A Heartbeat Away Read online

  She shrugged. “That’s easy. I want to get back to work, return to oncology surgery. I want to make a difference in the lives of my patients.”

  “But something has come up. There’s an obstacle blocking your goal.” He held up his hands. “This.” He paused. “You need to work some things out before you can get back to the job you love.”

  She nodded, sighing.

  “Do you want to talk about your anger?”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Look, I’ve been around here long enough to have heard the stories.”

  “The stories aren’t necessarily true. I’m hard on the nurses. That part is true. But I don’t discipline them in anger.”

  “You call them names.”

  “Stupid isn’t a name. It’s an adjective. And in most cases, an accurate one.”

  “So in your mind, anger is not an issue.”

  “Now we’re communicating.”

  “Maybe we should talk about perfectionism, driven behaviors.”

  “Tell me something, Phin. If you were seeing a surgeon because you had cancer, wouldn’t you want that surgeon to be perfect and to drive her team to be perfect?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So I don’t see a real problem.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  She softened. “Okay, look, I’m pretty frustrated with myself right now.”

  He waited silently for her to continue.

  “On the one hand, I know I haven’t been sensitive to the nurses’ feelings.” She hesitated, searching his face for understanding. When he nodded, she continued. “This is new territory for me. While I know there have been times when the nurses should have been better, I know I’ve offended them when I come down on them.” She touched her head. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. I still feel like things should be done according to the highest standard, but—” She stopped. “I think I’ve stepped on a whole lot of toes in the process.” She sighed. “The nurses here don’t even want to get me as an assignment. That tells me a lot.”

  “This sounds like progress.”

  She tried to smile. “Maybe.”

  “We work as a team here. So anything the team has discussed about you, I’ve been privy to.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And just what does the team say?”

  “Dr. Samuelson told me about your nightmares.”

  She stayed quiet.

  “Can you talk about that?”

  “Okay,” she said, suddenly aware that her voice was tightening. She studied the social worker’s handsome face. I can do this. “It’s weird. I’ve never had such vivid dreams. I’m hesitant to even call them dreams. They seem so real. I wake up with the feeling that I’ve tapped an old memory.”

  “Something bad in your past.”

  “That’s just it. Sure, I had some knocks growing up. My dad was killed in Iraq, and my mom died of breast cancer when I was a teen. But nothing ever like the stuff that haunts my nights.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fire. Voices crying for help. A man’s voice. A mean man.”

  “How do you know he’s mean?”

  She looked away. “I just know. It’s like it happened to me.” She took a deep breath. “He pushed me down the stairs.”

  “Wow.” He sat quietly.

  The silence between them was comfortable. She had to resist reaching out to brush his callused hands. “The last time I awoke from a nightmare, I had the distinct knowledge that someone wanted me dead.” She studied his expression.

  “What else?”

  “A woman. Blonde. Green eyes. A tattoo of two hearts on her left shoulder. She gave me a number to remember.” She reached for one of her cards on the side table. “Got a pen?” She wrote it in block letters, just like the number that had been handed to her in the dream. “It was like this. 3. 1. 6. Just like that. I don’t write in block letters, but that’s what the note looked like.”

  Phin ran his fingers through thick brown hair that was cut short over the ears.

  “What? Why do you just sit there taking it all in? You think I’m crazy?”

  He crossed his legs. A one-word answer. “No.”

  “What?” She leaned forward. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve got an idea.” Their eyes met. He seemed to be studying her.

  She wouldn’t look away. She waited for an answer.

  “I think they are memories.”

  She coughed, something that hurt her chest. She reached up, tightening her fist over her gown. “I told you, nothing like that ever happened to me.”

  “Maybe not to you.”

  She shook her head.

  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Ever heard of cellular memory?”

  “No.”

  “It’s talked about in transplant circles.” He paused. “I think your memories may belong to your heart donor.”

  7

  That summer, Christian Mitchell and Emily Greene were inseparable. The closeness of their farms made it easy for them to spend their evenings on the Greenes’ expansive covered front porch.

  “What do you do for all those hours?” his mom asked.

  “We just chill, Mom. Talk.” Chris shrugged.

  And talk they did. About anything and everything. Everything except the looming topic of their separation.

  Christian knew it was coming, and it had become the unvented lava beneath the surface in his family. He didn’t want to return to Africa. He loved Emily. He wanted to be with her. His father was steadfast in his commitment. “If we don’t return, the hospital will be without a surgeon and will likely close its doors.”

  One day on Emily’s front porch, he decided it was time to face the future. It was dusk, and the summer air was heavy with the buzzing sound of cicadas. Emily handed him a tall glass of sweet iced tea, the sweat dripping from the cool surface. “My father knows the hospital administrator over at Shore General. He’s pretty sure they’ve been looking for a surgeon. I think he can get your dad a job.”

