The ocean doesn’t reply. It just keeps rolling in and out, lapping at the sand. Yet as my feet turn blue with cold, each new wave is a chilling reminder of what I already knew. Imperfect hearts aren’t meant to last.
“Hey, stranger. We were about to send a rescue crew,” jokes Mom when I finally come in from the beach through the back door. She’s at the stove stirring a pot of spaghetti. With a little curtsy she says, “What do you think of my apron? It was hanging in the pantry, just begging to be worn.”
The apron is designed to look exactly like an overgrown Dungeness crab. The main body is the shell, with beady black eyes looking up at Mom’s chin, spiny legs wrapped around her back as ties, and two giant claws joined behind her neck to keep it up. “It’s…sick,” I tell her.
“Is that good or bad these days?”
I chuckle. “Take another look at what you’re wearing, and you tell me.”
“Well, there’s not much cooking left to do, but there’s also a lobster-apron in the pantry if you want to try it on.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
She winks at me and then goes back to stirring noodles.
“Have you seen Ann?”
“She’s upstairs resting, I think.”
Cade and Dad are engrossed in a game of backgammon as I pass through the living room. “Welcome back,” says Dad before I reach the sea-blue stairwell.
“Hey,” I say, then continue on.
There are three doors at the top of the stairs. The one to the left is the half bath, the one straight ahead leads to the attic, and the one to the right is “the girls’” bedroom. I twist the handle on the right, then push gently.
Ann is laying flat on her back on the bottom bunk. She has a pen in her hand and is in the middle of writing something on the wood slat above her head. When she hears the door sliding on the carpet, she quickly drops the pen and acts like she wasn’t doing something that she probably shouldn’t. But when she sees it’s just me, she relaxes and gives me a half smile. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I reply. “So…how you doing?”
“Fine.”
“Has Cade apologized yet?”
“For what?”
Seriously? “Duh. For what he said out there on the beach.”
It takes her a moment to think. Then she bobs her head indifferently. “He was telling the truth. I just didn’t want to hear it right then.” She pauses. “It’s just so…weird.”
“What is?”
“The whole transplant thing. You know, about someone else dying. I try to block it out, because sometimes I’m not even sure I want someone else’s heart beating inside me.”
I nod as though I understand, though I can’t even begin to understand how that must make her feel. “So what were you writing on the bed?”
She grins. “I was watching you on the beach after we left.” There are two windows in the room; she points to the one on the wall facing the beach. Cade’s binoculars are resting on the sill. “You inspired me. Want to see?”
Ann scoots over on her bed to make room. When I see what she’s drawn, I have to swallow. On the plywood above us is a misshapen, Sharpie-red heart, with a slightly larger heart traced around it.
“A heart in a heart,” she says soberly, “because, like it or not, someone else’s heart might end up in me.”
“Might?”
“Will,” she corrects.
“That’s really cool, Ann. Are you going to make it bigger?”
“Yeah, but not tonight. I want to add one new heart for each day we’re here, kind of like rings on a tree. The heart will continue to grow each day until I get my new one.”
“Cool,” I say again, deeply impressed that I’ve somehow inspired her.
She rolls her head on the pillow to look at me. “I still don’t like sharing a room with you.”
“Ditto.”
“Good,” she says with a little chuckle. “Just wanted that to be clear.” Ann looks back up at the bed above us. With her finger, she traces around the outer ring of the heart. Then, out of the blue, she asks, “Do you think I’m boring?”
The question catches me off guard. Of course I think she’s boring. Doesn’t everyone? “Umm…why do you ask?”
“Because of what you guys plastered on the car window for the whole world to see. You and Cade both think I’m lame, don’t you?”
“Hey, Cade wrote that one about the kissing.”
“But you do think I’m lame.”
“Not all the time.”
“Well, that’s a big fat yes,” she says, sounding more than a little dejected. “I am, aren’t I?”