Some of the Parts

by Hannah Barnaby

  “Why are you two always so weird with each other?”

  I could say, Because we hate each other for still being here. Or Because we remind each other of Nate. I could say, Because we both know that the best person who will ever care about us is gone.

  Instead, I say, “Why do you always bring me here?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, right. It’s my fault.”

  There is no point in trying to pick a fight with Mel. It’s like trying to plant a tree on an iceberg. It just won’t take. I stare at the Y on the store sign, a coward with its arms in the air.

  “What’s the opposite of convenience?” I ask her.

  “Wisdom,” she says.

  And we drive.

  —

  My father is waiting for me at the kitchen table when I get home. Either I just walked through a wormhole and it’s Friday again, or I’m in for a talk.

  “Tallie,” he says. “Sweetheart.”

  I am in trouble. Someone else died. Mom left us. My mind is racing with possibilities.

  “Sweetheart,” Dad says again. “I owe you an apology.”

  I haven’t checked his browser history in a few days. I wonder if Dad has replaced his home-improvement videos with self-help tips from the grief group.

  “I have been…emotionally…absent since…the accident.” The words fall from his mouth like stones he’s spitting out because they taste bad. “You deserve better than that. You…you lost him, too.”

  You didn’t lose him, I think. You gave him away.

  And maybe honesty is contagious, like yawning—or maybe I don’t want Dad suffering the delusion that things are so easily resolved—because another thought pushes itself through. Tell him you know.

  My uncle taught me and Nate to play poker when we were younger, because he thought it would be funny, but we both turned out to be weirdly good at it, even though Nate took forever to play his cards. “There’s no game if you don’t lay something down,” my uncle told him.

  I don’t know what was more annoying: the fact that Nate always won, or the way he yelled “Yahtzee!” when he did.

  I decide I can’t tell Dad about the letters from Life Choice and Gerald. Not yet. But I can play one of the cards I’m holding.

  “I know about Nate’s”—now it’s my turn to spit out a word—“organs. That you donated them. And I know one of the people wants to write to Mom.”

  This, obviously, is one version of the truth. There are always many to choose from.

  My father reddens, like a time-lapse movie of a tomato ripening. “How?” he asks hoarsely. “How do you know?”

  “I heard you arguing in the kitchen. Mom wants to talk to the person and you don’t want her to.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want her to. It’s just—I don’t really see the point. We need to move forward with our life as a family.”

  “But aren’t you curious about them?”

  “Who?”

  “The recipients.” The worst-tasting word of all.

  “No. I’m really not.” Dad rubs an edge of the table, testing its ability to give him splinters. “They have their own problems. My problem—my concern—is this family and getting this family up and running again.”

  A project. That’s what we have become. Like an old furnace that just needs a new filter, or a leaky roof to be patched. He thinks this is something he knows how to do, but it isn’t.

  “What about Mom?”

  “Today was harder than she expected. I think she may need some time before she decides what to do.”

  So I’m safe. As far as anyone knows, there have not been any letters yet from Life Choice. And there won’t be any more coming from Gerald now that we’re emailing, so unless other recipients suddenly start writing, I can keep this under control.

  Dad sighs. “Sometimes the things you think will make you feel better…just aren’t the things you need.”

  I reach over and pat my father’s hand. “Thanks, Dad. I’m glad we talked.”

  And I wonder, as I walk up to my room, if he knew I was doing my best impression of him.

  I run my hand across Nate’s door as I walk by, letting my fingers feel the gritty texture of the paint Dad used to cover up the marks left by Ninja Turtle stickers and taped signs that told all of us to stay out. Nate would make those when he was in a bad mood and then take them down an hour later. He could never stand to be alone for longer than that. He could never stay mad as long as I could when we had a fight, and then he’d do all kinds of goofy things to make me laugh so we could be friends again, like lip-synching some old song by the Pixies with his underwear on his head.

