In a Heartbeat

by Loretta Ellsworth

  “Go, Dynamo!” Kelly and the other girls from my club yelled as I waited for the music to start. I’d chosen fast music, a Pirates of the Caribbean song that matched my daredevil personality.

  I turned my head slightly and found Mom and Dad in their usual spot, third row up smack-dab in the middle of the rink. Dad was talking to a man next to him. Mom’s hands were clasped together as if praying. Her eyes were bright and glowing. I felt ashamed for what I’d said—“Awful words for an awful person.” I’d ruined dinner and had never found out what she’d wanted to talk about.

  I caught Mom’s eye just then. She smiled and waved at me. I gave her a small wave back.

  Then I blocked out everything as I stared straight ahead. I got rid of the cheers, the voices, the rustling of programs. I even got rid of Mom.

  The music began to play and my body responded on cue, each move choreographed. I glided across the ice and felt my silk dress flow away from my body. I swept around the perimeter of the ice, landed my combination jump in perfect time to the music, then gathered speed as the audience applauded. I let the music seep through me and concentrated on each move. I could feel the adrenaline pumping. My heart raced.

  I hit my double axel and circled around the rink toward the corner for the triple lutz. I launched off the back outside edge of my skate, which was what I was supposed to do, but I knew the minute my skates left the ice that I’d messed up somehow. I rose into the air and turned my body counterclockwise for three rotations. I was supposed to land on the outside edge of my opposite foot, but that’s not what happened. When I came down, I was out of synch with my body, and the ice wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I hit hard, landing on the wrong side of my skate. I tried to stop, tried to steady myself. I hit my toe pick on the ice and went flying. I was close to the boards. Too close. I had a fraction of a second, not enough time to move my head, but long enough to know I was going to hit the board. Long enough to know it would hurt.

  6

  Amelia

  A car squealed in the driveway. I heard car doors open and slam shut, and then Aunt Sophie’s familiar throaty voice, a sound I loved.

  “It’s a miracle. How wonderful,” she yelled as she walked into the house. Then I heard Rachel call my name.

  Kyle and I stared at each other above the cards. “Aunt Sophie and Rachel,” we whispered in unison.

  I dropped my cards and went to sit on my bed. The comforter was a gaudy yellow and orange. Mom bought it to make my room look brighter. I hugged my pillow close to my chest, wondering if I’d ever see my room again, my dresser and mirror, my white desk, the posters of horses.

  I stared at a picture Mom had framed of a palomino pony I’d sketched running in a pasture, wondering at the wild eyes I’d drawn for him. I’m more of a packer horse, steady and dull. The kind of horse that tolerates almost anything and can be trusted to behave. But even packer horses get skittish sometimes. I wanted to burrow down into my bed, to nip at anyone who would make me move.

  This was the only place I’d ever lived, at the end of a cul-desac in a quiet Minneapolis neighborhood. My window looked out at two pine trees in the backyard. I’d watched them grow over the years, watched the ice hang from their branches in winter and the birds disappear inside to hidden nests in summer. I’d drawn them, flanked by lots of horses. It was the only landscape I knew by heart.

  Rachel burst into my room. She ran over and gave me a tight hug. Her long blond hair rubbed against my face. It smelled fruity and clean.

  “I’m so happy for you, Amelia. Mom has been praying nonstop.”

  I wanted to get caught up in her happiness. Rachel made it sound like I’d won the lottery. The lottery of recycled hearts, and I was a lucky winner.

  “I’m not ready,” I confessed. “I’m not ready for this operation. I don’t want to go, Rachel.” I knew I sounded like a coward and a crybaby.

  “Don’t cry,” she said, and she hugged me again, because now I really was crying. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to be happy like her, to be excited, the good kind of excitement that comes when wonderful things are happening, like when you win a new car. Not the excitement of winning a new heart.

  Kyle still had the cards in his hand. His face was scrunched up again.

  “I’ll e-mail you every day and sneak up candy,” Rachel assured me. “And next year, you’ll be able to go to high school. You gotta try out for cheerleading.”

