ELEVEN
CHAPTE R
Theo could’ve been a glass artist if he’d wanted to.
He was talented, and utterly fearless. He loved the fire but hated the fragility of the glass afterward.
Theo liked permanence. He worked with thick black ink that punched the skin, made it bleed, then remained imbedded forever.
Our father thought he was wasting his incredible ability to draw and sketch by working with tattoos, but it was just right for my brother.
We worked in near silence; but for the roar-hiss of the furnace, the hot shop was quiet,and my thoughts drifted to our conversation, to Theo, who had been with me through my illness, through Audrey’s betrayal.
She hadn’t broken up with me, she’d told Theo, and then skipped town, leaving him to break the news.
I rolled the pipe in my hand, watched as the flames enveloped it, made it glow hot and white…
I sat on a chair in Dr. Morrison’s office. Not the white exam room where he usually saw me, with its long, white-papered table and the little tray of instruments, latex gloves, and individually wrapped syringes. That room was for patients who were receiving treatment. Patients still in the fight.
Today, I was in the private office of Dr. Conrad Morrison—cardiovascular surgeon and cardiac transplantation specialist. Rather than a battlefield, this was where victory champagne was popped…or where white flags of surrender were thrown.
Theo sat next to me, slouched down, gnawing on his thumbnail, his leg jouncing. I could feel my younger brother’s energy radiating out. He took the yellow glow of his fear and burned it until it was red hot and ready to combust.
I expected to be wracked with dread. I felt nothing. No dread. Not even fear. I was beneath fear. Numb.
We waited for five minutes in that office—I watched the clock circle off each one.
Five minutes that felt like years and also no time at all.
The door opened and Dr. Morrison walked in, a file folder tucked under his arm and a grim look on his face.
My borrowed heart slammed against my rib cage, shattering the numbness.
I immediately wanted it back. Feeling nothing was better than this bone-deep terror.
Dr. Morrison had the appearance of an eighth-grade social studies teacher—late fifties, receding hairline, tall and somewhat lanky. His eyes were sharp. Surgeon’s eyes, with a vast wealth of medical knowledge and expertise behind them.
He offered me a thin smile and extended his hand to shake. “Jonah. Good to see you. Sorry to have kept you.”
I half-rose to my feet on watery legs and shook his hand. “No trouble,” I said, eyeing the file folder tucked under his arm.
That file that told a far-fetched story of a perfectly healthy young man—who’d never been sick in his life but for a bout of tonsillitis in the fifth grade—struck down by a virus that destroyed his heart.
It was thick now, filled tissue-type analyses, diagnostics, blood work, lab work, an urgent surgery, a mile-long list of immune-suppressant medications, and finally, biopsy results.
Seventeen of them. Number eighteen was the day before. Its results would be on top.
“Theo,” Dr. Morrison said with a nod. He didn’t offer his hand and Theo didn’t rise from his seat, only nodded in return. His leg jounced faster.
Dr. Morrison moved behind the large mahogany desk to sit in the leather chair.
He set the folder on his desk but didn’t open it.
He folded his long-fingered hands. Those hands had removed my diseased heart from my body fifteen months ago, and then cradled a new one.
They’d gently lowered it into the empty space, reattached all that needed reattaching, put my rib cage back in its rightful place and sewn me back up.
Instead of welcoming the new heart, and despite the various cocktails of immunosuppressant drugs I’d been taking religiously for the last thirteen months, my body attacked.
A slow but relentless attack, hacking away at this foreign intruder piece by piece, leaving behind wounds that became scars.
Ultimately it was the scars that were killing the new heart. And killing me.
Dr. Morrison inhaled. “The results of your latest biopsy are not what we were hoping for…”
He spoke and I heard the words, a string of medical jargon that I had become infinitely familiar with over the last year so that I didn’t require a layman’s translation.
Words like atherosclerosis, stenosis, cardiac allograft vasculopathy, and myocardial ischemia.
A bunch of Latin spliced with English, sewn together with science and authority, and distilled into the most final of bottom lines.
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” Dr. Morrison, his voice heavy and low. “I wish I had better news.”
I nodded mutely. I’ll have to tell my mother.
The thought burrowed deep into my guts like a boiling poison, burning the last numbness away. I nearly puked in my lap. Somehow, I spoke instead.
“How long?”
Dr. Morrison steepled his fingers on his desk. “Given the rapid progression of the CAV, six months would be a generous estimate.”
I nodded, mentally doing the math.
Six months.
My art installation was due to be finished for the gallery exhibit in October, five months from now.
That’s cutting it close…
Theo bolted from his chair, bringing me back to present. He paced behind me like a panther, his dark eyes fixed on Dr. Morrison. The anguish in his voice struck me with every syllable.
“Six months? What happens in six months? Nothing. Screw your six months. He goes back on the list, right? The donor list? If this heart is failing, then you give him another.”
