10 Savannah #2
Yes, she was aware she was not a great patient, which was largely because she didn’t want to be a patient. She didn’t want
this problem that had popped up at the most inopportune time.
But was there ever an opportune time to find out you had a hole in your heart?
Technically speaking, it had been there her entire life.
The official diagnosis was a congenital heart defect called atrial septal defect.
It was something she was born with, although in her case, it was such a minor defect it went unnoticed for years.
Her heart had found a way to compensate, and she got through life with hardly any signs.
Was she always a little more winded during exercise than most?
Sure. But she’d blamed it on not being athletic.
It was a good excuse to focus on crafting instead of running.
But at some point, either the hole got bigger or her heart got tired, because the symptoms became unavoidable.
It happened around the time she was pregnant with Juliette, so naturally she’d blamed the unusual tiredness and shortness
of breath on the pregnancy. It wasn’t until after Juliette was born and she still couldn’t carry groceries from the car to
the house without getting winded that Savannah started thinking there might be a different problem.
The good news was that her condition was treatable. The bad news was it would require open heart surgery, a detail she was
still wrapping her head around. Which was why she hadn’t told her sisters.
The prognosis was good, but it was still scary. There were risks. Normally, that made anything medical seem scary. But since
they had experienced the trauma of losing their mom, anything medical brought up an extra truckload of anxiety. For all of
them. She didn’t want to make her sisters’ worry about her own medical issues.
Did she need to tell them? Yes, especially now that the surgery had gone from someday to soon . But she needed to wait for the right time, when they were ready to handle that kind of news. She didn’t want to do anything
to damage their mental health. Or their already-delicate relationships.
In the meantime, she’d take it easy. Look at the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise kept up with the hare, no problem. She
just needed to stay on the slow and steady track. She could do this.
Halfway into their ride, though, her energy level dropped from probably enough to nothing left in the tank almost instantly. She felt like she couldn’t pedal one more rotation, which frustrated her. In fact, every single thing about
her condition frustrated her. It was stupid and unfair. She wanted it to go away so she could at least control her own body
instead of the other way around.
But since her heart didn’t seem to care about her ever-growing to-do list, she gave in and did what any normal person would do. She pretended to drop her phone so she had to stop and pick it up.
“Oops,” she called as soon as her phone hit the ground, hoping her new screen protector did its job. “Y’all go ahead. I’ll
catch up.” She climbed off her bike, grabbed her phone, and then rested there for a second. When she had caught her breath,
she decided to walk her bike for a few minutes. Just until she felt her energy meter rise again.
When she finally reached the bike rack where her sisters were, quite a bit after they had gotten there, she gave them her
cheeriest smile to distract them from how out of breath she was. Or how late she was. “Hot dogs on the pier might be my favorite
item on the bucket list.”
“So far every item has been your favorite,” Cora said as she studied her. “Are you okay, Van? You look pale.”
Bianca waved off the question before Savannah could answer it. “She always looks pale now. It’s her new we-have-to-stay-out-of-the-sun-to-protect-our-skin
routine, along with the SPF 1,000 she wears. I’m surprised she hasn’t made you start wearing it.”
It wasn’t exactly true, but since Savannah wasn’t ready to tackle the other topic, she played along. “Can you blame me for
wanting to protect my sisters from wrinkles?”
Although neither of her sisters heard her because they were both distracted by the scene in front of them.
“I know my memory is fuzzy, but the pier didn’t look like this, did it?” Bianca asked, walking from the bike racks to the
activity around the pier.
“No, this is different,” Cora agreed.
Savannah sat back against the bike rack and surveyed the scene.
Back in the day, the long fishing pier that stretched out over the water was a fun place to hang out, but it was never very
crowded. There were always a few street performers who seemed to rotate regularly and small vendors selling things like balloon
animals or cotton candy. The only food stand was The Original Hotdog Guy, who made fresh kettle chips that, to this day, were
one of the best things Savannah had ever eaten.
But the scene in front of them was totally different, starting with the giant “Weekend at the Pier” banner that flew over the entrance. It was packed, both with people and pop-up shops under canopy tents selling everything from local art to fancy lemonades.
The food selection had expanded, too. Savannah could see several permanent food stands that lined the pier, along with some
food trucks on the highway that seemed to show up just for the occasion.
