Dance with the Doctor

Darcy swallowed a calcium pill at breakfast and the occasional pain reliever for cramps. She couldn’t imagine a life of ingesting what amounted to the stock of a small pharmacy every day. Mike was frowning at the array of pills laid out in front of his daughter. “Why does she need all this?” Darcy asked.

“The Gengraf and CellCept are antirejection drugs,” Taylor said, ignoring that the question hadn’t been directed at her. “But they give me leg cramps, so that’s why I take the quinine. The prednisone upsets my stomach, so I take the Zantac for that. The prednisone also used to make my face swell, but not so much anymore.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, as if this was all normal. Darcy continued to stare at Mike. He raised his eyes from the line of pills and met Darcy’s gaze. She was struck again by the sadness there. “Two years ago, Taylor had a heart transplant,” he said. “She’s doing great now, but the medications are an important part of her treatment.”

“A heart transplant.” Darcy lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table, suddenly too weak to stand. She swallowed, trying to bring moisture into her too-dry mouth. In a voice that to her ears didn’t sound like her own, she said, “So—she received a heart from a donor?”

“A boy.” Taylor popped the last pill into her mouth and drained the last of the water. “We don’t know his name, but he was six years old.” She set the empty glass on the table. “Thank you for the water.”

Darcy closed her eyes, fighting dizziness. That was a mistake. As soon as her eyes closed, scenes from her last moments with Riley flashed in front of her. Riley lying still and small in the hospital bed, the only sound the whir and beep of the machines that kept his heart beating. The Donor Alliance coordinator with a sheaf of paperwork, explaining the donation procedure. The doctors think they have a match for your son’s heart. A little girl.

“Darcy, are you all right?”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into Mike’s eyes. “Do you feel faint?” he asked. “You’re white as a sheet.”

Darcy shook her head and studied Taylor, who stood apart, eyes wide. “The boy who donated your heart—you don’t know his name?”

Taylor looked at her dad. “I don’t think they ever told us.”

“No,” Mike said. “That information is kept confidential unless both families agree for it to be released.”

Darcy stood, a little shakily. “Maybe you’d better sit back down,” Mike said. “You still seem very pale.”

She shook her head and crossed to the basket beneath the telephone where she kept the mail. She sorted through the stack of bills and flyers and unearthed the cream-colored envelope from the Donor Alliance. “Read that,” she said, handing it to Mike.

He pulled out the letter and stared at it. Darcy kept her eyes on the floral pattern of the tiles on her kitchen floor. She focused on breathing slowly through her nose, inhaling the aroma of basil and oregano from last night’s spaghetti dinner, and the faint strawberry-shampoo scent of Taylor. Taylor, who was standing here today because a boy had died, a boy like Riley.

Mike folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. “When did your son die?” he asked.

“January twenty-first, two thousand and eight.”

“The same day as my transplant,” Taylor said. She took a step closer to Darcy. “Do you think I have his heart?”

“Except that I never contacted the donor registry,” Mike said. “It’s possible there were two transplants performed that day.”

“Oh.” Darcy hadn’t thought of that. She was surprised at how disappointed she felt.

“Dad?”

Both adults turned to the girl, who looked as if she’d just been caught cheating on a math test. “I … I wrote a letter to the Donor Alliance.”

“You did?” Mike frowned. “When?”

“A few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking a lot about the boy who gave me his heart and … and I just wanted to know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mike said, clearly stricken.

“I didn’t want to upset you,” Taylor said. “You always said it would be better not to know my donor’s identity, that the family deserved their privacy. But I really wanted to know.” She bit her lower lip. “I took some stationery from your desk and pretended to be you. I thought if the donor family wrote back and said they wanted to meet me, then I’d tell you and it would be all right.”

“You lied, Taylor,” Mike said. “That’s wrong.”

“But I thought it didn’t really matter, since the donor family never answered.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to know about the child who got Riley’s heart,” Darcy said. “I just … I guess I was afraid. That it might be too hard.”

Mike put his hand on her shoulder. She wanted to lean into that comforting weight, to draw strength from him. “I’m sorry this has upset you,” he said.

“It’s all right.” Taylor still looked guilty, and a little scared. “Really, it’s fine,” Darcy said. “I’ll admit it was a shock, but if you do have Riley’s heart, I’m glad. Truly, I am.”

“We don’t know for sure your son was Taylor’s donor,” Mike said.

“That’s true,” Darcy said. The transplant had been performed at Denver Children’s Hospital. The recipient of Riley’s heart could have come from anywhere in the area, even from Wyoming. But the timing couldn’t be a coincidence. How likely was it that two heart transplants had been performed that fateful day?

“What did you say your son’s name was?” Taylor asked.

“Riley. He was big for his age. Maybe his heart was a little bigger too, and that’s why it was a good fit for you.” Darcy glanced at Mike. “Could that be right?”

“Yes, it could.”

“Do you have a picture of Riley?” Taylor asked.

“Over there.” Darcy nodded at the picture of Riley and Pete by the door. “But there’s a better one in here.” She led the way to the living room, and the portrait of Riley in his baseball uniform. “That was taken a couple of weeks before … before the accident.”

“He’s cute,” Taylor said. “I like his freckles.”

“I imagine the two of you could have been friends,” Darcy said. When he’d died, Riley had been at the age where he thought of girls as “icky” but maybe by now he’d see them differently. Darcy swallowed hard. No. She couldn’t let her thoughts dwell on what might have been. Mike had joined them in the living room. “Why did Taylor need the transplant?” she asked.

His sadness intensified. Had she been out of line to ask him to recall what must have been a terrifying time? But it was too late to take back the question now. “When she was nine she developed cardiomyopathy,” he said. “An inflammation of the heart muscle. It’s usually caused by some kind of infection, but we’re not sure what caused it or where it came from. By the time hers was diagnosed, the heart muscle was damaged beyond repair.”

“How horrible.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “How could a pediatrician have missed such a serious illness in his own daughter? But it’s not like the flu or an infected toenail. And Taylor isn’t the type to complain.”

“I wasn’t thinking any such thing,” she said. Mike clearly adored his daughter. But she recognized his guilt—those silent accusations that intimated her son would be okay today if she had only been a better parent.

“There’s no danger now,” Mike said. “As long as Taylor’s careful and remembers to take her medication.”

“I was distracted today,” Taylor said, blushing. “I won’t forget again.” She glanced at Darcy. “Dad’s always worried I’m going to overdo it, or that I’ll catch some infection from someone. He doesn’t even like me to go to the mall.”

“He wants to protect you,” Darcy said. “It’s what parents do.”

“I think it’s ‘cause he’s a doctor,” Taylor said. “He sees sick people all day and reads medical journals full of articles about horrible diseases, then he imagines everything bad that can happen.”

That wasn’t it, Darcy thought. Mike knew all the bad things that could happen because he’d lived them. Children weren’t supposed to have to get new hearts to stay alive, but his had. Who could blame him for fearing the worst after that? “You’re lucky to have a father who cares so much.”

Mike sent her a look of gratitude and sympathy. How had she ever lumped him with the arrogant and distant physicians she’d encountered? Though in truth, maybe even those doctors weren’t so bad, and her impressions were colored by the circumstances.

Still, Mike was different. Losing a child, or almost losing one, left scars only someone who had been through the same thing could understand. “Come on, Taylor, it’s time we went home,” Mike said. “Back to your life of drudgery and oppression.”