Change of Heart

by Sally Mandel

  After a moment a warm arm stretched across her chest, and curls brushed her shoulder. A sleepy voice murmured by her ear, “What is it, love?”

  Suddenly she became a grown woman again, lying with the man who would hold her through her terror. He couldn’t stay beside her the whole distance, but he could comfort her along the way.

  She turned to him and burrowed into his body and let him stroke her back. Finally she fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until soft daylight reflected off the wet sand.

  Brian was already packed. He had run out for some rolls and fruit so that they could drive home without stopping for lunch.

  The gray cast of her skin frightened him, and he hoped it was due to her restless night. He felt his helplessness as a crushing weight, almost a physical presence, dragging at him until it was barely possible to do anything at all, even put one foot in front of the other.

  Outside Long Branch he was pretty certain she had lost consciousness, but just as he was about to pull off the road and look for a hospital, she revived enough to open her eyes. It was as if she had drifted into another level of awareness and was forcing herself back each time to take one more breath of the life they shared. Once he turned to find her staring at him. She smiled and said, “Hi,” and closed her eyes again.

  Pretty soon he was driving under the flight approach for the airport, and she murmured, “I smell Newark.”

  “Almost home,” he said. “I think we’d better stop at Saint Joe’s on the way.”

  “No.”

  He shook his head.

  “Pull over a second, will you?” she asked.

  “What’s the matter?” he said, moving over into the slow lane.

  “I’d like to sit up.”

  He got out of the car as trucks and cars whizzed past, some blasting their horns. He felt the breeze from their wakes. This time he lifted Sharlie’s seat and bent to kiss her without prompting. Then he released her quickly and got back into the car.

  “Do we have to go through a tunnel?” Sharlie asked.

  “Why?”

  “If it’s not a hassle, I’d rather not. Is there a bridge somewhere?”

  “The George Washington. It’s north, but we can do it.”

  “Thanks.”

  He thought she had fallen asleep again, but after a moment she said groggily, “Wake me up for the bridge, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said and reached over to touch her knee. He left his hand there, and she covered it with hers—a cool, pale hand with slim fingers. So familiar, so tangible. Don’t, he thought, the word a scream inside his head.

  She awoke on her own when they started up the ramp. It was a bright day, the outline of Manhattan’s skyline crisp and dramatic. The city seemed to glisten, the October air shimmering around it like heat rising from hot summer pavement. Everything was supervivid, the images so intense that Sharlie thought the sight must be etched forever into the horizon the way it felt seared into her memory.

  “Realer than real,” Brian murmured, and Sharlie gave his hand a squeeze. Uncanny how so often they shared the same perception. She missed that common vision in the shadows she now inhabited. She walked in places he couldn’t follow her, but instead of listening hard for her footsteps in the gray light of that inner world, he grasped at her, yanking on her arm, trying to pull her back along the old paths.

  She couldn’t take him with her, but at least she could share some of her solitary voyage in words—if only he would listen.

  She gazed at him now. The light from the window behind his face outlined his profile with the same vivid reality as it did the skyline. Sharlie sat quietly in her shadows, contemplating the blazing light all around her, not envious or bitter, just collecting the sight of it the way she had as a child when she had spent the last few moments before museum closing time, staring hungrily at a favorite watercolor. She had known that she must leave eventually but wanted to drink the beloved shapes and hues until the last moment.

  Not that she hadn’t been angry this time. She looked back over the weeks since the operation and realized how violently she had struggled against what her instinct told her was inevitable. Everyone probably does it at one time or another—the right of every human being to shake his fist in rage at the final destiny. I just happen to know when and how, she thought, and had to speed things up by a few decades.

  Not that it was an easy process. The anticipation of imminent and ultimate separation loomed before her in moments of agonizing grief. She was haunted by something she called the NTB’s—the never-to-be’s. Never to watch Brian growing older. Never to hold a child. Never to share the subtleties and infinite varieties of the long love she knew could have been hers.

  The list was endless, but eventually she was always comforted by the realization that no one ever experiences it all. There would always be the longing for more—to live like an Eskimo, to set her foot down on every inch of the planet and then, of course, the moon and the solar system and the regions beyond. Hers was a universal resentment, she thought. There was always so much left to do. But how she had lived! Loving Brian had been an adventure of such intensity that each hour with him expanded within itself, a convoluted fan of many colors and folds, complex and mysterious, a discovery of themselves separately and of the two of them in the entity they called “us,” which was so much more than the sum of the two parts.

  They pulled up in front of the apartment building on Third Avenue. Brian got out, motioning to her to stay where she was. He handed their suitcase to the doorman and then reached in to lift Sharlie in his arms. She leaned against him, her cheek rubbing the nubbly texture of his heavy sweater.

  He set her down while he unlocked the door, but once he’d shoved the suitcase inside the apartment, he picked her up again and swung her over the threshold. He stood holding her in the center of the room for a long while until finally he walked slowly into the bedroom and put her down on their bed.

