LITMIR.BIZ

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can give her some water?’ The nurse is standing by the open door.

      I nod at Simon, ignoring her. The pillowcase feels coarse and my hair dirty.

      He’s all I have. Him and his children.

      I want my own children, though, not just to borrow his.

      Another ripple of emotion flows through my prone body.

      I have the heart I have been waiting for. But I no longer have Dan.

      We had talked about adoption.

      Now I have a healthy heart, now I can have children, and Dan is not here.

      Pump-pump. Pump-pump.

      The heart moves in my chest, squeezing out and pulling in the blood – its pulse striking its rhythm in every artery like the tune of a ticking clock in an empty house. It is so strong it feels as if the heart will beat its way out of my body.

      It can’t. It is trapped inside me now. Attached, so its movement keeps me alive.

      There is someone here, though.

      Someone with me.

      Someone who is no longer alive.

      The weight and density of their spirit is filling the space in the small room, making the atmosphere close. As if I am standing in a large crowd and too many people are breathing the same air.

      The owner of the heart?

      The straw Simon holds to my mouth scrapes my lip.

      I have been breathing slowly for months, sitting in a bed or a chair, doing nothing, trying not to tire out my heart; preserving my life second by second and hoping that a heart would be found. The longing for children kept me going even when my old heart cracked open and oozed pain like the leaking yolk of a soft-boiled egg.

      I can have the children I want now.

      Thank you. I say the words to the soul that’s hovering around me. If it is you: thank you.

      This operation is a beginning. Today is the start of a new life for me. But it was the end of theirs.

      The water is deliciously cool. It tastes far too nice to be water. I can feel it inside my throat as I swallow almost as much as I can feel the beat of the heart in my chest.

      Simon is the one that kept me alive when I was young. He gave me reason after reason to fight on with unconditional love as wide as an ocean. I want to give all the love that he’s taught me to my children.

      He takes the cup away and puts it down.

      I lift a hand, asking him to hold it.

      His hand strokes over my hair, the touch stirring strands that are matted. His hand falls, wraps around mine and holds tight. ‘You’re going to be okay.’

      I nod. I know.

      A cartoon-like sparkle catches in his right eye, the white light in the room reflecting on the sheen of tears. The aura around him is sunshine, orange and yellow, and the orb is hovering behind him.

      But the orb is not the owner of the heart.

      The weight of exhaustion suddenly presses like large hands on my chest, pushing me down and submerging me in a swamp of fatigue. I can’t stay awake any more.

      A memory of Simon and me curled up tight together as children hovers.

      The bleep echoing my heartbeat slows.

       Chapter 4

       2 weeks and 3 days after the fall.

      ‘Come on, then. Hurry up. There are people waiting to greet you,’ Simon shouts over his shoulder as he walks ahead with the small suitcase I have brought back from the hospital.

      I am walking much quicker than I had on the way out to his car after we had the call saying a heart was available. But there is a sharp pulling in my chest that means I do not rush. It is from the surgery, though, not weakness. I still have that celebrating hard pump of blood, like the vibration of a chiming bell ringing in every artery and vein, yelling out that one day soon I am going to be entirely better. Hear ye. Hear ye. Helen Matthews is well.

      My brain is diagnosing the level of my health like a Fitbit measuring every sensation – each out breath and every moment a muscle or tendon moves. I do not want to reject this heart.

      The front door opens.

      ‘Hello.’ Miriam, Mim, waves as she steps out. ‘It is good to see you with colour in your cheeks.’ The colours around her are muddy browns and greens. It is a spiteful aura.

      ‘Auntie Helen!’ Kevin and Liam squeeze past their mother’s legs and run to me.

      ‘Remember what I said,’ Simon calls. ‘Be careful with your aunt, she’s recovering.’

      I lift my hands, encouraging the twins to grasp one each. ‘As long as you don’t pull I’ll be fine.’ They are used to Auntie Helen’s frailty.

      A picture runs through my mind, a memory that doesn’t belong to me. I am running along a beach, holding the hand of a small girl and jumping the shallow waves that roll onto the sand. I know the girl is my daughter, but I do not know how I know.

      I want a daughter first. If I can pick.

      ‘Welcome home.’ Mim’s arms wrap around my neck and she kisses my cheek. I do not mirror the embrace; the boys have possession of my hands. ‘We have a celebration tea planned—’

      ‘With fizzy orange!’

      ‘And ice cream!’ the boys add as their hands slip out of mine in unison. They run into the house bursting with the constant excitement of four-year-olds.

      ‘And pizza. Sorry, it’s more their party than yours,’ Mim whispers.

      I don’t mind. If the boys are happy, I’m happy.

      I have been guilty of spoiling Simon’s boys as if they are mine since they were born. They are a relief for the craving in my womb.

      Dan hated me talking about children. He always said he wanted children, but then changed his mind two years ago.

      ‘Don’t go on about children, you can’t have them, you are too ill, stop talking about babies, even if we adopt how are you going to look after a child?’

      Every time he said words like that there was another sharp pin stabbing into the voodoo effigy of me, the effigy it felt as if he held in his hand.

      Then he told me, ‘I don’t love you any more. You have to go,’ driving a kitchen knife into my sick heart and making it shatter.

      He moved his pregnant mistress in a week after Simon had loaded up the car with the boxes, bags and cases packed full of my half of our life together.

      Every day, since the day I moved out of the flat, was a day to endure – surviving long enough to get this heart.

      That was the end.

      Now I have the heart.

      This is the beginning.

      It whispers to me all the time. The heart.

      A coverall smile gathers up my expression as I walk into the house behind Mim; the smile I have given everyone who has asked how I feel over the years.

      Simon’s hand touches my waist as he leans to put the case on the floor near the stairs in the hall. ‘Welcome home. I’ll take your case up after we’ve eaten.’

      ‘Thank you.’ The children and Mim are in the kitchen already. I turn, stretching up to wrap my arms around his neck. It pulls my chest. I hold on tight and pull him down a little.

      He is six years older and six inches taller. I have stretched

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