  Christian sighed. “Not going to happen. My father is set on returning to Africa. We’ve already got the tickets. We leave in six weeks.”

  “They can’t just take you against your will.”

  “Sure they can. I’m their kid.”

  She sat on the porch swing beside him. “We’re adults, basically. Let them go.” She brushed his bangs back from his forehead with her hand. “Stay with me.”

  He looked back into her eyes and touched her cheek with his hand. “I believe in what my parents are doing. It’s important stuff.”

  She pouted. “I’m important too.” She brightened. “We could run away.”

  “We have no money.”

  “I know the combination to my father’s safe.”

  “We can’t start a life together like that.”

  “I want you to take me away.”

  “To Africa?”

  “No, silly. America. But just away from here.”

  “You’ve got it made, Emily. Why would you want to leave this?”

  “It may look great from the outside, but my father is too strict.”

  Christian squinted.

  She straightened. “I have an idea.” She set her tea on a small wicker table beside the swing. “If this works, your parents would never take you to Africa.”

  “What? There is nothing that would keep them from leaving.” He sighed. “I hope you like letters.”

  “There is one thing,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It would take a miracle.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear. “Or you could just get me pregnant.”

/>   Tori looked down at the yellow legal pad in her lap. Phin had encouraged her to think about all the ways she sensed a difference about herself since her transplant, differences that couldn’t be accounted for by medicine or surgery alone.

  She’d written:

  I can cry—can’t remember the last time I cried before the surgery.

  I’ve never been a “toucher” before, but now I want to hold hands with Jarrod.

  She paused, not wanting to write down “and Phin” because she needed to show him her list. But the memory of his callused hand seemed dear to her. Weird, because to want to do that seems so teenybopper to me.

  “What about different food, dress, or music preferences?” Phin had prompted.

  She thought about her tastes. Nothing seemed to have changed there.

  When she finished writing, she opened her laptop to do an Internet search on cellular memory. What she found was not only peculiar, it was downright creepy. A heart-transplant recipient who found a new love for classical music discovered his donor had been a classical violinist. Another had a new penchant for peppers and beer, just like his donor. Over and over again, there were anecdotal reports of changes in tastes, emotions, and even memories.

  When Phin came by later that morning, she closed her laptop and folded the paper she’d been using. She wasn’t quite ready to share this with him yet.

  She smiled when their eyes met, and it struck her how easy it was for her to talk to him. She’d never really been able to open up and talk easily to anyone outside a very small circle. Maybe another change?

  He held out his hand formally. She took it, letting her fingers trace the calluses on his palm. She took a deep breath and began, “If you are right about all this, I think I need to find out who my donor was.”

  “And why would you need to do that?”

  Tori shrugged. “If I can find out about my donor, maybe I can understand these horrible memories. Maybe I can find peace again.”

  He scratched his head. She’d noticed that he did this when he didn’t agree with her. “I don’t know, Tori. If there was trouble in the life of your donor, how is it going to help you come to peace?”

  “Because I’ll have some truth to hang these memories on. As it is, I have only images, feelings of dread, and pain. What does it mean?”

  “Maybe there are things you don’t want to know. What if your donor wasn’t a nice person? Would you really want to know?”

  “What about the number? A woman made me promise to memorize it, saying she wanted to make—” Tori winced at needing to say the word—“that bastard pay.”

  “That’s a problem,” he said. “The records of donors are sealed from the recipients’ knowledge unless the family wants recipient contact, and then only if the recipient agrees.”

  “Well, I’ll agree. I need to talk to her family, to see if they can make some sense of these memories.”

  “I think it would be best if you could just accept that the troubling memories may not be your own and let that help you move on.”

  That idea didn’t feel right to Tori. She’d never been much for intuition, but something inside told her she needed to push forward. “Look, Phin, I don’t expect you to understand, but some woman died and gave me her heart. Don’t I owe her anything? What if there is a police investigation into her death? Shouldn’t I tell them what I know?”

  “Oh, I’m sure that would go over big,” he said. “I received a heart from Jane Doe and now I have her memories living in me.” He shook his head. “I know I believe you, but I’m pretty sure that many others would laugh in your face.”

  Tori folded her arms across her chest. “Maybe I’m weird, but I can’t walk away from this. I’ve got memories that I didn’t choose. Maybe I’m supposed to do something about this.” She laid her hand on top of Phin’s, something she’d wanted to do since dropping his handshake. His hand was warm, and she enjoyed the fact that he turned his palm open to hers in response. “I need to talk to the transplant coordinator. I’ll explain that I think someone may be in trouble.”

  He leaned forward. “This is new for you too, isn’t it, the feeling that you are being led?”

  She looked at the ceiling, thinking. “Yes. Yes, I think that’s true. Another difference.” She paused. “I’m going to have a talk with the transplant coordinator.”

