This Darkness Mine

  “Do you know the difference between the mind and the brain?” I ask.

  Amanda blinks quickly a couple of times, and I can’t tell if she’s surprised that I know to ask in the first place or insulted that I am putting the question to someone with a degree. An associate’s degree, anyway.

  “Yes, I know the difference,” she says. “Do you?”

  “Your brain is an organ. Your mind is your consciousness, your thoughts, the definition of who you are.” I close my eyes, hoping that the words are right, the logic inside of me finding a channel out that others will comprehend. “The brain is a physical thing, but a mind is separate and indistinct. Like a soul. An identity.”

  “Okay.” Amanda nods.

  I keep my eyes closed, the darkness helping me draw sense into my words. “So . . .” I go slowly, not wanting to confuse Amanda. “I have Shanna’s self inside of me, wrapped up in her heart. If I look at an inversion of myself, like the mirror box, I guess . . . I guess I’d see her.”

  It feels right, like I’ve done it. Unwound another problem put in front of me and come up with the answer. I open my eyes, and Amanda stares back at me so long I have to resist the urge to tell her that her glasses are crooked.

  “I spoke to your mother yesterday,” she finally says.

  Amanda is smarter than she looks. This is her first non-question, and she vocalized something meant to throw me off guard.

  “Okay” is all I say.

  “She’s made some progress in therapy sessions with her own doctor.”

  I keep my face stiff, hoping she can’t tell I didn’t know Mom was in therapy. Ever since Dad cut his losses with me he’s re-upped his investment in her, which I imagine is where this is coming from. I picture them stopping at Starbucks on the way home from her appointments, sitting by the lake in the park we used to picnic in together. Except now there’s no space between them on the bench where I used to be. It would almost be romantic if it didn’t leave me stranded.

  “She said I could share some things with you that you might find helpful. Would you like to hear them?”

  I try to want to. I think Sasha Stone would want to. Somewhere, her heart cares that her mother has been destroyed by this, and that the little pieces are being put back together by a stranger while she’s being sidelined. As if Sasha Stone were an impediment to her own mother’s improvement.

  “Yes, tell me,” I say.

  Amanda flips some pages in her notebook, and I wonder where the demarcation is between the pages that are about me, the pages that are about Shanna, and the ones about my mom, and if the ink bleeds through, one page to the next.

  “She told her doctor that she was worried about weight gain when she found out she was pregnant with twins, and that she was determined to remain active throughout the pregnancy. But that she may have overdone it.”

  “Okay,” I say again, keeping my face blank while Amanda waits for me to interpret.

  “Sasha, your mother blames herself for your sister’s miscarriage. She always has.”

  I nod to encourage her to go on, not because I agree.

  “Your mother has been carrying the guilt for years, and the chance to right the wrong to the unborn child inside her living daughter made her want to believe you.”

  Amanda leans forward in her chair, which should be dramatic but she loses her balance when it rolls a little.

  “Sasha, I’ve spoken to quite a few doctors on this topic and all of them say that there’s no way to effectively determine what causes a miscarriage that early in pregnancy. Your mother didn’t cause the miscarriage, and neither did you. You don’t owe her anything.”

  “Well, she gave birth to me, so . . .”

  “I mean Shanna,” Amanda says.

  I lean toward her as well, because I think she would like that. “I know,” I say.

  What I don’t say is that I’m starting to think Shanna owes me.

  Big-time.

  I am (here you are) you (there? goes my heart) attack—serious as (a little birdie told me that you hate me).

  And I believe that little birdie.

  From Isaac

  How you feeling?

  Sasha?

  Sasha?

  I. Things I Know

  A. Mind over matter is not only a saying.

  B. Buddhist monk Thích Quang Duc set himself on fire in 1963, meditating peacefully while he burned alive.

  II. Things I Don’t Know

  A. How far I can take this

  thirty

  TODAY AT THE CARDIAC CENER!

  Apparently not proofreading classes.

  11:00 a.m.—Civil War Reenactment on the Lawn! Get hooked on hoop skirts as the Historical Society brings us their best! Note: The cannon will not be in use due to last year’s pacemaker incident.

