Emma Heatherington - The Legacy of Lucy Harte - A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry

Scotland, right? Tain ? Oh holy shit!

My heart stops. Quite ironic, really, but it literally skips a beat and when I find my breath again I reach for my wine and take a long gulp, draining the glass.

There is only one person I know from Tain. One person I know, but who I never have met and never will.

That person is Lucy Harte.

And Lucy Harte is dead.

I wake up in daylight with the letter in my hand, still unopened. I must have collapsed into a drunken coma – again – or else from the shock of what could lie inside this envelope.

‘Just open it, Maggie,’ Flo tells me when I call her. She doesn’t even get mad that it’s just gone seven in the morning, but then again, her son has probably been awake for at least an hour so it’s like the middle of the day to her. ‘There’s no point staring at it and wondering. Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?’

I am still holding the letter and I try to sip the last glass of wine from last night which tastes like vinegar and makes me gag. I am not yet totally sober. But unfortunately Flo can’t just ‘come over’ – as much as I’d want her to. As a single parent, she can’t exactly up sticks and leave with a two-year-old on her hip at this time of the morning. He goes to school. No, he is only two so he doesn’t go to school. He goes to day care. I am such a crap friend.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I tell her, even though I would give my right arm for her to be sitting here with me now. ‘You have Billie to get sorted. Do you really think it’s from them?’

I can hear Flo inhale deeply and finally she replies.

‘Well, unless it’s some sick joke, yes I do think it’s from ‘them’. I mean, Tain is hardly the centre of the universe and from your description of the envelope, it’s not a bill or one of those random marketing leaflets or charity letters. It has to be them.’

‘Them’ are the Harte family. Lucy Harte’s family. I don’t know how many of ‘them’ they are or if they are men, women or children; her grandparents, her mother or her father and despite my efforts in my early twenties to find ‘them’ to thank ‘them’ by going through the official route via hospitals and social systems, this is the first correspondence I have ever had and certainly not the way I expected to hear from them.

But why would they be writing to me? Why now? And why not when I wanted them to in years gone by?

‘They aren’t supposed to get in touch with me directly, Flo,’ I say, looking around the kitchen now and searching in every corner for a cigarette. I don’t smoke and never have done, but I need something to ease my nerves and Jeff used to have the odd smoke when he felt anxious, so maybe it would work for me. ‘It’s a delicate process. It’s supposed to go through the hospitals if there is to be any correspondence.’

‘That doesn’t say they won’t find you if they want to,’ said Flo. ‘The world is tiny, Maggie. You know Lucy’s name, so I’m sure they could have found out yours if they wanted to. A quick Google search or a nosey on Facebook and voilà . It’s not rocket science.’

‘I suppose,’ I mumble. ‘But what would they want from me?’

‘Well, what have you always wanted from them?’ asks Flo.

‘Closure, maybe? A chance to say thank you for my shitty life.’

‘You don’t have a shitty life,’ Flo assures me. ‘It’s just temporarily shit.’

I light up a cigarette I found in a box in a drawer. I knew there had to be one from the house-warming/birthday party I had. The morning after left all sorts of evidence of a heavy night.

‘Are you smoking?’ asks Flo.

‘Are you psychic?’ I retort. My God, she doesn’t miss a beat.

‘I sometimes think I am a bit. Do you think I am?’

‘No. Yes, I am smoking and I’d take stronger stuff if I could get my hands on it, believe me,’ I say, which is so not true as I am petrified of anything stronger than a menthol cigarette, in reality, and Flo knows it.

‘Anyhow, are you going to open the letter, or are you not?’ she asks. ‘No matter if this is the official way of doing things or not, you are going to have to open it before you send yourself crazy and me with it.’

‘Okay, okay, I’m on it.’

I stare at the handwriting again and put the cigarette on an ashtray, then exhale smoke from my lungs, polluting my beautiful kitchen. I start to cough. Guilt and an urge to vomit make me put the cigarette out after one puff. Disgusting.

‘I thought this was what you always wanted, Maggie?’

‘It is what I’ve always wanted,’ I whisper and, as if on autopilot, my fingers start to pull the envelope apart as I nestle my phone under my ear. ‘But I’m absolutely petrified, Flo. I think I’m in shock.’

‘Okay, pause a second. Wait!’ says Flo. I am totally convinced she can see me. The woman should have been a detective. She can read me like a book.

‘What? I’m in the middle of opening it, for crying out loud!’

‘I just want you to think of what it is you would like this letter to say. What is it you had ever hoped to gain from meeting with, or talking to, the Harte family? You say closure. Is there anything else?’

‘I suppose… I suppose I just want to let her go,’ I say and I close my eyes as my own made-up images of Lucy flash through my mind. ‘I want to be able to close the door on Lucy Harte and get on with my own life. And I guess the only way I’ve ever felt that would be possible was if I got a chance to say thank you to whoever it was who decided to offer up her organs to someone like me when they had just suffered the ultimate tragedy of losing their own child.’

‘Well, that’s certainly it in a nutshell,’ says Flo and, before I know it, I have the letter unfolded and the words blur before me. The writing inside, like on the envelope, is handwritten in neat black ink. I am impressed.

‘Oh God, Flo.’

‘Oh God Flo what? What ?’

‘It is them. It really is them! Will I read it out?’

‘Well, I can’t see it from here, can I?! Yes! Read it out.’ She stops for a second. ‘Only if you want to, of course… I can hang up and hear from you later if you want to do this yourself?’

There is no way I want to do this myself, which is why I called Flo in the first place. I have read the first line twice but still haven’t digested a word.

‘Okay, here goes,’ I say, clearing my throat, as if I am in front of a huge audience. ‘Dear Maggie…’

Dear Maggie,

I hope I haven’t shocked you too much by contacting you directly and to your home address but I have work connections in Belfast and, with a bit of poking around, I found you at last. We have a mutual friend, believe it or not, and he was able to give me your address. At least, I hope it’s you and not some other random lady called Maggie O’Hara, who will have no clue what I am talking about.

My name is Simon Harte and I am the older brother of Lucy, who died on 10 th April 1999 and who was your organ donor. I still remember that day and those before it like I do yesterday, but I won’t burden you with the details of how she died as it’s not essentially why I am getting in touch.

I know you tried to contact us a few years back and I’m sorry that we only got so far and the process stopped, but my father, well he wasn’t capable of it, Maggie. He wasn’t capable of a lot since our family was torn apart that day. He was a broken man from that day on – a broken man who never was fixed.

He thought donating organs was the right thing to do at the time, but he cursed himself for years afterwards, having nightmares about his decision. I hope you understand that meeting you would have not given him any comfort. In fact, it might have tipped him over the edge.