LITMIR.BIZ

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is surprising how many people die in one day.

      The mug of tea and the tablets are still beside me.

      I click on the story of another dead person and read as I pick up the bottle and tip two little white pills onto the plain powder-blue duvet cover. I swap that bottle for a packet and push out a pill from the foil. I keep popping out different tablets until there is a line of pills in front of me.

      I take the tablets one by one with my tea and click on another dead face.

       Chapter 7

       4 weeks and 5 days after the fall.

      A tap hits the glass in the back door. It’s Chloe.

      ‘Come in.’ I touch the screen to close the notes on my phone and minimise the browser on the laptop.

      The door is already opening.

      I stand, turn and shut the lid of the laptop behind me. ‘Hello.’ I smile; not at Chloe but because I moved quickly.

      My movement slipped from first to third gear with ease and everything I notice like that makes me smile. The operation scar doesn’t pull very much any more and I hardly notice my heart beating.

      ‘I bought us a treat for lunch.’ She raises a thin white plastic carrier bag that is hanging from her right hand. ‘I went to the deli and bought one of their quiches and a selection of salads.’ She places the bag on the table.

      ‘Thank you. I’m getting a bit bored of soup.’

      ‘Me too.’

      I smile when I sit down but the expression feels awkward. Guilt is a sharp pang in my stomach. It is because I hid the images on my laptop screen. But I have to keep my morbid search secret because no one else will understand. Or believe me. I can’t tell them the spirit of the person my heart came from wants me to find their family.

      Chloe delves into the opaque carrier bag and begins unloading it. ‘What have you been up to today?’

      ‘Not much. I didn’t get out of bed until eleven, then I had a bath. I haven’t been downstairs long.’

      ‘You sound so much better already.’

      ‘I feel it, but there is a long way to go.’

      ‘How many weeks is it before you’ll be able to work?’ She takes the plates out of a cupboard while she talks.

      I can probably pick up plates now but the consultant told me not to lift anything for six weeks and I am following every piece of guidance religiously.

      ‘Three months, if I go back into childcare.’

      ‘It’s hardly any time, really. New heart. New life. New work opportunities.’ She turns with the plates in her hand. ‘It’s astonishing—’ the plates clunk on the table ‘—what they can do now.’ She smiles before turning away. ‘I’ve been reading stories about people who have connected with their donors.’ She delves into the drawer for knives and forks, rattling the cutlery. ‘Do you want a hot drink? Tea? Coffee?’

      ‘I’m fine with water.’

      The cutlery clatters onto the table, probably scratching the already scarred wood. But it is a young family’s table with rough-and-ready boys. She takes glasses out of the cupboard. ‘So anyway, I was telling you about the stories I’ve read.’

      ‘Yes.’ Her thoughts have been turning in the same direction as mine.

      ‘A woman in one of those true-stories-from-the-readers magazines said …’ the water runs, hitting the bottom of the sink and drowning her words; I listen harder ‘… she wrote a thank-you letter.’ The sound of the water changes to a dribble as Chloe tests to see if it is running cold enough to be fresh. ‘She was younger than you.’ The water runs into a glass as Chloe glances over her shoulder. ‘Her kidney had come from an older woman and the family she contacted were the donor’s children.’

      The tap turns off, then Chloe turns around with a glass in either hand. ‘The family wrote back to her, a brother and sister. It was the sister who really wanted to make contact. The brother wasn’t very interested.’ Chloe sits at the table, looking me in the eyes as she slides a glass towards me. ‘But the sister gives this woman her contact information and they write back and forth. Then the sister suggests they meet.’

      The sip of cold water grasps at my throat and a shiver runs down my spine.

      ‘She persuaded the brother to go along to keep her company. But when the brother and woman met, they got on really well. To cut a long story short they fell for each other and married. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

      ‘But it’s the sort of sensational story that sells those magazines, isn’t it?’

      Chloe picks up a large knife and pulls the quiche towards her. ‘How much do you want?’

      ‘Just a small piece.’

      ‘There’s another story. It was on one of the morning TV programmes. It was a mother who lost her teenage daughter. She had donated lots of different organs.’ Chloe slid a plate over to me.

      I reach for the spoon to delve into the tub of coleslaw and green salad.

      ‘The mother had half a dozen thank-you letters and she replied to them all. Now all those people meet at least once a year. They’re all friends.’

      ‘Really? I can’t imagine all those people with elements of one person.’ I don’t want to know if other people have a part of the person I received my heart from. Possessiveness pulses into my blood. I am tied to this person. It is a strange connection to have with someone. But the heart was a gift given to me. That is what I feel from the presence of the person I think this heart once belonged to – that they chose me.

      ‘There’s another story,’ Chloe carries on between mouthfuls of lunch. ‘An older woman had a transplant. The donor’s daughter is a single parent with six children. The older woman had no family and so she became a surrogate mother and grandmother.’ Chloe looks at me with an expression that asks for a reaction.

      ‘What are you saying? That I should write a thank-you card to the donor’s family solely to acquire a parent or a husband?’ She knows me too well; she knows I’ll be thinking about the owner of this heart’s previous relationships and be jealous of any love, even though she doesn’t know I speak to spirits.

      ‘You never know.’ She smiles, unreleased laughter dancing in her eyes.

      I smile too, but in that moment of shared amusement an immediate decision thrusts its way up my throat and into my mouth. An urge to tell her my secret is so strong my lips can’t close on the words. ‘I have been trying to work out whose heart it is.’ The statement slips out like a slippery fish. But now it is told I can’t pull it back. I fill my mouth with quiche so I will not say more.

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘It’s just something to do.’ It’s an attempt to pull the words back but I can see her mind chewing on them as her gaze reaches beyond me.

      I shouldn’t have said anything. She knows I can obsess over things at times. She is thinking about that.

      This is nothing to do with bipolar, but I can’t tell her why I know that because she will think that I am crazy anyway if I tell her.

      Her eyes refocus on me. On my face. On my eyes. ‘How are you trying to work it out?’ She’s looking at me with the odd expression that Simon’s face twists into when he is asking himself, is she having an episode?

      My cutlery clatters onto the plate and I reach for my phone. I touch it so the screen shows and tilt the phone in her direction to show her the list of names and websites. ‘I’m looking at the people who died the day of my operation or the day before.

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