Cold Hands, Warm Heart

by Jill Wolfson

  And what did he think of my ability to hold an interesting conversation? Did he think I was worth talking to again? I didn’t say anything stupid, did I? Did I say something stupid? I don’t think I did. Did I? Would he ask to visit me again? When? Tomorrow? What if he didn’t ask? Should I ask the nurse about a visit if he doesn’t ask first? Would that be too pushy? Some boys on TV shows like pushy girls. Maybe Milo does.

  All this wondering made my heart speed up. I could feel it pumping. Not good. It was supposed to be beating at a nice, even pace. I wasn’t supposed to let anything bother my peace of mind.

  So did he think I was nice at least? Being nice wasn’t a bad thing to be. No, nice was awful. The worst. Nice was coddled eggs and applesauce. Nice was totally bland and forgettable.

  What was wrong with me anyway? I was chronically ill, this close to death. I should have been thinking about getting a new heart and what would happen if I didn’t get it. I should have been wondering about the meaning of my short life and how cheated I’d feel if fifteen was it for me.

  I should have been thinking about that.

  But I wasn’t.

  So maybe I was mentally ill on top of every other kind of ill. Because, truthfully, all I could think about was that boy.

  Dark. Clicking and beeping. Lights somewhere off in the distance. Humming electrical sounds. The rattle of something rolling. A cart? A voice over a speaker jarring me awake.

  Where was I?

  Night hospital sounds. That’s right. I remembered.

  My body felt unattached to me, a thing lying there while I hovered above it. These must be some new drugs that were pumping through my veins. I saw my own head, nose, eyes, arms, legs. I was alone in the hospital room, but I heard numbers whispered at me. Something in my own mind whispering to itself. The number 206. What did that mean?

  Oh! That’s the number of bones in the human body. My body. Everyone’s body.

  Two people, 412 bones. Two people, two faces, two noses, four eyes, four ears, eight limbs, two livers that can grow into four, four kidneys, ten liters of blood, 1,300 muscles, 120,000 miles of blood vessels, 200,000 hairs on two heads.

  Two people, two hearts. But only one of them working.

  I want that heart.

  I won’t be picky. I’ll take the first one that comes along.

  I want to be normal and go to school and cut PE classes.

  I want a boyfriend and a trip to Paris.

  I want to sit in a café and drink coffee and argue about movies.

  I want to pierce my ears.

  I want to eat salty pretzels and fried calamari rings.

  I want to live to be an old lady with deep wrinkles who wears purple and half scares the neighborhood kids.

  I want a new heart.

  Later that night, another thought, a disturbing half dream.

  Everyone keeps talking about finding a heart for me, as though one were hidden behind the couch in a game of hide-and-seek, or it had been misplaced along with someone’s cell phone. But that’s not how it works. I know that. Even if no one talks about it.

  If a heart is found for me, it means that somebody else, some mother, some father, some kid, somebody who is in perfect health – except for being dead – has just lost everything.

  SEVEN

  WHY DID THEY KEEP bothering him? Didn’t they get what the lock on his bedroom door meant? Couldn’t they understand the meaning of the yellow police banner that he taped in an X across his closed door? Off-limits. Caution. Do not cross.

  Do. Not. Cross.

  Still, every hour Tyler heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He had lived in this house his whole life, so he knew exactly how long it would take them to reach his door. The hollow thud as they left the carpeted stairs and hit the hardwood landing, the squeak of the floorboard as they passed his sister’s room. Tyler felt powerless to stop them.

  From the chair at his desk, he watched the band of sunlight from the hallway disappear from the bottom crack of his door. He could see the tips of shoes side by side. There was never a knock right away. No, they had to just stand there waiting. Sucking all the air out of his room. What did they think he was doing in here? Sobbing hysterically? Designing plans to blow up a building? Writing a suicide note?

  An hour earlier, there had been three firm raps, his father’s signature knock. Tyler inhaled and with his exhalation came the expected series of soft, rapid taps. Mom’s turn to check up.

