Brian (IX)
Brian was watching the ten o’clock news on the small TV in his bedroom when a familiar picture appeared on the screen. He sat up in bed, turning up the volume.
“And now for an update on a story we’ve been following, the case of the Ohio man accused of murdering his fiancée in what had appeared to be a hit-and-run accident. Today in court, Alexander McLean pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of his girlfriend, Marjorie Wilder, last November. As part of a plea deal, McLean was sentenced to five years in prison in exchange for his guilty plea to the reduced charge. After hearing McLean’s testimony, attorneys on both sides of the case are calling it a “crime of passion,” claiming McLean struck Wilder with his vehicle after she admitted to-”
The newscaster’s voice was cut off as the screen suddenly went black.
“Hey!” Brian protested to his wife, who was holding the remote. “I was watching that!”
“I don’t want you obsessing over this anymore. It’s not good for you,” said Becci, climbing into bed beside him. “It’s not good for us.” She patted his bare chest. “And it can’t be good for your heart either.”
“My heart’s fine,” replied Brian, resting his hand on top of hers. In fact, six months after the transplant, his heart had never been better. Physically, he was fully healed. Emotionally, he felt freed, as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.
When he’d first gone to the police with what he had discovered about Jori’s murder, they hadn’t believed him. He had no physical evidence, only dreams to support his claim that Jori had been killed by her fiancée. But Brian had persisted, until the Lockland Police Department promised to reopen their investigation. When AJ was arrested, it made the local news, and Brian felt vindicated. All he had wanted was justice for Jori, whose murder had prevented his own untimely death. He owed her that much. And although he was disappointed to hear that AJ would only serve five years for the crime he had committed, Brian was glad it was over. Because of him, the truth was out. The man who had killed his donor was behind bars. Perhaps AJ’s conviction would bring Jori’s family some peace as well. But more than anything, Brian hoped that his nightmares would stop, now that his new heart was finally at rest.
“I’m so glad,” murmured Becci, as she leaned over to kiss Brian. He smiled and took her face in his hand, wishing he could erase the lines of worry his illness had drawn around her eyes.
“Want me to prove it?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
She smiled back, and he could see her answer in her sparkling eyes. As she slid between the sheets, he rolled on top of her, throwing the covers over them both. The night was warm, and they’d left the windows open. They made love to the soft sound of crickets singing them to sleep.
Sleep came quickly for them both afterwards. The school year was winding down for Becci. Summer was on its way, and Brian was looking forward to having fun with his family, working in the yard with Becci, playing in the sun with Calhan, doing all the things he had been too sick to do the previous summer. These were the pleasant thoughts that lulled him to sleep, and he slept peacefully… until he slipped back into a never-ending nightmare.
The baby was crying again. Brian followed the sound down the darkened hallway and into the colorful nursery. He crept toward the crib in the corner, where the mobile twirled a menagerie of animals around in a slow circle, tinkling the familiar tune of “Imagine.”
His eyes drifted upward, following the trail of stars to the ceiling, where the round mirror hung like the full moon in the sky, reflecting the red face of the screaming infant in the crib beneath it.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
He reached down into the crib and plucked the plush octopus out of one corner. He held it out for the baby to see, shaking it a bit to make the legs wave about, but her cries only escalated.
Sighing, he took a step backward, away from the crib. He could feel the blood rush to his pounding head, as his heart began to race. His fingers tightened around the octopus’s head, slowly squeezing and releasing… squeezing and releasing… squeezing…
Then he stepped forward again. He raised a slender, white hand, still clutching the octopus, and reached a pale, freckled arm over the crib rail. As he watched the hand holding the octopus lower itself over Lucy’s face, he realized what he was doing and tried to resist, but the arm moved as if it was attached to someone else’s body. No! Stop! his mind screamed, but he said not a word as he pushed down, pressing the plush toy up against the baby’s mouth and nose. He could hear her muffled cries escalate with pain and fright and feel the increase in pressure of the hand as it tried to stifle them. The eight tentacles hugged her face as the octopus slowly smothered her.