Dr. Morrison pursed his lips. “There are some ethical implications—”
“Fuck the implications,” Theo said. “If he’s on the list, he’s on the list. A new heart comes up, he gets it. Right?” He turned to me with blazing eyes. “Right?”
I couldn’t take another heart from someone else on the list who could live a long and happy life with it.
I had a rare tissue type. The rarest. Finding a donor who was a close match was almost impossible.
Thirteen months ago, in a rush to save my life, they’d given me the best heart they could, the closest match, and my immune system was wrecking it. It would only do the same to another.
I wasn’t a martyr by any stretch, and I didn’t need to be. Medical ethics and procedures would take the decision out of my hands. Dr. Morrison’s next words confirmed it.
“Yes, Jonah is back on the donor list.” He turned to me. “But your rare tissue type will again be a factor, and the chronic rejection manifested here, as well as the way your kidneys are handling the immunosuppressant medications. I can’t say I’m optimistic the Board will approve a replantation…”
I could feel Theo’s rage like a hot wind at my back. “What do you mean they won’t approve it? They’ll just…they’ll let him…”
He was on the edge, I could hear it, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to protect my little brother, just as I always had. Keep him safe.
I rose to my feet, my legs strong now. “Thank you, Dr. M.” I offered my hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
Dr. Morrison stood up as well but didn’t shake my hand. Instead, he patted my cheek in a grandfatherly manner. “You’ll be in my prayers, Jonah. Tonight and every night.”
“Prayers.” Theo spit the word in the parking lot. “What the fuck good will prayers do? He’s a scientist. He needs to get his ass in the lab or something and figure out how to stop that goddamn rejection.”
Then it hit me. All of it. Like a lightning bolt striking the top of my head and tearing straight down, nearly cleaving me in two.
I gripped Theo’s arm and he stopped with a jolt.
“What is it? Jonah? Talk to me…”
I pulled him close, the blood flooding my brain and my words coming out on shallow puffs of air. My head swelled. I could feel time racing past me, second by second, and I couldn’t be done yet. I wasn’t done yet.
“Help me, Theo.”
“What is it?”
“You have to help me.”
“Are you…Do you need doctor…?” His head whipped around the rows of parked cars, ready to call for help.
“No doctors. Not anymore. Theo, listen to me. I need your help.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What do you need? Anything, Jonah. Anything.”
“Help me finish it,” I said, my eyes boring into his. “I have to finish it, Theo. The installation. No matter what. I have to leave something behind.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere…”
I had to make him see. I held onto my brother, clutched him tight. He was solid and real, while I was already dissipating into the air, particle by particle. “Don’t let me vanish, Theo. Please. Help me…”
Theo’s eyes flared at my words, and his grip on my arms became painful. “I’ll help you,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll help you. Anything you want or need…I’m here. And so are you. You’re not going to vanish, Jonah. Goddammit, you’re not.”
I nodded and sucked in several draughts of air.
“Okay. Okay, thanks. I’m sorry, I panicked but I’m good now. Sorry. Let’s go. We can go now.”
I started walking and Theo had no choice but to follow. I could feel him watching me like a hawk. The solidity of him calmed me more. Not his anger, that was a shield between himself and the world, but what lay beneath. His devotion to those he loved. Unwavering and unbreakable. Permanent.
The blood drained from my head and my borrowed heart settled down. Still, it ticked away the time with each beat. I had a finite number of pulses that could be counted and measured.
Six months.
I can do this, I thought as we climbed into Theo’s pick-up truck.
If I made a schedule and kept to it. If I worked as much as I could, no stops, I’d make it.
I’d leave something behind. I wouldn’t vanish into thin air, I’d use my air to infuse and shape the molten glass, capture my breath within it, and when it hardened, a part of me would remain locked inside forever.
Forever, I thought, feeling a little of the heavy weight lift, a lessening of the dark shadow trailing me, even in the bright sunshine of the desert. A little bit of hope to carry me through. A purpose.
It was time to get to work.
The gather of glass on my pipe dripped back into the furnace, jerking me from my thoughts.
Like the glass, my life had been molten and malleable and full of potential.
Now it was solidified; fired and hardened.
No re-firing. No starting over with someone new because there was no time for someone new to become someone significant.
I had my installation. Something that endured, that wouldn’t wither and die.
Something that lasted. The memory was more than a year old, but nothing had changed. It was time to get to work.
“Let’s grab some lunch and keep going,” I told Theo.
His eyebrows rose. “Yeah? I thought you were going to—”
“I’ll text Kacey and tell her I have to work through. She can order a pizza or something,” I said, ignoring the ugly feeling in my gut, the guilt that hung heavy in my heart for ditching her.
Theo rubbed his jaw, looking like someone who’d fought to get his way and now felt bad about it. “If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I have to stay on schedule.”
And that was the truth.
End of story.