  “Tyler, are you okay in there? Just answer me, please. Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “But, honey, you haven’t eaten since yesterday. How about a sandwich? I can make you something.”

  Without inflection: “No.”

  “How about a banana?”

  A banana? Why did they keep offering him bananas? Why would he want a banana?

  “Tyler, it isn’t good shutting yourself off. Do you want to talk?”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  But silence is never really silence, is it? Tyler could hear the whooshing sound of his own blood in his ears. And even when his parents weren’t talking, it was as if their voices had burrowed into his brain and wouldn’t shut up. His mind created dead-on imitations. His mother’s thin voice, dripping with too much concern: Tyler, honey, do you want a hug? His father’s voice, so manly casual on the surface, but just as intrusive: Hey, son, how’s about you and me getting a little fresh air?

  “Go away.”

  And still his mother’s shoes didn’t move. He pictured her standing in the hallway, all those new lines in her forehead that had appeared suddenly the day before. That day. The day. Was it only one day ago? The day everything changed.

  An image – the last time he had seen his sister alive – flashed through his mind. Amanda in her room, cross-legged on her bed, looking up at him as he entered. The looks of annoyance ricocheted between them. Tyler shook away the memory.

  “Mom, I’m okay. Really. I’m just doing homework. Go away.”

  He waited for something more from the other side of the door – a challenge, a bribe, a plea – but nothing came. The sunlight reclaimed the place of the shoes. Relief. When the footfalls reached the bottom of the stairs, it felt like he and his parents were not only on different floors, but in different universes. It was only then that Tyler felt he could breathe again.

  He turned his attention back to his laptop. The screensaver had popped on. It was a colorful swirling bundle of digital twine that spun and twisted around the screen. Tyler put his concentration there and let himself get sucked into the motion. There were so many variables under his control with a click on the touchpad. What would it look like if he increased the speed? Changed the colors? Altered the shape of the loops? It seemed very important right then to know everything about the screensaver, to get it exactly the way he wanted it.

  There. That was perfect. But what now?

  Of course he had no intention of doing homework like he had told his mother. He only said that in hopes that it would make her go away sooner, since she was a total control freak about it. Tyler, did you do your math? Tyler, do you remember you have to start that SAT prep class? He hated homework because it was bullshit and because he was ordered to do it. He had always been that way with anything mandatory. Meals and bedtime and chores and standing in straight lines and tests and clothing and politeness. Something just clicked inside – Tyler could actually feel it snapping in his brain – and he would have to do the exact opposite of what was being ordered or asked or expected. How many parent-teacher conferences had been held on the topic of Tyler’s stubborn refusal to get with the educational program? He just couldn’t understand people who didn’t have that click of opposition. People who climbed into bed whether they were tired or not, who cleaned their rooms whenever ordered. People like his sister.

  Amanda the Perfect.

  With no particular intention, Tyler Googled Amanda and clicked on a site about the derivation of names.

  Amanda
. Latin origin. Worthy of being loved.

  Perfect. The perfect name for the perfect girl.

  He typed again. Tyler. Old English. A tile maker.

  Why did his parents pick that name for him? A tile maker? The strangeness of it, how different in substance and feeling it was from his sister’s name, struck him as hilarious. Hilarious in that dark, cynical Tyler way. Why hadn’t they called him – click on the computer – Aaron, which means exalted and strong? Or Ari, which means lion? Or Sam, “His name is God”? Of all the names in the world, his parents chose Tyler. They might as well have named him Hammerholder or Bricklayer.

  An old, familiar chill of jealousy rushed through his body. He actually shivered with it. With his right hand, he made a fist. He wanted to hit something. Only in the next instant, he remembered that there was nothing to lash out against. Nothing. Not anymore.

  All that day, Claire and Robert considered the question the woman from the transplant network had put before them, weighing the two possibilities. Yes or no. Donate or don’t donate. What would Amanda want? What did they know about their daughter – her character traits, her belief system, her sense of her own body – that would let them make this decision for her?

