One Sweet Day

by Elle Tyler

  WHERE DO I SIGN UP

  FOR A HEART

  35.

  SOMETHING I LEARNED after I became a father was that children have the power to reshape all the jagged edges of your life into smooth lines, allowing things you once found painful to easily slip away into the past.

  Birthdays, for instance, were no longer regarded as death’s countdown.

  Everly started planning Andy’s birthdays a month in advance, picking out the cake and the colors and creating invitations by hand.

  One week before his seventh birthday, she had started just the same as any other year, but for this celebration, fate had no plans to sit quietly on the sidelines; not only did it desire to be a part of the game, it wanted to bring home the gold. Life had come full circle. I had put Peter Everdeen in charge of bringing the past back to life, and with the resurrection of an old train came the door to our futures. I had unknowingly unlocked Pandora’s box.

  “Pop?” Andy tugged on my shirt as I talked to Peter, who had been clearing pine needles from the gutters to help Everly get the house in order for Andy’s party.

  “What’s up?”

  Andy looked to his much taller friend—Peter’s son, Scout, the boy who once brought me a moment of clarity and peace after Truscott died. A boy who had made me believe good things happen to good people as I’d watched him grow up strong and healthy alongside my son. But we’ve had this discussion about God, plans, and faith, haven’t we?

  “Scout says he feels sick.”

  I looked at him as Everly shouted from the yard, “I told you boys to stay away from those wild berries.”

  “We didn’t eat anything!” he returned. “He said his head hurts.”

  Peter climbed down the ladder as I placed my hand to his son’s forehead, expecting to find it slightly warm, and then tell him to go lie down inside for a while, but my hand was suddenly on fire.

  “You’re burning up, Scout.”

  “Everything looks funny,” he mumbled, his eyes closing. “I’m so hot.”

  He grabbed his chest and fainted before anyone could react.

  ***

  I stared at a blooming prophecy as I examined Scout’s X-rays; the tether around my ribs knew this with vigorous certainty. It was the same feeling of déjà vu, a haunting lucid dream I couldn’t quite place having had before but knew without a single drop of doubt that it had been a moment in my life, conscious or not.

  And it was met with the knowledge that I couldn’t do a single damn thing to treat the outcome, except for the one thing this memory had taught me: I needed to hope.

  “His heart is not pumping blood efficiently,” I explained trying to break the news gently to Peter. “You’ve probably always noticed he was slower than other kids when playing, that he got tired quickly. He’s been in and out of the hospital all of these years, and this is why.”

  “I know what he has,” Peter said. “I’ve always known.”

  “Why didn’t you ever mention it? Andy and Scout play together so often, despite their age difference—they’ve become such good friends. I thought... We’ve known each other so long, I figured you regarded us as friends, too…”

  “Would you not want my son to be friends with him if you had known?” he scoffed.

  “No, what I mean is we could have developed measures to insure he was safe. I wouldn’t have let the boys run around as crazy as they do, things like that. Plus, I could have helped him more. Asked a specialist to see his case.”

  “Exactly.” He nodded. “And that is not my wish for him.”

  “Peter,” I warned, “this is not a way to deal with Scout’s condition. You can’t be...” And this is where I found Timothy Brighton locked inside of my throat. “...Reckless.”

  “My son will die regardless of what I do. The only difference is how much of life I’m willing to give him before it’s his time to go.”

  “He could have a transplant. Have you ever explored this option?”

  His eyes mordent, he laughed. “I’m a widowed handyman without insurance. Where do you suppose I sign up for a heart with those qualifications, Doc Trovatto? You gonna give me a million bucks ‘cause we’re such great friends?”

  I could have cried. I could have crumpled to the ground and simply stayed there until the end of my existence, until the wind had blown away the dust I had become.

  Not because I hurt for Peter or Scout or my son losing his friend—because I knew exactly what fate intended to do with me—I found my purpose, and it was the most beautifully cruel design I could have imagined.

  ***

  “You’re quiet,” Everly noted over dinner. “Worried about Scout?”

  Andy had gone to bed early, so I could afford a little honesty. “I’m worried about you.”

  “So what’s new?” She smiled. “A doctor worried about a CIPA patient.”

  “It wasn’t Truscott.”

  Her spirit dimmed. “What?”

  “You weren’t meant to save Truscott. He was just a sign.” I scooted from the table and lifted Scout’s file from the counter. “He even had the same damn bed number.” The earth shook below my feet and rumbled inside my cortex. Vision was blurred, and suddenly she was in front of me with nervous hands on my cheeks. “He led you to me because I was headed toward Scout.”

  She took the file, scanned it quickly. “A heart?”

  “All the money...” I slid to the floor and fisted my hair just to feel something more painful than the ache inside my chest. “...It was meant for him.”

  She was quiet until she kneeled in front of me. “It’s all right.” I lifted my head and she repeated, “It’s all right.”

  The truth lit my fuse. “My purpose is to bring you to someone who needs you to die and you tell me it’s all right?”

  “Be quiet, Andy is sleeping.”

  “Well, fuckin’ forbid he wakes up from me shouting! I mean it’s clearly going to be the worst thing that ever happens to him!”

