In a Heartbeat

by Loretta Ellsworth

  Mom reached over and grabbed my wrist. “It’s okay. You’re nervous, honey. But this is going to work. Believe me, Amelia. This is your chance for a normal life. You are going to grow up and go to college and get married and have children of your own. You are going to live. We just have to get through this. You understand?”

  I nodded. If Mom wanted me to live this bad, then I was going to live. My body seemed to listen to her and calmed down. Now only my hands shook.

  Mom drove back to the last exit, turned right, and hit only green lights the rest of the way. “Okay now,” Mom said as each light flicked green in front of her, as if she’d made them turn. She sat up in her seat and pressed down on the pedal, speeding ten miles over the limit. We were on a mission.

  She pulled the car up in front of the revolving front door of the hospital.

  “Aren’t you going to the parking ramp?” I asked, suddenly wishing I had more time.

  Mom turned off the car and grabbed her purse. “We’ll let the valet take the car.” She got out and gave her key to the man in a white shirt and black tie.

  I opened the car door and inhaled a breath of autumn air. In spite of the sun, the air held a crisp chill, a reminder that winter wasn’t far away, but summer wasn’t far behind. I winced at the usual pain of breathing deeply. We were here, but now I wasn’t in any rush to get inside. The glass doors loomed in front of me. Doors I might never come out of again.

  No one had asked me if I wanted this. Not Mom or Dad or Dr. Michael. It was just the next step in my treatment, another chance at life. Sure, I’d gone through a battery of tests and met with the transplant coordinator. Even someone from the psych department. I’d been evaluated to make sure I was a good candidate. But nobody ever really asked if this was what I wanted. And even if they’d asked, I would have said, “Yes, I want a heart. I want to live.” Because I knew that half of all patients waiting for a heart don’t get one.

  But what if I changed my mind now? How much longer could I live without a transplant? If I died today, I’d lose that time. Time to be with my family. Time to say good-bye. I never said good-bye to Kyle. How could I let them rip out my heart and put in a different one when I hadn’t said good-bye to my little brother?

  I took small steps toward the door. Mom was behind me. I stopped once to catch my breath and saw Mom breathing extra hard, as if she was taking up the slack, breathing for both of us.

  “Wait here,” Mom said, and she hurried inside.

  A flock of geese honked overhead as they flew in their V formation. Dad told me that when a sick goose can’t keep up, two geese drop out of formation and stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then if and when it’s healthy, they fly together to find another flock to latch on to.

  Mom promised that she or Dad would stay at the hospital around the clock. Even though they wouldn’t be able to sleep in my room, they’d be close by. And tucked inside my suitcase was my baby blanket, a yellow and white blanket with a teddy bear in pajamas embroidered on the front that Aunt Sophie had made for me when I was born. The blanket had a rip in one corner and frayed edges, but I’d had it with me during every hospital stay.

  Mom came back with a nurse pushing a wheelchair. I sat down on the gray seat, hugged my suitcase close like a shield, and took one last look at the sky. I waved at the geese and wished them well.

  9

  EAGAN

  These aren’t just memories. I’m actually there, living it all over again. I can smell the pipe tobacco on Dad’s shirt. It makes me feel warm inside. I can feel the soft carpet beneath my toes and the cold linoleum that makes my feet freeze. I can hear the creak of the stairs and the ticking of the clock on the mantel.

  But the one thing I can’t do is change anything. No matter how hard I try, it plays out as it did before. I say the same words, have the same reactions, do the same things that I did before. It’s like being stuck in a rerun.

  If I can’t get back to my life, I might as well revisit it the only way I’m able to now. Anything is better than this dismal grayness. I search my heart for some warm memories. When they wash over me, the fog begins to lighten.

  The first time I tried on a pair of skates I was hooked. It was a pair of white figure skates with pink laces that I got for Christmas when I was three years old. I tried them out on the pond behind our house that same day. Dad had to drag me off the ice when my cheeks turned as pink as my laces and my nose was nearly frozen. I cried because I didn’t want to stop skating.

