. Perhaps if I’d had the courage to respond to either of those, I could have avoided apology number three, which Alex had felt the need to deliver in person a short while later.

  He was standing on my doorstep, the soft evening rain misting around him like spray from a waterfall. Even under the lights of my outside lamp I could tell that the dark circles beneath his eyes could have given mine a run for their money.

  ‘Alex,’ I said, trying to sound more surprised than shocked. I’d hoped for more time to sort out my confused feelings about what had happened between us. Although, in reality, had anything happened at all? It had been just one unguarded moment, a slip-up that was surely best forgotten.

  ‘Come in,’ I urged, shivering slightly in the cold night air.

  He shook his head, raindrops spraying around him like discarded jewels. ‘No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. This won’t take long.’

  Something plummeted deep within me. It felt horribly like an internal organ.

  ‘I…’ he began. ‘I wanted to see you. I wanted to say how sorry I was about—’

  ‘That’s fine. You don’t need to say anything,’ I interjected, hoping to shoot down his entire prepared speech before he even began it.

  ‘But I do,’ he said, his eyes full of anguish I had no idea how to ease. ‘I care about you, Molly. You’ve been a good friend to me when I needed one, while I… Well, I don’t think I can honestly say the same. And that kills me because you deserve better, especially after all that you’ve been through. You deserve someone who looks into your eyes and sees no one but you. I’m not sure that’s something I can do right now.’ He turned away, the confession too hard to deliver to my face. ‘I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll ever be able to do.’

  I was gripping the edge of the door frame so hard, it was actually hurting my hand, but it was good to have some tangible pain to focus on.

  ‘Alex, there’s no need to say anything else. We have something that ties us together so uniquely, it was almost inevitable that the strands were going to get tangled. What happened the other night was no one’s fault. It was one of those things.’

  I inwardly winced at the cliché. Because, of course, there were no ‘things’ that existed like this. We were in uncharted territory, and we’d taken a pretty serious wrong turn. My biggest fear now was that we’d veered so far off the pathway, we weren’t going to be able to find our way back. Too late, the words of caution voiced by the transplant coordinators as to why donor families and recipients shouldn’t ever meet came echoing back.

  ‘I don’t want to lose you as a friend, Molly, and I’m really worried that after the way I acted the other night that’s going to happen.’

  I swallowed audibly.

  ‘And I know that’s selfish of me, and if you decide you just want to keep your distance from now on, then obviously I’ll respect that. But I’m praying that you won’t, because I’m not the only one who needs you… Connor does too – maybe even more than me.’

  The thought of never again seeing that wonderful little boy felt like a dagger s
liding between my ribs, searching for my heart.

  ‘How he is when he’s with you,’ continued Alex, ‘the way you’ve been able to connect with him… well, it’s something no one else has been able to do since…’

  Please don’t say it, I silently pleaded. Don’t say her name. Perhaps Alex read the panic in my eyes, for he changed tack.

  ‘Can we turn back the clock?’ he asked. ‘Can you trust me enough not to screw up again? Will you let me be your friend once more?’

  It would have taken someone far colder than me to have refused him that.

  ‘You never stopped being that, Alex. Not for a single moment.’

  Beneath my ribcage the quickening beat of my heart slowly steadied.

  29

  Alex

  Alex had never believed in signs or portents. Lisa had loved that kind of stuff, cheerfully admitting that she’d visited a medium shortly after meeting him. The medium had confirmed she’d recently met the man she was going to marry.

  ‘Oh, really? Is it anyone I know?’ he’d asked, drawing her into his arms and nibbling lightly on the side of her neck. She’d collapsed against him, her sigh of pleasure arousing him more than he’d wanted her to see. He’d needed no psychic to tell him that his days of searching were over. He’d found the person he was meant to spend the rest of his life with.

  But now things were happening that weren’t just shaking his belief system, they were razing it to the ground. The rational part of his mind had already taken a huge leap of faith by embracing the cellular memory theory. He took reassurance from the number of respected doctors and professionals who acknowledged that there were too many cited instances to ignore and that there was definitely something in it. But that wasn’t all of it. It was as though Alex had opened a door – just a crack to begin with – and now all kinds of thoughts were finding their way through it.

  It was after ten, and Alex was debating whether to start another episode of the thriller box set he’d been watching, admittedly with very little interest. He’d have been hard pushed to outline the dark and twisty plot or name a single character from the show. And yet these days the TV was seldom switched off. Because beneath a canopy of voices, Alex was able to pretend he wasn’t spending yet another night alone.

  The knock on the window startled him enough to set his heart racing. Why would someone pad through the flowerbeds to rap on the window rather than ring the front doorbell? Feeling foolish, Alex looked around for a weapon, should he need one, but could find nothing more deadly than the TV remote control. He strode to the window and gripped the curtains, yanking them apart. For one dreadful horror-movie moment, the face he saw staring into his lounge was his own. He gasped and the remote slipped from his fingers to bounce on the floor, scattering batteries as it fell. It took a few seconds for Alex to realise that he was seeing his own reflection in the glass, superimposed over a face that did indeed look very much like his.

  ‘Todd! You scared the shit out of me,’ Alex hissed.

  His brother looked sheepish as he shrugged and pointed meaningfully towards the front door. By the time Alex had crossed the hallway, he’d calmed down. No more spooky box sets, he promised himself as he opened the door.

  ‘What the hell were you doing creeping around in the undergrowth like a burglar?’

  ‘I didn’t want to ring the bell and wake Connor.’

  ‘I think he’d have woken up anyway as I bludgeoned what I thought was an intruder over the head,’ Alex said, more rattled than he wanted to let on.

  ‘Would that bludgeoning have been with the TV remote control?’ Todd asked, grinning widely.

