Tin Heart

by Shivaun Plozza

  ‘Hold this.’ Hannah nods at the cotton ball in the crook of my arm. I press a finger to it and she lets go.

  I stare at the tip of my finger as it turns white with the pressure. ‘A letter, Hannah? Has one come?’

  She keeps her back to me, fiddling with tape. I can hear my heart beating. This new heart is so much louder than the old one.

  She smiles at me as she tapes over the cotton ball. ‘We’re keeping you on the same dose of prednisolone for the time being. But your numbers from last visit were good. Great, even.’

  Hannah picks up my notes and hugs them to her chest.

  ‘Hannah? Has anything come for me?’ I reach into my school backpack and pull out the crumpled letter number five. Five is a lucky number, right? There has to be one culture in the world in which five is a lucky number. ‘I’ve got another one here, but I just thought maybe they might have written back because . . .’

  Hannah raps her fingers against my notes. Her face falls. ‘I’m sorry, monkey,’ she says. ‘There’s been a bit of a hiccup.’

  I shake my head and push away her talk of ‘hiccups’ and the deep frown wrinkling her forehead so that every inch of me can focus on what she’s about to say. Because it has to be: ‘Here you go. Here’s the letter you’ve been waiting almost a year for.’

  It has to be.

  ‘The family’s asked for no contact,’ says Hannah, biting her lip. ‘We have to respect that.’

  There’s a roar in my ears. I think for a second I didn’t hear Hannah right because it’s so loud, but she’s looking at me with pity and the roar is getting louder and the words – the words I don’t want to hear – scream at me until I can’t ignore them.

  Mum watches me, her brow ridged. She knows how much I want this. How much I need to hear from my donor’s family.

  ‘This kind of thing does happen,’ says Hannah. ‘More than you’d think. It’s usually because it’s too soon for the family and they just don’t want to deal with the reality of it yet. Maybe they’ll change their minds and contact you in another year or two, after they’ve had time to grieve. What do you think?’

  What do I think?

  I think.

  I feel.

  I.

  ‘Marlowe?’

  Mum’s throat contracts as she stares at the top of my head. She reaches out, but I jerk away from her. I’ll scream. I swear to god, I’ll scream.

  ‘Listen,’ says Hannah, ‘there’s a Facebook group. Strictly just for donor families and recipients. Mostly they try and connect with each other. As in, the recipients say something about themselves and what organ they received and when it happened, and the donor families can post back if they think it matches them. I’m only telling you about it because, well, maybe it will help you to connect with other families. Ones that want to hear from donors. It might not be your donor’s family but it still might help, don’t you think?’

  All I can do is nod. I don’t have words yet.

  ‘I’ll get my friend who’s in the group to invite you,’ she says, but then her brows pull in, her smile wavers. ‘Don’t forget your donor’s family might want to connect with you in the future.’ Her voice cracks. ‘Just not now.’

  Just not now.

  And finally, I feel.

  Waves of disappointment beat at my rib cage, blow after blow. Why don’t they want me to write? Did I say something wrong in my letters? Do they regret giving me this heart? Am I not good enough? I grip the fabric of my dress, right over my heart, and feel the rise and fall of my chest. It reminds me of the ticking of a clock. Tick, tock; in, out. Time moves forward. But just for me. Not for whoever owned this heart before.

  Mum’s hand hovers just out of reach. ‘We’ll fix this,’ she says, but when I don’t answer I sense her and Hannah having a silent conversation over the top of my head.

  Every beat of my heart feels strange, like a song I’ll never learn to play even though I can’t get it out of my head.

  ‘Maybe Kate and me can have a little chat,’ says Hannah. ‘Adult to adult.’

  I nod. I nod and nod and keep on nodding. I’m trapped in here, pressed in by the walls, by Mum and Hannah, by the scalpels and needles and swabs, and all of it is just holding me down, forcing me to stay in this moment.

  Mum squeezes my shoulder. ‘We’ll be outside,’ she says, swiping at the curtains until she finds the gap. Both of them vanish like actors from a stage.

  I let out the breath I was holding and a sob escapes too, wet and broken.