  They’ll never understand—these people, these recipients—that whatever his parts gave them, it will never, ever equal what was taken away from me.

  And I can stay angry as long as it takes.

  I pull up the bookmarked transplant site on my computer and find the email for the Boston support-group coordinator.

  Dear Ms. Goldman, I type, my fingers jabbing the keys. My name is Sarah McGovern. I’m about to tell her that I lost my son, that I’m seeking the recipients of his organs, but then I stop. I don’t know this woman, but if she’s someone who devotes her time to leading a support group for transplant patients, she’s probably a really nice person. And really nice people tend to follow the rules, and in this case, the rules say that she can’t go off and ask everyone she knows if their new organs came from a seventeen-year-old boy named Nathaniel McGovern from Molton, Massachusetts.

  I’m a freelance journalist, and I’m researching a story about post-transplant life for people in the Boston area. If you happen to know anyone from your group who might be willing to speak with me about their experiences, please feel free to give them my email address.

  I read it over, then add: Stories from recent recipients would be best. Anyone who underwent surgery in late May or early June would be ideal.

  I send the email, then spend the rest of the afternoon listening to songs on Matty in alphabetical order. Like a pharaoh on a sarcophagus, I lie on my bed with my hands folded on my stomach, feeling it rise and fall as I breathe, hovering between sleep and consciousness for as long as I can.

  sunday 10/5

  People talk about how if someone loses one sense, their other senses become heightened. Like if someone becomes blind in an accident or something, they suddenly hear better. I used to think that was just their imagination but now I think it’s true. I understand that term stream of consciousness, because it feels that way when I lie in bed and let my mind wander, like water in a stream, flowing around rocks and debris and pushing stuff out of the way. I free Matty from his tin and I listen to him as much as I can—I’m not afraid anymore of wearing him out. I immerse myself in the only messages I have from Nate, in the songs he chose and the way he put them together, the way that “Come as You Are” leads into “Where Is My Mind?” It’s like speaking a new dialect. The other day I listened to the same Elliott Smith song all the way home, over and over.

  And I notice, when I do that, how much the singers he liked sound like him. I can hear him in every song. I don’t mean that the songs remind me of him. I mean that if I let myself follow certain threads of the song, I can actually hear him because I am really listening now, more than I was before. Or in a new way, maybe. It’s hard to sustain, though. Sometimes I pull back when it feels like I’m at the edge of something that I can’t quite see.

  I wonder if they feel him, too. The organ recipients. The ones who divided Nate’s body into pieces and claimed them as their own. I killed him, but they took him. They owe their lives to me. They owe me their lives.

  I try to imagine meeting them face to face but I can’t picture what they’ll look like. They will probably appear completely normal, but with my new vision, I will see through them, see underneath. See their scars, Nate’s organs glowing from under their skin, showing through like a flashlight held under a sheet. Gruesome and beautiful.

  My hair looks cr
azy in the mirror but I don’t feel like brushing it, so I just smooth it back into a messy bunch and loop a ponytail holder around it a few times. With my hair off my face, I look more like Dad.

  “My concern,” I say to myself in a deep voice, “is this family.”

  I know Dad wants to start over somewhere else, but how far will he go? Sign us up for family counseling? Join a grief cult somewhere? He should have made his move while Mom was still in her state of mental exile. Now she seems to be gaining strength. She’s been going to work regularly and even suggested having someone over for brunch next weekend. Everything will be okay if I can just solve the puzzle Nate has set out for me before they find out that I’ve been using Mom’s name, staging Internet deceptions. That would, I suspect, be immediate grounds for something drastic.

  I check for new emails, but there’s nothing from Gerald or from Sandra Goldman. I open the messages I sent them, put them in windows side by side, checking for anything that might have tipped them off. It’s like an out-of-body moment, reading the words I typed but hearing my mother’s voice in them instead of my own.

  Vrrrt. My phone vibrates, scurrying on my dresser like an errant insect.

