In a Heartbeat

by Loretta Ellsworth

  Mom’s cheek twitched. “No, of course not. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. But that wasn’t entirely my fault, Eagan. You push me to my limit every time we argue.”

  “Right. My whole life is you pushing me.”

  “If I push, it’s because you’re so talented. I’m helping you achieve your goals. The ones you set. You only have a short time and then it’s over.” She stopped and closed her eyes. “I know you work very hard. You can go to the homecoming dance if you’re back by midnight.” She nodded at the paper. “Read the letter.” She set the vase on my dresser and left.

  I’d won this time. Not much of a victory, though. She always threw it back in my face. Just because I was a dedicated skater didn’t mean that I didn’t care about anything else. Who said the Olympic dream meant giving up your whole life? Who made that rule?

  A lousy piece of paper. That was her apology. I crumpled it up and threw it in the wastebasket.

  14

  Amelia

  There was something wrong with my new heart. It didn’t fit the way it should. I could tell right away, the same way you can tell if a pair of jeans doesn’t fit, only this was inside me and much more uncomfortable than jeans.

  “It feels funny here, like my heart’s not in the same spot as it used to be.” I lightly touched my gown, where, underneath, a long scar ran down the middle of my chest.

  Dr. Michael nodded. “Nothing is going to be exactly the same as your old heart. It’s as close as we’re going to get, though,” he added, looking at Mom, who hovered next to me.

  “Transplantation isn’t a cure. You trade one set of problems, a failing heart, for another set of less severe problems, like having to take antirejection medication for the rest of your life.”

  He’d used the R word. Rejection.

  “What happens if my body rejects this heart?” I asked. Mom had avoided talking about it, but I knew that Dr. Michael would tell me the truth.

  “Half of all rejections happen within the first six weeks,” Dr. Michael said, “and about a fourth of recipients have a rejection episode within the first year. You’ll be taught which symptoms to look for. The important thing is to take your medications. We’ll try to wean you off the prednisone in the first year. There are options if you have a rejection episode. We’ll discuss those before you go home.”

  He turned to leave. “I can’t promise that everything will be easy from now on, that there won’t be problems. But these are problems you can live with. That’s the difference.” He winked at me, then left, his beeper calling him away.

  I still had my hand over the spot. It wasn’t just the fit of my heart, or the crooked scar that ran down almost to my stomach. It wasn’t the strong meds that I was taking or the aftereffects of anesthesia. I didn’t know how I knew it wasn’t any of those things, but I just knew. This was separate from all that. I felt different in a way I couldn’t explain. Really different. And it freaked me out.

  But Dr. Michael couldn’t explain that to me, any more than I could explain how I felt different.

  Mom filled my water glass from the plastic flesh-colored pitcher. “Dr. Michael said you’re going to be transferred to pediatrics tomorrow.”

  Just yesterday I’d walked on the treadmill. My legs felt weak but I’d walked more than five minutes before stopping. And I only stopped because they told me to, not because I felt winded. I could have gone longer.

  It seemed that my heart was in better shape than the rest of me. I had such strength and endurance, like an athlete. Was this how everyone felt when they had a healthy heart?

  Mom was sitting in a chair with her magazine open on her lap. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. I wanted to talk about this strange feeling but was afraid she would worry or think I was exaggerating. I’d always told Mom everything. But I didn’t think she’d understand this feeling that was growing inside me like a rock tumbling down a hill, gaining momentum until I felt ready to scream. I didn’t understand it myself.

  “How’s my girl doing?” Dad said as he entered the room. He had taken the week off from work, but since I was doing so well, Mom had convinced him to go in part of the day. Dad wasn’t much good in hospitals. He spent most of his time pacing the halls.

  “Good,” I said. I’d never tell Dad about these feelings I was experiencing. He’d say I was running a fever or something. He always expected medicine to fix everything.

  “The nurse gave me this,” he said, handing me a pamphlet. It was about a support group that newly transplanted patients and families were encouraged to attend.

