Page 6 of My Unfinished Heart

“Can I have yours, too?” he asks.

I tear a scrap off the napkin which has already been through so much this morning with Tristan’s tears and my clenching fist. He gives the pen back to me, and I write down my cell number. When I hand it to him, it trembles in his fingers enough for me to notice.

“It was nice to meet you,” I say.

As he stands, he gives me the saddest fucking smile I’ve ever seen. “When you see someone after a long time, it’s more polite to say it was nice to see you again. Even if you don’t remember him.”

TWO

Next of Kin

There’s a reason ICU patients are always in comas. It’s literally their only hope of getting any rest.

Every few minutes, someone in scrubs comes into my brother’s room. Some of the people actually look at him, but mostly they poke the machines responsible for the ICU white noise—loud, random beeping, whirring medication pumps, the airy piston noise of the ventilator—half a ton of machinery to keep an eighteen year-old boy alive.

I’ve been asleep for maybe twenty minutes when the sun rises again like a big, solar-powered fuck you. My eyes burn. My memory burns. I cover my face with my arm to block out the aggressive morning light.

“Good morning!” a chipper voice rings out.

Groaning, I clench the pillow in my fists.

It’s shift change.

Great.

“Why don’t you go get some coffee while I tidy things up?” the young nurse in royal blue scrubs says. It’s not a suggestion.

“How’s he doing?” I ask as I drag myself to my feet and pat my pockets to check for my wallet. What I feel instead are the keys the attorney gave me yesterday. What I also feel is a sharp pain in my neck that I can only describe as a white-hot whip sting from shoulder to jaw. I’m miserable in about a hundred different ways, but if I get a shower and some sleep, that might fix about ninety of them. In my life, I’ve learned sleep fixes just about everything.

“Looking good. Stable. We’re planning to extubate today, see how he does.”

None of that means much to me, so I just thank her and say, “I might be gone for a few hours. Is that okay? You guys have my number?”

“We do. We’ll call you if anything changes.”

Twenty minutes later, in West Austin, I pull into the circular driveway of the house I still have nightmares about and turn off the car I rented at the airport.

My palms slip on the steering wheel, slick with sweat. My t-shirt feels like it’s choking me again. I tug at the collar. I breathe. White stone, glass, a red door, and a small fortune's worth of landscaping stare back at me.

The heat inside the car rises fast once the A/C is off, so I grab my backpack and head for the house. Using the key the lawyer bequeathed to me, I open the door. The second I step inside, my fight or flight kicks in, dilating my pupils and setting my heart off at a sprint.

Round, green leaves of eucalyptus arch from the crystal vase in the foyer, and their dusty scent reminds me of everything. Of all of it. Not one particular moment, which might be easier to take, but all the moments, rolled together in an avalanche of images so vivid, they stop feeling like memories.

Could this be a trap?

I hesitate in the foyer, expecting to hear the deliberate click of my mother's footsteps, but my sudden paranoia is met with silence. Momentarily reassured, I pass through the formal living room, all stained oak and striped chintz. The tick tock of the grandfather clock marks my footsteps until I find myself standing on the threshold of the kitchen. My heart pounds. I lose the ability to swallow.

Why the hell am I here?

A shower. Sleep?

I thought I could sleep here? I must be beyond exhausted.

Wanting the shower at least, I drop my bag on the counter and take a quick look around.

The mess I find gets to me—disturbs me on so many levels I can’t describe it. A cereal box left open on the counter. Half-filled glasses of stagnant orange juice. Dishes piled in the sink waiting for someone to put them in the dishwasher. The smell borders on foul, and the way it’s mixing with the house eucalyptus isn’t helping.

I resign myself to this one task, boldly stepping behind the island. The trash goes first, then I load the dishwasher, clear the counters, find some Comet under the sink, and go to work on the countertops. The kitchen’s been remodeled since I lived here, and so it’s unfamiliar both in its layout and its finishings. For the moment, it’s easy enough to pretend I’ve never been here, though I am surprised my parents never upgraded to a bigger house. Given the incomprehensible wealth my father seems to have amassed, this one-story, five bedroom is downright modest and well beneath the means he had available. These granite countertops, though…they’re nice.