Brian (VII)
The world wide web offers a wealth of information, but wading through it can be overwhelming. For Brian, it was like diving for a penny in a vast pond. He knew the information he sought was out there, if only he knew where to search. But finding information on his donor was almost impossible, with the few details he’d been given.
He had spoken to the hospital social worker again the day after the dream in which he’d discovered that his donor’s death may not have been accidental at all. But Joan had only been able to repeat the same information she’d given Becci the day of his transplant: The donor of his heart had been a woman in her twenties, who was killed in a car accident in Ohio. “You know that’s all I’m allowed to tell you,” said Joan apologetically.
Brian knew. She’d made it clear, both before and after his transplant, that the hospital was required to keep all other information about his donor confidential. The transplant program would facilitate written communication between him and the donor’s family, if he wished, but although he had written a letter before leaving the hospital, it had gone unanswered. Joan had also warned him that might happen. “It may take time for your donor’s family to feel ready to correspond, or you may never hear back from them,” she’d said. “Even if you do, you’re required to wait at least six months before we can release any information that would allow you to communicate directly with the family or meet face-to-face, and if that’s only if both parties are open to the idea.”
But Brian couldn’t wait three more months, knowing there was no guarantee his donor’s family would even respond to his note of gratitude. He couldn’t stop thinking of her, the stranger whose heart beat inside his chest. Someone had struck her with their truck, not bothering to stop, slow down, or swerve around her. In a way, Brian had become a witness to her murder. And if the street in which she’d been slain was as empty as it had seemed in his dreams, he was the sole surviving witness, which meant two things: first, that his donor’s killer was probably still somewhere out there on the streets, and second, that he might be the only one who could solve the mystery of her murder.
In the weeks following his discovery, he had become obsessed with the idea of bringing his donor’s killer to justice. There had to be more clues hidden in his dreams, he thought, and he’d started to look forward to sleeping, hoping to find answers inside his nightmares. But sleep was hard to come by when his mind was constantly racing, keeping him awake, and when he did dream, he saw only the same things he’d seen before. Even if he did remember more details from the dreams, he doubted they would be enough to take him much further without knowing more details about his donor. That was when he had decided to start searching. The hospital may have prohibited the release of certain information, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t seek it on his own.
So he turned to the internet, that endless ocean of information. Day after day, while Becci was at work, Brian sat at home on his laptop and searched. He spent hours looking up articles and obituaries from Ohio newspapers published the week of his transplant. He browsed pages upon pages of search results, scrolling and skimming until his eyes glazed over from the strain. I’ll know her when I find her, he kept telling himself, but deep down, he worried he wouldn’t.
The stress of the search was starting to get to him. He realized it one day as he sat on the living room sofa with his computer on his lap, while Calhan played with his toy cars on the carpet at his feet. Normally, Becci still dropped their son off at his grandparents’ house on her way to work, but Brian’s mother had called that morning to say she’d come down with a cold and wasn’t up to babysitting. “Looks like someone’s staying home with Daddy today,” Becci had announced, smiling at Brian. He could tell she’d thought she was giving him a rare treat. Before the obsession with finding his donor had overtaken him, it would have been a treat to spend the day with his son. He had needed time after his transplant to rest and recuperate, but just as before, his days had been long and lonely, and he’d always looked forward to four o’clock, when Becci came home with Calhan. But now Brian found himself groaning when he heard the garage door open because it meant giving up on his search for the day. He didn’t know how to explain that to Becci, though, so when she’d asked, “You can handle him, can’t you, hon?” he’d smiled and said that, of course, he could. He was starting to wish he hadn’t.
“Shh… Can’t you keep it down, Cal?” he begged as he scrolled through another page of search results, his eyes barely leaving the screen. His son was crawling around on the floor with his fire truck, making high-pitched siren sounds that Brian found distracting. “Daddy’s trying to concentrate.”
But Calhan, not quite two, couldn’t understand. “Whoooooooh!” he wailed, crashing the fire truck into Brian’s foot.
“Ouch, damn it! Stop that!” Brian snapped, jerking his foot up off the floor. Calhan, startled by this harsh reaction, stared up at his father for a stunned second, then screwed up his face and started to cry. Brian sighed. “Oh, Cal… I’m sorry, buddy.” He set the computer aside and scooped his son up into his lap, stroking his back as Calhan buried his face in Brian’s shoulder and sobbed. When he glanced back at the laptop and saw the clock in the bottom corner of the screen, Brian realized the reason for the overreaction: it was well past Calhan’s naptime. Sure enough, as soon as Cal had calmed down, he fell asleep on Brian’s shoulder. Brian carried him carefully back to his crib and put him down, praying he would stay asleep. Then he tiptoed back out to the living room and picked up his laptop again.
It was while Calhan was napping that he came across an article from The Cincinnati Enquirer about a hit-and-run accident that had occurred in the early morning hours the same day as his transplant.
“The pedestrian, Marjorie J. Wilder, 23, of Lockland, was walking in the 600 block of Wylee Avenue when she was struck by the unidentified vehicle. Wilder was transported to the hospital, where she later died of her injuries.”
He read those two sentences over and over again, remembering what Becci had told him when he’d woken up after surgery: “She was a woman, in her twenties, from Ohio, who was killed in a car accident.” The details fit, but he couldn’t know for sure until he found out more. He entered the name “Marjorie J. Wilder” into the search engine and found her obituary. The small, black-and-white photo that accompanied it showed a young woman with long hair and an impish grin. As he scanned the obituary, his eyes lingered on one line.
“Marjorie, known as ‘Jori’ to those closest to her, enjoyed art and music, especially by her favorite band, The Beatles.”
Brian thought of his own love of music and his newfound preference for classic rock. He remembered the pleasure he’d felt in listening to Beatles songs in the car with Becci. Then he pictured the brightly-painted baby’s room in his dreams, with the mobile that played John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and he knew. He knew in his heart – her heart – that this was his donor.
The revelation brought with it a sudden rush of emotion. The words on the page blurred before his eyes as he reread the obituary, wanting to know more about the life of the woman who had saved his.
“…Surviving are her parents, Larry and Pamela (Reinhardt) Wilder of Crawfordsville, Indiana and her fiancée, Alexander J. McLean of Lockland. She was preceded in death by her infant daughter, Lucy Sky Diamond McLean…”
She had been a mother. He had already known this on some level, just as he’d known that the nursery in his dreamscape was not Calhan’s. He thought of the crying baby in the crib, which was sometimes empty. She had lost a child. He could imagine nothing worse. The heart that beat inside him had been broken.
Wanting to know more, he ran another search for the name of her daughter and found a second obituary. It was very short, just like the life of the baby, who had only been three months old when she died. It did not include a cause of death.
Brian continued to delve into his donor’s past, becoming so immersed that he did not even hear his son wake up. It wasn’t until Calhan started to cry that he looked at the clock and realized two hours had passed since he’d put the toddler down for his afternoon nap. Still, Brian felt a touch of annoyance as he slid the computer off his lap and stood up, stretching his legs. “I’m coming, Cal!” he called, as he walked back to Calhan’s bedroom.
He was suddenly struck with déjà vu.
How many nights had he followed the sound of Calhan’s crying in his dreams, entering a nursery that was nothing like the one in which his son slept? Yet the room had always seemed familiar to him, as familiar as the child he was going to comfort. Only now did he realize the baby in his dreams may not have been his son, but his donor’s daughter. Not Calhan… but Lucy.
When he came into the room, Calhan was standing up in his crib, clutching the rail. Brian was relieved he hadn’t tried to climb over it yet. “Ready to get up, buddy?” he asked, hoisting him out of the crib. He held Calhan close for a few seconds, savoring the feel of his son’s warm body cuddled against his chest. He couldn’t imagine the kind of grief Marjorie must have gone through after losing her daughter. Just thinking about it hurt his heart.
Her heart.
Maybe it was remembering.
***
