In a Heartbeat (9 page)

18

Amelia

It was the best I could do. I read the letter again for the fifth time.

My name is Amelia. I’m fourteen years old. I’ve had a bad heart for six years, and I was put on the waiting list for a transplant three months ago. My doctor said I was lucky to get a heart when I did. I wouldn’t have lived another three
months.

Your child’s heart has given me a second chance at life. I will think of him/her every day and pray for him/her. I know this doesn’t take away the loss you’ve suffered. Nothing could. I would like to meet you in person to thank you, if you’re willing. I would like to know the family and the person who made such a great sacrifice so that I could live.

Sincerely,
Amelia

P.S. Did your child like purple lollipops?

No last name, according to the directions on a sheet Mom had given me. Nothing beyond my first name to identify myself. I was a recipient, he or she was a donor. We were both anonymous.

Would the family write back to me? I wondered how they’d react when they read my letter, if it would make them feel any better or just be a sad reminder of what they’d lost.

I lay back as I folded up the paper and put it in an envelope. I’d been awake since five a.m. writing the letter, trying to come up with the right words. Something that would tell them how I felt. I was pretty good at writing, but how could I put in words how much their gift meant to me?

I turned off the overhead light and closed my eyes. The physical therapist would be in soon. Then more tests. How was anyone supposed to get any rest in this hospital? Especially after being moved to the pediatric ward, where screaming toddlers kept you awake half the night?

Mom complained that my room was too cold, and she constantly added more blankets to my bed, which I promptly kicked off. Before my transplant, I was cold all the time, but now it didn’t bother me much. I’d been in this room for three days now, but it felt like I’d lived here forever. I’d memorized the tiles on the floor around my bed, knew the kinks of the TV (push the volume button repeatedly instead of holding it down). The hospital noises were background sounds that felt familiar now, like the furnace turning on at home. I barely noticed the beeping of the machines, and the IV felt like part of my body.

But the crying; I wasn’t used to that. It sounded more than sad. It was pitiful. One night in particular it bothered me. Was it last night or the night before? The sound seemed to seep through the walls, and even the nurses acted edgy and hurried. The next morning, I’d found my own pillow wet with tears, and the ward was unusually quiet.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” a nurse named Sara warned as she walked in. She had a smiley face sticker stuck to the back of the stethoscope around her neck. “I need to check your vitals.”

I stuck out my arm and yawned. “It’s vital that I sleep.”

She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my upper arm. “You’re sharp this morning.”

“I didn’t used to be.”

“Well, you were sick a long time.”

“I mean, I was never sharp that way. Ever. My donor gave me that.”

“No kidding? I’ve heard of people developing strange tastes afterward. One lady suddenly started drinking beer, when she’d never been able to stand the taste before. Turns out her donor was a college boy who died after falling down the stairs during a frat party.”

I perked up. “How did she find that out?”

Sara’s eyes flicked from the blood pressure monitor to me, then back to the monitor. “Oh, I don’t know if she really did. Mrs. Lewis, the transplant coordinator, used to tell that story. It’s become sort of an urban legend around here.”

“But people do meet the donor families if they both want to.”

Sara nodded. “Sure. I’ve heard that it happens. Not as often as you’d think, though.”

“Maybe the lady met the college boy’s family, and that’s how she found out that he was a beer drinker.”

“Could be.”

“Unless she knew he was a beer drinker before she met the family.”

“How would she know that?”

“Because her new heart told her so. She wanted to drink beer after she got his heart.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure the doctors would buy that as proof.”

“So, have you heard anything about
my
donor? I mean, I already know it’s someone who checked the organ donor box on his or her driver’s license. So I figure he or she was a little older than me, probably in high school.”

Sara frowned and concentrated on squeezing the bulb that tightened the cuff around my arm. “The donor is anonymous for a reason. The family has just suffered a great loss.”

I had that feeling, the one where you realize you said something embarrassing in front of your mother’s friends, and you know you should apologize but you don’t.

“I keep thinking my donor was a girl. It’s a gut feeling I have. And I just want to know something about her, that’s all. Like how she died. And,” I paused, “if she was an athlete.”

Sara’s hand stopped midsqueeze. Her eyes widened a second. Then she resumed squeezing until my arm felt like it would burst. She slowly let out the air, her eyes focused on the flickering dial of the gauge. Finally she spoke. “What makes you think
she’s
an athlete?”

“My heart feels like it wants to run, like it’s used to moving a lot. Like it belonged to an athlete.”