  I rush a hand to my mouth to hold back another sob.

  Because I won’t cry about this.

  I won’t cry.

  I stand, knocking letter number five to the floor. This heart, this damn heart is pressing up into my throat and I think I might choke on it.

  I stare at my stack of notes where there should be a letter. Just one letter – is that too much to ask? I close my eyes and picture it, sitting on top of the notes, half curled in on itself where the folds have been pressed too tightly to ever be smooth and straight and flat again. It’s notepad paper with pale blue lines and it’s so thin it’s kind of see-through. The envelope it came in is small, one of those no-name brand ones you buy in bulk at the supermarket. Not the stupidly expensive free-trade, recycled denim ones Mum buys.

  The letter has tear stains on it – happy tears from when I laughed and cried as I read the family’s words to me. Words that helped me understand the history that beats inside me now and the gift I’ve been given.

  I open my eyes. But there’s nothing. No letter. Just a roaring silence.

  And then I cry.

  On the tram ride home, Mum bumps my side and asks why I’m so quiet. When I don’t answer she slings an arm around my shoulder. ‘It was a big day, wasn’t it? A full day back at school and then more poking and prodding.’

  I rest my forehead against the window and close my eyes. The glass still has drops on it from the storm, but I can feel the post-rain sun on my skin.

  I let Mum talk, and I hmmm and nod when I’m supposed to, but there’s not much sinking in. I know what she’s trying to do and I’m thankful to her for trying but can’t find it in myself to play along.

  I get that someone had to die for me to live and that means that while my family cry with joy another family suffocates under the weight of grief. But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that I’m terrified of this feeling of being half complete, half understood, half me. I need to know who they are so I know who I am.

  My shoulder gets a squeeze so I turn, and Mum’s sad-smiling at me. ‘Honey, I know you’re disappointed the family don’t want to communicate with you, but I’m sure they’ll change their minds in a year or two like Hannah said. It’s not your fault.’

  I try to smile, but a small child on the seat opposite is staring at me. Automatically, my hand goes to my chest, right over the raised twelve-centimetre scar that cuts like a mountain ridge between my breasts. I can feel it through my dress. The girl stares. Like she knows.

  The girl wriggles onto her mother’s lap, hiding her face in waves of long brown hair.

  Maybe people can sense it – the wrongness of me.

  ________

  We head to the shop because Mum has to help with closing and that’s where Pip is, being babysat by Vivienne the fire-twirling law student (because who else would Mum hire to work in her shop?) I tell Mum I just want to go home, but she does her ‘it will only a take a minute’ speech and I don’t bother arguing.

  When we get inside, Pip’s sprawled on the floorboards behind the counter, sawing a hole through a cardboard box. There are no less than ten rolls of aluminium foil stacked beside him. And glitter. So much glitter Bowie would turn in his grave. Vivienne is leaning over the counter reading Roxane Gay.

  She lowers her book. ‘Did you pass?’

  ‘Yep,’ I squeeze behind the counter, headed straight for the office out back. My need to be in an unpopulated galaxy far, far away churns my insides. ‘They don’t thi
nk implanting a baboon heart is negatively affecting me . . . Oh hey, are those bananas?’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ says Vivienne. And when I say ‘says’, I mean it. She doesn’t laugh – not ever – just says the word ‘ha’ and glares at you for daring to try to make her laugh.

  Mum beams at Pip. ‘What’s my creative critter up to?’

  Pip often has to say the same thing three times because the first two attempts get garbled by excitement. ‘Bortyquinrodotfodafuta. Beudy quin rodo for the fewchur. Beauty queen robot from the future.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Mum says, then clicks her fingers at me. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Homework.’

  She throws her hands in the air. ‘Gah. I’ve failed as a mother.’

  I disappear into the back office where it’s quiet and still, but that only makes the voice in my head screaming ‘They hate you! That’s why they don’t want to write to you!’ so much louder. I cover my mouth with my hand because suddenly I feel like screaming too.

  Stop it. Stop it.