  She smiled up at him and whispered, “Home.”

  “Want me to call your parents?” he asked.

  She nodded. “They should come tonight if they can, but tell them just for a few minutes.”

  He started out the door, and she called after him.

  “And Brian …”

  He turned around.

  “Try to find Mary MacDonald.”

  “On the phone?”

  “No. I want to see her. Soon. Okay?”

  He nodded and almost ran out of the room.

  Chapter 55

  Sharlie’s parents sat in chairs by the edge of the double bed. Margaret’s eyes were wet, but her straight back told Sharlie she would discipline her grief. There would be no ululations from Margaret.

  Walter was hunched in his seat, eyes dazed and bewildered, like a child about to receive punishment for some mysterious grown-up offense.

  “Mother,” Sharlie said, turning her huge dark eyes on Margaret. “I never thanked you.”

  “For what, darling?”

  “For what you offered to do for me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Sharlie smiled. She had weakened to the point of needing to stop for rests between sentences. “You do know.” She looked at Walter, but his face was puzzled. Sharlie said to him, “When they couldn’t find me a donor, Mother wanted them to take her heart.”

  Walter gaped at his wife, and she dropped her eyes.

  “How did you find out?” Margaret asked softly.

  Sharlie shook her head.

  Walter was still staring at Margaret. “You never told me,” he said accusingly.

  “Oh, Daddy,” Sharlie said. “You would have had a fit.”

  Margaret took Sharlie’s hand, warming it between her own.

  “Are you two all right?” Sharlie asked.

  “Of course we’re all right,” Margaret said.

  “No,” Sharlie protested, shaking her head weakly. “I mean together all right.”
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br />   Walter and Margaret glanced at each other as their daughter went on. “People in my condition get to ask all kinds of impertinent questions.” She watched her parents looking at each other. “Never mind,” she said. “I think I can figure it out”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Do you want to sleep, Chuck?” Walter asked.

  Sharlie nodded. After a moment she said, “Stay a few more minutes, and then I want you to go home.”

  Walter’s shoulders had begun to shake. He clenched his teeth, trying to control the shuddering, but in a matter of seconds Sharlie was sound asleep, and he let the tears stream down his face. Margaret was crying, too. The first time she tried to remove her hand from Sharlie’s, her fingers would not obey her, but finally she let go and stood. She and Walter walked out together, and didn’t even notice Brian standing by the doorway. They looked old and bent like two aged trees leaning against each other for support.

  Brian went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed, carefully, but so that his body touched hers lightly. Then he stared up at the ceiling and thought about Mary MacDonald.

  She had arrived at the apartment half an hour after he had had her paged at Saint Joseph’s. She went straight to Sharlie without asking Brian any questions except “Where is she?” The nurse did a quick examination, but before she could get to the phone to call an ambulance, Sharlie had asked Brian to leave her alone with Mary for a few minutes.

  He left the room obediently, but once outside, he began to panic at being separated from her. What if something should happen and he wasn’t with her? Any time away from her was a moment lost, irretrievable. Precious minutes now. He resented having to go to the bathroom, having to sleep—anything that drew him away from her for even a second.

  He fought with himself constantly. She had told him in the beginning that she was going to die. She’d worn that wry smile and said, Isn’t the whole damn thing one big sick joke? He didn’t accept it then, and he couldn’t accept it now. They do, he thought, her parents and Mary. And Sharlie. She got there before any of the rest of us. But then, she knew before we did.

  He had felt a great heaving inside his body, as if everything within his rib cage were massing a protest against the travesty. He looked at the bedroom door, open just a sliver. Maybe she’s already gone, he thought. His heart beat so fast he didn’t think he could breathe. He started toward the room, and then he heard Sharlie’s voice.

  “I want them to use everything,” she was saying.

  “You sure?” Mary asked quietly.

  “All of it. Eyes, lungs, kidneys. I don’t suppose they can use poor old Udstrom anymore.”

  “It would be a first,” Mary said.

  “They can take what’s left for medical school and burn everything else.”

  Mary must have turned away then, because her voice sounded very low. He retreated back to the living room and slumped onto the couch, sickened by what he had heard. Finally the nurse appeared. Her face was solemn, but she was dry-eyed and calm.

  “Brian, you’re being a pain in the ass,” she said.

  He looked at her with a stricken face.

  “You want to make it tougher on her,” she went on, “you’re doing a great job.”

  Brian opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Mary sat down, shoving at him to make room for her broad backside.

  “Listen, honey, it’s a lousy thing,” she said, and at the kind words his eyes began to tear. “But you’ve got to let go.”

  “You can’t let them carve her up.”

  Mary’s voice was sharp. “It’s her body. It’s her death. You’ll have plenty of time for your own grief, but she doesn’t have much. You’re screwing up what’s left.”

  “What should I do?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Just be with her when she wants you there. If she wants to talk, fine. If she wants quiet, be quiet. But don’t keep trying to hold her back.”

  “How the hell—?”