  It’s Mel.

  ride along to the barn? leaving in 5

  I am tempting fate if I accept, tempting my own tongue to betray me with guilty secrets, but staying home means risking a full-on intervention with Dad. I text back a simple yes and head downstairs to grab some breakfast and a jacket. I can tell it’s cold outside by the foggy landscapes that have formed at the bottoms of the windows. Mom and Dad are talking in low voices that snake under the closed door of Dad’s study. Maybe he’s campaigning, showing her online listings for perfect Victorian houses far away from here. Real estate porn. I press my ear to the door but can’t make out distinct words. Not the right ones anyway.

  There’s coffee left in the pot on the counter, so I pour some into a travel mug, dump some sugar into it, and scrawl a note for the kitchen table: Gone to barn with Mel. Back later.

  Under normal circumstances, my parents might actually ask me why I would want to spend my time at Mel’s uncle’s haven of taxidermy. I guess if Dad’s project takes shape, I might have to get used to answering those questions again.

  For now, I’m on my own.

  I take Mom’s bottle of aspirin out of my pocket, shake a few into my hand, and chew them to bitter powder. A penance. My grandfather used to take aspirin every day to prevent a heart attack…and then died of cancer. The last time I saw him, he slapped me on the knee as I sat on his hospital bed and said, “They always get you somehow, Tallie.” I don’t know who “they” are, but I got the message. I wonder if Chase’s binder contains any mundane deaths like my grandfather’s, or if he’s mostly drawn to flashy disasters and crime. I picture my own contributions, the obituaries I printed for him in the library, filed among other, more violent pages.

  Speaking of death, I think when Mel rockets into the driveway.

  “Hi-ho, Silver!” she calls to me when I come outside.

  “What?”

  “Zorro reference,” she says.

  I buckle my seat belt. “I think that was the Lone Ranger, actually.”

  “Oh.” She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Is that your dad?”

  “Where?” But I see him, too, peeking out of the break between the curtains in the living room. He pulls one to the side, revealing himself, and waves. I hold my hand up as Mel whisks me away.

  “That was weird,” she remarks.

  “He’s trying to put us back together,” I say.

  “Humpty Dumpty,” Mel says. “That one didn’t work out so well.” Then, abruptly: “How come you’ve been walking to school?”

  Heat flashes across my face. “I…”

  “Never mind,” she says.

  “No, it’s okay, I—”

  “I said, never mind.”

  It’s as if whatever momentary impulse she had to actually talk about something departed as quickly as it appeared. I could insist. I could tell her that I just like walking, or that I need time to myself, or that it scares me to be in a car. All of those things are partly true, although none of them are the truth. I’m not scared of being in a car. I’m scared of the sound of a car crashing into a tree. And I don’t need time to myself. I need someone—Gerald or Sandra or Dr. Fikri—to play one of their cards and keep this poker game going.

  Mel reaches forward and turns the radio on. “You pick,” she says, without looking at me. It’s as close as she’ll get to a peace offering, letting me choose the music. I accept, even though the radio stations within range of Molton are limited, at best. The choices are pretty much country, alt-rock, Christian, or NPR. I go with option number two. It’s a Neko Case track, one that’s on Matty, too. I want to listen to the lyrics, in case I can detect a message, but Mel is over the weirdness of the moment and talking again, telling me about her plans for the taxidermy show. Raccoon Zorro.

  Not a bad band name, I think, and I let her voice wash over me, blend with the music, while the world blurs outside the window. By the time we arrive at the barn, my brain is pleasantly numb.

  I follow Mel inside. The barn is empty. The cows are outside, I guess, wandering around the fields and doing whatever they do all day, but they have left the faint odor of animal warmth behind. It makes me wonder what the inside of the pig truck smelled like. Unpleasant, probably, not like this. Not like comfort. More like fear.

  Something flutters in an upper corner and I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here looking at the empty half darkness. Mel is in the workshop and I step to the doorway, watch her rifling through the box of forms until she makes her choice. A medium-sized thing with stumps for paws, hairless arms raised like it’s being held up at gunpoint. “Raccoon,” she announces.