  “Callum, stop it!” she demanded.

  “I can’t do this,” I snapped. “I won’t do this!”

  She reached for me, but I recoiled. “It’s not yours to refuse.”

  “Well, guess what? I’m fuckin’ refusing, so God will just have to fuckin’ deal with that.”

  “I mean it’s not your purpose... It’s mine.” She caught eyes with me, and the world shifted back into focus. “And it’s all right. It will be all right... You were willing to help me with Truscott, remember?”

  I mocked her with laughter. “Because I didn’t believe it would really happen. I didn’t actually believe anything you told me, Everly Anne. I was only humoring you because I was falling in love with you, and I didn’t want to lose you.” I framed her face firmly. “I don’t want to fuckin’ lose you, so God can go find another purpose for my life. I’m done being his puppet of dejection.”

  “I warned you that you’d regret me, Callum,” she said. “Do not talk about God like this because you’re angry. Your heart is better than that.”

  My hands grew firm around her cheeks. “I do not regret you. I only regret letting hope live. I only regret believing that there was some form of redemption at the end of all of this, but no, it only leads up to another cruel joke.”

  Hastily she pushed my hands away, chagrin painted across her forehead, embedded in her eyes. “I don’t think it’s cruel at all. I’ve gotten to experience love, being a mother, having a family of my own, living my life as normally as I could have dreamed, and Scout is just a teenaged boy with his foot on the starting line. So, is it truly cruel if God lets him keep his life and run the race?”

  “We don’t get to keep you, so yes, that’s pretty damn cruel in my book, Everly Anne.”

  “You would have never gotten to keep me forever—everyone dies—and I think it is such a tender gift of mercy that my life gets to end by allowing someone else to live.”

  My temper went for the jugular. “What about our son? What mercy has God gifted him, that he will
have to endure growing up without his mom?”

  “Where is Julep?” Everly screwed her finger against my breastbone, just like she had the day we fought about Truscott. “You still feel her, don’t you—protective as your ribs and deep as your breath? You still feel her, you still sing her song. And someday, my brave and loving Callum Andrew, you will be strong enough to sing mine, too. I know you will, because you’ve given me that hope.”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to sleep. I can’t even talk about this.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She curled against me in our bed, but I was shut off, save for anger. Her fingers traced over my shoulders when I rolled away, soothing my back as I tried to close my eyes and fade away from the truth. But she was the ghost who would always haunt me.

  Wide awake.

  Dreaming soundly.

  I could never remove her from under my ribs.

  ROGUE WAVES

  36.

  THE PEACEFULNESS, THE EASINESS, the gentle tone of our voices—it was all there. The beauty and the serenity of those last few moments gifted to us by fate as we danced in slowed-down time; silent phones and a world beyond our gate, void of neediness.

  They were rarities.

  They were signs.

  I should have known, but Brighton was right—love clouds logic.

  ***

  There was a remarkable sunrise on the day Everly Anne died. Fate came gently and without warning as it sowed seeds of her death into strokes of sherbet painted across an early-morning Georgia sky. I was late, as normal, and she was waiting, as always.

  We wrapped in a flannel blanket and swung slow on our porch swing in silence for the longest measure after I’d handed her a single stem of something wild and free—just like her.

  “I do believe that is the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen,” she said quietly.

  My fingers graced her cheek. “What sunrise?”

  Everly turned into my kiss, and not even the brilliant sun of the south could recapture my attention with her lips pressed against mine.

  Between breaths I asked, “Still love me, peach?”

  “My heart’s still beating.”

  I held her face with soft strokes of my thumbs on her cheeks. It was Valentine’s Day, and showing up with red roses and cardboard-wrapped candy would’ve only been an insult. The most important thing to Everly was her voice, so I dug out a topic that I’d listened to weeks prior as I rushed to get dressed and off work. I wanted—no, needed—her to know I always heard her voice. It was inescapable. Fifteen thousand miles away, I had heard her. She’d made a home inside my thoughts.

  “I’ve been thinking about your poem dilemma.” That earned me a smile. “I think I’ve figured out the flaws.”

  “Oh, have you?” Everly replied. “Look at that, he’s not just a top-notch doctor but also a poetry insider.”

  I relaxed against her. “I’m not arguing Poe wasn’t brilliant, but I think an idea like ‘we loved with a love that was more than love’ is too... depreciating. I feel as though he deduces love as this simple flimsy thing, and we need something greater to truly feel something worthwhile for another person—when, in actuality, love is the most complicated, complex thing in the world.”

  She mulled over my words before saying, “But I think that’s the whole point—makes you wonder what it would feel like to be above something that we already consider the ultimate.”

  I shook my head to humor her further. She loved debate. I wasn’t really all that interested in poetry or Edgar, but sometimes these inconsequential talks became the best moments we ever shared.

  So I argued, “No, you’re giving him too much credit. He’s totally lowering love to a subpar level, and then, to make it worse, he can’t even put a name on what’s higher than love. That’s a real asshole move, don’t you think?”

  At minimum, those talks were worth her laughter. “Okay, Callum, put a name on it.”