  I would rather hear about that incident than attend the event.

  2:00 p.m.—Wild for Woolies! The zoo brings in their cuddliest cuties for some special playtime in the common room!

  To be followed by earnest hand washing so that our compromised immune systems don’t collapse.

  4:00 p.m.—Songs with Sasha! Who knew such talent walked these halls? Come hear resident musician Sasha Stone in the meditation room to get those toes tapping!

  “You’re famous,” Layla says as I take my seat at lunch.

  “Only in the Cardiac Cener,” I say, and she rolls her eyes.

  “Yeah, I knew you’d catch that typo.”

  I try to act like I don’t care, but the truth is that instead of ending up as a crumpled ball in my trash can, like every other day’s schedule, today’s is tucked in between the pages of the only romance novel Layla’s mom could bring me that didn’t have three inches of cleavage and some side boob on the cover.

  “Wild for Woolies?” Brandy asks, eyeing the schedule. “Do they even know?”

  “No,” Layla says with conviction. “They don’t know.”

  “Know what?” I ask, peeling a banana.

  “Lily-white,” Layla singsongs under her breath, so I look to Brandy for the explanation.

  “A wooly is a big old joint laced with crack,” she says.

  “I’m definitely not wild for that,” I tell her.

  “No shit,” Brandy says, managing some fake shock.

  “We should write our own schedule,” Layla says, pulling the sheet back from Brandy.

  “Dead-on,” Brandy says. “Um . . . give me a sec . . . Fondle the Furries!”

  “Wait, wait, wait, I got it,” Layla says. “Meet your favorite mascot in the laundry room to get down in kinktown.”

  “A furry is—”

  “Yeah, I actually know that one, thanks,” I stop Brandy from explaining.

  “Roll Your Own,” Layla goes on in a fake radio announcer voice. “Nurse Karen isn’t the only one with skills! Joints with Angela meets before dinner!”

  “You guys . . .” I try to shush them, but Layla holds her hand out.

  “Okay, okay, I know. Belt the Bitch! Nadine will be grabbing her ankles—”

  “GUYS,” I say, and they understand two seconds too late.

  Brandy sighs. “She’s standing right behind us, isn’t she?”

  Layla and Brandy turn to face Nadine, whose face is white with anger, her lips a flat line.

  “Hey, sorry, Nadine.” Layla at least has the grace to look guilty; Brandy is just glancing between the two of them like she’s gauging how much time she needs to get away on her gimp foot.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” Layla goes on. “We got carried away.”

  Nadine shakes her head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Layla.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Sorry for you that the organ donor registry isn’t an equal-opportunity employer,” she says, and Brandy stands up. I think she’s going to run for it, but instead she plants herself firmly in between the two of them.

  “Shut your face,” Brandy says, low and quiet.

  “What are you going do, crip? Chase
me down?” Nadine says, stepping in toward Brandy.

  “I can’t catch you,” Brandy says. “But I’ve got a good arm, a decent aim, and this foot pops off pretty quick.”

  I can’t help it, I snort into my orange juice, which is a mistake. Nadine looks over Brandy’s shoulder to lock eyes with me.

  “And you, Frankenstein,” she says. “I don’t care how good you are on that flute—”

  “It’s a clarinet,” I correct her without thinking, and Layla covers a smile.

  Nadine is shaking now, and we’ve drawn the attention of some of the ladies behind the lunch counter. I see one hurry off in the direction of the nurses’ desk. Apparently they don’t make enough to break up girl fights.

  “I don’t care how good you are on that clarinet,” Nadine tries again. “You’re a whack job and everyone knows it. You should be in a mental ward, not here.”

  “Whack job, I hear you’re good at those,” Layla says.

  “She’s fucking crazy!” Nadine lashes out, pushing aside Brandy to stick a finger in my face. “I was outside your room the other day when you got into it with that douche face. That bullshit story about your sister’s heart? That’s not how absorbing your twin even works, dumbass. I googled it.”

