by Willow Rose
I walked outside the room, breathing raggedly, my heart breaking. The doctor began his chat with David while I closed the door and left them to it. I walked down the hallway, my heart sinking. I was fighting to keep the anxiety at bay. I stood in the hall, closing my eyes briefly, sliding down with my back against the wall, squatting while praying for the right results, praying that David would make the right decision.
This was the moment when Doctor Scott would speak to David about shutting off the girl’s life-support and ask if he’d consider donating her functioning organs, and especially her heart. This was the moment my daughter’s future would be determined.
David Smith held it all in his hands.
Chapter 15
Only a few minutes later, the door slammed open, and David Smith stormed out into the hallway. I rose to my feet and looked at him, heart hammering in my chest.
I didn’t like the expression on his face.
“You want me to kill my daughter so you can save yours? Is that why you came to find me? You didn’t think I’d figure that one out, did you?”
I swallowed hard while staring at the man in front of me. Then I nodded. I had told him about Josie before we drove to the hospital and how she was waiting for a donor heart. Of course, he would know it was for Josie when the doctor asked him to consider donating, even if he wasn’t allowed to say who would receive the heart. David was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
“You’re right,” I said. “That is why I came looking for you. Because my daughter needed your help, but please understand. My daughter’s life depends on her getting a new heart.”
He snorted. “And so, you thought she could get my daughter’s heart, huh? And tell me, why is your daughter more important than mine, huh? Why is her life worth more than Emilia’s?”
“It’s not…believe me, I never thought it was. But my daughter has a chance—a very small chance—of living, but only if she gets a new heart.”
“How can you be so sure that my daughter doesn’t? Do you know the future? Do you know what will happen tomorrow?”
“Of course, I don’t.”
“I know what the doctors say about her, about her being brain dead and all that, but do they really know for sure? I mean, there are always stories about people waking up, right? It could happen; it could be a miracle. How can you ask me to shut her off and deny me the possibility of a miracle happening?”
That hit me where it hurt. Who was I to say that God couldn’t perform a miracle on the girl, even though the doctors had said it was impossible? Was I robbing Emilia of that opportunity? I had seen one happen in my own house. I had seen my wife come back from a condition they said she wouldn’t.
David stared at me, nostrils flaring, then calmed himself. He gave me a compassionate look.
“Listen, man…I am sorry about your daughter; I really am. If anyone understands what you’re going through, it’s me right now. If I could give you any of my organs to save her, I’d do so willingly. But I can’t do what you’re asking me to. I simply can’t. I am not going to kill her. I can’t do it.”
My heart dropped when hearing those words. I knew it had been a long shot from the beginning, but I had to admit, I had believed in it to the end. I had truly thought he would see the sense in saving my daughter.
“I understand,” I said, my voice breaking.
He placed a hand on my back. “I’m sorry. I’m sure there is another heart out there for her.”
I didn’t look at him. I just turned around and walked away, trying to hide my tears. I wasn’t angry with him. I truly wasn’t. He was right. We didn’t know tomorrow. We couldn’t know for sure that something amazing wouldn’t happen. Fact was, I knew I would have done the same. I, for one, believed in miracles and would never dare to take God’s matters into my own hands. How could I ask him to do something I never would?
Chapter 16
My dad promised to take care of Camille, so I could spend the night with Josie, holding her hand. She felt so weak and feeble, and her eyes were filled with concern as she looked at me.
“There’ll be another heart, Dad,” she said, speaking with a small, still voice. It was so typically Josie to worry more about me in this situation than herself. “I’m sure they’ll find one in time. God won’t leave me or let me die like this, and you know it.”
I exhaled and smiled. I had to admit I admired her faith in this crucial moment and wished I could have just a piece of it, just enough to make it through the night. But the fact was, I was losing all my faith and with it my hope that things would end up all right. It was hard to believe in miracles when sitting and holding your dying daughter’s hand, everything screaming inside of you.
Where are you, God? Why is this happening to me? Don’t you care about me? You can’t let her die. You can’t let her die!
I held her hand in mine till she dozed off, then decided to go to the vending machine to quiet my screaming stomach. I had gotten some chocolate when an alarm suddenly sounded. I immediately glanced toward my daughter’s room, only to see nurses rushing about.
Josie!
I dropped my chocolate bar and ran to her room. Inside, nurses were yelling, and the machines sounded like they were screaming.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Please, stay outside,” a nurse told me and closed the door.
I stared at the closed door, my heart sinking. I didn’t even see Jean come running down the hallway. She came up to me, her face strained. She was holding papers in her hand that she held up in front of me.
“What’s going on?” she asked, perplexed.
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I…I don’t know. All the alarms went off and then…they told me to wait out here. I fear her heart has…”
Jean’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, no.”
She held the papers up so I could see them. I didn’t understand.