  Mom had been at church. When she got back, she was furious.

  “What’s the matter with you, Richard? Those aren’t pond skates. She’ll ruin them out there.”

  “Sorry, Cheryl. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s the problem. You don’t know anything about skating. She’ll get proper training with the learn-to-skate program at the local rink. The indoor rink.”

  “I’m sorry, Mommy,” I cried, because she was mad. “Please don’t take away my skates.”

  Mom bent down and gave me a hug. “I’m not mad at you, Eagan. I’m glad you love skating. And I won’t take them away. Not ever. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I whimpered.

  “These are special skates for indoors only,” she explained. “We’ll get you a different pair of skates for the pond. But once you skate on indoor ice, I promise you won’t want to skate on the pond again.”

  She was partly right. Pond ice was uneven and unpredictable. Even on indoor ice, one degree could change the conditions of the rink. It could change how your skates gripped the ice or how you landed your jumps.

  But nothing beat skating on a pond, eating snowflakes on your tongue as you glided across the ice with your dad holding your hand, watching as a border of fresh snow decorated the pine trees. Dad made sure the ice was kept smooth and clean, and he even put two lawn chairs on the edge so we could take breaks.

  One day, Dad wasn’t home from work, and I was skating alone on the pond. It was snowing lightly, but not enough to clog the rink with snow. I looked up to see Mom across from me on the ice, skating toward me. I wasn’t supposed to skate outdoors alone. I thought I was in trouble. Plus, I’d never seen Mom on the ice before. I didn’t even know she owned a pair of skates. I searched her face for signs of anger but saw something else. I wasn’t sure what.

  Mom’s dark hair was sprinkled with falling snowflakes. She looked so pretty. She didn’t even have a coat on, just a down vest over a turtleneck shirt and blue spandex pants. She lifted her foot and glided on one skate toward me. Then she turned at the last minute, put her arms in a circle, and arched her back; her hands went up and her head relaxed back and she spun around on one skate, going faster as she brought the circle of arms closer to her body.

  She looked as graceful as Tara Lipinski. Finally she slowed down, straightened up, and pulled out of the spin.

  I was breathless. “I didn’t know you could skate like that.”

  She huffed out breaths of cold air. Her lips parted into a smile. “I used to be pretty good at one time.” She skated around me.

  “Why don’t you skate anymore?”

  Mom crinkled her nose. “That’s a good question. I guess I’m just too busy.”

  “Skate with me, Mommy,” I begged. “Please?”

  She bent down and took my hands. I felt her warm breath on my face. “Anything for you, Eagan.”

  She led me backward across the ice, making figure eights and going in circles until I was dizzy. We skated a long time, until my nose started running. Then we went inside and had hot chocolate.

  That was the only time I remember seeing Mom skate. It was one magical moment between the two of us.

  As I relive it now, I realize it’s my favorite skating moment. I saw a side of Mom that she didn’t often show. But I never asked her about her skating dreams. I never found out how far she’d gone in her own skating career. The fog that surrounds me is lifting. Maybe this memory has something to do with that.

  It occurs to
me that there’s a reason I’m here. But what is it? Maybe it’s to wander around the dark edges of my life. Or to celebrate the life I had. If I’m dead, then I know that there’s one thing that continues in the afterlife: frustration.

  10

  Amelia

  I woke up with a dry mouth, like I’d spent a week in the desert without water. I tried to speak. No sound came out. There was something in my throat; a tube connected to a machine snaked down inside me.

  I wanted to grab the tube, but my arms didn’t move. I turned my head. The tube turned too. My arms felt heavy, as if they were tied down.

  A nurse in a blue smock was checking a beeping machine right next to me. I wanted her to look at me. I willed her to look at me.

  She didn’t turn. I tried again to move my arms. So heavy. My throat was uncomfortable. Tears ran down my face, past my nose, and into the corners of my mouth.

  The ventilator had a strong smell, like antiseptic air. No matter what I’d read beforehand, I wasn’t prepared for the tube down my throat or my inability to swallow. My stomach felt queasy. Where were Mom and Dad?