  “Do they talk about the donors?” I said. Probably not. Mom said we couldn’t even know the name of my donor. Private information.

  “Don’t know,” he said. Dad stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “You’ll never guess what I did today.”

  “What?”

  “I got rid of the electric chair.” He flashed a wide grin as he looked from me to Mom.

  “So soon?” Mom put down her magazine.

  Dad nodded. “Don’t need it anymore. You saw how she did on the treadmill yesterday.”

  “Big deal, Dad. I walked for five minutes. Now you’re acting like I took first place at a track meet.” My voice was sarcastic.

  Mom and Dad stared at me. Then they looked at each other. I thought one of them would run out of the room and grab a nurse if I didn’t apologize.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just tired or something,” I mumbled. But I felt my heart do a little skip, a small shout of joy.

  I stared at my leftover food tray, the half-eaten piece of fish. How could I talk that way? When I was half-asleep yesterday, I’d heard them whispering about the cost of the transplant and the medications I’d be taking. I’d heard Dad say that even with our insurance, my medications would run three hundred dollars a month.

  Dad nodded toward the door. “I met the social worker in the hall. She asked if you wanted to have a visitor, someone close to your age who’s been through this. You know, to talk about any concerns you might have.”

  I looked at Mom, expecting her to answer for me.

  Mom nodded. “I think it’d be a good idea.”

  “Okay. I’d like that,” I said.

  “You would?” Mom said. “That doesn’t sound like you. I thought I’d have to talk you into it.”

  All I could say was, “I know.” Because that wasn’t what I’d usually say. I’d say I didn’t know if I wanted to talk about it. I’d say I needed more time. I’d hide under the covers and let Mom rub my back and then I’d draw a picture of a mare in a grassy pasture. But I wouldn’t want to talk to some strange kid who’d had a heart transplant.

  So why did I want to talk to one now?

  15

  EAGAN

  It’s working. Ribbons of light are making the fog shrink. Instead of an ocean of gray, it’s more like a huge lake.

  Then I notice that some of the figures across from me look like they’re kneeling in prayer. Is that what I should be doing?

  We aren’t churchgoers. Dad was raised Methodist, and Mom used to be Catholic. We go to church on Christmas, a nondenominational one, then skip until the next December rolls around. Yeah, we’re one of those families.

  But I always loved that little baby in the manger, the center of the whole world for just one night, even if we didn’t pay attention to Him the rest of the year.

  Just as that thought occurs to me, I hear a voice. It tells me not to be afraid to face the hard memories, to look beyond the happy ones. It tells me that now is the time to be reconciled to my soul. What does that mean?

  “Who are you?” I call out. “Can I see you?”

  “Soon,” the voice says. The voice is high, like a child’s. That takes me back to another memory, one that pulls me in like a vacuum.

  “Eagan.” Mom’s voice filled my open doorway. “Get down here now.”

  “I’m doing homework,” I yelled back.

  It was a small lie. I was supposed to be lo
oking for a baby picture for a story I was writing in English. But instead I was IM’ing Scott.

  What’s your middle name, Eagan?

  Hermione.

  Parents big Harry Potter fans?

  Harry Potter wasn’t even published when I was born, moron!

  Sorry. R U mad at me?

  No, I hate that name. Mom named me after a character in a Shakespeare play.

  What play?

  Don’t remember, but Hermione was a beautiful queen.

  So U R a queen?

  Call me UR Highness. I never read the play but I looked it up online. The queen dies.

  That sucks

  But she’s restored to life at the end

  “Eagan.”

  Gotta go.

  I clicked off the screen and ran downstairs. Mom stood in the living room with her arms folded. A bowl with popcorn kernels and an empty glass lay next to my math book in front of the TV.

  “What’s this doing on the living room floor?” she screamed.

  “I was going to pick it up.”

  “You know the rules.”

  “I’ll do it in a minute. I have to get ready for practice.” I turned to go back upstairs.

  “Do it now.”

