attributed its onset to myocarditis and other viral infections during infancy; and another that claimed it was inherited through a parent who was a carrier of the defective gene. I had always assumed the latter was the case with Claire. After all, surely a child who grew out of grief would be born with a heavy heart.
At first, I didn't know she had it. She got tired more easily than other infants, but I was still moving in slow motion myself and did not notice. It wasn't until she was five, hospitalized with a flu she could not shake, that she was diagnosed. Dr. Wu said that
Claire had a slight arrhythmia that might improve and might not; he put her on Captopril, Lasix, Lanoxin. He said that we'd have to wait and see.
On the first day of fifth grade, Claire told me it felt like she had swallowed a hummingbird. I assumed it was nerves about starting classes, but hours later-when she stood up to solve a math problem at the chalkboard-she passed out cold. Progressive arrhythmias made the heart beat like a bag of worms-it wouldn't eject any blood. Those basketball players who seemed so healthy and then dropped dead on the court? That was ventricular fibrillation, and it was happening to Claire. She had surgery to implant an AICD-an automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or, in simpler terms, a tiny, internal ER resting right on her heart, which would fix future arrhythmias by administering an electric shock. She was put on the list for a transplant.
The transplant game was a tricky one-once you received a heart, the clock started ticking, and it wasn't the happy ending everyone thought it was. You didn't want to wait so long for a transplant that the rest of the bodily systems began to shut down. But even a transplant wasn't a miracle: most recipients could only tolerate a heart for ten or fifteen years before complications ensued, or there was outright rejection. Still, as Dr. Wu said, fifteen years from now, we might be able to buy a heart off a shelf and have it installed at Best B u y... the idea was to keep Claire alive long enough to let medical innovation catch up to her.
This morning, the beeper we carried at all times had gone off.
We have a heart, Dr. Wu had said when I called. I'll meet you at the hospital.
For the past six hours, Claire had been poked, pricked, scrubbed, and prepped so that the minute the miracle organ arrived in its little Igloo cooler, she could go straight into surgery.
This was the moment I'd waited for, and dreaded, her whole life.
What if... I could not even let myself say the words.
Instead, I reached for Claire's hand and threaded our fingers together. Paper and scissors, I thought. We are between a rock and a hard place. I looked at the fan of her angel hair on the pillow, the faint blue cast of her skin, the fairy-light bones of a girl whose body was still too much for her to handle. Sometimes, when I looked at her, I didn't see her at all; instead, I pretended that she was-
'What do you think she's like?'
I blinked, startled. 'Who?'
'The girl. The one who died.'
'Claire,' I said. 'Let's not talk about this.'
'Why not? Don't you think we should know all about her if she's going to be a part of me?'
I touched my hand to her head. 'We don't even know it's a girl.'
'Of course it's a girl,' Claire said. 'It would be totally gross to have a boy's heart.'
'I don't think that's a qualification for a match.'
She shuddered. 'It should be.' Claire struggled to push herself upright so that she was sitting higher in the hospital bed. 'Do you think I'll be different?'
I leaned down and kissed her. 'You,' I pronounced, 'will wake up and still be the same kid who cannot be bothered to clean her room or walk Dudley or turn out the lights when she goes downstairs.'
That's what I said to Claire, anyway. But all I heard were the first four words: You will wake up.
A nurse came into the room. 'We just got word that the harvest's begun,' she said. 'We should have more information shortly; Dr. Wu's on the phone with the team that's on-site.'
After she left, Claire and I sat in silence. Suddenly, this was real-the surgeons were going to open up Claire's chest, stop her heart, and sew in a new one. We had both heard numerous doctors explain the risks and the rewards; we knew how infrequently pediatric donors came about. Claire shrank down in the bed, her covers sliding up to her nose. 'If I die,' Claire said, 'do you think
I'll get to be a saint?'
'You won't die.'
'Yeah, I will. And so will you. I just might do it a little sooner.'
I couldn't help it; I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I wiped them on the edge of the hospital sheets. Claire fisted her hand in my hair, the way she used to when she was little. 'I bet I'd like it,'
Claire said. 'Being a saint.'
Claire had her nose in a book constantly, and recently, her Joan of Arc fascination had bloomed into all things martyred.
'You aren't going to be a saint.'
'You don't know that for sure,' Claire said.
'You're not Catholic, for one thing. And besides, they all died horrible deaths.'
'That's not always true. You can be killed while you're being good, and that counts. St. Maria Goretti was my age when she fought off a guy who was raping her and was killed and she got to be one.'
'That's atrocious,' I said.
'St. Barbara had her eyeballs cut out. And did you know there's a patron saint of heart patients? John of God?'
'The question is, why do you know there's a patron saint of heart patients?'
'Duh,' Claire said. 'I read about it. It's all you let me do.' She settled back against the pillows. 'I bet a saint can play softball.'
'So can a girl with a heart transplant.'
But Claire wasn't listening; she knew that hope was just smoke and mirrors; she'd learned by watching me. She looked up at the clock. 'I think I'll be a saint,' she said, as if it were entirely up to her. 'That way no one forgets you when you're gone.'
The funeral of a police officer is a breathtaking thing. Officers and firemen and public officials will come from every town in the state and some even farther away. There is a procession of police cruisers that precedes the hearse; they blanket the highway like snow.
It took me a long time to remember Kurt's funeral, because I was working so hard at the time to pretend it wasn't happening.
The police chief, Irv, rode with me to the graveside service. There were townspeople lining the streets of Lynley, with handmade signs that read PROTECT AND SERVE, and THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE.
It was summertime, and the asphalt sank beneath the heels of my shoes where I stood. I was surrounded by other policemen who'd worked with Kurt, and hundreds who didn't, a sea of dress blue.
My back hurt, and my feet were swollen. I found myself concentrating on a lilac tree that shuddered in the breeze, petals falling like rain.
The police chief had arranged for a twenty-one-gun salute, and as it finished, five fighter jets rose over the distant violet mountains. They sliced the sky in parallel lines, and then, just as they flew overhead, the plane on the far right broke off like a splinter, soaring east.
When the priest stopped speaking-I didn't listen to a word of it; what could he tell me about Kurt that I didn't already know?-
Robbie and Vic stepped forward. They were Kurt's closest friends in the department. Like the rest of the Lynley force, they had covered their badges with black fabric. They reached for the flag that draped Kurt's coffin and began to fold it. Their gloved hands moved so fast-I thought of Mickey Mouse, of Donald Duck, with their oversized white fists. Robbie was the one who put the triangle into my arms, something to hold on to, something to take
Kurt's place.
Through the radios of the other policemen came the voice of the dispatcher: All units stand by for a broadcast.
Final call for Officer Kurt Nealon, number 144.
144, report to 360 West Main for one last assignment.