  I count my breaths – three counts in and three counts out – and tell myself to get a grip. Wear your big girl pants and get over it, Marlowe. You’re not going to fall apart over this.

  I plonk down at the desk and open my bag. I actually do have homework, Maths mostly. Doing it will hopefully melt my brain until it trickles out of my ears and I no longer have the capacity to care that I was rejected.

  I breathe deeply. One, two, three.

  I push all the papers on the desk to one side and set myself up. We’re going to be here for ages because Pip is really good at making messes but not so good at cleaning them up, and Mum and Vivienne will start having one of their Important Conversations about Important Issues and then vegan wine will be opened and the fair-trade chocolate aisle will be raided.

  My laptop sits open on the edge of the desk. It’s not on but it calls to me.

  I could. . .

  No.

  What would I search for? Accidents around the date of the transplant? I’ve done that already and it doesn’t work when you don’t have a name. Besides, the family made it clear: they don’t want me knowing anything about them or my donor.

  I rule a line across the page. Perfectly straight. Red. Homework in this family is an act of rebellion. Mum reckons the best way to learn is to experience and that writing essays only encourages uniformity and complacency. But there’s nothing I like more than the smell of a new exercise book, ruling straight lines, answering Maths problems with the only possible answer and writing fence-sitting essays. Does that make me a conformist? Or am I a rebel at heart?

  Wait.

  No.

  Whatever heart I had, it was a dud.

  So what kind of heart do I have now?

  I draw a boy in the margins of my exercise book. A teenage boy. His features are vague, wrong. I scribble him out and start again. Maybe that Facebook group might work. Talking with families who don’t hate me. Or maybe they will. Maybe it’s just me.

  Stop it. All that matters is finding ‘x’ if cos (90° - x) = -0.7

  Mum calls out to me, something about dinner. I yell back ‘yes’. I don’t have to know the question to know that’s the answer she wants.

  I push the laptop out of my reach and tap my pen against the page.

  Where are you, x?

  Don’t you want to be found?

  Are you hiding from me?

  What if my donor was some poor boy behind the checkout at Coles that Mum had a go at about the way they freeze their fruit and veg for months before it even hits the shelves? What if because of us he had a really bad day and he took it out on his boss and got the sack and it was our fault. What if his heart remembers? What if it hates me?

  Stop. That’s not even possible. I have to stop doing this – imagining who he was.

  The out-of-tune wailing of Mum and Pip singing ‘Starman’ snakes through the open office door. They might be out of tune but they’re perfectly in sync. I draw another boy but he’s just as vague, just as random as the last one.

  I sit up straighter, gripping my pen tight. Focus.

  Find x if cos (90° - x) = -0.7

  What if I can’t find x? Can x be like, ‘I regret to inform you but x is unable to grant your request to meet with him at this juncture.’

  I drop my pen as the walls press tight. Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

  I stand and hurry out the back door, out into the four-by-four concrete slab that will one day be a veggie patch and compost heap. I bend over, gulping lungs full of air, wheezing and gasping and heaving.

  I put a hand to my forehead: it’s warm, but not hot. I try my other hand. It’s warmer. Do I have a fever? Oh god. Hannah was wrong. I’m not better. I’m going to die.

  ‘Are you having an asthma attack?’ says a husky voice behind me. ‘Or is this another one of your weird protests?’

  I spin round. The boy from the butcher shop is slouched over the waist-high dividing fence, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and an open book in his hands. No apron and no knife but the same scowl.

  He lowers his tattered paperback and lights his cigarette.

  ‘For real,’ he says. He’s all green eyes and freckles and messy hair and confidence. ‘Are you dying?’

  Fever rages in my cheeks. I want it to rain like before – rain and take this fire away – but I can’t even smell the rain in the air, not anymore. It’s like it never happened. I focus on breathing: in, out, tick, tock.

  ‘Are you, like, what’s it called? Mute? Is that the word? Oh wait, no I get it. You’re on a speaking strike. You don’t say anything until the whole world turns veggo. Like Gandhi.’

  Somehow I find enough breath to respond. ‘That was a hunger strike, dummy.’

