Amelia
I woke up in a fog of lights and buzzing machines. So strange. Something nagged at me. What had I forgotten? The last few days were like a groggy movie in my brain. I struggled to find the words when the breathing tube came out. My mouth was too dry to talk.
Mom sat in a chair next to me reading a celebrity gossip magazine. A surgical mask covered her mouth and nose; her blond hair was crushed up against her neck. She had on a green gown over her brown-striped sweater. That same sweater she always wore when I was in the hospital. Did she feel the same way about her sweater as I felt about my baby blanket?
“You’re awake, sweetheart,” she said when she saw me turn my head.
I’d been awake on and off; they’d even had me up to use the bathroom. Days and nights blurred into the fluorescent light above my bed. Machines beeped and blue-gowned figures floated in and out of my room. I remembered talking to Mom and Dad and maybe Aunt Sophie. It was hard to tell who was behind the masks.
“What day is it?” I squeaked out, then coughed.
“Thursday, six a.m. Two days since your transplant.”
“I feel different.”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Does something hurt?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I just feel kind of strange. My heart sounds different.” Where was the swishing sound, the irregular rhythm I’d grown used to hearing every day? What was that feeling beneath the painkillers, that someone had taken the stack of books off my chest and replaced it with a feather?
And the other feeling, that this heart was sitting in a space that wasn’t quite right, not the exact size and shape as it was used to. As if there was too much room. I thought of Kyle’s Legos, when he pushed two bricks together that didn’t really fit. It was unsettling.
Mom’s eyes relaxed. She reached over and pushed my long bangs off my forehead. She was wearing surgical gloves, and I flinched at the plastic feel of her touch. “You have a healthy heart inside you now, one that can keep up with your body.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it.”
I twisted my head toward the heart monitor, a miniature screen with wavy lines that beeped loudly whenever one of my patches came loose. Numbers flashed out my heart rate, numbers that went up and down depending on whether a nurse was poking me with a needle or messing with the chest tubes.
An IV line in my wrist provided easy access to check my blood levels. Another IV line in my arm was used to give medication. Tubes from my chest poked out through the blanket and attached to a suction device that made a whoosh sound as it sucked fluid away from my heart.
Eight years of being sick had made me a deep thinker. I wasn’t like other fourteen-year-olds. And I couldn’t help but think about the time during the operation when there was nothing in my chest: when they removed my heart, and before they put the other heart in. When I was connected to the heart and lung machine. When I was technically dead. I wondered if that was the weird feeling I’d had.
But I wasn’t dead now. My fingertips were pink. I didn’t remember them ever being so pink. My face felt flushed. I’d been shutting down before, when my fingers grew tight with fluid, when my legs felt like fire hoses, when I walked like an eighty-year-old woman instead of a teenage girl. Now that was gone, along with my old heart. I felt like a flower blossoming in the spring air, coming back to life.
“They have a surprise for you today,” Mom said, and her eyes sparkled.
She’d said the same thing yesterday, and they’d taken out one of the chest tubes, and the catheter from my neck. I was glad to get rid of the tube, but the pain of having it removed was so bad I had to have extra pain medication. Which machine could they unhook from me today? I hated the little patches on my chest. They stuck to my skin and made round red blotches that itched. But I knew they wouldn’t be removing the heart monitor anytime soon. And I needed the IV for pain medication. They never took out the IVs until right before a person went home. That seemed like a long time from now.
Maybe they’d take out another chest tube. Or maybe the surprise was Kyle. He hadn’t been up to see me yet. Was Mom’s big surprise a visit from my little brother? Or a visit from Rachel?
Cards and flowers lined the window ledge. Kyle had painted a picture of a hospital bed with a stick figure that was supposed to be me. “Come home soon, Meely” was written underneath in neon green paint. A stuffed pony sat on the cart next to my bed.
“Who sent the horse?” I asked, wondering if that was the surprise.
“Grandma. She’s called every day from Kansas City. Maybe you’ll be awake to talk to her today.”
I coughed, expecting the familiar pain that usually came with my coughs. I held the heart pillow to my chest, the one the transplant team had given me so it wouldn’t hurt as much when I coughed. My stitches hurt, but my new heart didn’t. This new heart that wasn’t really mine. A present from someone I didn’t know. A present that didn’t fit quite right.
I couldn’t help but think about that someone, even though the therapist who’d evaluated me before the transplant said that worrying too much about the donor could cause undue anxiety. But she didn’t say how I was supposed to not worry. I mean, another family was planning a funeral right now while mine was celebrating.
I felt unworthy of this gift. I didn’t even know how to live.
One of the tubes rubbed against my side and I shifted in the bed. Mom fussed around the mattress, trying to straighten the sheet underneath me.
I cleared my throat and coughed again before I spoke. “Did they say whose heart I have?”
Mom’s hand froze on the sheet. Her voice was soft. “A teenager’s.”
I vaguely remembered a dream, one with a horse. The memory of it had been knocking around in my brain for the last two days. “Do you know her name?”
“No. We don’t even know if it’s a girl. The information is kept private to protect the donor’s family. All we know is that he or she chose to be an organ donor on his or her driver’s license.”
“Oh.” I’d expected more information. I pictured a girl. I wondered what she looked like, what grade she was in, if she was pretty or athletic. Did she have a boyfriend who was missing her right now? Was someone crying about her even as Mom was tucking in my sheets?
“Maybe when you’re better, you could write a thank-you note to the family. The hospital will forward the letter for you.”
I almost laughed. This wasn’t like a Christmas or birthday gift. A thank-you note for a heart? What would I say? I’ll get a lot of use from your gift? Thanks for thinking of me?
“Maybe,” I said. “What’s the surprise?”
Mom didn’t have a chance to answer. Two green figures entered my room carrying a portable treadmill.
I thought they had the wrong room. I looked at Mom, who nodded as if she’d read my mind.
Her eyes smiled at me. “Believe it or not, you’re going to be walking on that today.”
I shook my head. I’d only been out of bed a few times since the transplant. I had stumbled up and down the hall once. With assistance.
Could I actually exercise? My brain said no way. But this new heart felt like it wanted to move, like it needed to move. This new heart that came from a teenager, maybe a girl with lots of energy and lots of plans before her life ended.
Mom picked up the phone. “I should call your dad. He’ll want to know that you’re awake.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Sound the alarm. Amelia is awake.”
Mom put her hand over the mouthpiece. “What did you say, sweetheart?”
My cheeks burned. “Nothing,” I said. How could I talk to Mom that way after all she’d done for me? Mom, who always knew just what to say to make me feel better, whose hands held magic in them when she rubbed my back and made me feel instant relief.
But resentment filled my brain. Sharp words were ready to roll out of my mouth at any moment. They coated my tongue and I turned my head away before they escaped.
What was wrong with me? Why did I feel this way? As Mom talked on the phone, I couldn’t help myself. I waited until she turned the other way. Then I reached over to the sheets she’d just tucked in and quietly pulled them back out.