  Everyone is quiet, the entire cafeteria standing to get a better look at what’s turning into the best entertainment of the day. And as I take in the silence, I realize something other than the hum of voices is missing. My own heartbeat.

  I focus on Nadine’s finger, the tip of it shaking inches from my nose. It’s vibrating with her anger, a steady jazz beat rippling off the end of her nail. I can’t follow it, can’t ask my lungs or my heart to maintain that pace.

  “Shut up,” I say, wanting only silence, something I can recalibrate in.

  “You call me on out on my shit, I call you out on yours,” Nadine says, but her voice is hollow, like someone yelling into the wrong end of a tuba.

  Layla’s hand is on my arm, dark on pale, like a clarinet in reverse. I want to tell her that, but there’s no breath inside of me, nothing to push out and no need to pull in. My LVAD gives a pump, a tiny current in a sluggish river, and I hit the floor. I hear some of the smaller kids crying, feel a cold river of orange juice flowing down from the table to land in the middle of my back, but all I can think about as I lose consciousness is Brandy’s prosthetic right foot in front of my face, and how nice the toes look.

  It’s a fresh coat, so slick I can see shadows dancing off them as nurses run to me. They roll me over, but there’s only darkness in my vision as everything else fades out. Everything except Brandy’s fake toes, bright and beautiful, perfectly painted because she doesn’t have to do it upside down or at a weird angle. She can take her foot off and fix it any way she wants.

  She’s definitely onto something.

  thirty-one

  From Isaac

  U ok?

  Answr me.

  There’s no “I” in T-E-A-M but there’s a “win” in T-W-I-N

  U – ME =

  There is a small gathering of people in the hall outside my room. I hear Mom and Dad, their voices low and muted. Amanda is out there too, her voice slightly higher in pitch so that it carries. I can pick out a few of her words, little accents to follow the low rumble of Dad’s voice. She’s saying things like anxiety and panic attack, and I imagine the other girls in their rooms, ears pressed against their doors, sucking up the drama along with my diagnosis.

  Nurse Karen is with me, recording my pulse, monitoring my heart rate, taking my temperature. “How you doing, honey?”

  “You tell me,” I say, watching her face as she types my data into the laptop she carries with her.

  “Your temp is a little elevated,” she says. “The doctor will probably order some blood work, see if we can find out why.”

  “Like an infection?”

  I think of Shanna, curled inside of me, surrounded by metal, pockets of pus forming around her.

  “Could be,” she sets the laptop aside, reaches out to pat my hand. “Could be just a bug in your system.”

  “I need to get it out,” I tell her. “I’ve got to be healthy if a negative Rh heart becomes available.”

  “One will, Sasha. I just know it,” Karen insists, her optimism contrary to countless bar graphs and data tables. Karen’s pie chart would be a happy face, a bright shining zero on the pain scale, defying reality on a daily basis.

  There’s a hesitant knock on my door and Mom pokes her head in. I get a glimpse of Dad in the hall, the knot on his tie pulled loose. Amanda stands beside him, spinning her car keys on her index finger. Everyone has dropped what they were doing and come here to support me, a girl full of metal and pus and infection and another girl.

  “Hey, honey,” Mom whispers, as if my eardrums were the problem and not my heart. “How are you feeling?”

  The truth is that I feel empty, all the fullness of the altercation at lunch having overflowed and left me with nothing. I think the only thing inside me right now is an LVAD, pumping nothing into a void.

  “I’m fine,” I say. And I absolutely have to be. If I’ve been exposed to any pathogens or show signs of an illness when a heart with my blood type becomes available it’ll go to the next person on the list. Nurse Karen pats Mom on her way out, and all the muscles in my face slide downward.

  “It’s all right,” Mom says, which is a dumb thing to say because it’s definitely not. My face screws up into a convulsion I hate, as uncontrollable as Shanna when she’s made a decision. I’m crying against my will, dashing tears from my face and trying to avoid Mom’s hug as delicately as possible because if I’m sick I could get her sick too. Never mind if it’s a flu bug or the void inside me. If it makes the jump to her, Dad will never look at me again.

