May We Be Forgiven

in the morning and wonder if I’d be coming back. That’s when I started writing poems,” she says. “I wrote poems to manage the stress. I even wrote one about coming here today.”
    Our drinks arrive. Ricardo breaks the ice by shooting the paper wrap from his straw across the table at Mark.
    “With the transplant,” Nate continues, “do they give you a choice of who it’s going to come from? Like, you can get it from this woman or that guy, or …?”
    She shakes her head. “There’s a very long waiting list for organs. You wait and you wait, and then the doctors have to think it’s a good match, and, funny enough, women don’t do well with men’s hearts.”
    “Where did you two meet?” Ashley asks, looking at Mark.
    “In a cardiologist’s waiting room,” Mark says. “I was there with my grandmother.”
    “Remind me again, how are you related to us?” Madeline wants to know.
    “They’re not,” Nate says, firmly.
    “So what’s it like in Ohio?” I ask, trying to manage the awkwardness, wondering if I’m the only one noticing.
    “Nice,” she says. “Very nice. I just realized, this is the first time I ever left the state with my new heart.”
    “Did they tell you anything about her?” Nate asks.
    “No,” she says. “It’s all kept confidential—it’s a big deal, some people really don’t want to know. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
    The hamburgers arrive.
    “My mother would be happy for you. She liked doing things for others. She was a very generous person,” Nate says, his voice cracking with emotion.
    When Avery has to go to the bathroom, Ashley goes with her. Later, Ashley tells me that Avery showed her the scar—it goes right down the middle of her, like a zipper.
    Left alone at the table, Mark tells us how grateful Avery is to be meeting us. “She’s had a hard time since the transplant; she’s different in some way and can’t quite put a finger on it—she has bad dreams, dark thoughts.”
    “It’s a big surgery,” I say.
    “Dying is worse,” he says, and there’s nothing left to say.
    “I just really want to thank you,” Avery says when she comes back from the bathroom. She doesn’t sit down again. It’s one of those meals that are over before anyone’s really eaten.
    Cy wraps his burger and slips it into his jacket pocket; Ricardo sees him and does the same, adding his waffle fries as well. As we’re leaving, Ashley asks if Avery and Mark would like to come over to the house. Nate looks stricken.
    “Sure,” Avery says. “Just a little visit.”
    I lead the way, with Mark driving on my tail up the hill towards home. I glance at Nate in the rearview mirror. “You okay, kiddo?” I ask.
    “No,” Nate says flatly. “I’m not okay.”
    When I pull into the driveway, Nate is the first one out of the car and into the house. The front door hangs open like a hole into the house, an open wound.
    Mark and Avery park at the curb as Tessie comes bounding out and stands at the edge of the grass, barking.
    “She doesn’t like people?” Avery asks.
    “She’s very friendly, but she won’t cross the line,” Madeline offers.
    “The line?” Mark asks, coming around to Avery’s side of the car.
    “The invisible fence,” I say.
    Avery gets out of the car. She stands looking up at the house, but, suddenly unsteady, she wobbles and sits back down in the front seat. “Owww. Owwww.”
    “What?” Mark asks.
    “Tessie,” I implore, “stop barking.”
    “My head,” Avery says.
    “Did you bang your head?” I ask.
    “No,” she says, “it just suddenly hurts.”
    “Do you often have headaches?”
    “No,” Avery says, as if annoyed with all my questions. “It’s not like a headache. It’s like something’s banging on my head, hitting me. Oh, I don’t feel good, I don’t feel good at all.”
    “Just a second,” Ashley says, running back up to the house to get something.
    “Is this the house?” Avery asks.
    “This is where they live,” Mark says.
    “Yes,” I say, knowing full well what she’s getting at.
    “I think my head hurts because this is the place where it happened,” Avery says.
    “Seems like a stretch,” Mark says. I hear him struggling with the idea that his fiancée is not who she once was.
    “It’s real,” I say, hoping to reassure both of them. “Jane’s heart knows. …” I tell them about cellular memory and repeat the story of the girl who got the heart of a ten-year-old murder victim: “The