  “I don’t know how you’re going to do it,” she interrupted. “You’re so crazy about her I figure you can at least try.”

  “We never had a chance …” he began, but she interrupted again.

  “You sorry you got yourself into this?”

  Brian waited a long moment before answering. Finally he shook his head.

  “No. Not even now.”

  “I think she might like to know that,” Mary said quietly. Then she told him to call her if there were anything she could do, gave him instructions about drugs, and let herself out, closing the front door firmly behind her.

  That was over two hours ago, and he hadn’t been alone with Sharlie since, except for a few minutes between Mary’s departure and the visit from his in-laws.

  Now he turned his head so that he could look at her face on the pillow next to him. She was so thin that her bones were clearly outlined under the pale silken skin. Her eyes, full of fire even now, were sunken and shadowed. She was so still and emaciated that he couldn’t help but imagine that she was already dead lying on some stainless steel table, the body that had known so many intimate touches from his warm hands now laid open, desecrated—gloved fingers of strangers reaching in, removing mysterious pieces of her, maybe making jokes … He stopped himself forcibly for fear he might begin to scream or to vomit.

  A glint of light appeared under her long lashes, and she opened her eyes, turning her head painfully to look at him. “Hello,” she said softly.

  “How you doing?” Brian asked, reaching out to stroke her hair.

  “Fantastic,” she said with a little smile.

  “What did Mary have to say?” he asked neutrally.

  “Stay off the water skis and be a good girl.”

  “You know what?” Brian said.

  She waited.

  “I love you,” he said, keeping his voice light.

  “An old married lady like me. Fancy that.”

  “I do fancy that,” he said. “I’m so fucking lucky I can’t believe it,” he whispered.

  “That’s onomatopoetic. Or something,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Fucking lucking. I mean, fucky lucky.”

  “I never heard you say fuck before.”

  She closed her eyes. “Never too late.” He was silent just kept on stroking her hair. “Why lucky, Bri?”

  “You. The one who passes out getting off the bus.”

  She sniffed a little. “That was luck, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

  He could see the tears collecting under her eyelashes. After a minute she said, “You mean that?”

  “I do,” he said firmly.

  She sighed, in what sounded to him like great relief. Then two little trails of shiny water trickled down her cheeks.

  “This is not exactly a breeze,” she choked.

  He wiped the tears away with his hand.

  “Tell me how to help,” he said.

  “Just be with me, that’s all.”

  “All right.”

  “But Bri … would you move over a little? Everything hurts.”

  He moved away so that his body no longer touched hers.

  “You can hold my hand.” She held hers out to him, and he took it gently.

  “You want something for pain?”

  She shook her head.

  “When I fall asleep, you go make yourself a monster sandwich.” She smiled a little through her drowsiness, and her body gradually began to relax. He lay back against the pillow, pleading inside, Don’t let it be this time. Not yet.

  Despite his battle to stay awake, he soon fell asleep himself and dreamed of California, and Sharlie making love to him with her gauze postoperative mask on.

  I am approaching this thing ambivalently, Sharlie thought to herself. On the one hand, we all have to go sometime, and there’s my conviction that I have lived more fully than most. Certainly inside my head I have. But on the other hand, there’s the gre
ed: more days; more Brian; children; growing middle-aged, getting wrinkles and silver hair and varicose veins. Seeing. Tasting. Making love in every possible position. I’ve only begun. And yet, on the other hand—how many hands do I have, anyway?—I’ve finished something, too. Not growing up, exactly. Nobody ever does that. But my life seems completed in some way, as if I’ve come full circle on my round-trip ticket.

  Here I am lying next to Brian on the bed that’s known so much joy. The air in this room must still be vibrating from the intensity of our lovemaking.

  Here I am in the center of space that’s so vividly alive, and very soon I won’t be at all. That’s when I start to get scared. What will I be? I cannot bring myself to believe in God. Even now, if he were to come sit on the end of this bed and say through his long white beard, Charlotte, my child, here I am, in the flesh (or in the spirit, as the case may be), I’d probably sock him right in the long Roman nose and tell him to go away and leave me to my hellfire and damnation, thank you very much.

  Everybody’s always so concerned about divine forgiveness. If there’s somebody up there, how can we ever forgive him?

  So that leaves the scientific approach. We are merely an ambulatory pile of chemicals, and when they malfunction, that’s the end. Just black unconsciousness. Not so horrible, really, as long as there’s not one iota, not one speck, not a whit of awareness. Total wipe-out.

  However … what about the magic? There is magic in the human personality, something beyond mathematical equations, Pavlovian responses, Freudian impulses. Heredity plus environment plus chemicals do not quite equal Sharlie. Too simplistic. Too arrogant. Imagination seems more to me than mere electrical circuitry. But perhaps that’s my arrogance.

  It’s all most confusing and troublesome, and I don’t expect to have it worked out before I breathe my last. What a thought. It sends my heart pumping and probably brings that last inhalation even closer. Will there be a death rattle? I think there’s always supposed to be one.