“He signed them,” she explained. “The consent forms. Doctor Scott left them in Emilia’s room, and the dad signed them and left them in there. I came straight from there. I went to check on her vitals and saw that he was gone; her father was gone. On the table, he had left the papers and this note. It has your name on it.”
She held the note up and showed it to me. It read:
IT’S ALL MY FAULT. I KILLED HER. I KILLED MY DAUGHTER. NOW YOURS WILL LIVE. TREASURE EVERY MOMENT YOU HAVE WITH HER.
I read it a few times to make sure I had read it right, then looked up at Jean. “So... that means…?”
She nodded. “That was why I came down here…to tell you that you got the heart. You got it, Harry. Josie has a new heart.”
I stared at Jean and felt so confused. I didn’t know what to think. Was Josie saved? Or was it too late?
That was when the door of Josie’s room burst open, and she was rushed out on a stretcher and soon disappeared down the hallway. Jean followed them, leaving me behind, feeling completely helpless.
ONE MONTH LATER
Chapter 17
“Do we have any avocado? I am in such a mood for avocado.”
I turned to look at my daughter. Josie was out of her bed and sitting in the kitchen. She was getting bored with being at home all day long, and I was about ready to send her off to school again soon.
The school had been really great and understanding. They had let her do online school as much as she was capable, and luckily, she was a bright kid, so she’d catch up soon enough when she got back.
Her breastbone still wasn’t entirely healed after the transplant, and we still had to keep a close eye on her incision wound, cleaning it often so it wouldn’t get infected. Other than that, she seemed to be fit for fight. The first two weeks after the transplant, she was still weak and got tired really easy. But now she was my good old Josie with the big brown, gleaming eyes. She was slowly gaining weight again, even though she had to watch her diet to speed up the recovery and make sure she didn’t eat too much fat and stayed with lots of greens. She was going to have
to take medication for the rest of her life to make sure her body didn’t reject the heart, but that was a small price to pay.
“Avocado?” I asked puzzled. “You don’t like avocado. I never buy them because you hate them?”
Josie shrugged. She had taken her sketchbook out and was drawing some strange creature with only one eye. She had been into a lot of creepy stuff lately, and I figured it was a phase. Josie looked at her finished product, then turned the page and began a new drawing.
“Well, now I do,” she said.
I dried my hands on a dishtowel. “I’ll buy some when I shop later. They’re good for your heart.”
My boss, Major Fowler, had also turned out to be great through this time of hardship for me. He had let me work from home a lot while taking care of Josie. That, along with my dad’s help, stepping in when I needed it, ensured I was able to manage through this past month.
I was still working on the Four Seasons’ case and had to admit I hadn’t gotten anywhere with it. Not that I wasn’t trying; I guess my focus was just somewhere else these days. Not that anyone blamed me. I had dodged a major bullet here. No wonder all I wanted was to be with my daughter and enjoy still having her.
Meanwhile, Josie spent most of her time during the day sitting with her mother, talking to her. Camille still hadn’t improved much, but she did say Josie’s name often, sometimes repeating it several times in a row, other times yelling it out, and that made our daughter feel like she was listening to what she said. Even though we all knew it was the only word Camille could say and that it could mean a lot of things. It still made Josie feel like she was special to her mother.
Jean had started to stop by again regularly since the operation, and I liked that. She checked in on Camille and was bugging me about getting Camille to a rehabilitation center so she could start getting her legs and arms to function again along with her speech. I had been looking at a couple of places that were within my budget, but there was a waitlist. It would take a few months, they said. Once again, we’d have to be patient.
It was hard for me not to think about David Smith. Every time I looked at my daughter, I felt such profound gratefulness to the man, and it pained me that I didn’t know where he was. I wanted to do something for him in return; I just didn’t know what. What would make you feel better after doing something like this? Maybe it was more my desire than it was his because I felt awful that his daughter had to die for mine to live.
“Also, buy some root beer,” she said while still drawing.
I paused. “Excuse me? Root beer?”
She looked up and nodded, mocking me. “Yes, root beer, Dad. You know…the sodas.”
“I know what root beer is, but you hate root beer, remember?”
She gave me that look, the one only a teenage daughter can give you and get away with.
“Well, not anymore. Things are changing, Dad. Keep up.”
And with that, she let go of her sketchbook and left me. I stood back, smiling. Just watching her walk up the stairs made my heart so happy. She was no longer out of breath easily, and she seemed to be growing stronger and stronger each day that passed. It was hard to believe that it was the same girl who had been so weak just a short while ago, lying in her hospital bed.
It had been the last minute, they said. Josie’s body had given out right before Jean brought me the signed papers. They had told me afterward that her organs were shutting down . If David hadn’t signed the papers when he did and Jean found them when she did, it would have been too late.
“God might not be early, but he is never too late,” my dad had said. Once again, I had to say he was right. Even though I still struggled with the fact that it had to happen in the first place.