“Wow. I knew it had gotten bigger, but I had no idea it looked like this.”
“Good thing we brought the bikes. No way would we have found a parking spot,” Cora added.
The comment made Savannah feel a little more justified about the call, even if her heart was pumping faster than her doctor
would’ve said was allowable. With cars stretching down both shoulders of the highway for as long as she could see, they would’ve
had to walk almost as far as they had ridden.
See, she wasn’t being vain. She was being responsible.
Bianca headed for the stand not far from where they were standing. “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m starting with one of
those sparkling unicorn lemonades.”
Savannah followed, squinting at the poster of the turquoise and pink drink that had multicolored ice cubes. “What’s in it?
That cannot be natural.”
“Don’t know, don’t care. It looks delicious,” Bianca said.
There was glitter floating in the drink. Actual silver sparkles. “That’s a no for me,” Savannah said. “I don’t like glitter
in my house. I am definitely not about to put it in my drink.” Not to mention that it couldn’t be good for you, no matter
what kind of “edible” material it was made from. “I gotta go with something else. Like maybe the peach basil lemonade. What
about you, Cora?”
When Cora didn’t answer, Savannah twisted around to ask her again. Only, Cora wasn’t standing where she thought she’d be.
In fact, Savannah didn’t see her anywhere in the area.
“Where’d Cora go?” she asked Bianca.
Bianca seemed unconcerned. “There’s no telling. Keeping up with Cora is a lost cause.”
“But you don’t think she got lost, do you? She knew where we were going, right?” Savannah kept scanning the area.
“Cora lost? No way.” Bianca laughed. “She does her own thing. She’ll be here when she wants to be.”
“But we were doing this together.”
“I don’t think that’s how Cora operates. But she’ll turn up. She always does.”
It was more of a statement than a critique, which gave Savannah pause. Perhaps there was something to Bianca’s wisdom she
needed to consider.
Although now wasn’t exactly the time. With the exercise and trying to find Cora, Savannah’s brain didn’t have extra capacity
at the moment.
Later. She’d think through that later.
After they’d ordered and gotten their drinks, Cora still hadn’t reappeared. Savannah tried to appear chill as she and Bianca
browsed the booths, but she couldn’t stop searching for her sister.
They had browsed a few booths and Savannah had shifted her search to the end of the pier when she heard the familiar voice.
“What are we looking at?” Cora’s relaxed tone sounded as if she’d been standing next to them the whole time.
“Macramé for my new condo as a married woman.” Bianca picked up the wall hanging to display it.
“Where did you go?” Savannah asked. She knew it sounded a little like a reprimanding mother, but she couldn’t help it. It
was her nature. She’d been a mini mom ever since she’d been given a sister only twenty-two months into life on this planet.
“What do you mean? I’ve been here the whole time.” She took a bite of the snow cone that proved she had not, in fact, been
with them the whole time. Where was there even a snow cone stand?
But if Cora heard the annoyance in Savannah’s question, she didn’t comment on it. “Does Zander like stuff like that?” She motioned with her snow cone to the item in question.
Bianca stared at the macramé wall hanging and then at Cora. “Doesn’t everyone?”
Cora shifted her gaze to Savannah. “Do you have anything like that in your house?”
Savannah wanted to circle back to the conversation about where Cora had just been. Ditching them was a big deal. They were
supposed to be spending time together. Plus, she’d been worried.
Okay, she really was turning into their mother.
“Not in my house, no. It doesn’t really match my style.”
“See. Savannah doesn’t like macramé.”
“That’s not what I said,” Savannah tried to argue, but even as she said it, she could tell she wasn’t really involved in this
conversation.
“So? Savannah isn’t everyone.”
“Is Zander?”
Bianca huffed and returned the wall hanging to the rack. “You are exhausting.”
“Because I’m right.”
Honestly, Savannah thought they were both exhausting. But before she got the chance to weigh in on the macramé discussion,
they were interrupted.
“Hey! I wondered if we’d see you here,” Luke the landlord said.
Bianca picked up the wall hanging again. “Would you hang this in your house?”
He looked like he realized he’d just walked into a trap, but he wasn’t sure what the trap was. “Maybe?”