The Forgetting (3 page)

I tossed my phone to the foot of the bed and lay back. The big sci-fi machine had followed me to the new room, and I was still hooked up to it for monitoring. But I was allowed to get up and go for a walk. I buzzed the nurse and she helped me to the elevator.

It was hard to go more than a few steps without having to rest. I sat in front of a huge plate-glass window that looked out over the Healing Garden in the middle of the hospital complex. Sunlight sparkled on a rock fountain. The garden looked warm and inviting, but the bare branches that clacked together in the wind told the truth. Boston was freezing in January, and no matter how badly I wanted a breath of fresh air, the nurses would never let me outside.

An old woman in a hospital gown shuffled slowly past me, using her portable IV like a crutch. I shivered and sat on my hands. I wanted out of this place. I needed to be home in my room filled with my own stuff, living my normal life. Maybe then I would stop feeling the Catch. Maybe the reason my heart was out of step with everything was because I was out of step with my old life.

A nurse bustled by, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum. I drew my hands out from underneath me and looked at my fingers. It had been days since I'd held my oboe, the longest I'd ever gone without it. Even when we went on family vacations, I took it with me. My fingers tingled with the desire to play again. Yes…that was the answer. Everything that made me Georgie was at home, and once I got back there I would be myself again.

• • •

On the afternoon of my fourth day out of the ICU, my sulking routine was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Georgie? Are you decent?”

I recognized Ella's voice and sat up in bed. “Yes! Come in!”

Ella entered with my other bestie, Toni, on her heels. They both squealed when they saw me and crushed me into the bed in a bone-crunching hug. Literally bone-crunching—my chest incision felt like it was going to split open. “Ow! Open-heart-surgery survivor here!”

“Sorry, sorry!” As Toni pulled back, I saw tears glinting in her brown eyes. “Oh my God, Georgie. You have no idea. We were so worried.”

Ella nodded and climbed right up into the bed next to me. She tucked her arm in mine. “It's been
awful
,” she said. “Life really sucks without you in it, you know that?”

I leaned my head on her shoulder. “Thanks, El.”

“She's right.” Toni sat at the foot of the bed and folded her legs up underneath her. “We all miss you.”

“I miss you guys too,” I said, trying not to sound glum but failing. “It sucks in here.”

Ella grinned. “Well, this oughta cheer you up.” She hoisted her backpack onto the bed and slid out a familiar square, black case.

“My oboe!” I snatched it from her hands and held it tight against me. All was right with the world again. “How did you—”

“We have our ways,” Ella said, tossing her hair back.

“We snuck into your room when we were dropping off flowers,” Toni said.

“Toni!” Ella punched her arm. “I wanted her to think there had been plans and blueprints and secret meetings.”

I laughed. “Thanks, you guys. You have no idea…” I stroked the brass rivets on the corners of the case. “I don't feel like me without it.”

“Well, you can't afford to lose the practice time,” Ella said. “I am
not
rooming with some random stranger at Juilliard.” Ella played flute. We'd been concocting our Juilliard plan since the fifth grade.

I bumped my knee against hers. “Hey, congrats on getting into the Roslindale Symphony.”

“Thanks. I bet I can get you in too.”

“Really? But I missed the auditions.”

Ella tossed her hair. “So what? They know how good you are. You'll have to go in and play a little something for them, but that's no big deal.”

“It might be a big deal getting past my parents, though.” I flopped back onto my pillows. “You guys won't believe what they're pulling.”

“What?” asked Toni.

“They said they're keeping me out of school for at least
a
month
after I get home.”

“Are you freaking kidding?” Ella shrieked. “
Why?
”

I blew a hard breath out through my lips. The discussion had gone down that morning, with me being overruled by several variations on
We're the adults and we know what's best
. “My doctor doesn't think it's a good idea for me to go back right away. ‘It's too stressful,'” I said in a high-pitched mimic of Dr. Harrison's holier-than-thou tone. “And of course they're following her advice to the letter. My dad's getting one of his professors to tutor me.”

Toni's eyes widened. “Seriously? That's amazing.”

“
Amazing?
Uh, no.”

“Georgie! You're going to have a Harvard professor tutoring you. What kid at our school wouldn't kill for that?”

I scrunched up my face. “Not me. I'd rather be in classes with all of you.” It wasn't just that I wanted to go to school; I
needed
to. School was my second home. I fit in there. It was part of who I was. How could I return to my old self without it?

“Will you still get to graduate with us?” Ella asked.

“I freaking hope so.” I shook my head. “I can't believe this happened and screwed everything up.”

“Georgie, everything's going to be fine.” Toni put her hand on my knee. “I know this wasn't part of the plan—”

“The plan, the plan!” Ella said, laughing. “God forbid anything gets in the way of Georgie and her plans!”

I gave her an evil look. “Shut up. You'd be the same way if it happened to you.”