  I blinked in the bright light above me, trying to adjust my eyes. Was the operation over? What was happening? Why did I feel so odd? I tried to focus on the back of the nurse’s smock, but the blue blended into the walls and she turned fuzzy.

  There was something strange about me. Something besides all the tubes and wires that snaked from my body as if from an overused outlet.

  I screamed but nothing came out. I was trapped in a nightmare. Yes, that’s what was happening. I had to go back to sleep so I could wake up in my own bed. That was easy enough. My eyes were so heavy. I wasn’t even surprised when the nurse turned into a horse, Dusty, the same mare I’d ridden before in my dream.

  I was on top of the horse, riding higher and faster than I’d ever thought possible. The horse came to a white fence and jumped over, turning in the air as he jumped. We hit the frozen ground. I hung on, dizzy and afraid that I’d fall and puke at the same time. I bumped my head on the horse’s mane. Pain shot through me but I didn’t let go. I clutched his ears and mane, holding on for dear life. It felt as if my weak heart would give out before my arms did, and I’d pass out or let go if the horse ran much longer. If I fell, I was sure I would be trampled by his hooves as he ran past.

  Then suddenly everything felt calm. I was still on top of the horse, still galloping at full speed through a grassy pasture, but now a surge of strength seemed to fill me from inside out. I felt free. I took a deep breath, a wonderful pain-free breath of fresh air. The ground streaked by, but I wasn’t scared anymore. The horse felt secure beneath me, and my body fell into his rhythm.

  I was one with this horse now, riding fast and free. A fluid motion of inner strength and balance traveled from the horse’s back and neck up into me, filling me with a powerful energy. We were fearless.

  Energy. Power. Freedom. I could breathe, I could shout. I felt so alive.

  Was I dead? Was this how death felt? More alive than when I was alive?

  “Go, Dusty,” I yelled, and I put my hands in the air because I knew that now I didn’t have to hold on. I wouldn’t fall.

  The horse turned his head in midstride, and his voice drifted back on the prairie wind. “My name isn’t Dusty. Call me Dynamo.” The voice seemed to come from both the horse and from inside me. It sounded higher than my voice.

  “Dynamo.” I repeated the name because I wanted to remember it. “Dynamo, Dynamo, Dynamo.”

  Then I opened my eyes again. The tube was gone, and those were the first words that came out of my mouth.

  11

  EAGAN

  Now that the fog isn’t so dense, I can see farther out. An ocean of gray stretches as far as I can see. It seems the longer I’m here, the more I feel part of the fog, as though I’m made out of gray nothingness.

  The fog lifted when I relived the good memories. So I decide to concentrate on those. I’ve got to get out of this awful place. I have to be more than nothing. More than air. More than grayness.

  I go back to a few months ago, before everything changed.

  “Don’t put it on too thick,” Grandpa warned for the fourth time.

  “I’m not, old man. I’m doing it just right.”

  “Our first joint project may be our last, young lady.”

  I used a tiny brush to apply a thin layer of varnish to the rocking chair. Grandpa had done the structural work; his hands seemed to know what to do on their own. I sanded the wood, brushed it with steel wool, and applied a tung oil and resin finish, working in his open garage to avoid the fumes.

  “You can dish it out, Grandpa, but you can’t take it.”

  He sat on an overturned trash can wearing a checkered flannel shirt that had white paint stains across the sleeves. He’d rolled up the sleeves as the afternoon sun warmed the garage. Every so often he picked up a broom and pushed out the red and gold leaves that blew in close to the chair. The paper-thin skin of his arms jiggled as he swept. His bifocals rested at the end of a stubby nose but he never pushed them up.

  “You shouldn’t be such a smart aleck. When I’m teaching you how to do something, you should listen to me.”

  “I am listening. But you act like it’s torture for you to watch me do this. You want to do it yourself?”

  He shook his head. “You’re doing fine. Just keep it consistent.”

  “I’ll keep it consistent, all right.”