  “What difference does it make if I pick it up in five minutes?”

  “It makes a difference to me. If you want to live in filth, confine it to your own bedroom.”

  She could be so rude sometimes. “A bowl of popcorn, an empty glass, and my book isn’t filth. Why can’t it wait?”

  Her face had turned red and she was shouting. “Just do it now.”

  She called this our living room, but the curved glass coffee table looked more like a piece of art than a place to set a cup. The fluted floor lamp and the Roman shades and the Vermeer reproduction—this room didn’t have a homey feel. It was more like a showroom. The TV in the corner was an afterthought, an allowance for the rest of the family.

  I stood my ground. “Are you expecting company?”

  “No. I don’t want questions. I want you to pick this up.”

  “I will! Why do I have to do it this very instant?”

  “Because I’m your mother.”

  “Well, that’s a good reason. And I should wait because I’m your daughter.” I shook my head as I stomped over and picked up the bowl and glass. But I couldn’t let it go. “What difference in the whole history of the world does this tiny mess make? And who cares, anyway? The whole world is falling apart, countries at war, disasters at every turn, and you worry about this.”

  Mom just continued to stand there, her arms folded, her mouth set in a tight line as though it might explode if she opened it.

  After emptying the popcorn kernels into the garbage and putting the dishes in the dishwasher, I stomped back up to my room. I picked through my drawer where I’d stuffed the letter she’d given me after I’d cleaned out my wastebasket. I still hadn’t read it.

  Dear Eagan,

  How did we get to this point? You’re my whole life and I only want the best for you. That’s why I’m hard on you. But please know that I love you more than anything else in the whole world.

  Oh, please. I stopped reading and stuck the paper in my desk drawer, then turned back to my homework. I still needed a baby picture, but there was no way I was asking Mom to help me now. I went into her bedroom and opened her walk-in closet. The back shelf held a plastic storage box filled with extra pictures.

  I flicked on the light switch and pulled the box down, nestling into a space on the floor between a shoe rack and a clothes bin, with the box between my legs. There were old pictures here, ones of Mom and Dad when they were young, looking a lot skinnier. They were holding hands, and Dad had a silly grin on his face, like he’d just said something funny. Mom’s eyes were slanted toward him, and her lips were parted, like she was trying to keep from laughing. They looked, um, happy.

  I set the box aside and dug farther back in the closet. I found two more boxes and a taped-up shoe box stuffed clear in the back with the word “pics” in black marker across the top.

  Who could resist a shoe box full of pictures? These photos must be really old. I slowly pulled back the dusty tape. The tape felt old, as if the box hadn’t been opened in years. It felt secret. I stopped and listened for Mom’s footsteps. I heard her downstairs, the sound of the mixer whirring in the kitchen.

  I filed through the photos. They showed Mom with a huge belly. She was pregnant with me. Her face was round and soft, without the worry lines across her forehead that were always there now, and her hair was shoulder-length. Same color and almost as long as mine. She was sitting on a blue plaid sofa with a crocheted blanket laid across the top. I vaguely remembered that sofa and the cream-colored blanket. I remembered making forts out of it on the living room floor.

  That was when our house was a home, not a showcase. When our furniture was more comfortable than the floor.

  I turned over the picture and froze. Another picture of Mom with her large belly. But in this photo, a little girl was sitting next to her. A little girl in a pink pajama top about three years old with mussed-up brown hair. The blanket was laid out across both their laps as they huddled close together.

  I held my breath and felt a sudden chill sweep through the closet. My hands shook as I stared at the picture, at the girl I now recognized. The little girl was me.

  Then who was Mom pregnant with?

  16

  Amelia

  “I keep waiting for it,” I told Rachel.

  “Waiting for what?”

  “A complication. I mean, all the pamphlets talk about it, but I haven’t had any yet.”

  Rachel pulled a lime lollipop out of her mouth. She checked out her green tongue in my makeup-sized mirror. “You don’t want any, do you?”