She put her hand over her mouth in mock offense. “I like to think I'm a little more devil-may-care than you.”

“I can be devil-may-care,” I said. Ella and Toni exchanged a look and burst out laughing. I kicked at them halfheartedly. “Fine, whatever. So I like to plan everything out. Big deal.” I laid my hand flat on the pebbled surface of my oboe case. “As long as it doesn't affect my Juilliard audition. That's all the matters.”

Ella squeezed my arm. “You have nothing to worry about. You're as good as in.”

Sitting on my hospital bed, chatting about normal things, I started to feel better. Maybe the reason I'd survived was because I was meant to be a great oboe player like Richard Woodhams. As soon as Ella and Toni left, I flicked open the latches on the case and looked at the three pieces of gleaming rosewood that lay nestled in their blue velvet bed. I fitted them together, dug out a reed from the little case I kept strapped to the inside lid, and stuck it in my mouth to wet it. When it was ready, I slid it into the top hole.

I closed my eyes and breathed out into the instrument. My fingers moved on pure instinct; I had been playing the oboe since I was ten and there was not a fingering I didn't know. It was like an extension of myself, and whenever I wasn't playing, I always felt a little incomplete.

The music swirled around me like a tangible thing. It drowned everything out, and the sudden touch of a hand on my shoulder jolted me so hard, the reed banged against my teeth. “Ow.” I looked up to see Maureen smiling at me.

“You're pretty good.” She wheeled the blood pressure machine up to the bed. “What was that, Mozart?”

“No, Vivaldi. He was earlier than Mozart.” Most people used Mozart as their first guess when it came to classical music. And, to be fair, sixty percent of the time, they were right.

Maureen wound the blood pressure band around my arm. “You must be pretty serious about it. I mean, you did just have a heart transplant.” She leaned in and winked. “It's okay to take a break.”

I shook my head. “No. I can't. My Juilliard audition is in March.”

“I'm sure you could postpone it. You do have extenuating circumstances.”

“You can't postpone Juilliard. It doesn't work like that.”

The machine beeped. Maureen squinted at it. “Maybe we shouldn't talk about Juilliard. Your blood pressure just shot through the roof.”

I picked up my oboe and started to play again. Maureen half smiled and started the machine again. I was so lost in the music that I barely felt the band squeeze my arm. After the beep, I laid my oboe across my lap. Maureen nodded. “Normal.”

“See?” My hands curled around the instrument like a beloved pet. “It's helping me heal.”

She ripped the band off my arm, chuckling. “Okay, okay. Just don't let Dr. Harrison see it. She's not as into alternative medicine as I am.”

I played well into the night, the sky darkening outside my window. It wasn't just that the oboe kept me calm. As long as I was playing, I couldn't hear the Catch.

Finally, eight days after waking up from surgery, I got the okay from Dr. Harrison to check out. Maureen gave me my last vitals check before Mom and Dad arrived to pick me up. The thermometer slipped out of my mouth twice as I clenched my jaw up and down. “Stay still,” she admonished.

“Sorry.”

The blood pressure machine beeped. “Whoa. Maybe we need to get your oboe out.”

“That high?”

“Yeah.” Maureen adjusted the band around my arm. “Take a few deep breaths.”

I concentrated on inhaling and exhaling. In, out…
catch
…in, out…
catch
. There it was. In between every breath, every heartbeat. It was so obvious to me. How could no one else hear it?

Maureen ripped the band off my arm. “What's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you're definitely anxious about something.” She waved the band in the air. “This doesn't lie.”

I squirmed. “It's nothing.”

“Georgie, I'm going to have to tell Dr. Harrison and she's probably going to want to keep you here another day for observation.”

“No!” I bit my lip and looked down at my lap. The sooner I got home, the sooner I could surround myself with the noise of my life and drown out the sound of the Catch. I couldn't stay in the hospital another minute or I'd lose myself.

“Then tell me what's up.”

“Okay.” I toyed with a loose thread in my sheets. “I keep feeling this…thing. It's sort of in between my heartbeats. Like a…a catch or something.” She didn't say anything so I shook my head. “Forget it. It's probably just in my head.”

“Let me take your pulse.” Maureen picked up my wrist and counted my pulse against her watch. Her yoga beads brushed my skin. A gentle, calming heat emanated from them. After a minute, she set my hand down. “Your pulse is good. Strong. Steady.”

“I'm sure I'm just imagining it.”

Maureen tapped her finger on the side rail of my bed. “Maybe. Or…maybe not.”

I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean?”

She pressed her mouth into a thin line. When she spoke, it was deliberate, like she was thinking a lot about what she was saying. “Some transplant recipients say they can feel the organ of their donor, that it feels…different. Like it's slightly out of step with the rest of their body.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Exactly like that! Does that mean something's wrong?”