  “And don’t talk back.” Grandpa tried not to smile but I saw one brewing beneath his white mustache. He liked that I sassed him back, but he’d never admit it.

  Grandpa stuck out a finger. “Look. It’s dripping down the side.” He reached for the brush, but pulled back his hand. It was killing him to watch someone else struggle at what came so easily for him.

  “Got it.” I caught the drip with the edge of the brush.

  Grandpa grunted. The brush was like a magnet drawing him toward it.

  “I’m going to make you go in the house if you don’t stop,” I warned him.

  He grabbed the broom and turned away from me, mumbling something about kids.

  “I heard that,” I said. Grandpa didn’t reply. He pushed the broom across an oil stain in the center of the garage and allowed me to work. I glanced over at him, at his bent-over body. He looked so frail.

  This chair had required such intricate work. My back hurt from bending over while I brushed on the varnish. How had Grandpa managed?

  “I’m not sure Mom is the rocking type,” I said as I dipped the brush into the old margarine tub now filled with golden liquid.

  Grandpa placed the broom between two shovels. “A good rocker relaxes a person. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.” When he wasn’t tinkering around in his basement or garage, Grandpa spent his evenings on his front porch rocking chair.

  “Mom sure needs relaxing. She’s the most uptight person I know.”

  “It isn’t easy working and raising a teenager. Not in today’s world.”

  “She works part-time, Grandpa. How hard can showing houses be? I think she just enjoys ripping apart other people’s houses, telling them what they need to do to make them showable.”

  “So she’s high-strung. Your father knew that when he married her. But she’s a good woman.”

  It bothered me that Grandpa always defended her. I stopped to rest my arm. “I wonder where she’ll put it.”

  “In the spare bedroom,” Grandpa said without hesitation.

  “Why would she put the chair there? We don’t even use that room.”

  “Grandpa wisdom,” he said. That’s what Grandpa always said when he didn’t want to explain his reasoning.

  Did Grandpa mention the spare bedroom because he didn’t think Mom would want a handmade rocking chair in her living room? She was that picky about her furniture.

  “You realize that Mom replaces the furniture in our house every three years,” I warned him. “All this work might end up at the Goodwill.�
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  “Maybe she’ll pass the chair on to you when she doesn’t need it any longer,” Grandpa said.

  “I hope so. This chair is great.” I stood back to admire my work.

  Grandpa had selected Oregon black walnut, which he had specially shipped to Milwaukee. He’d carved the letter L for Lindeman, our last name, into the top and had taken extra care to make sure the grain followed the curves of the chair. Then he’d made me sand it. Five times! Each time I had to use finer and finer sandpaper.

  Grandpa whistled. “Look at that sheen. See why I had you sand it five times?”

  “Yeah, so my arm would fall off.” I had to admit I’d never seen a more beautiful rocking chair.

  But something nagged at me. Rockers didn’t fit Mom’s taste in furniture. Last summer she’d bought a white Italian leather sofa for the living room. Even though our house was old, it had been remodeled so that the inside looked brand new.

  I sighed and sat the brush on the edge of the margarine tub. My fingertips stuck to each other. After this coat dried, I had to apply another one. I was hot and tired. The ends of my ponytail stuck to the back of my sweaty neck. Would Mom even appreciate all our work? I doubted it. As Grandpa said, this chair might end up in the spare bedroom where nobody would see it.

  “If Dad knew that Mom was like that, why did he marry her? She’s so high maintenance.”

  Grandpa shrugged. “Same reason he’s still married to her. She has a lot of good qualities: she’s determined, loyal, hardworking.”

  “Sounds like a dog.”

  “Sounds kind of like you.”

  “Don’t ever say that. Don’t compare me to her.”

  “I know you two butt heads. That’s part of you growing up. But don’t be so quick to judge. Wait until you know her better.”

  “I’m her daughter. How much better can I know her?”

  “There’s knowing her now and knowing her ten years from now.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t know everything yet.”

  “Like what?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “You have to clean out that brush before it dries.”