  If anyone could make me feel better, it was Rachel. Only Rachel could talk about cheerleading tryouts when I was going in for a heart transplant. I always wondered if she’d still be my friend if she weren’t my cousin. She was so popular, and besides, most people don’t want to be friends with a girl who’s going to die.

  “Cheerleading?” I said through my tears. “I can’t even do a split.”

  “You can practice this summer. You already know the cheers.”

  Even if I weren’t about to have a heart transplant, I knew I’d never be the cheerleading type. But I liked that Rachel saw that possibility in me. Her pink cheeks reminded me of Mom before she stopped running. When Rachel tied her long hair back, she kind of looked like a younger version of Mom.

  “We have to go, Amelia,” Mom yelled from downstairs.

  Rachel sniffed back a tear. “We’re all behind you, you know. You’re not doing this on your own.”

  I took a small breath. Maybe if I got a new heart, I’d have new energy. But the thought of me jumping up and down doing cheers was too much to hope for. Could my body change that much?

  It had been so long since I’d done normal things. Still, I could almost imagine myself as a regular girl, wearing cowboy boots and riding through tall prairie grass on a palomino pony just like the one in the picture. Playing a game of catch with Kyle in the backyard. Walking across the stage to accept my high school diploma, then going to art school. Maybe I could do those things. Maybe I could live.

  Taking one last look at my room, I wiped my eyes. Kyle looked at me, but he didn’t say anything. Finally he stood up and gave me a hug.

  “Have a good operation, Meely.” Then he turned and ran to his room, kicking the cards from our game around the floor with his shoe.

  I walked out of my room into the hallway. I’d always loved the way our maple staircase wound from the second floor to make a sweeping entrance to the living room of our house. But walking had become a big thing for me the last couple of years.

  Dad had installed an electric chair along the railing of our staircase, a black vinyl chair that moved in slow motion. I called it the “electric chair” to scare Kyle. He was afraid at first, but later he stole rides in it when Mom wasn’t watching. I used the chair all the time now. But it clanked down so slowly that Kyle could run down and up and down the steps again before I got to the bottom.

  The chair had been the biggest change in our house. It was the final defeat. I never told Dad, but to me the chair meant death, as sure as if it were a real electric chair. It meant that I’d never get better.

  Rachel walked with me to the top of the stairs. I took a step down.

  “Aren’t you going to ride down?” she asked, pointing at the black chair.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t ride the chair down now. At that moment, I was done thinking about death.

  I took each step slowly, hanging on to the railing. Rachel followed me. I had to stop three times on the way down to catch my breath and rest. At each stop I gasped for air, feeling dizzy and tired. I probably looked more like I was eighty years old than fourteen.

  I felt my heart pound in my chest, straining to keep up. Rachel reached out to take my arm, but I nudged her away.

  The third time I stopped, Mom came looking for me. She put her hands on her hips. “Amelia, what are you thinking? We have to hurry. You should have taken the chair down.”

  But I was almost to the bottom. Mom watched, holding her breath. I knew she wanted to pick me up and carry me the rest of the way, all seventy-three pounds of me. Kyle already
weighed fifty-eight pounds, and he was just seven years old.

  Mom shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”

  But behind her, Aunt Sophie was nodding, as if she understood. It wasn’t about hurrying. It wasn’t about pride, either, as Mom probably thought. I’d taken the chair hundreds of times in front of other people. I wasn’t ashamed that I needed to use it.

  I wanted to walk down the stairs because I wanted to feel my worn-out heart before they tore it out of me. This would be the last time I’d ever walk down these steps with this heart.

  Rachel promised me a new life with endless possibilities. I wanted that new heart and the new life that came with it. But first I had to leave the old one behind.

  7

  EAGAN

  The only prayer I can think of has to do with the Lord being a shepherd and dwelling in His house forever. I’d settle for a shack or hut, but all I see is gray.

