Wicked Restless

The audience gives in completely now, their laughter the kind that people passing by outside could hear. I glance up and into the eyes of my new friend, the one with the sexy tie and touchable beard. He’s smiling and laughing, too. For some reason, that makes me feel even more comfortable.

“Things were going well. I had a forever-good excuse to get out of running laps in PE. I had to get some exercise, but never anything like running. I could do less vigorous things, like simple tumbling or dancing. I’m horribly uncoordinated, so trust me—dancing was not too much for my young heart to handle.”

Out of nowhere, my arm chills at the memory of Andrew’s elbow looped through mine; my mind hums the sound of the fiddle that played over and over for that glorious week we had square dancing. Even as I stare back into the smiling eyes of my new friendly face across the room, my memory is pulling up the dimples and messy hair of the boy I met when I needed someone most. I don’t think of the him I know now, but rather then—when he was…everything.

“For a long time, I was surviving and beating odds. Then the fatigue got worse,” I say to a nodding audience. They don’t know my story personally, but they all know how my story goes. Stories like mine—they have fuzzy endings, no spoilers that tell me exactly how my life’s going to play out. I’ve always been of the mindset that my life is what I make of it—even if I have half a heart.

That’s what got me here.

“I was a status two. Not sick enough to get the first heart out of the gate. Not even sick enough to get the tenth, really. And my parents, brother, and I spent a year getting called into Philadelphia, from our home in Delaware, for false hope and rejections. All for a surgery and post-op treatment that we couldn’t afford in the first place.”

“I got scared—plain and simple,” I shrug. “I was fifteen at the time, almost sixteen, and looking at a black hole. I couldn’t get excited for things like driving or prom or the Friday-night football game. My girlfriends were all growing up, getting boyfriends, figuring out who they were, but I knew who I was. I was too busy being both frightened and hopeful of moving from status two to status one. That fear consumed me, and it could have paralyzed me. Instead…I wrote a letter.”

“I don’t know how many letters Dr. Miranda Wheaton gets. All these years, I’ve never actually asked her,” I say, turning to face my saving grace, my brow pinched as I shake my head at her in question.

She raises her shoulders as she smiles and whispers, “It’s a lot.” I laugh to myself, turning back to my podium.

“She says a lot,” I say, garnering a few chuckles from the crowd. “Well, I don’t know what it was that convinced her to open mine, read it, and then fly all the way to Delaware to meet with me and my parents in person, but I’m sure I’ll never be able to repeat the magic of those words in my letter again. I hope I never have to.”

“I was Dr. Wheaton’s twenty-first donated surgery. As she said when she met with my family months before it actually happened—the wait for a new heart would still be long. And there would still be false starts. But Chicago was where I needed to be.

“So we moved. And I homeschooled for the first few months in the city while my parents looked for work, and a suburb we could afford. I spent those early weeks waiting for the call—for a heart—at home. But part of being a status-twoer, is not being sick enough not to want to leave your house—or, if you’re a teenager, to be somewhere with friends. So I went to school, and life…it went on—the safety net of hope that Dr. Wheaton swore would come there to catch me when I fell.

“On November first of my sophomore year of high school, that net…it worked,” I smile, no longer registering the fact that I’m in front of anyone at all. “There was a heart, and it wasn’t right for anyone above me. But it was perfect for me. I was pulled from school, and in surgery in less than three hours.”

“Dr. Wheaton is sitting up here next to me tonight, thanks to her generosity. I don’t take it lightly, and I hope one day I get to stand at the operating table with her, assisting and learning, as we give a gift like this,” I say, my hand clutched against my heart—my second heart, “to someone else. It is an honor, distinguished guests, to present to you Miranda Wheaton…this year’s recipient of the S. Holden Taft Award.”

The applause erupts quickly as everyone gets to their feet. Dr. Wheaton hugs me as we exchange spots. When I get to my seat, the enormity of everything catches up to me, and breathing begins to feel difficult.