Then we calm down, and there is silence. Dad farts, and we are off again.
Hot tears roll from the sides of my eyes and down my plumped cheeks, which ache from smiling, and I squeeze them with my hands to stop. It occurs to me how happiness and sadness are so closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a threadlike divide. In the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites. The movement is minute, like the thin string of a spider’s web that quivers under a raindrop. Here in my moment of unstoppable cheek-and stomach-aching laughter, as my body rolls around—stomach clenched, muscles taut—it’s racked by emotion and steps ever so slightly over the mark, and into sadness. Tears of sadness suddenly gush down my cheeks as my stomach continues to shake and ache with happiness.
I think of Conor and me; how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate. One comment to steal it all away. How love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. At your weakest, you end up showing more strength; at your lowest you are suddenly lifted higher than you’ve ever been. They all border one another, these opposites, and show how quickly we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can turn to fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. Just as Kate’s son had wavered on the balance beam, and in an instant his excitement had turned to pain. Everything is on the verge, always brimming the surface, with only a slight shake or a tremble to send things toppling.
Dad stops his laughter so abruptly it concerns me, and I reach for the light.
Pitch-black so quickly becomes light.
He looks at me as though he’s done something wrong, but is afraid to admit it. He throws the covers off his body and shuffles into the bathroom, grabbing his travel bag and knocking down everything in his path, refusing to meet my eyes. I look away. How quickly such comfort with someone can shift to awkwardness. When you are convinced you know exactly where you’re going, you reach a dead end.
Dad makes his way back to bed, wearing a different pair of pajama bottoms and with a towel tucked under his arm. I turn off the light, both of us quiet now. Light so quickly becomes darkness. I continue to stare at the ceiling, feeling lost again, when only moments ago I’d been found. My recent answers transformed back into questions.
“I can’t sleep, Dad.” My voice sounds childlike.
“Close your eyes and stare into the dark, love,” Dad responds sleepily, sounding thirty years younger too.
Moments later his light snores are audible. Awake…and then gone.
A veil hangs between the two opposites, a mere slip of a thing that is too transparent to warn us or comfort us. You hate now, but look through this veil and see the possibility of love; you’re sad, but look through to the other side and see happiness. Absolute composure shifting to a complete mess—it happens so quickly, all in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 27
OKAY, I’VE GATHERED US ALL here today because—”
“Somebody died.”
“No, Kate.” I sigh.
“Well, it sounds like—Ow,” she yelps as Frankie, I assume, physically harms her for her tactlessness.
“So are you all red-bused out?” Frankie asks.
I’m seated at the desk in the hotel room, on the phone with the girls, who are huddled at Kate’s house on speaker. I’d spent the morning looking around London with Dad, taking photographs of him standing awkwardly in front of anything resembling anything English: red buses, postboxes, police horses, pubs, Buckingham Palace, and a completely unaware transvestite, as Dad was so excited to see “a real one,” who was nothing like the local priest who’d lost his mind and wandered the streets wearing a dress in his hometown of Cavan when he was young.
While I chat, Dad is lying on his bed watching Dancing with the Stars, drinking a brandy and licking the sour cream and onion off Pringles before depositing the soggy chips back in the can.
I’ve called a conference call to share the latest news, or more to plead for help and sanity. I may have gone one wish too far, but a girl can always dream.
“One of your kids just puked on me,” Frankie says. “Your kid just puked on me.”
“Oh, that is not puke, that’s just a little dribble.”
“No, this is dribble…”
There’s silence.
“Frankie, you are disgusting.”
“Okay, girls, girls, please, can you two stop, just this once?”
“Sorry, Joyce, but I can’t continue this conversation until it is out of here. It’s crawling around biting things, climbing on things, drooling on things. It’s very distracting. Can’t Christian mind it?”
I try not to laugh.
“Do not call my child ‘it.’ And no, Christian is busy.”
“He’s watching football.”
“He doesn’t like to be disturbed, particularly by you.”
“Well, you’re busy too. How do I get it to come with me?”
Another silence.
“Come here, little boy,” Frankie says uneasily.
“His name is Sam. You’re his godmother, in case you’ve forgotten that too.”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. Just his name.” Her voice strains, as though she’s lifting weights. “Wow, what do you feed it?”
Sam squeals like a pig. Frankie snorts back.
“Frankie, give him to me. I’ll take him to Christian.”
“Okay, Joyce,” Frankie begins in Kate’s absence, “I’ve done some research on the information you gave me yesterday, and I’ve brought the paperwork with me. Hold on.” I hear papers being ruffled.
“What’s all this about?” Kate asks, returning.
“This is about Joyce jumping into the mind of the American man, thereby possessing his memories, skills, and intelligence,” Frankie responds.
“What?” Kate shrieks. “I found out that his name is Justin Hitchcock,” I say excitedly. “How?” Kate asks.
“His surname was in his daughter’s biography in last night’s ballet program, and his first name, well, I heard that in a dream.”