  “Is that for the one we found yesterday?”

  “Yes, and he is…” She searches through a pile of pelts on the table. “Right here!” She holds up the raccoon, waves it around. Its empty eye sockets stare at me accusingly, and I can almost see it dressed as Saint Lucy, a halo of light around its head, eyes on a platter like tiny hors d’oeuvres. If Mel was open to suggestions, I would tell her about this idea. She could put together a whole cast of saints, like her Nativity scene, and enact the litany. We did it every year on All Saints’ Day at the church: Saint Lucy, pray for us. Saint John, pray for us. Saint Agnes. Saint Thérèse. A parade of gruesome endings. People who became something more than people, who gave themselves over in the name of something greater.

  But it feels wrong to think about them now. I haven’t prayed since the accident and I hardly did before it happened either. I never knew what to say, what to ask for. And the things I want now are surely against God’s better judgment.

  My phone buzzes. Signals are spotty out here but something has gotten through. It’s a text from Chase:

  no word from fikri

  I reply:

  patience is a virtue

  A few seconds later he writes:

  are you the virtuous type?

  This strikes me as something that allows for a flirty response, and I’m not sure if I know how to speak that language.

  i used to be

  When I look up, Mel is staring at me, one eyebrow arched into a question mark. “Chase,” I tell her. There’s no point in lying.

  “Did he finally experience a tragedy?” she asks.

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  She cocks her head. “Too bad,” she says. “He isn’t very interesting otherwise.”

  It’s a challenge, this statement. She wants to see if I will agree or argue. She stands there, with her strange tools and her collection of expectant animal skins, and she waits.

  Is she right? Is Chase anything more than a pair of chocolate eyes and a morbid interest in the tragedies of others? More than a fancy house and strange, estranged parents? The hypocrisy of reducing him this way, when all I want is for everyone to forget my circumstances,
is very clear. But the rest of my brain is swirling, images of stained-glass windows, of the columbarium, all of those boxes in the wall, all of those little doors. Pick a door, any door. So many people stored there like artifacts, unaware of their own fate, and none of us knowing what they became after they died.

  “Well, we all end up the same,” I say.

  Mel blinks, then grins. She likes me dark.

  “I’m going to make you a promise,” she tells me. “If you go first, I will preserve your body for all eternity. How would you like to be displayed?”

  Sawed in half, like a magic trick gone wrong. Split open like a biology lab frog. Standing upright like Saint Lucy, holding my eyes on a platter. I don’t know anymore which trail of bread crumbs to follow.

  “You decide,” I tell her. “After you know the whole story, you can decide.”

  monday 10/6

  It’s dark on Monday morning, and cold, so I ride to school with Mel. It turns out that having extra time to think makes waiting to hear from Gerald, Sandra, and Dr. Fikri even more excruciating, so I let Mel provide distractions. She talks incessantly about song ideas for Scud, band politics, and the best ways to torment Amy, Fiona, and Zoey. And about the upcoming taxidermy show at the town hall on Saturday. She is certain, she says, that her raccoon-and-cat tableau will take first prize in the high school category. I think I hear something else in her voice, though. A wavering. I ignore it. I can’t witness anyone falling apart right now. I can’t save anyone else from going over a cliff when I may be nearing the edge of my own.

  Dad waves to us from the window as we drive away. I have been finding notes in his study, lists of books about healing your family and overcoming personal tragedy and installing radiant heating in your floors. I guess he’s still thinking about improving the house, as well as fixing us. Or is he making plans for a new house? Mom talks in her journal about being back at work, about feeling ready—almost—to see clients and spend time in other people’s houses. But she doesn’t say in Molton. She doesn’t say with Susan and Michelle. She has also mentioned the argument she had with my father about the letters from the recipients, and hints at possibly pursuing things on her own.