  Enough of this. I have to find a way back to my life. I start walking and even though I’m sure I don’t have a body, I feel my feet moving. When I look down, there they are. Skaters have ugly feet. Mine are no exception. They’re the same as always: the blisters on my left heel, the corn at the side of my right foot. Only the blisters don’t hurt at all. And something else: my feet are as gray as the fog. In fact, all of me is gray, even the skating dress I’m wearing. I blend into the fog like a single tree in a forest.

  I walk through the thick fog that seems to stretch on indefinitely. I wonder how far it goes. I don’t get tired, so I keep walking. The whole time, I feel the presence of others, but I don’t see anyone. Finally I get bored of the grayness.

  “Hey!” I call out. I hear background noise, as though it’s coming from far away, but it never gets any louder no matter which direction I turn. I half expect someone to jump out and scare me, to shout, “Gotcha!” and then I’ll wake up.

  Mom had a habit of sneaking up on me. But she’s not background noise. She’s more like white noise, a radio station that isn’t quite tuned into a signal. Just as I think this, another memory flashes in front of me.

  On my sixth birthday, Mom baked a double-layer chocolate cake. I licked the bowl after she stuck the cake in the oven, and I watched through the glass doors as it rose in two perfect circles.

  Then Mom decorated the cake with white frosting and drew six balloons in my favorite color, purple. In purple letters she wrote “Happy Birthday, Eagan!” across the top. The cake announced to the whole world that I was the birthday girl and I was special.

  I sat on the steps by the back door, waiting for Dad to get home from work so we could start the party. I had on my navy jumper and the black shiny shoes Grandpa and Grandma had sent me from Florida where they were vacationing.

  Dad finally arrived, and I spent the next half hour picking at my plate of Swiss steak and mashed potatoes. I only had eyes for that cake. Then Dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday.

  “I want a sister,” I said. A classmate had shown pictures of her new baby sister during show-and-tell, and I wanted one too.

  Dad bent down and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Now that’s quite a birthday wish.”

  But Mom’s lips pinched up real tight and her voice sounded high, like all the air had gone out of it. “Eagan, you don’t wish for things like that.”

  “Cheryl, she didn’t mean anything.”

  Mom was cutting my cake and shoving it onto plates. Chocolate crumbs flew across the blue and white checkered tablecloth. I hadn’t even blown out the candles yet. “Richard, don’t encourage her. You always take her side.”

  Mom looked down at me. Her eyes were angry. “We’re not having any more children, so don’t ever say that again.”

  Dad stood up. “I won’t let you do this to her, Cheryl. She’s not to blame.”

  “Are you saying that I am?”

  “No, of course not.”

  I wished I could take back my birthday wish. I didn’t know it would make Mom so upset.

  Mom was making a mess of things. She held the knife in the air and twirled it around then plunged it down into the center of the cake.

  “Eagan, go to your room. Your father and I are having a discussion.”

  That’s what she always said when they were going to yell at each other.

  But Dad stood up. “How can you do this? How can you ruin a little girl’s birthday?”

  “Don’t contradict me. I told her to go to her room.”

  I looked at my cake one last time before I went to my room. The layers of chocolate with creamy white in between. The six pink candles centered in each purple balloon. I hadn’t even had a bite of it. I felt like a prisoner sent to jail.

  From my room I heard them yelling. I heard Mom crying. I heard Dad’s low voice, hissing as he tried not to yell. Then I fell asleep on my bed, above the covers, waiting for them to come and get me and finish the party.

  The next morning, Dad nudged me awake. He sat on the edge of my bed with two presents in his hands. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

  Mom stood at the door holding a cup of coffee, smiling as though nothing had happened the night before.

  I ripped off the paper and ribbon. I got a new sweater and skirt and an Olympic Skater Barbie. I wound up my Barbie and watched her spin around in her blue and purple outfit, her perfect hair flipping up and down. “Thanks, Mommy and Daddy.”

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart. I’m off to work now.” Dad kissed me on the cheek and left.

  “Time for you to get ready for school,” Mom said. “Why don’t you wear your new outfit?” Her voice was light and happy, not at all mad, as if the mommy from last night was just a bad dream.