  “No. I’m just waiting for them. Sounds dumb, I know.”

  “That really doesn’t sound like you, Amelia.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She wiped at an invisible smudge on her thinly shaped eyebrow. Her makeup was perfect. “You sound depressed. That’s not you.”

  “Everyone gets depressed, though. Don’t they?”

  She looked up from the mirror and shook back her long hair. “Not you. I’ve never heard you complain even when you had a crummy heart. So why now? You should be celebrating! You’re going home in a few days.”

  “I just feel weird.” I hesitated, wondering if I could put into words how I really felt, wondering if Rachel could understand when I didn’t.

  “You’re probably just tired,” she said, and put the mirror down on my bed stand. “I mean, I’m exhausted and all I’ve been doing is sitting.”

  I wanted to remind her that she’d been texting her new boyfriend every five minutes, but I didn’t say anything.

  She yawned to make her point. “I think it’s something in the hospital air.”

  “Maybe.” I reached for the bag of lollipops she’d brought me, but my hand fell short.

  “Can you hand me a lollipop? A purple one?”

  “What? You hate purple.”

  “I know, it’s weird. And I’ve been craving grape juice.”

  Rachel handed me a purple lollipop, her eyes questioning me. “You even hate the color purple.”

  Why did I feel that way about purple? It seemed like an interesting color, a soothing one. I could definitely get into purple.

  Rachel picked up her jacket. “I have to go to cheerleading practice. Anything you need me to bring you? Purple pj’s?”

  I tried to smile. It felt forced. “Bye.” I waved to her back. My eyelids were heavy. I’d jogged on the treadmill today. Faster than walking. Almost like running. For ten minutes. Dad would be so excited.

  I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, two boys stood at the end of my bed. One was younger than me, maybe by two or three years. He had short, dark hair and an olive complexion, and was cracking his knuckles as he watched me. The popping noise cut through the beep of the h
eart monitor as he worked his way from his pinkie to his thumb. He dropped his hands down when I moved my head.

  “Sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He flexed his fingers and shifted his weight.

  The other boy nodded at me. He was older and he had the same color hair as the younger boy, but his hair touched his collar. “The nurse thought you were awake. She said a girl just left your room a minute ago.”

  Had Rachel left a minute ago? It seemed like hours had passed. I pushed the button on the side of the bed, raising my head up. “Hi. Who are you?”

  The older boy spoke. “Ari. And this is Tomas. The social worker sent us.”

  Ari was kind of short and thin, but his face looked grown-up. He was older than me, probably in high school.

  “She said you might want to talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “You know. To someone who’s been through this.” He nodded toward the machines surrounding me.

  “Oh.” I studied him more closely. He didn’t look like someone who’d had a heart transplant. He seemed normal, better than normal. Golden biceps grew out the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Both of you?”

  “Not exactly. Tomas had a heart transplant twenty-two months ago. But he couldn’t drive himself here so I volunteered.”

  “You’re brothers,” I said, even though it seemed obvious.

  “Yeah,” Ari said. “I didn’t have the heart transplant, but I spent a lot of time at the hospital with Tomas. I kinda feel like a survivor too.”

  “But I can leave if you don’t want me around,” he quickly added.

  “No. That’s okay.” I didn’t honestly know how I felt. I wasn’t prepared for their visit.

  Ari moved toward a chair. “Okay if we sit?”

  “Sure.” My bare foot stuck out, and I pulled the end of the white sheet over it.

  One of the muscles in Ari’s arm flexed as he sat down. He scanned the room, his eyes pausing on the stuffed pony.

  “How you feeling?”

  “Okay.”

  He shook his head. “That’s a lame question. Sorry, we’re kind of new at this. You’re our first postoperation visit.”

  “Oh.” I felt a need to help them out, but I didn’t know how. Ari stared at the pony a while longer. An uncomfortable silence followed. I let out a nervous cough. I remembered my baby blanket at the edge of my bed. Darn. He probably thought I was just a kid.