  “Barb Stiles? She’s pretty much a by-the-book gal.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Phin took his other hand and covered hers. Now he held her right hand with both of his. He didn’t move to take them away when she spread open her fingers to receive his. “Let this go, Tori. Nothing good can come of it.”

  “I can’t. My donor gave me life. I owe her this.”

  He shrugged. “Talk to Barb then. But when she turns you down, remember, I warned you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I hear you’re being discharged tomorrow.”

  “Yep, my old friend Charlotte to the rescue.”

  He stood to go, pausing to put his card on her rolling table. “Call me. We still need to talk.”

  “You’re going to hold me to this, aren’t you?”

  “If you want to go back to work,” he said, smiling. “Look, it might be helpful not to let the dreams get to you. If you can accept that they may not be your memories at all, it may be less threatening to talk them through. Let’s do that next time.” He let the door swing shut and his chuckling faded with the closing of the door.

  She watched him go, marveling at his intuition. What was it he said? That I feel led?

  She shook her head and shivered. Yes, that’s exactly what I feel.

  The next afternoon, Tori sat on the back deck of Charlotte’s old Richmond home. Her house was a place of solitude in the city, in an area known as the Fan because the streets extended west from downtown like spokes from a hub. She sat on a cushioned wicker chair surrounded by tall potted plants, looking out over a manicured garden of a back lawn, a place of greens, purples, reds, and orange bordered by a high redwood slat fence.

  But Tori wasn’t seeing the lawn, the flowers, or even the tall magnolia tree that scented the air around her. She’d been transported by a memory.

  “If he comes, we’d better be ready to run.” Fear flickered across green eyes. “Take this,” she said, shoving the paper forward. “In case I don’t make it.”

  Images blurred.

  Smoke. Fire.

  Screams.

  Tori closed her fist and held it over her heart.

  Just what does this mean? What have I been given beyond this organ of muscle?

  “Tori? Are you okay?”

  She looked up. The voice belonged to Charlotte.

  “You’re sweating. I’ll set up a fan.”

  “No,” Tori said. “I’m not hot.” She looked at the pill-bottle collection on the glass-topped table in front of her. Cellcept, Prograf, Sandimmune, and Prednisone, all powerful drugs to keep her from rejecting the heart she’d received.

  Charlotte sat in a second wicker chair and forced a smile, something that sprayed fine wrinkles from the corners of her eyes and creased the skin beneath her short white Afro. “What is it?”

  “Not sure,” Tori said, sighing. “Memories.”

  Charlotte leaned forward. “Something you need to talk about?”

  Tori studied her old friend. How to explain? “This may sound weird, but I think I’ve gotten more than I wanted from my heart donor.”

  “More than you—”

  “Transplanted memories,” Tori interrupted.

  Charlotte’s expression revealed her confusion.

  “It’s been described in transplant literature. Some people believe it. Some don’t. But there are unexplainable cases of new memories in transplant recipients.” Tori paused,
looking at her friend.

  “And you think you have such memories?”

  Tori nodded. “Some of the images are vague. I remember a fire. Screams.”

  Charlotte reached forward and touched a scar on Tori’s arm. The skin graft.

  Tori shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not that.” She shifted in her seat. “I burned my arm on a motorcycle muffler. I was very young. I don’t even remember it.”

  Charlotte stayed quiet. After a minute, she spoke again. “You didn’t receive a brain transplant, Tori.”

  She laughed. “But that doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to memories. No one seems to really know how memories are stored. Is it physical? A molecule? A sequence of firing of nerve synapses?” Tori paused. “There is a complicated network of nerves that surround the heart. When a transplant is done, it all goes, heart, surrounding nerves, the whole network. Who’s to say that the heart doesn’t have its own memories?”

  “You have other new memories?”

  “Images mostly.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Some are detailed and sharp. A piece of paper with a number. 316. I was told to remember the number. It’s a clue, something that will help convict a very bad man.”

  Charlotte’s eyes went to the medicines.

  “It’s not those, either. Unless the medicines that keep me from rejecting my heart are keeping me from fighting off senseless hallucinations, too.” She shrugged. “Maybe my defenses are down all around, even my mental ones.”

  “What does Dr. Parrish think?”

  “I haven’t told him.”

  “You need to do that. He may want to change your meds.”

  Tori didn’t like the direction of their conversation. But she knew Charlotte’s reaction of disbelief would be typical if Tori decided to share her feelings. “They seem so real.”

  “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Maybe you’re mixing up some past trauma—”

  “No!” Tori huffed. “I shouldn’t have told you. You think I’m crazy.”

  “Tori, you almost died before your transplant. Your job is in jeopardy. You’re on a boatload of powerful medicines. I’m the last one who would think you’re crazy.”