How Do I Love Thee (21 page)

“I'm sorry, Laura. So very, very sorry.” Dr. Simon held her close and let her weep.

When she was able, Laura asked, “H-how did it happen?”

“It was a drive-by shooting. Ramon was working late at his second job—some grocery store in Spanish Harlem. He was sweeping the sidewalk out front. Witnesses said a car full of Hispanic males drove past and opened fire. He was hit in the head. Paramedics gave him CPR and transported him to our ER. The police think the shooting was gang related.”

“But Ramon wasn't in a gang. Not anymore.”

“I'm only telling you what's suspected.”

“Did they catch them? “

“The police are still looking.”

Laura felt sick to her stomach and thought she might vomit. Leaning back against her pillows, she shut her eyes.

“I can get you a tranquilizer,” Dr. Simon said.

Laura shook her head. She didn't want to be groggy- A pill would only dull the pain, and she didn't want the pain dulled. She ached for Ramon, for herself. For all that was lost.

“I think Ramon had a premonition that his life would end badly.”

“What do you mean?”

“He came to see me months ago. He said he wanted to be an organ donor, but there was a stipulation. He said if anything happened to him, he wanted his heart to go to you. He told me he didn't care about the rest of his body just as long as you received his heart.”

Laura moaned. The heart beating inside her was Ramon's. How could she have not known? How could she have not sensed his presence?

“I tested him that afternoon- You have the same blood type. That made it a real possibility for him to be your donor.”

“He never told me.
You
never told me.”

“He didn't want me to, and I couldn't— doctor-patient confidentiality. Besides, I never dreamed it would happen. But he was insistent and told me to make it legal. We made out a living will on the spot, and I promised him I'd follow his wishes. He carried a card in his wallet with my name on it and instructions to call me first if any thing happened to him. When he was brought into the ER, he had massive brain damage. There was nothing that could be done to save him. We got him onto a ventilator and called you. For what it's worth, his organs saved five other people that night.”

Still numb with shock, Laura thought about her parents’ objections to Ramon. “Do my parents know?”

“Yes, I've told them. And they're very grateful to him. They're setting up an educational fund here at the hospital for minorities to take medical courses like Ramon wanted to da It's generous of them.”

“They should have told me.”

“I wouldn't let them. I wanted you to be stronger when you heard. We knew it was going to be difficult for you. We all want you to live.”

“Why? Ramon's gone.” Laura couldn't stop trembling.

“Don't talk that way. He wouldn't want you to give up.”

Laura turned her face toward the wall. She felt desolate. Her reason for getting well was gone. Without Ramon, how could she go on?

“He loved you, Laura. He told me that when I asked him why he'd will his heart to you.”

Still Laura said nothing.

“He gave me this to give to you. But only if anything happened to him.” Dr. Simon removed a long white envelope from the folder. “I'm going to go now, so you can read it in private.” She laid the envelope on Laura's lap and walked to the door. There she turned and said, “Ramon Ochoa gave you the greatest gift one human being can give to another—he gave you life. Don't let go of it. Make his gift count.”

Laura stared at her name neatly printed across the front of the envelope. Her hands
shook as she opened the flap and pulled out a piece of paper. Through a blur of tears, she read:

Laura was crying so hard that it was difficult to breathe. She pressed the paper to her cheek, knowing that his hands had touched it, written it, folded it. She watched the heart monitor beside her bed reflecting the steady pace of her heart, half expecting the line to break and shatter from the weight of her sadness.

Ramon's heart was now Laura's heart, melded into her body by a surgeon's skill, and it was sustaining her. He had wanted her to live, and Laura knew then that she would. Living was her price to pay for the privilege of holding his heart for safekeeping. Life was the mandate he ‘d given her on the night he died by assassins’ bullets. She would not, could not, let him down.

Despite her haste to get to the hospital on the night she was called for her transplant, she had taken the time to tuck her poetry book into her suitcase. Now she took it from the bedside table drawer where she'd asked one of the nurses to put it days before. It had been her one link to Ramon during her hospital stay, and she loved touching it and tracing his signature with her finger. She'd read all the poems but quickly turned to the one he'd named as his favorite. Her breath caught.

She read the poem slowly, tasting the words, savoring each one, imagining Ramon whispering them to her. By the time she reached the final lines, she was crying so hard she could barely see them. But it wasn't necessary. She
knew them perfectly. The words were stamped into the fabric of her mind, the tapestry of her heart. They were: