Becci (II)
To celebrate one month post-transplant, Becci cooked Brian his favorite meal: homemade macaroni and cheese. She used his mother’s recipe, which called for Ritz cracker crumbs on top. As she was taking it out of the oven, Brian wandered into the kitchen and sniffed the air. “Somethin’ smells amazing,” he said, coming up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and looked over her shoulder at the dish she’d set on the stove. “And it looks even better. What’d I do to deserve a woman like you, huh?”
He always knew just how to flatter her. Turning, Becci smiled and pecked his cheek. “Enjoy it while you can, sweetheart. It’s not a meal I’ll be making often from now on.”
Brian sighed. “I know, I know. I’m gonna go get Cal washed up for supper.”
“Okay.” She watched his back as he walked away. From that angle, it was impossible to tell there had ever been anything wrong with him; he was getting around amazingly well for a man who’d had his chest split open and his heart replaced a mere four weeks ago. But when he returned, hand in hand with Calhan, she could see the tip of his scar peeking over the top of his shirt collar and the puffiness in his face from the steroids he took daily to keep his body from rejecting the new heart.
While some of his medications upset his stomach, others made him almost insatiably hungry, but due to the risks associated with weight gain, he was on a restricted diet – low fat, low sodium. Baked noodles smothered in melted cheese and topped with crackers hardly qualified as either, but Becci was so proud of the progress Brian had made over the past few weeks, she’d wanted to satisfy his craving. She placed the pan of macaroni on a hot pad in the center of the table and announced, “Okay, guys, dinner’s ready!”
Brian rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Hungry for some mac and cheese, buddy?” he asked Cal.
The toddler reached out his arms, wanting to be picked up, but when Brian started to bend down, Becci quickly intervened. “Ah, ah, ah! No lifting!” she scolded Brian gently, swooping in to scoop up Calhan and set him in his high chair.
“You’re right… my bad,” said Brian, flashing her a sheepish grin as he sank into his seat. It would be at least two more weeks before his breastbone finished fusing back together, and until then, he was not allowed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds or drive a car. It would be Becci behind the wheel when they went out that night.
Aside from his daily walks around the block and bi-weekly visits to the heart institute, Brian had barely left the house in the two weeks he’d been home. Because of his weakened immune system, he wasn’t supposed to be out among crowds of people, but Becci knew how much it meant to him to see his choir perform their Christmas concert.
“Dig in,” she urged Brian, after they’d finished saying grace. “I told your mom to be here by six so we can get there early and get good seats.”
“Oh, we don’t need to be there that early,” said Brian. “I already called the school and asked the new guy, Carter, to reserve us a couple of seats in the balcony – front row center.” He smiled, sounding pleased with himself. “He said he’d be happy to.”
“Oh – well, okay! That was good thinking.”
Brian winked and shoveled a forkful of macaroni into his mouth. Becci turned her attention to Calhan, who had already abandoned his baby fork in favor of using his fingers to push his macaroni around on his plate. She picked up his fork, used it to spear a few noodles, and held it out to him. “Bite?” Calhan obediently opened his mouth, and she slipped the fork in. “Now you try,” she encouraged, loading the fork again and handing it to him.
As Calhan clumsily fed himself, Brian got up from the table. “Did I forget something, hon?” Becci asked, watching him walk over to the refrigerator, open the door, and stand there staring into it. “What are you looking for?”
“Found it.” He grabbed a green bottle off the bottom shelf of the door and brought it back to the table.
Becci blinked. “Lemon juice??”
Brian didn’t answer at first. Bewildered, Becci watched him open the bottle of lemon juice and splash it over his plate of macaroni and cheese. When he looked up and saw her staring, he just grinned, shrugged, and said, “Sorry, babe. It just needed a little extra kick of something.”
It didn’t occur to Becci to be offended. She waited while Brian swirled his fork through his pasta, letting the lemon juice soak in, and then watched as he lifted another morsel to his lips. She expected him to make a face and spit it right back out, so she was surprised when he swallowed and smiled with satisfaction.
“Better?” asked Becci in disbelief.
Still smiling, Brian nodded.
Becci was stunned. “What on earth gave you the idea to put lemon juice on your macaroni?” she wondered aloud, not bothering to hide the tone of revulsion in her voice.
Brian’s smile faded as he shook his head and shrugged again. “I have no idea.”
***
Brian’s mother Jackie came over to babysit Calhan that evening, so Brian and Becci could go to the high school Christmas concert. In ten years of teaching at West Jessamine, Brian hadn’t missed a single one, though it would be the first he wasn’t conducting himself. Becci could tell he was nervous by the way he kept tugging on his tie. But he’d left his choir in good hands, even serving on the interview committee that had met in August to select his temporary replacement. The new director was a recent college graduate who had gone back to school to get his teaching degree after a failed singing career. Brian had spoken highly of him, and when he brought her back to the choir room to meet him, Becci could see why.
“Becci, this is Nick Carter, the choir director.” She noticed that Brian left the words “new” and “temporary” out of his introduction, and she was filled with love for her husband, so humble, so considerate of others’ feelings. “Nick, my wife Becci.”
Becci smiled at the tall, blonde man who reached out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said, and smiling back, he echoed the same. He was young, still in his twenties, and handsome in his crisp, black suit. Becci pictured the high school girls swooning over his boyish good looks – the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the crooked smile. But when the members of the choir started to trickle in, they ran straight to Brian, swarming around him like bees to honey.
She stood back and watched as Brian offered careful hugs and high-fives to his students, even loosening his tie and undoing his top two buttons to show them the tip of his scar when one of the boys asked to see it. He answered their questions and assured them that he was feeling better every day and couldn’t wait to come back the following school year. Becci knew he missed the kids, and she could tell how much they cared about him, but she was glad when the new guy, Nick, clapped his hands together and called out, “Okay, guys, time to get warmed up! Places, please!” The students reluctantly scurried to their spots, allowing Becci and Brian to go and find their seats.
“Do you want to take the elevator?” she asked, noticing the stream of people filing up the stairs that led to the balcony.
Brian shook his head. “No way. I can handle the stairs – good exercise.”
Becci smiled and offered him her arm. “Stairs it is, then.”
The mask he still had to wear in public earned them a few curious glances, and as they started up the stairs, they were stopped by several staff members and parents who wanted to see how Brian was doing. Becci was relieved when they were finally seated, but even then, she found it difficult to settle down and relax. She had spent the past year worrying herself sick over Brian, and now that he finally recovering, she supposed it was time for her to start healing, too. But it was hard to let go of the fear she’d felt for so long.
The two weeks Brian had spent in the hospital after the transplant had almost felt like a vacation for Becci, and not just because she had been granted a leave of absence from work to be there for him. The real break had been an emotional one, a break from the anxiety that had ruled her life for eleven months. It seemed strange that she should worry less about her husband after his heart transplant than she had before, but the first emotion Becci had felt following the surgery was an overwhelming sense of relief. She knew that Brian was in good hands in the hospital and that, if something should happen to his new heart, he would be taken care of.
Outside of the hospital, she didn’t have that same assurance. Even though Brian was looking and feeling better than he had all year, she still worried that something was going to go wrong. When they’d walked into the high school that evening, she’d looked to make sure the AED – Automatic External Defibrillator – was still on the wall outside the auditorium, where it had been all year. She had never noticed it before Brian’s diagnosis, but ever since, she hadn’t been able to walk past it without imagining having to use it on her husband. She had been a nervous wreck as she’d watched him conduct his choir at the spring concert, worried that he would suddenly collapse, clutching his chest, and go into cardiac arrest right there on the stage. He hadn’t, of course, but even now that Brian’s failing heart had been replaced, Becci found that her own fear could not be cured completely. It would always be there, lying dormant in the dark reaches of her mind, until another scary situation brought it back to light.
She was glad that Brian was sitting next to her that night and not standing down on the director’s podium. Maybe she would actually be able to relax enough to enjoy the music this time. The Christmas season was her very favorite time of year, but last Christmas, she and Brian had only gone through the motions for Calhan’s sake, still reeling from Brian’s bleak prognosis. This Christmas, having already received the greatest gift they could have hoped for, they could simply rejoice.
With that thought in mind, Becci smiled, slipped her hand into Brian’s, and settled back in her seat to enjoy the show.
***
Afterwards, as they walked out to their car, Becci started to ask, “So, what did you think?” But as soon as she set foot outside the school, she gasped, as a blast of icy air took her breath away.
It was a chilly night, and Brian’s teeth were chattering too hard to answer her anyway. He just gripped her arm tighter and walked faster, his head bent forward to break the wintery wind. When they were finally inside the car, with the heat cranked on high, he said, “I think that was one hell of a Christmas concert. Nick did a good job.”
Becci laughed, caught off-guard by his uncharacteristic use of a curse word, but quickly collected herself enough to nod and reply, “I think so, too. I really enjoyed it.” And she had, once she’d been able to relax and really listen to the music. She and Brian both loved Christmas music, and this year, with the transplant behind them, she looked forward to singing songs like “Joy to the World” with genuine joy again, truly celebrating the season and the gift they’d been given.
As she let the car idle in the long line waiting to turn out of the parking lot, Becci turned up the volume on the stereo, which was playing a CD of Christmas songs. It had reached one of Brian’s favorite tracks, a contemporary Christian song called “Mary, Did You Know?” so she was surprised when he reached out and switched over to the radio.
“Sorry,” he said, when Becci looked over at him, her eyebrows raised. “I need a break from all this Christmas music.” As she inched the car forward, he flipped through the frequencies, finally stopping on a classic rock station. Becci recognized the song that was playing as The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” but when she snuck another peek at Brian and found him bobbing his head in time to its beat, she didn’t know what to make of it. Her husband loved R&B and contemporary Christian music; the only oldies he listened to were by Motown artists like The Temptations. She’d never known him to be a Beatles fan, but here he was, humming along in harmony.
She didn’t say anything, but later that night, as she lay awake in bed, she puzzled over Brian’s odd behavior. It wasn’t just the Beatles, but a number of strange changes she’d noticed in her husband over the last few weeks she’d spent at home with him. She supposed it was only natural that an experience as traumatic as undergoing a heart transplant would change a person somehow, but sometimes Brian seemed so different. She’d been blaming the changes on his medication, knowing that steroids could make a person moody and that certain drugs affected the way food tasted, but she didn’t think they could alter someone’s taste in music, too.
Stop thinking so much, Becci scolded herself, rolling over to face Brian, who was sound asleep beside her. Some things never changed: she was always the one who stayed awake worrying about one thing after another, while he went right to sleep.
She had just started to drift off, when suddenly, she felt the mattress move, as Brian’s body jerked. Her eyes snapped open to see him sitting up in bed, holding his chest with his hand. “Brian?” She sat up, too, instantly alert and alarmed. Her immediate concern was for his heart, and as that thought crossed her mind, her own heart began to race with fear. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head slowly, giving her a vague glance. “Nothin’… just a bad dream.”
“Another one?” Becci frowned, but felt some sense of relief. The nightmares were nothing new; he’d been having them ever since he left the hospital. They upset Brian more than they bothered Becci, who had attributed them to yet another effect of the drugs he took each night before bed. But now, seeing how shaken he seemed, she wondered if they weren’t another sign of something amiss. “What was it about?” she asked.
“I was running… running away from something; I’m not sure what. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like it was going to beat itself right out of my body.” He continued to rub his chest.
“Is it pounding now?”
“It’s starting to. It’s so weird, to feel your heart racing for no reason, like you’re still scared even though you’re not.”
Becci squirmed beneath the covers. He may not have been scared anymore, but she was. “Check your pulse,” she urged him.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, but he checked it anyway, something his doctor had shown him how to do. Becci watched the clock as he counted beats, and together, they waited anxiously for his heart rate to finish climbing and calm back down to its new “normal.” Once the adrenaline had left both their systems, they lay down again, Brian spooning Becci from behind. “I’m okay,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”
The gentle breeze of his breath on the back of her neck comforted Becci, allowing her to drift off into a dreamless sleep, and when she awoke the next morning, her worries were forgotten.
***