  Alex gave a reluctant laugh. ‘Oh, you saw that, did you?’

  They’d crossed into the kitchen and Alex had gone automatically to the fridge, pulling out two bottles of beer. He waggled one at his brother and received a nod in confirmation. They didn’t bother with glasses but drank straight from the ice-cold bottles, leaning up against the kitchen units.

  ‘So did Dee kick you out?’ Alex was joking, knowing perfectly well that his brother’s marriage was every bit as strong as his own had been.

  ‘No, I’m after a favour.’

  Alex nodded encouragingly. After all they’d done for him since the accident, there was very little Todd could ask of him that he’d refuse.

  Todd delved into the pocket of his trousers. ‘I’ve got a dongle in here somewhere.’

  ‘Don’t we all, mate. But I’d just as soon not see it.’

  Todd’s laughter was far more likely to wake Connor than the doorbell, but he did nothing to stifle it. There was relief in his eyes, and tears too, but for once these were tears of laughter.

  ‘I think that may be the first joke you’ve cracked in almost a year.’

  Was that true? Alex had always been a natural joker, with a quick wit. Whenever he thought back on the days, weeks, months and years of his marriage, which he did a lot, there were two things that always struck him: the love, and the laughter. He’d lost both in one fell swoop.

  Todd’s searching fingers had finally found what he was looking for. ‘There’s an urgent report I need to print out for work, but our supposedly top-of-the-range printer has decided to stop working. Can I use yours?’

  ‘Of course,’ Alex said easily. ‘You know where it is.’

  His brother headed towards the stairs.

  ‘Maybe you could ask Jamie to have a look at yours. Didn’t he say something about being a whizz with IT stuff?’

  Todd paused with one foot on the lower step and gave a wry smile. ‘Was that before or after he was a roadie, an entrepreneur, a lifeguard and a rally driver?’

  ‘Bloody lawyers,’ Alex said good-naturedly. ‘You’re all so sceptical and suspicious.’ Ironically, he was soon to find out just how accurate that jocular comment was.

  Alex had finished his beer and had just decided against having a second one when Todd’s voice carried down from the upstairs hallway.

  ‘Have you got any more paper?’ he said in an overloud stage whisper. ‘Your printer’s run out.’

  ‘Top right-hand drawer of the desk,’ Alex replied.

  He’d emptied the kitchen bin and was halfway through doing the same with the dishwasher when his hand suddenly froze mid-task. He straightened up fast enough to hear several of his vertebrae crack in protest. The desk. The top drawer.

  He raced into the hall, but Todd was already descending the stairs, with the evidence Alex had wanted to keep from him in his arms. His eyes met Todd’s, and this time there was no humour in either brother’s expression. Alex returned to the kitchen with heavy steps, pulled out a chair at the table and sat down with a look of resignation on his face.

  Todd was going to do the whole lawyer thing, Alex realised, as he watched his brother set out the books on the table, making sure they were all facing Alex, just in case he might have forgotten what they were about. Eight books, each one of them on cellular memory. In his head, Alex could practically hear his brother intoning, If it pleases the court, I’d like to present the following as evidence…

  ‘What the fuck are these?’

  Alex toyed briefly with going for ‘books’, but one glance at his brother’s concerned face killed the quip.

  ‘I got them ages ago. I’d forgotten I even had them.’ It was quite shocking how easily the lie fell from his lips.

  ‘Then why is there a receipt from last week being used as a bookmark?’ Todd shot back.

  Alex gave a grudging nod of admiration. Todd was eminently suited to his chosen profession.

  ‘There’ve been documented case histories that—’

  Todd silenced his words with a single glare. ‘Yes, they’re right up there with the “I was abducted by aliens” accounts.’ He sighed, sounding suddenly much older than his years, and swept his hand over the table. ‘These aren’t textbooks, Alex. They have no factual basis. Cellular memory isn’t even a proven phenomenon – it’s what they call a pseudoscience.’

  Alex wa
s secretly impressed that his brother even knew the phrase. It proved he too had studied the topic – although clearly they’d reached very different conclusions.

  Wearily, Todd lowered himself onto the chair across from Alex. ‘Okay,’ he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. ‘Let me have it. Tell me exactly what you believe is happening here.’

  Alex shook his head. ‘No. What’s the point? You already think I’m crazy.’

  Todd reached out, pushing the books aside to grasp his brother’s hand, which felt weirdly symbolic. ‘I don’t think that. Not at all. I think you’re in pain, and that you’re confused, and that you’ve latched onto something that you think will help you. Whereas I’m afraid it’s going to drag you even further under. But I still want to hear what you think.’ He released Alex’s hand and raised both of his in a gesture of surrender. ‘I promise I won’t interrupt or say anything until you’re done.’

  It wasn’t the most comfortable twenty minutes of Alex’s life. Even to his own ears, his theories sounded fantastical spoken out loud for the very first time. In his head they hadn’t sounded nearly so crazy.

  ‘So, let me get this right,’ said Todd, speaking slowly as he mentally filed away everything his brother had told him. ‘You believe that the love Lisa felt for you remained within the heart when it was transplanted into Molly. That when Lisa told you she’d love you for as long as her heart kept beating, this was a literal declaration rather than just something lovely to say?’

  Alex dropped his eyes to study the whorls in the wooden table. It was easier than meeting his brother’s gaze.

  ‘And where does that leave Molly?’ Todd questioned. ‘Has she told you that she’s unexpectedly discovered herself to be in love with you?’

  In a blinding flashback, Alex saw the kiss in Molly’s lounge, and how they’d both recoiled from it. He could almost feel her small hands again on his shoulders, pushing him away.

  ‘There is something there – with Molly, I mean,’ Alex insisted. ‘I felt it even before we met. It was there in her letters to me.’