No response. I roll my eyes as I imagine them giving each other that look.
“What the hell is going on here?” Kate asks, confused.
“Google him, Kate,” Frankie orders. “Let’s see if he exists.”
“He exists, believe me,” I confirm.
“No, sweetie. You see, the way this works is, we’re supposed to think you’re crazy for a while before eventually believing you. So let us check up on him, and then we’ll go from there.”
I lean my chin on my hand and wait.
“While Kate’s doing that, I looked into the idea of sharing memories—” Frankie starts.
“What?” Kate shrieks again. “Sharing memories? Are you both out of your mind?”
“No, just me,” I say tiredly, now resting my head on the desk.
“Actually, surprisingly enough, it turns out that you’re not clinically insane,” Frankie continues. “On that count, anyway. I went online and did some research. It turns out you’re not alone in feeling that.”
I sit up, suddenly alert.
“I read interviews with people who have admitted to experiencing somebody else’s memories and even acquiring skills or tastes.”
“Oh, you two are pulling my leg. I knew this was a setup. I knew it was out of character for you to drop by, Frankie.”
“This isn’t a setup,” I assure Kate.
“So you’re trying to tell me honestly that you’ve magically acquired somebody else’s skills.”
“She speaks Latin, French, and Italian,” Frankie explains. “But we didn’t say it was magically. That would be ridiculous.”
“And what about tastes?” Kate is not convinced.
“She eats meat now,” Frankie says matter-of-factly.
“But why do you think these are somebody else’s skills? Why can’t she just have learned Latin, French, and Italian
by herself and decided that she suddenly likes meat, like a normal person? Lately I like olives and have an aversion to cheese. Does that mean my body has been possessed by an olive tree?”
“I don’t think you’re quite getting this. What makes you think olive trees don’t like cheese?”
Silence.
“Look, Kate, I agree with you about the change of diet being a natural thing, but in all fairness, Joyce did learn three languages overnight without actually learning them.”
“Oh.”
“And I have dreams of Justin Hitchcock’s private childhood moments,” I add.
“Where the hell was I when all of this was happening?”
“Making me do the hokey-pokey live on Sky News,” I huff.
I place the phone on speaker and pace the room and watch the time on the bottom of the television as both Frankie and Kate laugh heartily on the other end.
Dad’s tongue freezes mid-Pringle lick as his eyes follow me.
“What’s that noise?” he finally asks.
“Kate and Frankie laughing,” I respond.
He rolls his eyes and continues licking his Pringles, his attention back to a middle-aged news anchor doing the rumba.
After two minutes, the laughter finally stops, and I take them off speaker.
“So as I was saying,” Frankie says, catching her breath as though nothing had happened, “what you’re experiencing is quite normal—well, not normal, but there are other, eh…”
“Freaks?” Kate suggests.
“…cases where people have spoken of similar things. The only thing is, these are all people who have had heart transplants, which is nothing to do with what you’ve been through, so that blows that theory.”
Thump-thump, thump-thump. In my throat again.
“Hold on,” Kate butts in, “one person says here that it’s because she was abducted by aliens.”
“Stop reading my notes, Kate,” Frankie hisses. “I wasn’t going to mention that part to her.”
“Listen”—I interrupt their squabbling—“he donated blood. The same month that I went into hospital.”
“So?” Kate says.
“I received a blood transfusion.”
“That’s not even remotely the same thing.”
“Concentrate, Kate. She received a blood transfusion,” Frankie explains. “Not all that different to the heart transplant theory I just mentioned.”
We all go quiet.
Kate breaks the silence. “Okay, so, I still don’t get it. Somebody explain.”
“Well, it’s practically the same thing, isn’t it?” I say. “Blood comes from the heart.”
Kate gasps. “It came straight from his heart,” she says dreamily. “Oh, so now blood transfusions are romantic to you,” Frankie comments. “Let me tell you what I got online: ‘Due to reports from several heart transplant recipients claiming experiences of unexpected side effects, Channel Four made a documentary about whether it’s possible that in receiving a transplanted organ, a patient could inherit some of their donor’s memories, tastes, desires, and habits as well. The documentary follows these people making contact with the donor families in an effort to understand the new life within them. It questions science’s understanding of how the memory works, featuring scientists who are pioneering research into the intelligence of the heart and the biochemical basis for memory in our cells.’”
“So if they think that the heart holds more intelligence than we think, then the blood that is pumped from someone’s heart could carry that intelligence. So in transfusing his blood, he transfused his memories too?” Kate asks. “And his love of meat and languages,” she adds a little tartly.
Nobody wants to say yes to that question. Everybody wants to say no. Apart from me, who’s had a night to warm to the idea already.
“Did Star Trek have an episode of this one time?” Frankie asks. “Because if they didn’t, they should have.”
“This can easily be solved,” Kate says excitedly. “You can just find out who your blood donor was.”
“She can’t.” Frankie, as usual, dampens the mood. “That kind of information is confidential. Besides, it’s not as though she received all of his blood. He could only have donated less than a pint in one go. Then it’s separated into white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma, and platelets. What Joyce would have got, if Joyce received it at all, is only a part of his blood. It could even have been mixed with somebody else’s.”
“His blood is still running through my body,” I add. “It doesn’t matter how much of it there is. And I remember feeling distinctly odd as soon as I opened my eyes in the hospital.”
A silence answers my ridiculous statement, as we all consider the fact that my feeling “distinctly odd” had nothing to do with my transfusion and all to do with the unspeakable tragedy of losing my baby.
“We’ve got a Google hit for Mr. Justin Hitchcock,” Kate fills the silence.
My heart beats rapidly. Please tell me I’m not making it all up, that he exists, that he’s not a figment of my delusional mind. That the plans I’ve already put in place are not going to scare him away.
“Okay, this Justin Hitchcock is a hatmaker in Massachusetts. Hmm. Well, at least he’s American. You have any sudden knowledge of hats, Joyce?”
I think hard. “Berets, bucket hats, fedoras, fisherman hats, ball caps, porkpie hats, tweed caps.”
Dad stops licking his Pringle again and looks at me. “Panama hat.”
“Panama hat,” I repeat to the girls.
“Newsboy caps, skullcaps,” Kate adds.
“Top hat,” Dad says, and I repeat this into the phone.
“Cowboy hat,” Frankie says, sounding deep in thought. She snaps out of it. “Wait a minute, what are we doing? Anybody can name hats.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t feel right. Keep reading,” I urge.
“Justin Hitchcock moved to Deerfield in 1774, where he served as a soldier and fifer in the Revolution…I should probably stop reading this. Over two hundred years old is probably too much of a sugar daddy for you.”
“Hold on,” Frankie takes over, not wanting me to lose hope. “There’s another Justin Hitchcock below that. New York Sanitation Department—”
“No,” I say with frustration. “I already know he exists. This is ridiculous. Add Trinity College to the search; he did a seminar there.”
Tap-tap-tap.
“No. Nothing for Trinity College.”
“Are you sure you spoke to his daughter?” Kate asks.
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
“And did anybody see you talking to this girl?” she says sweetly.
I ignore her.
“I’m trying the words art, architecture, French, Latin, Italian…” Frankie says over the tap-tap-tap sound.
“Aha! Gotcha, Justin Hitchcock! Guest lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Department of Art and Architecture. Bachelor’s degree, Chicago; master’s degree, Chicago; Ph.D., Sorbonne University. Special interests are history of Italian Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, painting in Europe in 1600–1900. External responsibilities include founder and editor of the Art and Architectural Review. Coauthor of The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch, author of Copper as Canvas: Paintings on Copper, 1575–1775. He’s written over fifty articles in books, journals, dictionaries, and conference proceedings.”
“So he exists,” Kate says, excited now.
Feeling more confident now, I say, “Try his name with the London National Gallery.”
“Why?”
“I have a hunch.”
“You and your hunches.” Kate continues reading, “He is a curator of European art at the National Gallery, London. Oh, my God, Joyce, he works in London. You should go see him.”
“Hold your horses, Kate. She might freak him out and end up in a padded cell. He might not even be the donor,” Frankie objects. “And even if he is, it doesn’t explain anything.??
?
“It’s him,” I say confidently. “And if he was my donor, then it means something to me.”
“We’ll have to figure out a way to find out,” Kate offers.
“It’s him,” I repeat.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Kate asks.
I smile lightly and glance at the clock again. “What makes you think I haven’t done something already?”
JUSTIN HOLDS THE PHONE TO his ear and paces the small office in the National Gallery as much as he can, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go on each pace, which is not far. Three and a half steps up, five steps down.
“No, no, Simon, I said ‘Dutch portraits,’ though you’re correct, as there certainly will be ‘much portraits.’” He laughs. “The age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,” he continues. “I’ve written a book about that subject, so it’s something I’m more than familiar with.” A half-written book you stopped working on two years ago, liar.
“The exhibition will include sixty works, all painted between 1600 and 1680.”
There is a knock on the door.
“Just a minute,” he calls out.
The door opens anyway, and his colleague Roberta enters. Though she’s only in her thirties, her back is hunched and her chin pressed to her chest as though she is decades older. Her eyes, mostly cast downward, occasionally flicker up to meet his before falling again. She is apologetic for everything, as always, constantly saying sorry to the world, as though her very presence offends. She tries to maneuver her way through the obstacle course that is Justin’s cluttered office to reach his desk. This she does the same way she lives her life, as quietly and as invisibly as possible, which Justin would find admirable if it weren’t quite so sad.
“Sorry, Justin,” she whispers, carrying a small basket in her hand. “I didn’t know you were on the phone, sorry. This was at reception for you. I’ll just put it here. Sorry.” She backs away, barely making a sound as she tiptoes out of the room and closes the door silently behind her.
He simply nods at her and then tries to concentrate on the conversation again, picking up where he left off.