Even in the dream, it seemed to take a long time – minutes, rather than seconds. Finally, the screaming stopped. The squirming stopped. When he lifted the octopus off her face, the baby’s mouth was still open, but her eyes were closed. She was silent and still, as if she were asleep. He sighed, feeling that he could finally get some sleep as well.
But Brian had been asleep.
When he woke, he was standing next to the crib. Calhan’s crib. He looked down and saw his son, lying just as silent and still as the baby in his nightmare. Then he looked a little further and saw that he was holding Calhan’s teddy bear in his hand.
In a horrible flash of déjà vu, he remembered Becci finding him this very same way and her words to him afterwards: “If you could have seen how you looked when I walked into Cal’s room just now, the way you were just standing there with this vacant stare on your face… it was creepy, Brian! It freaked me out.”
If his denervated heart could sense what was happening in his head, it would have skipped a beat when he realized what was happening. He hadn’t just been sleepwalking, but acting out his dream.
Brian gagged, flinging the teddy bear across the room as if it were on fire. Then he reached down into the crib and desperately shook his son’s shoulder. “Cal!” he cried. “Oh God, please don’t be dead… please don’t be dead…”
If the phone call from the hospital saying they’d found a heart for him had been a huge relief, it was nothing compared to the relief he felt when Calhan stirred and opened his sleepy blue eyes, blinking up at Brian in confusion.
“Oh thank God!” Brian gasped. “Thank God…”
Calhan’s eyelids fluttered, and in a matter of seconds, he had drifted back to sleep, slurping on the thumb that had fallen out of his mouth the first time around. Brian stood by the side of his crib for a long time, watching him sleep.
But his relief was short-lived.
As his heart reacted to the rush of adrenaline and started to race, Brian turned and saw the teddy bear lying facedown on the floor. It occurred to him that he might have caught himself before he fulfilled the dream for real, woken himself up just in time. But that didn’t mean he could keep it from happening again.
He had hoped the recurring nightmares would stop once he brought Jori’s killer to justice, but now he realized he’d had it wrong all along. Jori wasn’t just an innocent victim. She was a murderer herself. Her memory, his dream, told the true story: she had killed her own child.
His donor deserved to die.
But she hadn’t died completely. As long as Brian was alive, Jori would never truly be dead, for a part of her lived on through him. He could feel it thumping away inside his chest. The sensation made him sick. He clutched at his chest, pressing his hand over his heart. Her heart. He wished he could stifle its beats the way its former owner had stifled her baby’s cries. It felt foreign inside him, a soul-sucking alien that had taken possession of his body and control of his mind. The very heart that had saved his life now threatened to destroy him and the ones he loved. Brian had never felt more betrayed.
Tears blurred his vision as he looked back into the crib, resting his eyes upon his sleeping son. His whole body trembled as it hit him again how close he had come to hurting his child, a life he’d helped to create, a life he loved more than his own. The heart hammered against his ribs, each beat a threat. He knew he could not let it control him.
He took one step backward and then another, stumbling blindly out of Calhan’s bedroom. The house was pitch black, but he felt his way into the kitchen, where he turned on the light. It gleamed off the blade of the largest kitchen knife as he slid it out of the drawer.
With the tip of one trembling finger, he touched the point of the blade. It was sharp. He pushed down, feeling it pierce his skin. When he pulled his finger away, he saw a bead of blood bubble out of the prick. He put the finger in his mouth and sucked on the blood, savoring the bitter taste on his tongue. He could feel the sting in his finger. Maybe it would distract him from the unimaginable pain of what he was about to do. What he had to do, to save his son from himself.
Pressing his back up against the counter, he held out the knife with both hands gripped tightly around the hilt and the blade pointed straight at the treacherous heart he could not longer trust. He closed his eyes briefly, praying for both mental and physical strength. The heart continued to pound adrenaline through his body, unaware of the fact that it was fueling its own demise.
When Brian opened his eyes, he stared down the point of the blade for a few seconds, while he steadied his shaking arms. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he took a deep breath and held it as he plunged the knife into his heart.
***