Sara’s eyes darted back to the monitor. I’d seen something in her eyes, and now she was trying to act like I hadn’t just caused her own blood pressure to jump. Could she know something about my donor? I doubted it, but still . . .

“Maybe you’re not used to the feel of a healthy heart.”

Was she trying to convince me or herself?

“No, it’s more than that. Really it is.”

She unfastened the cuff and hung it next to the bed. “Well, kiddo, that’s something you should ask the family. Did you write a letter?”

I handed her the envelope.

Sara put the letter in her pocket. “I’ll make sure Mrs. Lewis forwards this to the donor’s family. There’s a waiting period, though, before she can send it.”

“Oh. How long?”

“I’m not sure. It might be a year.”

“A year! I can’t wait that long.”

“They have their rules.” She set the end of the stethoscope on my heart and listened. I concentrated on being still, which had never been a problem before.

Sara nodded and jotted down some numbers on my chart. “Sounds good. You’ll be out of here in no time.” She patted my arm. “Can I get you anything?”

I shook my head. “Sara, could I ask you something?”

“Sure, sweetie.”

“If your child had died, would you want to talk to the girl who had her heart?”

She paused a moment, and yawned, stretching her arms in a circle above her. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Yes, I’d want to meet her. I’d want to put my ear to her chest, to listen to my child’s heart beating, to know that in this very unique way my child was still alive to the world.”

“Then tell Mrs. Lewis to send my letter now. I think they need to read it.”

“You’re really persistent about this. I’ll see what I can do. No promises, though.”

Sara put her hands back down. The sight of her standing there with her arms stretched above her head in a circle had felt familiar. I knew that sensation. But how?

19

EAGAN

She’s looking straight at me. A girl. She stands out because she’s not pasty gray like everything around her. Like me. She’s wearing a frilly dress the same shade as the marigold bushes in Mom’s garden. Her black curly hair is glittery. It reminds me of the stuff we put on our hair before competitions.

“Can you see me?” I ask.

She nods and waves like she wants to come over but needs to be invited.

Finally. Someone to talk to. My heart feels lighter. Maybe she can help me find my way back to my life.

“Hey,” I say.

She doesn’t need more of an invitation. She’s next to me in a flash.

“I’m Eagan. What’s your name?”

She’s younger than I am; I’d guess she’s about twelve or thirteen. She’s petite like me and has the prettiest smile, the kind that melts hearts. “I don’t have one.” She says it with that smile still on her face.

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “No one ever gave me one.”

I recognize her voice as the one I’d heard before, but she’s older than she sounded. It’s her voice. She sounds so happy. Maybe too happy.

Her wide eyes zone in on my skating dress. She stares at the rhinestones, which are now gray and flat. But her eyes brighten as though she can see the sparkle. She reaches a hand out to touch one.

“No name? That’s terrible.” Who has a kid and doesn’t name her? I’d be mad if I didn’t have a name. How strange that she’s gone all these years without one. I feel as though I need to fix this awful indignity. “How about if I call you Miki? It’s a name I wanted for myself when I was little.”

“Miki.” She repeats the word, exaggerating the
M
sound with her lips. “Yes. That’s a good name,” she finally announces. “Names are important on Earth.”

“What is
this
place?” I ask her.

She wrinkles her nose. “You know, I’m not sure what it’s called. Do you want to name it too?”

“No. I want to get out of here.”

She smiles as if I’ve said something dumb. “This is an in-between place.”

“In between what?”

“Life and death.”

I feel a shudder work its way up my body. “Are you saying I’m . . . ?” My voice breaks. I can’t say the word.

“This is where many souls come. They don’t stay here, though,” she says.

Souls. That word definitely sounds like I’m dead. “This place seems huge. How many ‘souls’ are here?”

“More than a million people die each week on Earth. Many of them end up here.”

She fingers a rhinestone, then touches the fabric of my dress. “I’ve never seen it up close,” she says.

“No. I don’t believe you. There’s no one else here. Just those people on the other side.”

“Oh, them. They’re waiting for you.”

I’m still trying to take it all in. Am I really dead? Fresh tears fill my eyes. I didn’t think I had any left.

“Are
you
dead?” I say in a soft voice, almost a whisper.

She nods. “People die all the time,” she says in a cheerful voice, as though it isn’t the terrible thing it really is.

When she says that, a memory flashes in front of me, and I’m back in the hospital.

I’m in Grandpa’s room. It’s dark, and dots of light fill the Milwaukee skyline through the window.

I wasn’t allowed to stay long. Hospital rules. The nurses said Grandpa was stable, a good sign. Dad told me to go home and get some rest. I said I wanted to stay, but everyone else said no.