  Robert let his mind wander through memories. Maybe something Amanda once said, an off-the-cuff remark that could be turned into a clue, then followed to a decision. Claire wondered how she could have carried her daughter for nine months, given birth, and lived with her for fourteen years but still not know how to speak for her. She made a silent plea to God, to the position of the planets, to the crack in the universe, to whatever force produces miracles. She wanted one more conversation with her daughter to ask all the questions she had lost the chance to ask: What’s your first memory? What do you think about before going to sleep? Donate or not donate?

  What would Amanda want?

  For Tyler, too, the day stretched and squeezed. Time was as unreal as anything in a fantasy story where past and future slip into the present, where everything is strangely unsolid. In the middle of the night, he gave up trying to sleep and sat in front of the computer, typing words and phrases that randomly came to mind and passed unfiltered to his fingertips.

  Heart. In an average lifetime, it beats more than two and a half billion times, without ever pausing to rest.

  An average lifetime. Amanda’s had been so much shorter than that.

  On a medical website, a rendering of the brain looked exactly like the bike helmets that his parents always insisted he and Amanda wear. No helmet, no ride, no argument. Even the colors of the drawing were bright and kidlike – swirls of purple, silver, yellow and green – each representing a different section of the brain.

  The brain, Tyler read, is the center of intelligence. It controls behavior.

  Click. The brain is like a group of specialists.

  Interactive arrows pointed to the various sections. Tyler clicked on each and took his time with the descriptions, sometimes reading them twice before the information sank in. He learned about the oldest parts of the brain that keep the heart beating, the lungs inflating, eyes blinking, food digesting. The cerebellum, which resembles a crumpled tissue, controls muscles and movements you learn by rote.

  Tyler moved the mouse and clicked on the various lobes of the cerebrum. These were the more evolved parts of the brain that hold memories, let you enjoy the taste of ice cream and the sound of music, allow you to play games, read books, make up stories and have impassioned arguments.

  Amanda loves music.

  Amanda loves reading.

  Amanda loves chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream.

  Amanda and I sure get into some fights.

  Tyler read to himself: A healthy brain functions rapidly and automatically. But an injury can throw everything into chaos.

  He understood something now, and it was the opposite of the daze and shock he had been feeling all day. He ran his hand through his hair and felt the clarity radiating through every strand.

  When the brain is dead, there is nothing left. Not the part that lets you do backflips on a balance beam or enjoy chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream. Not the part that lets you fight with your brother or even recognize the members of your family. Not the part that lets you plan for the future. Because there is no future. You can’t even blink your eyes.

  Tyler typed: If you really care what I think, here it is. Brain-dead isn’t something you have, like a disease that can be cured. Brain-dead is something that you are.

  He printed it out and slipped the paper under his mother’s bedroom door.

  EIGHT

  IN THE MORNING, WHEN Tyler’s parents didn’t get an answer to their knocks, they used one of Amanda’s bobby pins to pop the lock on his bedroom door. Tyler was sound asleep, his left cheek pressed against one pillow, a second pillow balled up and held against his stomach. They decided not to wake him and tiptoed away from his door, leaving a note on the floor where he couldn’t miss it.

  At ten, he woke up. His head hurt; his stomach ached. An emotional hangover felt worse than anything caused by cheap vodka. He didn’t want to be feeling any of this. It wasn’t fair. Groggy, sitting up, he sniffed hard and tasted the phlegm that had built up in his sinuses overnight. Hacking it up, he spit the gob into a wastebasket. When he headed for the bathroom, he stepped on the note before seeing it.

  Dear Tyler,

  Your dad and I decided to let you sleep while we returned to the hospital. You know that we had an important decision to make today. After we read your thoughts, we decided to go ahead and allow the organs to be used for transplant. We don’t know if we’re doing the right …

  The note went on a little longer, but Tyler crumpled it into a ball, tossed, watched the arc, and pumped his fist in the air when it landed successfully in the trash can. In the bathroom, he peed, brushed his teeth, as usual didn’t bother to floss, then splashed cold water on his face.