“No,” Maureen said firmly. “But you do have someone else's heart in place of yours now.” She sat down in the chair closest to the bed and rested her forearms on the rail. “The human body is a marvelous piece of machinery. It's designed to work beautifully together. And it does, when everything is working right. Then something goes wrong with one part, and the machine fails.

“You can replace that one part and the machine will work again. That's science, and it's amazing what science can do.” Her lips curved into a half-smile. “But there's something beyond science. Call it God or mystery or whatever you want. It's the metaphysical. And I think that's what happens after an organ transplant. Some part of your donor was imprinted on her heart, and now that's inside of you.”

I shivered. So I
was
a different person now. “Who was she?” I whispered.

Maureen shook her head. “I can't tell you that.”

“If part of her is imprinted inside of me, I have a right to know.”

“Georgie, there are rules—”

“Please.”

Her features softened. “I'm so sorry, but I can't tell you.” She looked over her shoulder and leaned in closer to me. “I really can't,” she said, her voice so quiet it was barely there, “because she was a Jane Doe.”

My breath froze somewhere between my throat and my mouth. A Jane Doe? As in, unidentified? What kind of person was so alone in this world that no one claimed her, even in death?
A
lost
girl…

Maureen rose from the chair and perched herself on the side of the bed. “Listen, I need to take your blood pressure again, and it needs to be in the realm of normal before I can let you leave. You can't reach for your oboe every time you feel anxious, so let's try this.” She put both her hands over her heart and moved them in small circles. “There's a word in Sanskrit—
sukha
. It means sweetness. Close your eyes and just imagine sweetness flowing in and out of your heart.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is this some yoga thing?”

“Yes, and it's been known to work. Just try it.”

With an exaggerated sigh, I closed my eyes and put my hands over my heart. The warmth of my palms seemed to sink through the layers of skin and bone that separated them from the heart within. After a minute, I felt Maureen gently wrap the band around my arm. I kept up the motion until the machine beeped. I opened my eyes. “One-thirty over eighty-five,” she said. “I'll take it.”

She rolled the machine toward the door and paused. “It doesn't matter who she was, Georgie,” she said. “The heart is yours now. It's what you do with it that matters.”

I shook my head as she left the room. How could that be? If part of Jane Doe was imprinted on her heart, how could I ever be myself again? As long as I heard the Catch, as long as I could still feel her echo there, the heart would never be mine.

• • •

Our house had never looked as inviting as when we pulled into the drive. The Christmas lights twinkled merrily in the falling dusk. “You guys still haven't taken the lights down?” My parents procrastinated about this every year, but this was a little late even for them.

Mom twisted her head back to glance at me. “We've been a little preoccupied.”

“Besides, we thought it would be festive for your homecoming,” Dad said.

Festive was an understatement when we walked into the house. A huge banner proclaiming
WELCOME
HOME, GEORGIE
hung across the archway leading to the living room. Candles covered every surface, alongside dozens of vases filled with flowers. Colt and half a dozen of my friends stood clustered under the banner, cheering and clapping as I entered. Our closest family friends were there too, along with—

“Grandma!” I lurched forward and buried my face in my grandmother's hair. I breathed in her Shalimar scent, the smell I'd forever associate with her. “I didn't know you were coming!”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, giving me a kiss that I was sure left a perfect imprint of red lipstick on my cheek. “Though your mother wanted to tell you because she was worried about the shock to your heart.” She winked. “I told her you could handle it.”

“I'm so happy to see you.” My throat was tight and the edges of my vision blurred a little. I swallowed hard several times and eased out of her arms. I didn't want my friends to think I was a complete sap who cried over a visit from Grandma. She seemed to understand and gave my arm a little squeeze before disappearing back toward the kitchen.

My friends dragged me into the living room and started the party. They sat me in the oversized armchair and piled presents on my lap. Tray after tray of heart-healthy food came out of the kitchen (the avocadoes must've cost a fortune this time of year), music was turned up, and at one point I looked up to see my parents kissing in the corner. The relief and happiness on their faces mended something inside me, that piece of guilt for the dark circles under my mother's eyes, for the fact they hadn't had time to take the Christmas lights down, that my mother worried about the shock a surprise as lovely as my grandmother might give me. I was home, and we were whole again.

It was very late before everyone left, and even though I begged to have Ella stay over, Mom put her foot down. “You need your rest and I know you'd stay up all night talking,” she said. “It's your first night back. You can have a sleepover next weekend.”

“I'll call you in the morning,” Ella promised. Face half-hidden in a thick woolen scarf, she galloped down the front steps to Toni's waiting car by the curb.

I shut the door and leaned back against it. The house was quiet now, with just the soft whoosh of the central heat and the murmur of voices from the kitchen. Without the pulse of music and the loud chatter of my friends, I heard it again. The Catch. I pressed my hand to my chest. No. Not here. I was home, I was safe. It was just my imagination…

I pushed away from the door and walked back to the kitchen. Grandma stood at the sink, working through the massive pile of dishes. “Need some help?”

