J.S. Lark - After You Fell

The nurse’s smile widens as she comes closer and touches my hand.

Her hand is cold.

‘Hello. I am Mandy. I haven’t had the privilege before, but I am glad to meet you at the point you’ll be getting better.’ She turns away, looking at the monitors.

‘What time is it?’

‘Eleven, and it’s Saturday. We kept you unconscious for a while after the operation to give your body chance to rest.’

‘Is everything okay?’

She smiles again, more reassuring than any words could give, before looking at the bag of slowly dripping liquid. ‘Everything is fine and your brother is waiting outside. He’d like to come in and see you if you are up to a visit?’

‘Is he alone?’

‘Yes.’

A ripple of pleasure skims through my body. He chose to stay here with me. ‘Please.’

‘He’s been here a lot.’

A smile pulls at my lips. A smile that has risen all the way up through my body, right from my toes to my lips.

When the nurse leaves, my fingers curl and press into the crisply starched sheet. I check that my toes move, brushing them against the weight of the sheet and blanket.

The machine’s rhythm carries on with its sharp bleep declaring the pace of my heart. My heart now; someone else’s heart before.

But mine now.

The pulse resonates in my fingertips, toes and ears. It is a strange feeling – an extreme, unreal feeling – to have a heart that works.

A sphere of light shimmers at the corner of the room. Near the ceiling.

I look at the open door, waiting for him to come.

Pump-pump. Pump-pump.

The sphere flies in front of my vision, across the open door. But it stays in the room with me.

I am in a hospital. It doesn’t surprise me that there are spirits. But I do not want to engage with them here. They will have experienced pain here. I have known enough of my own pain, I don’t want to know theirs.

Another breath runs out of my lungs, in a smooth, easy, painless motion.

I am used to a lack of energy that doesn’t give me the strength to breathe. A week ago, my heart lurched in a beat when I breathed in but barely moved when I breathed out.

‘Hello, you.’

‘Simon.’ The excitement in my recognition is muffled by the mask but my hand stretches out, in the way I would have reached out and wrapped my arms about his neck if I could.

His footsteps are heavier than the nurses, hard leather soles that I am used to hearing on tiled hospital floors.

‘How are you feeling?’ He lifts the mask off my nose and moves it down to balance on my chin so he can kiss my cheek. Extra pulses shoot from my new heart.

‘Tired. But amazing, and thirsty.’

‘You can give her some water?’ The nurse is standing by the open door.

I nod at Simon, ignoring her. The pillowcase feels coarse and my hair dirty.

He’s all I have. Him and his children.

I want my own children, though, not just to borrow his.

Another ripple of emotion flows through my prone body.

I have the heart I have been waiting for. But I no longer have Dan.

We had talked about adoption.

Now I have a healthy heart, now I can have children, and Dan is not here.

Pump-pump. Pump-pump.

The heart moves in my chest, squeezing out and pulling in the blood – its pulse striking its rhythm in every artery like the tune of a ticking clock in an empty house. It is so strong it feels as if the heart will beat its way out of my body.

It can’t. It is trapped inside me now. Attached, so its movement keeps me alive.

There is someone here, though.

Someone with me.

Someone who is no longer alive.

The weight and density of their spirit is filling the space in the small room, making the atmosphere close. As if I am standing in a large crowd and too many people are breathing the same air.

The owner of the heart?

The straw Simon holds to my mouth scrapes my lip.

I have been breathing slowly for months, sitting in a bed or a chair, doing nothing, trying not to tire out my heart; preserving my life second by second and hoping that a heart would be found. The longing for children kept me going even when my old heart cracked open and oozed pain like the leaking yolk of a soft-boiled egg.

I can have the children I want now.

Thank you. I say the words to the soul that’s hovering around me. If it is you: thank you.

This operation is a beginning. Today is the start of a new life for me. But it was the end of theirs.

The water is deliciously cool. It tastes far too nice to be water. I can feel it inside my throat as I swallow almost as much as I can feel the beat of the heart in my chest.

Simon is the one that kept me alive when I was young. He gave me reason after reason to fight on with unconditional love as wide as an ocean. I want to give all the love that he’s taught me to my children.

He takes the cup away and puts it down.

I lift a hand, asking him to hold it.

His hand strokes over my hair, the touch stirring strands that are matted. His hand falls, wraps around mine and holds tight. ‘You’re going to be okay.’

I nod. I know.

A cartoon-like sparkle catches in his right eye, the white light in the room reflecting on the sheen of tears. The aura around him is sunshine, orange and yellow, and the orb is hovering behind him.

But the orb is not the owner of the heart.

The weight of exhaustion suddenly presses like large hands on my chest, pushing me down and submerging me in a swamp of fatigue. I can’t stay awake any more.

A memory of Simon and me curled up tight together as children hovers.

The bleep echoing my heartbeat slows.

‘Come on, then. Hurry up. There are people waiting to greet you,’ Simon shouts over his shoulder as he walks ahead with the small suitcase I have brought back from the hospital.

I am walking much quicker than I had on the way out to his car after we had the call saying a heart was available. But there is a sharp pulling in my chest that means I do not rush. It is from the surgery, though, not weakness. I still have that celebrating hard pump of blood, like the vibration of a chiming bell ringing in every artery and vein, yelling out that one day soon I am going to be entirely better. Hear ye. Hear ye. Helen Matthews is well.

My brain is diagnosing the level of my health like a Fitbit measuring every sensation – each out breath and every moment a muscle or tendon moves. I do not want to reject this heart.

The front door opens.

‘Hello.’ Miriam, Mim, waves as she steps out. ‘It is good to see you with colour in your cheeks.’ The colours around her are muddy browns and greens. It is a spiteful aura.

‘Auntie Helen!’ Kevin and Liam squeeze past their mother’s legs and run to me.

‘Remember what I said,’ Simon calls. ‘Be careful with your aunt, she’s recovering.’

I lift my hands, encouraging the twins to grasp one each. ‘As long as you don’t pull I’ll be fine.’ They are used to Auntie Helen’s frailty.

A picture runs through my mind, a memory that doesn’t belong to me. I am running along a beach, holding the hand of a small girl and jumping the shallow waves that roll onto the sand. I know the girl is my daughter, but I do not know how I know.

I want a daughter first. If I can pick.

‘Welcome home.’ Mim’s arms wrap around my neck and she kisses my cheek. I do not mirror the embrace; the boys have possession of my hands. ‘We have a celebration tea planned—’

‘With fizzy orange!’

‘And ice cream!’ the boys add as their hands slip out of mine in unison. They run into the house bursting with the constant excitement of four-year-olds.