  What now? Now what?

  Tyler usually liked having the house to himself. He actually lived for the rare times when his mother had an after-school meeting or those long, precious Sundays – six A.M. until way after dark – when everyone was away at a gym meet and he could raid the refrigerator, maybe even smoke a little pot. But this empty house felt different, more empty than empty. He took two steps in the direction of the stairs, then two more. At the entrance to Amanda’s room, he stopped. If anyone had been watching, they would have thought that he was practicing to be a street mime bumping up against an invisible pane of glass.

  The door to Amanda’s room looked as it always looked – no music poster, no KEEP OUT sign, no fingerprint smudges on the doorjamb. He tried to keep walking, but something held him there. He felt himself drawn toward the room but repelled at the same time, fascinated at the prospect of entering and also freaked out by it.

  With three quick steps, Tyler willed himself over the threshold. He blinked once, twice, before he could hold his eyes steady enough to take it all in.

  The walls were bright yellow, the carpet tan. As usual.

  The bed was made, the sheets with the pattern of bright orange flowers tucked in at the corners, the pillows plumped. As usual.

  Her gymnastics trophies stood lined up, soldiers at attention, on a shelf over her desk. The room was as it always was.

  Shouldn’t something be different about it? Shouldn’t something have changed?

  Something had. Something was missing.

  Amanda, of course. Amanda at her desk. Amanda on her bed. Amanda looking up at him in complete annoyance, like the last time he had seen her in this room. They had yelled at each other. What else was new? They were always yelling at each other about something, except for when they made vows to not talk to each other at all.

  This most recent fight? What had it been about this time?

  Tyler remembered something stupid about a DVD. Someone hadn’t returned it to the rental store and now the fees were piling up and their mom was mad and Amanda said that Tyler had it last and
Tyler said that Amanda had it last and nobody knew where it was. Then Amanda yelled that Tyler was always losing everything, and Tyler came back with some prime sarcasm about how Little Miss Perfect never did anything wrong.

  “Stop the blame game,” their mother had shouted up the stairs. “Just find the damn movie.”

  It was Amanda who said the next thing. Tyler was almost positive of that. Yeah, positive. She was always trying to get in the last word. Maybe he had called her a dweeb. Yeah, that was something he would say. Or an idiot. Or a jerk. But he was pretty sure that it was Amanda who had yelled out the final insult.

  Tyler now began pacing the room, slowly at first, but gathering speed until he was storming around, replaying all the juicy details of their last fight – what he said, what she said, what he said back. He recreated all the hot emotion, repeating the story again and again until he was sure he had remembered it absolutely right.

  Until in the story, Amanda had been the one to call him “brain-dead!” And not vice versa.

  NINE

  NANCY, THE NURSE FROM the transplant organization, tried not to think about what the family of this girl must be doing tonight, what they would be feeling or not feeling, how they were probably preparing for the funeral.

  She didn’t want to think about that.

  How at some point in the long, unreal day, the parents must have taken their first awful step into their daughter’s bedroom, opened her closet, and tried to decide how to dress her for burial.

  How the mother probably scrutinized each individual item of clothing, because, even though it was completely irrational, she was thinking, Something warm. I don’t want her being cold.

  Nancy pulled her mind back from going off in that direction. Emotionally, she couldn’t afford to go there.

  Rather, she focused on the work ahead of her that evening in the intensive care unit. She was a member of the Transplant Donor Network Procurement team. Her official job title, donor management, made what she did for a living sound so insignificant and impersonal, like slapping a new coat of white paint on an apartment wall or shuffling paper. Donor management didn’t capture her job at all. She would have preferred to hear it described for what it was: tricking death. Like some wily coyote in one of the folk stories that her son liked to read, or maybe Road Runner in the old cartoons, who always knew just when and how to sidestep what seemed to be certain death. What Nancy would be doing all that night was to fool the body into thinking that it was still alive.