  The butcher boy watches me, his lips battling it out – to smile or to scowl? He takes a long drag on his cigarette, sucking down all forty-three cancer-causing chemicals and, by the end of it, the dog-shit scowl has won. ‘So you do talk. What’s your name?’

  I look down at my feet.

  ‘Unless you don’t have a name,’ he says. ‘Unless your name is some hippie bullshit like, it’s not even a word it’s a sound, like the sound of wind rustling through leaves at dusk or some shit like that. Unless –’

  ‘Marlowe. My name is Marlowe.’

  I brace myself for the inevitable ‘What kind of weirdo name is that?’ but he just tilts his head and grins. ‘As in Raymond Chandler?’

  My dad is a massive Chandler fan. He devours crime books – he’s a lawyer after all – but hardboiled detective fiction is his favourite and he reckons Chandler is the best. So he talked Mum into naming me and Pip after this character, Philip Marlowe: a drunk, sarcastic, misogynistic private detective. Which, seeing as my dad is a drunk, sarcastic, misogynist who ran off to America to be with his PA, kind of makes sense. But it’s not something people usually get. Usually, I have to explain it and even then I still get stared at like I’m the weird one when it wasn’t me that picked the name.

  I can’t be impressed. I can’t.

  I frown at his tattered paperback: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Sounds full of sunshine and rainbows.

  ‘I’m going to call you “Ray”,’ he says.

  I stare at him. He stares back.

  ‘This is where you ask me what my name is,’ he says.

  I press a hand to my forehead: it’s a hot day so it’s not too bad, I guess. But my heart is still thudding. I could be dying. Maybe.

  ‘And then I tell you my name is Leo,’ he continues. He flicks his cigarette to the ground. On our side of the fence. ‘And then you say, “Nice to meet you, Leo,” and I say, “Yes, it is nice for you to meet me,” and then you laugh. Would you say you’re more of a giggler or a chuckler?’

  He taps the paperback against the fence palings and watches me. Waiting for me to confirm my giggle versus chuckle status. But I give him nothing and not just because I’m crap at social interactions. I’m sort of in the middle of pos
sibly dying here, and he can be as cute as he likes but I’m just not going to giggle or chuckle right now.

  He pity-smiles at me. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s not your fault. This whole war your mum is trying to start with my dad. I get it. No wait . . .’ He scrunches up his face. ‘I don’t get it. Humans are designed to eat meat. We’re top of the food chain so it’s just bad luck for cows and pigs and whatever. And, yeah, they’re cute and all, but have you ever eaten a bacon sandwich? Cute and delicious.’ He leans over the fence, shoulders curled forward, relaxed and confident. He grins. ‘So not eating meat? That goes against nature, if you ask me. Which you didn’t. Because you seem to be back on your speaking strike.’ He raps the paperback against the fence again, one final end-of-argument thump.

  In a perfect world where I am a perfect girl with a perfect heart and perfect social skills, I would eloquently explain to this guy why I am a vegan, why he should be too, why he should stop flicking his cigarette butts on the ground and why he should quit smoking while he’s at it. Because in my head the right words are there – I have heard them through my mother’s megaphone a million times and all I need to do is repeat them. But that’s not how my brain works. My brain is more the ‘freeze up’ type. My brain prefers to jumble the perfect words into an imperfect mess that will only untangle itself when the moment is gone.

  My brain sucks.

  So I stare. Mouth open like a carnival clown. The silence burning a hole in my throat. Is it too late to claim this is a speaking strike?

  But then words are suddenly tumbling out of my mouth and I can’t rein them in: ‘Pigs eat people too.’

  He blinks at me and if blinks were like Morse code, then this blink would mean, ‘What the hell?’

  ‘In fact,’ I say – and, god, why on earth am I still speaking? – ‘there was a serial killer who used pigs to get rid of his victims.’ Just stop talking, Marlowe. ‘And there was a farmer who went to feed his pigs, but they ate him instead. So you should just watch yourself.’ Stop talking. ‘Because maybe humans aren’t on top of the food chain.’ Shut up. ‘Maybe pigs are.’

  Stop. Talking. You. Dork.