“It’s better this way,” Mom said. “I’ll take you home so you can do your homework.”

Mom hugged Dad for a long time and whispered in his ear. Then she handed me a tissue.

“Dry those tears, Eagan. You need to be strong.”

I grabbed the tissue. “Why?”

“Because your grandfather doesn’t want you to cry for him.”

“Yes he does.” I crumpled the tissue in my hand. “He wants me to cry and feel just like this.”

Dad gathered me in his arms. “It’s okay to cry. You two have a special bond.”

Mom just shook her head. When we got home, I flopped down on my bed, blew off my homework, and fell asleep with my headphones on. I dreamed of Grandpa bending over his workbench, whistling some made-up tune while he pounded a nail into a bent piece of wood.

“This is what it’s all about,” he said as he turned the wood over in his hands.

“What?” I asked.

“Life. It’s being able to use all your wood, not just the good, straight pieces.”

When I woke up, a gray darkness filled my room. Voices floated up from downstairs, and I remembered about Grandpa all over again.

I got up and wiped my eyes, then went downstairs, stopping near the bottom, where nobody could see me. Mrs. Voxler, our neighbor, was in the entryway. She held a covered dish.

“Just my goulash,” she was saying. “It heats up real nice at three hundred and fifty degrees.”

“It’s lovely,” Mom said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Mom hated goulash.

“How is everyone doing?” Mrs. Voxler asked.

“Richard is a real trooper. Eagan is having a difficult time, though. She didn’t realize all the health problems he had.”

What health problems? No one ever told me.

“Do you know his prognosis yet? Are they expecting a full recovery?”

Mom’s arms were folded. “It’s doubtful. Living alone in that big house has been hard for him the last few years, and he definitely can’t be left alone now. We’ll probably look into a nursing home when he’s better. Of course, we have the entire house to go through before we put it up for sale. I dread all that work.”

Knowing Mom, she’d start tomorrow.

The rocking chair. She’d see it.

I ducked out the back door and walked the six blocks to his house. I used the spare key hidden under the blue flowerpot and let myself in.

The rocker was downstairs in the basement. I couldn’t leave it there, not if they were going to clean out his house. I called Scott and asked if he could come over in his Jeep. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and waited for him.

The silence felt heavy. The kitchen was filled with Grandpa; the leftover smell of bacon. An open package of Fig Newtons. A half-finished crossword puzzle on the table. Half a cup of tea. A bowl of lemon drops in the middle of the table. I put one in my mouth and sucked. I thought of Grandpa’s puckered lips.

I half expected Grandpa to be there, to come around the corner tucking in his shirt, carrying the newspaper that he read every morning along with a cup of weak coffee, his glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Then he’d put down his coffee and stick out his hand. “Wanna dance?” he’d ask. He’d move side to side and raise his arms in the air like he thought kids my age danced.

I’d shake my head. “Stop doing that. You’re embarrassing me.” That would just make him move his arms in an even goofier way. Totally out of synch.

I got up and wandered through the house, stopping to run my hand along the pictures of him and Grandma, to smell the Mennen aftershave on his dresser, to tuck the plaid slippers underneath the end of his bed.

I went downstairs and looked at the tools on the pegboard above his workbench: the wrenches arranged by size; the hammers, clamps, saws, and drills framing the wrenches like a work of art. Grandpa knew every tool from memory, where it hung, and what color handle it had.

Everything was going to change. Without this house, Grandpa would change. Maybe he’d become one of those people in the nursing home who stared out the window and never talked. Maybe he’d become bitter and just sit there and wait to die.

Mom’s words still poked at me. She acted as if I was being too emotional about all this. How did she expect me to feel? Grandpa was the one I turned to the most.

She was already planning to sell his house and stick him in a nursing home before the doctors knew how bad he was or if he’d recover. I thought of our house with that empty spare bedroom. It would be perfect for Grandpa. Mom would never even consider it.

It’s funny. I’m the one who always worried about the future. When I thought of Grandpa, though, I didn’t see him dead or in a nursing home. I saw him living his life, making the most of every day. Always making plans.

It was Mom who could take another man’s future and throw it away. Of course, Grandpa knew that about Mom. And he still liked her. He saw such good in her.

Did you have to love your relatives? Mom probably loved me, even with our constant arguing. I guess deep down I loved her too. But I didn’t always like her.

I went back upstairs and looked out the window at the darkened street. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the rocking chair yet. But it sure wouldn’t be here when Mom came over tomorrow to get Grandpa’s things.