  I got dressed and put my new Barbie in my bag for show-and-tell. She had long hair pulled back in a ponytail like mine. Mom never bought me the Princess Barbie. I had Astronaut Barbie and Gymnast Barbie, and a Barbie doll dressed in a little gray suit with a miniature cell phone and a briefcase, driving a sporty convertible.

  I gathered up the crumpled wrapping paper from my presents and went downstairs to throw it away. When I opened the lid of the garbage can, there, on top of the garbage, was my cake. The double-layer chocolate with white frosting and purple balloons drawn on top stared up at me. A couple of unlit candles still stuck to the balloons.

  How could Mom throw away my cake? Was I that bad? My name trailed down the sides of the plastic garbage bag in runny purple frosting. I’d had my heart so set on eating the chocolate layers that it tore me up inside to see it mixed up with the potato peelings and coffee grounds. I felt like that cake, all smashed up and forgotten.

  I reached down and grabbed a chunk of chocolate cake and stuck it in my mouth, smearing purple frosting on my new sweater. The cake was delicious. I jammed another large hunk of cake into my mouth, making more of a mess on my face and clothes. I ate more, smashing swirls of chocolate and white and purple into my mouth.

  Mom came into the kitchen then. She folded her arms and stared at me, covered in chocolate crumbs and purple and white frosting, with smears on my face and new sweater. I waited for the outburst, the screaming, the spanking. But her face was calm, not like the face of the mom from last night. All she said was, “Go change your clothes, Eagan. Those are dirty.” She didn’t even say it in an angry way. She said it like she was saying to wash my hands or get my coat on, like it was no big deal.

  Last night’s mom had a harsh voice and looked at me with angry eyes. Today’s mom had kind eyes and a soft voice.

  That afternoon, when I got home from school, there was another cake on the table: a store-bought cake, bigger and fancier than the one she’d thrown away. This cake had a figure skater drawn on top and pink trim around the top and sides. My name was written in fancy letters, and the candles were set in little yellow candleholders.

  Mom put her arm on my shoulder when I saw the cake. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said with a sigh. Next to the cake were two tickets for the ice show where I could see Michelle Kwan in person.


  We sang “Happy Birthday” at dinner, and I blew out the candles. Mom smiled at me and opened a pint of chocolate swirl ice cream to put on top of the cake.

  “I want an extra big piece,” Dad said as he winked at Mom, and I knew that everything was right again.

  That cake tasted good. But the cake in the garbage tasted better. It was the best cake I ever ate.

  8

  Amelia

  Mom missed the exit to the hospital. She never misses the exit. Never, ever. But that day, the day we were going to get my new heart, she did.

  “Oh, no!” Mom banged her hand on the steering wheel when she realized what she’d done. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “There’s another exit half a mile up,” I said, pointing toward the sign above us. “You can just get off there.”

  Mom shook her head. “I’ll have to turn around and go back to that exit. That’s the only way I know how to get there.”

  She clutched the steering wheel. The veins in her hand stuck out like ridges on a potato chip. It was as if a rubber band was holding her together and it was ready to snap.

  I wasn’t much better. My hands were clammy, and I felt like puking even though I hadn’t eaten all day. How would I feel with someone else’s heart beating inside me? I wasn’t sure I’d still be me.

  And what if I died? I could die. There would be such a hole in our family. Poor Kyle, his cards forever lying in a mess on my bedroom floor. Poor Mom and Dad, having to plan a funeral when they were so full of hope that this would work.

  Poor me. Never growing up, stuck forever at the age of fourteen. I’d be dead. I was too young to be dead.

  Another person was already dead. Wasn’t that enough to balance out the universe? I hoped God wouldn’t take me too. I hoped this other person’s heart would work in me. But what if it didn’t?

  I started shaking. My whole body rattled. I held on to the doorknob but I couldn’t stop. What if they couldn’t do the transplant now because we were late?

  “Mom!” I grabbed her arm. She had driven up to the next exit and stopped at a red light. “Something’s wrong with me. I can’t stop shaking.”