  “It’s love,” I replied with conviction. “There’s no need for something greater for it is already complete and complex, perfect and flawed, which means it’s real. But most importantly, its definition is like searching for sculptures amongst the clouds. No one will ever see the same thing, just as no one will ever love the same way. And therein rests the power of love, because every time someone utters the words ‘I love you,’ they are wholly unique to the moment and person, and no one, not even famous poets, can take that away.”

  I was on the cusp of a win as she slid her fingers through mine. “What’s your definition?”

  “Currently?” I admired her face. “Six twenty-three.”

  “You already gave me that number.”

  “No, peach, I’m not giving you a number. I’m giving you a time. Right now, it’s 6:23 in the morning, and I’m with the love of my life watching the sunrise after a night full of disasters and heartbreak. So maybe, to the outside world, sitting on the porch with you would not seem very grandiose—maybe to a poet this would be too simply dressed—but there isn’t anything above this moment for me. I’ve begged for it to arrive since I left seventeen hours ago.”

  She treated me to blueberry waffles in bed and sent me off to dream with the warmth of her body pressed solidly at my side.

  Another rarity.

  Another sign.

  I woke to a world more familiar. Too loud and way too quiet all at once. The loud: Andy playing video games on the foot of our bed. The quiet: the absence of warmth.

  “Hey,” I said groggy-eyed. “Where’s your mom?”

  “Grandpa Trovatto is here. He gave me this game. Wanna play?”

  “No, I asked where your mom is, Andrew.”

  He hit pause and turned my way. “She went shopping with Grandma Marta for food. Said it was girls only. Whatever. Like I wanted to go anyhow. Look at this game...” He hit play, and the sound of gunfire filled the room. I clutched my head and crawled from bed.

  “Good thing she’s not here,” I said. “She’d kill Grandpa if she saw you playing that crap.”

  He stared like a zombie as he played. “Don’t tell.”

  I brushed my teeth and readied for my overnight shift, checking my phone after I’d dressed. Nothing. I dialed her and left a message when she didn’t answer. “I dreamed about the night you were at Noelle’s café uptown, pretending to be St. Valentine. I was so in love with you that night, Everly Anne—you branded me with your bright eyes, you locked me under your wing with your laughter. Call me back, and stop buying stuff with my stepmom. We have plenty of dishes.”

  ***

  Downstairs, my father had managed to pull out every pot and pan we owned. The kitchen was inundated with tomato, basil, and garlic wafts of comfort.

  “I don’t know who you are, but I’m glad you’re in my house, old man.”

  He laughed as he fried a chicken cutlet. “Everly must be feeding you rabbit food. You’re practically a stick figure.”

  “I think it’s called being a slave... I mean doctor.”

  His smile spread. “I told you to become a lifeguard.” He slid a plate of chicken and rigatoni my way. “At least my grandson looks healthy. Smart, too. You’re doing a good job, Callum. You and Everly both. Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve visited.”

  “Where is she?” I asked, looking up from my plate. “Andy said she went to buy food, but clearly that’s a lie.”

  He turned back to the stove. “She went out with Marta.”

  “Well, when are they coming home? I couldn’t reach her by phone, and I wanted to see her before I left tonight. I had no idea you guys were coming.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Is everything okay, Pop?”

  His smile was slight. “Just eat your food. It’s getting cold.”

  Just.

  It was a rarity.

  It was a sign.

  ***

  It was during the quietest part of the night when fate decided to reveal herself. I was near the end of my rounds when I
felt the invisible tether sew itself around my ribs, jerking me in front of a gurney on the move as if lightning had bolted through my chest, effectively blocking their path.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but as I looked up, I recognized the surgeon from pediatrics. One look at his face and I didn’t need to inquire further, but my eyes needed the confirmation to believe. They glanced to the patient—Scout Everdeen—in need of a heart. Scout Everdeen, en route to get one.

  “I really need to get moving, Dr. Trovatto.”

  “Whh…?” I nearly vomited. “Where... Where is Everly?”

  “I need to get this boy to surgery STAT. He’s got a donor being prepped.”

  I was too numb to fight. I let them pass and withdrew my phone, dialing her number wrong three times before my fingers could stop trembling long enough to find her in my contacts, even though her name was the one staring back at me.

  Everly Anne

  Everly Anne

  Everly Anne

  I shook my head.

  Everly Anne

  Everly Anne

  Everly Anne

  She was right there, her name was right there, I could see it and spell it and recite the numbers that led to her, but there was nothing on the other side but silence, the loudest silence screaming at me to find another truth because this was not acceptable.

  There was a riot in my heart and it needed to be heard.

  I made my feet move until they came full circle.

  My father stood outside the doors of the OR hallway.

  “You son of a bitch,” I gunned. “You knew! You knew she was here!”

  His hands raised in surrender. “I had no choice. She asked me to come. Brighton gave her up, Callum.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “After she turned twenty-one..., he gave her up. Everly asked me to be her power of attorney.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” I argued. “She would never fuckin’ do that. All she ever wanted was freedom.”

  “Yes,” he said gently, “and to not hurt you. She asked me so you wouldn’t have to be the one who had to do this, Callum. She was scared of what it might do to you after she was gone.”