  “I’ve got a fever; you probably shouldn’t touch me,” I say, so she settles for wetting a washcloth in the bathroom and wiping my face.

  “Want to talk about what happened?”

  “Some of the other girls got into it,” I say. “Stupid stuff. I tried to stay out of it, but Nadine said that I’m crazy and Shanna didn’t like that.”

  Mom’s face stays neutral, but I feel the tiniest tremor through the washcloth as she pulls it away from my face. “Uh-huh,” she says in a tight, controlled tone.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” I ask, my voice cracking on believe. It’s like practice sessions from when I was a sixth grader, but now it’s my vocal cords, not my clarinet, that squeak because I don’t know how to handle them.

  Mom folds the washcloth into a square, as if having some form of geometric shape in this room can alleviate the situation.

  “Honey, I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist, and Dr. Zhang thinks—”

  But she doesn’t get to tell me what Dr. Zhang thinks because there’s an all-encompassing sound in the room, the moan of the low end of the B flat scale and it’s spiraling upward, not missing a note. It’s coming from deep inside of me, my own body the instrument and despair the musician. My own mother does not believe me anymore.

  Our mother.

  The door opens and Dad pulls Mom away from the bed as I grab for her hands, her fingers still cool and wet from the washcloth.

  “Stop it, stop,” Dad is yelling, and I think it’s at me. “This was not a good idea. You shouldn’t be alone with her.”

  I’ve got a good grip on Mom’s wrist, and I’m not giving her up so easily. I yank her back toward me, and she knocks into my IV tree. It crashes to the ground, tearing the needle out of the soft inner flesh of my elbow and sending a spray of cold fluid and warm blood across all of us.

  “You’ll get sick, you’ll get sick, you’ll get sick,” I’m screaming now, up on my knees on the bed, swiping at Mom’s face with the washcloth, trying to get her clean so that she’s not infected by me, by Shanna.

  “Goddamn it, nurse! Nurse!” Dad is yelling as he pulls Mom, who has become a bag of flesh and bones that drags at his feet, out into the hallway.


  Amanda pins my wrists above me on the bed as Karen rushes in, slamming the door behind her. I glimpse faces in the hallway, Brandy and Layla have their arms around each other, Jo’s mouth is hanging open, and Nadine is standing on her tiptoes to get a better view.

  “What the fuck?” Karen says, which goes so far against everything I know about her that I start laughing.

  “Sasha,” Amanda puts her face down to mine, her voice calm and steady. “You need to listen to me. If you want me to let go of you, you’ll have to calm down. I cannot let go of you until you’re safe and everyone around you is safe.”

  She readjusts her grip on my wrists and leans in closer. I can tell she had a cheeseburger with onions for lunch, and I can’t even be disgusted by her breath because I’m so jealous of the fact that she got to eat it in the first place.

  “Got her?” Karen asks, and Amanda nods, not looking away from me.

  There’s a brush of coolness against my bicep as Karen swipes me with an antiseptic pad, and I get a glimpse of her frown as she stabs a needle in. I close my eyes as the sedative takes hold, not wanting to see how she’s gone from a zero to a five on the pain scale, and I’m the cause. Usually I get a warning before the poke, but I must have really messed up this time because she didn’t say a word, just jabbed me.

  “It’s not my fault,” I tell Amanda, but her grip on me doesn’t let up.

  “She’s causing a scene and—” Karen begins, and I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter.

  “Stop,” Amanda cuts her off, and the bones in my wrist are ground together a little bit but I don’t complain. She’s the only person on my side now.

  “She’s upsetting my other patients—”

  “Stop,” Amanda says again, leaving no room for argument. Karen makes a noise in her throat, and I wish I could close my ears too. I hear the door open, the sound of Mom’s muted crying from down the hallway, and then it clicks closed again.

  “Sasha, can I let go of you now?”

  I lick my lips and nod. The pressure is gone, and the feeling of warmth emanating from her over me disappears.

  “You can open your eyes,” she says, and I do, peeling them open to see her sitting in the chair at the foot of my bed, her head in her hands.