I walked to the kitchen table, grabbed her sketchbook, and was about to close it when I paused. I stared at the drawing Josie had made, puzzled. Not so much because of how good it was, that surprised me too since Josie wasn’t usually very good at drawing because she was too impatient.
It was what she had drawn that made my blood run cold.
Chapter 18
I flipped the pages in the book and looked at the previous drawings, then grabbed the sketchbook in my hand and walked up the stairs. I knocked on Josie’s door, then walked inside.
“You forgot this downstairs,” I said and held up the sketchbook.
“Oh, thanks,” she said.
I opened it to the drawing that had gotten my attention. “What’s this?”
She looked at it. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“It must be something since you’ve drawn it several times. Look. It’s the same scene over and over again. Where did this come from?”
“It’s just this nightmare I keep having,” she said with a sigh. “It’s nothing, really. Calm down.”
I looked at the sketch again. It showed a car in the water, sinking into the harbor, and a little girl inside the car looking out the window.
“You’re dreaming about this?” I asked.
“Yeah, almost every night.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since I got back from the hospital, I guess, why?”
I shook my head. “No reason. I was just wondering.”
I stared at the sketch again, my heart pounding in my chest. I had never told Josie about the girl whose heart she received…about Emilia. She couldn’t possibly know that was how she died, could she? Had she heard it somewhere else? Maybe at the hospital? But only Jean would know that the heart came from Emilia. It was usually kept anonymous. And Jean would never tell her about Emilia. I couldn’t imagine why she would.
“Who is she?” I asked, to figure out if she knew.
Josie shook her head with a shrug. “I told you. I don’t know. Just someone from my dream.”
I stared at the sketch, then back up at my daughter, wrinkling my forehead, wondering. How was this even remotely possible? How could she know the details about Emilia’s death so well? The station wagon in the sketch was even painted a bright green like the real one had been, the one I saw in the case files.
“Why are you so interested in some silly dream anyway?” she asked with a scoff.
I ignored her remark. I couldn’t stop looking at the drawing, my pulse quickening. It wasn’t just the details that spooked me. There was more to it than that. What had me totally freaking out was something else in the drawing, something—or someone—standing on the dock.
“Who is he?” I asked.
She exhaled. “I don’t know who he is. It starts with me waking up inside the car, and it’s moving, and then I look out the window and see him standing there, looking at me with these steel-gray eyes. I just know in that instant that he’s the one who somehow made the car fall into the water.”
Josie shivered as she spoke. I could tell it was unpleasant for her to talk about it, and I wondered if that was why she hadn’t told me.
“It freaks me out every time,” she added, “and then I usually wake up.”
Chapter 19
I took Camille out for a walk, pushing her in a wheelchair. She enjoyed getting outside and going for a stroll around the neighborhood, looking at the flowers. She pointed at a big red rose, and I pushed her close to it, then plucked it and gave it to her. She smiled at me, then started to cry.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” I said and bent down. “Are you okay?”
Her head tilted sideways, while tears were still running down her cheeks.
I smiled and hugged her. “I know. I know. You can’t help it. You can’t control your reactions. We’ll get you better soon, I hope.”
I pushed her down the street, letting her cry while dangling the rose in her hand. I felt tears coming to my eyes as well while wondering if I would ever see the Camille I had loved so dearly again. I was ashamed to admit it, but this didn’t seem like her. This felt like a completely different person.
I stopped at a park so she could watch the children play while I sat on a bench next to her. Camille liked wa
tching them play; at least, I believed she did. It was hard to tell. At least it was a change of scenery from the bedroom, and she had to enjoy that.
We looked at the young children playing while sharing a snack. She was eating better on her own now, and that was a huge improvement. I just wished I knew what was going on inside that mind of hers behind those beautiful eyes. If only I understood what she needed, what she wanted.
Did she still love me? Did she remember anything from our life together?
“Why did you do it?” I suddenly asked out of the blue. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but it had been on my mind for so long, it just burst right out of me. “Why did you start doing drugs again?”
I stared at her, feeling stupid. The woman couldn’t speak a single sentence. What did I expect to get out of her? Maybe nothing. Maybe that wasn’t why I asked. Maybe I just needed to get the words across my lips.
She lifted her glance, and our eyes locked. I stared into them, wondering if she even had understood the question at all.
She parted her lips, and a word left her lips.
“Josie.”
It was pretty much the only word she had said since she woke up. That and ba-ba, which she said a lot too, but I had no idea what that meant yet either. The doctor had said there was damage caused to her speech, language, and swallowing, and it could take years for her to rehabilitate it all. I just hoped we could start her rehabilitation therapy soon. I hated that we’d have to wait.
Camille’s face looked confused as she repeated the word “Josie.”
I nodded and took her hand in mine.
“Yes, Josie.”
But her eyes remained bewildered as she kept looking at me, barely able to lift her head enough to do so.
“Josie.”
“Yes, Josie,” I repeated.
She shook her head and looked like she was really trying to say something, then almost yelled out into the park:
