This Darkness Mine

  Mom sits down next to me, putting her bags down on either side of her chair. I notice she always keeps the one that holds her notes about mental disorders on the far side where I can’t reach.

  “It’s a program from the children’s hospital,” she explains. “It’s a really nice place, honey. You’d have your own room and—”

  “I have my own room,” I interrupt. “It’s at home.”

  Mom looks to Dad to deliver the bad news, her optimistic vocabulary not able to compute what comes next.

  “You’re not going to be able to go home,” he says, leaning back against the wall. “Your heart rhythms haven’t been stable on the monitor and your blood pressure has been barely in the normal range. You’re going to need to be under constant care until—”

  He breaks off so abruptly that I feel a spike of fear. “Until what? I die?”

  “No, honey.” Mom’s hand shoots out, fingers on my wrist as if the simple act of feeling my pulse will keep those words at bay. “Until we’re able to find you a transplant.”

  She says it as if search and rescue is out looking for a heart that may have been misplaced, not that we’re waiting for someone else to die so that I can live.

  “How did I go from fine to needing a new heart?”

  “You weren’t fine,” Dad says. “This . . . this . . .”

  “Dilated cardiomyopathy,” Mom supplies.

  “It’s always been there,” he goes on, not even attempting the pronunciation. “Your mom said you passed out the other day in the living room and that you’ve been sleeping a lot.”

  I don’t point out that he’s only listing things Mom has told him, nothing he’s witnessed himself. I wonder how loudly Mom had to scream to call the ambulance in order to get past his earplugs.

  “Your dad is right,” Mom says, her hand tightening on my wrist. “The signs were there, we just didn’t know what they were pointing to. So in a way, it’s a good thing that—”

  “Patricia,” Dad warns, his voice tight.

  “Well, maybe it is,” Mom shoots back. “Otherwise we might not have known until she . . . she . . .”

  “Until I had an embolism or massive heart failure.” Leave it to Mom to find the silver lining of me propelling myself outdoors through plate glass.

  “We met with a heart specialist yesterday,” she goes on. “The team decided it would be best for you to be under constant care for your heart in the cardiac center. They’re concerned about the conditions surrounding your fall from the window but are willing to admit you to the center as long as you have regular visits from a mental health specialist. I told the team that you and Amanda had really hit it off.”

  The team. I picture a line of cheerleaders, some with hearts next to the deep-V neckline of the uniform, some with brains. Me and Amanda really “hitting it off” while shaking pom-poms. Rah-rah. Go team.

  I flip open the brochure to see a shiny reception area with fresh flowers and a smiling woman waiting to check me in. On the top of the page it reads, Welcome, not Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here. I bet if I set this next to a brochure for an indoor water park there wouldn’t be much difference. All the language is comforting, using words like care, comfort, and convenience. Nowhere do I see surgery, scalpel, or sedative.

  There aren’t pictures of crash carts or red alarm lights going off, there’s no blood spatter on these gowns, or exposed organs. Everything that happens in this place for the dying looks like a good time, closely watched over by smiling people who only want me to enjoy myself.

  “So I live there?”

  “Yes,” Mom says. “There are plenty of kids your age there,” she adds as I glance at a shot of toddlers in a finger-painting class. None of them have IVs in their arms or machines attached to them.

  “You’ll be able to keep up with your schoolwork, too,” Mom goes on. “There are online classes you can take so you’ll graduate on time, or they can arrange for tutors on site if you’d like.”

  I’ve gone from valedictorian to hoping to graduate on time. I flip to the back of the brochure, which has driving directions and a map of their campus, probably the only one I’ll ever see.

  “What do you think, honey?” Mom asks, her hand on mine once again. “It looks nice, doesn’t it?”

  The brick facade of the cardiac center does indeed look nice, very much like an admissions center for a college. But I’m willing to bet there are panels with hidden defibrillators everywhere, and that all the doorways are wide enough to admit wheelchairs. I put the brochure down, resting beside my knee.

  “I don’t understand how this happened,” I say.

  Dad shifts against the wall, his eyes on the ground. “It happened because of me,” he says.

  twenty

  I. Things I Know

  A. 30 percent of dilated cardiomyopathy patients inherited their disease from a parent.

  B. Mine came from Dad.

  1. He didn’t know he had it, and only found out after both he and Mom were tested to determine the origin of mine. Now Mom has two silver linings to be thankful for.

  2. He’d been ignoring his own symptoms for years, attributing them to stress and not wanting to upset Mom.

  3. His isn’t as bad as mine and will be treated with a pacemaker.

  II. Things I Don’t Know

  A. How many silver linings it takes to bring the whole cloud crashing down

  I wait until Mom and Dad are gone to plug in my laptop, it being the consolation prize for learning I won’t be going home. As promised, they’d taken all the internet browsers off it, but they don’t know the first thing about messaging services. I pull up the one I use most often, weighing the pros and cons about who I should reach out to. I choose Brooke, because she’s online at the moment, and settle for something simple to announce my continued presence among the living.

  Hey.

  Holy shit that really u Sasha?

  Really me. Still in the hospital.

  I won’t ask if ur ok b/c I know ur not but I am so so so sorry about what we said. U don’t even know.

  I didn’t throw myself out the window because of my friends, but if Brooke wants to keep apologizing for it, I’m going to let her. I take a pic of my busted face with the webcam, closing my eyes. I send it to her without a caption.

  FUCK

  I rest my fingers for a little bit so that she can stare at what’s left of me before I let her off the hook.

  You would love it here. Lots of stitches and open wounds.

  Ha ha. Really Sash we’re so sorry, we set up a thing at school and people have been giving money.

  I glance at the cardiac center pamphlet. It’s going to take more than a bunch of kids giving up their lunch change to even make a dent in that bill, insurance or not.

  Isaac stopped me in the hall and gave me some money and it smelled like cigarettes and is probably from drugs but whatever. I washed it and put it in the jar.

  Isaac’s name in black and white sends a jolt through my system, a tiny stutter on my heart monitor.

  That’s nice of you. Thanks.

  Np. I feel really bad.

  Not your fault.

  Can I call u?

  Don’t have my phone.

  When are you coming home?

  My heart stumbles through another beat, not liking the answer any more than I do.

  I’m not. I have to go to live in this cardiac center where they can keep an eye on me until a transplant becomes available.

  That’s how the doctor had put it to me when we talked earlier, after Mom and Dad broke the news to me about my new living arrangements. Transplanted hearts don’t come into use because of a traumatic accident that ended someone else’s life; they become available, like a hotel room when someone else checks out. There’s a whole language used here that I have to get used to, words that they use so that it never sounds like you’re weighing one life against another.

  Cardiac center???? Transplant????!?!? WTF??????

  They foun
d out I have a heart condition and I need a new one.

  There’s a long pause before she answers me, and I imagine Brooke composing more apologies. What I get is:

  Do they let u keep the old one & can I see it?

  It’s so Brooke that I laugh, and my breathing tube pops out of my nose. I leave it lying on my chest, a cool whiff of oxygen hitting my chin.

  I don’t think so, but if they do it’s all yours.

  She answers with a smiley face and a thumbs-up.

  Do you still have your old phone?

  Yeah. Why?

  I need you to do me a favor.

  After talking to Brooke I open up a blank document and stare at it for a few minutes, not knowing how to start the conversation. I settle for something simple, and close the laptop. It whirs at me as I settle into bed, rolling onto my side so that my stitches are faceup, the prickly new hairs of my scalp not rubbing against the pillowcase. I can just see my outline in the window, a white smear with black holes where my eyes and mouth belong. I reach toward myself, the hand coming into detail, the IV cord trailing behind.

  “I’ll talk to you in the morning,” I say, and drift off to sleep.

  Are you still there?

  I am (her)e. S-(or)-ry. -Am I?-

  Not funny.

  Prog(no-sis) = Not good.

  You could have killed us both.

  (you too?)k my life, st(ill) had [non]e. 1 + 1 = 0 Two lives, n/ever/ lived.

  Why do I even try to talk to you?

  I listen.

  “Welcome to the cardiac center.”

  The woman at the front desk isn’t as pretty as the one in the brochure, but given that none of the children looked ill and all the staff had perfect teeth, I assumed they were models anyway. This woman’s teeth aren’t that great, but she smiles like she means it, so she either is truly happy to greet me, or there’s a pull string in her back.

  “Thank you,” Mom says, dropping one of my bags to the floor with a huff. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on her upper lip. It must be exhausting carrying around all my issues.

  My scalp is still prickling from a brush with the sun, warm fingers touching parts of my skin that have never felt its rays. I hold on to the last gasp of fresh air that I have inside me, knowing that once it’s expelled all I’m pulling in is recycled exhales of sick people made pleasantly cool by air-conditioning. I don’t know what I’m breathing in, but I know I’m letting out my last taste of the outside world. It leaves me in a rush and I feel its departure like an energy drain.

  I’m just like them now. And I don’t even mean the people in the pamphlet, because they clearly did their photo shoot and promptly vacated. The girl who wanders through reception has a nurse on each arm and an IV tree so loaded with bags it probably weighs more than she does. She puts each foot in front of the other with grim determination, even though the best thing she’s possibly headed toward is her favorite flavor of Jell-O.

  I get an ID bracelet with my name, birthdate, and blood type neatly printed. The letters that make up my name have never looked so dark, fresh toner bleeding onto the whiteness of the paper. I am Sasha Stone, a name that used to mean something, a girl who got what she wanted, a force to be reckoned with. As the pneumatic doors shut behind me and Mom tells the receptionist how nice she thinks it is that I can wear my own clothes at the center I become simply:

  STONE, SASHA (O NEG)

  This is all that matters now, a quick identification for when I finally have that embolism, or complete cardiac failure.

  “I can’t do this,” I say, staring straight ahead at the duffel bag Dad has flung over his shoulder. It’s packed to bursting with all the clothes they thought I could use, loose-fitting, for easier access to all the parts that might need to be poked, punctured, or simply torn open to get everything working again should all systems fail.

  “You have to, honey,” Mom says tightly through her teeth, as if I might be embarrassing her.

  But I don’t have to, that’s the thing. I thought it through a few nights ago, weighing the pros and cons of asking Mom and Dad to just take me home and let me die. Maybe I could go out while blowing on the high end of a Handel, my heart exploding at the perfect time. Maybe I could die under the pines, Isaac’s hair swaying in my face and the moonlight surrounding us as everything I had in me left in a breath. Maybe I could have an embolism sitting right in front of my computer, a sudden, stone-cold death for my friends to witness.

  I open my mouth to make the suggestion, and the receptionist pops a party favor into it, a ridiculous paper thing that creates something north of an F sharp and then splits down the middle to die, making a fart noise. It’s so ludicrous I start laughing, and Mom squeezes my hand.

  “Your room is this way, Sasha,” the receptionist says, like she’s the concierge somewhere really expensive. On second thought, I guess that’s exactly what she is. We walk down the hall, me now wearing a paper tiara that reads “WELCOME” in turquoise, Dad carrying a balloon bouquet that no one ordered and probably cost more than we want to know.

  “Karen.” The receptionist nods at a nurse coming our direction. “I want you to meet Sasha, our newest resident.”

  “Hello, Sasha,” Karen says, and comes in for a hug without asking. Luckily someone opens up a door and my balloons get caught up in a cross draft, a wall of rubber and helium protecting me from overenthusiastic friendliness.

  “Hi,” I say, giving her a nod and keeping the balloons between us. She gets the point and settles for nodding back.

  “You’re going to be very comfortable here,” Karen says, and I wonder if that’s the highest thing I can aspire to now. Dying in comfort. “Your room is right down this wing with the other girls your age.”

  She motions toward a corridor painted sky blue, and we all head that direction, a funeral procession missing the coffin. I glance into the other rooms as we pass, but I only see a patient in one of them, lying on her side, back to the hallway, arms curled protectively around herself.

  My room is 211 and I pause in front of it, noticing the scratch marks where the name placard underneath has been changed many, many times. Did this room open up for me because someone got better, or worse?

  “This is nice, isn’t it?” Mom waltzes past me to push open the curtains, the outside light flooding what I have to admit is, in fact, a pretty nice room. They’ve gone out of their way to make it look more like a hotel and less like a hospital. I have a sofa and a dresser to put clothes in. The sheets on the bed are extra long so that they touch the floor on both sides of the mattress, which makes it look luxurious but will also hide all the cords attached to me. Finally, the TV isn’t mounted on the ceiling, which instantly makes any room feel institutionalized.

  “Yeah, not bad,” I have to agree.

  Dad plops onto the sofa. “Better than at home,” he declares. And he would know, since Mom put him on it the night after I threw dinner at the wall.

  I find the most important thing first—an electrical outlet—and get my laptop hooked in immediately. Mom busies herself putting away my clothes, and I take my little bag of toiletries into the bathroom, where the decorator didn’t try as hard. I guess there’s no real way to dress up handicap rails, but there’s something stark about the frank admission in this room that I might not be able to stand up and sit down without assistance.

  There’s also a phone right beside the toilet.

  I think I’d rather die than call for help with my pants around my ankles.

  I go back out to the bedroom to find Mom and Dad looking helpless. All my things are put away, a framed picture of them from the last time they really seemed to like each other—about ten years ago—is sitting next to the TV. With my clothes out of evidence and my laptop tucked under the pillow, there’s nothing in here that says this is my room.

  Until I hear the sound of the name placard being changed outside.

  Now this is where Sasha Stone lives.

  And probably where she’ll die.

/>   twenty-one

  I decide ten minutes into our first session at the cardiac center that I’m going to buy Amanda a T-shirt that reads, And How Does That Make You Feel? That’s been her response to everything so far, from my reaction to a very permanent-looking plastic nameplate being inserted into the Room 211 slot, to the fact that the password to the WiFi is hearthealthy.

  “So yesterday was your first day here,” she says, her ankle tapping against one leg of the rolling chair she’s wheeled into my room for what she calls a sit-down even though I’m lying on the couch. “Have you met the other residents?”

  I shake my head, not wanting to go into detail. Mom and Dad left after getting me settled, like this was fourth-grade camp and it would be easier for everyone if they cut the cord fast. Except at camp we were all lost and bewildered, forming groups for safety right away. Here the packs are already in place, and I’m wandering among them with half my face sewn back on, which automatically made them close ranks. I ate my dinner in a corner while pretending to read the menu that informed me how everything I eat here is perfectly calibrated to not make me spontaneously die.

  “This must all be coming as quite a shock,” Amanda goes on, after making some sort of note on her pad, probably about my antisocial behavior.

  “No,” I deadpan. “I’ve been expecting it.”

  Amanda uncrosses her legs, and I notice that her socks don’t match. “Look,” she says, “you asked me to be here. The therapist who usually covers ER on-call would have taken one look at you and dished you off to a four-letter without thinking twice.”

  “Four-letter?”

  “Someone with a lot more credentials than me,” she explains.

  “You’re turning into a complicated case, Sasha Stone,” Amanda goes on, chewing on the end of her eraser while she looks over her notes. “The night of the accident you told me you jumped out your bedroom window. But I’m seeing in the notes from your cardiac team now you claim it was a fall?”

  “It was a fall,” I repeat the end of her question as a statement.

  She looks up. Her face would be cool and collected if it wasn’t for the bit of eraser hanging off her lip. “You sure about that?”