“No, sweetie. You sit down.”

I sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table without arguing. I
was
tired. Being in the hospital was boring, which was exhausting in its own way, but being home took energy too. I set my elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hand. “When did you fly in?”

“This afternoon. I was going to come last week, but Liv thought it would be more helpful to have me here after you got home.”

“You'll be here a while, right?”

Grandma stacked the last bowl in the dishwasher and smiled at me. “As long as you want, sweetie. I have an open-ended ticket.”

I smiled back. Having Grandma in the house always made it seem more lively. Most of my other friends had cozy grandmas, ones who knitted and baked and had short hair. My Grandma was, well,
cool
. She lived in an off-the-grid house just outside of Santa Fe that was covered in solar panels and overrun with rescued animals. She practiced yoga and attended meditation workshops. She didn't knit but she made her own candles, and almost everything she baked had ingredients like sprouted wheat and sunflowers. And she wore her hair in long braids that she spiraled up at the crown of her head.

Mom and Dad sauntered into the kitchen, each with an almost-empty glass of red wine in their hands. “Thanks for cleaning up, Mom,” my mother said.

“I'm here to help.” Grandma wiped her hands on the dishcloth and tossed it lightly onto the counter. “Anyone up for a game of Hearts?”

“I am!” Colt appeared behind my parents and pushed into the kitchen past them. “Hey, that's appropriate, isn't it?
Hearts
!” He poked me in the arm. I slapped at his hand while my parents groaned at his obvious joke. Grandma, though, looked a little stricken.

“I didn't mean anything by it. I didn't even think—”

“Oh please,” I said. “‘Heart' is not a dirty word. We can talk about it. Right?” I looked at each of them in turn, at their faces.
Could
I talk about it? Could I tell them about the Catch? Right off, I knew I couldn't talk to my mom. There was still a shadow around her face, the shadow of almost losing her daughter. It was too raw. My dad would pull something like Shelley or Dante or Kipling off the shelf and flip open a page that he thought explained exactly what I was going through. It was like he didn't trust his own words to relate something to me.

Colt would get excited and start looking up all the sci-fi blogs he read and probably tell me that what I was experiencing was most definitely an alien invasion.

But Grandma… I watched her watching me, her bright blue eyes so inquisitive and curious. She hadn't spent Christmas with us because she'd been at an ashram in India. Yes, she was a possibility.

The thing was, I wasn't sure there was anything to tell. It could be the meds or my own overactive imagination. Or I could just be crazy.

I looked at all of them and suddenly wanted nothing more than to be alone. Faking a huge yawn, I got to my feet. Immediately, my parents were at my side, helping me to my feet. “I'm fine,” I said. “Just tired.”

“Of course, sweetie—”

“You need your sleep—”

I hugged Grandma on my way out of the kitchen. “We'll play Hearts tomorrow for sure. Okay, Grandma?”

“Of course.” She kissed my temple. “Sweet dreams, love.”

I climbed the stairs and paused at the top to catch my breath. Dr. Harrison had said it would feel like an anvil on my chest for a while, and she wasn't kidding. I pushed myself away from the wall and headed to my room. The dim hall light cast shadows along the walls, and the ancient floorboards creaked under my feet. It was strange, but my gut twisted and my palms tingled as I approached my room, like I wasn't quite sure what I'd find when I opened the door.

Inside, everything seemed to be in its right place. The paisley bedspread, the clothes that I had thrown on the floor the day before I went into the hospital…it was all still there. My music stand and the tall stack of music at its base, just waiting for me. Everything was the same.

But it all felt completely different, like a place I'd never been and had no memory of. Why was my room so
pink
? I hated that vile color. I walked in circles around the room, touching things here and there, trying to relearn them. I stopped in front of my dresser and fingered the jewelry tree with its jumble of necklaces and earrings. I slipped on a big cocktail ring. It rubbed against my skin, like I was borrowing it without asking.

I pulled open the top drawer and fished out a pair of sweats and a tank top to sleep in. A good night's sleep in my own bed… That would fix everything. I turned off the light and crawled under the covers.

I jerked awake after what felt like only a minute. Darkness cloaked every inch of the room. I sat up. Panic snaked through me. This wasn't my room. This room smelled sweet and clean, and moonlight spilled in through a window. I had never slept in a room with a window.

I
never
know
what
time
it
is
in
my
room
because
no
light
squeezes
in. Even the door reaches all the way to the floor. Dankness clings to the walls and I can't breathe deeply in here, not without getting a mouthful of mold. The air is too close, like there's not enough of it. I grope for the flashlight I keep next to my bed so I won't have to step onto the concrete floor to flip the switch by the door…