11. Becci (II)
To
celebrate one month post-transplant, Becci cooked Brian his favorite meal: homemade macaroni and cheese. She used his mother’s recipe, which called
for Ritz cracker crumbs on top. As she
was taking it out of the oven, Brian wandered into the kitchen and sniffed the
air. “Somethin’ smells amazing,” he
said, coming up behind her. He wrapped
his arms around her waist and looked over her shoulder at the dish she’d set on
the stove. “And it looks even better. What’d I do to deserve a woman like you,
huh?”
He
always knew just how to flatter her.
Turning, Becci smiled and pecked his cheek. “Enjoy it while you can, sweetheart. It’s not a meal I’ll be making often from now
on.”
Brian
sighed. “I know, I know. I’m gonna go get Cal washed up for supper.”
“Okay.” She watched his back as he walked away. From that angle, it was impossible to tell
there had ever been anything wrong with him; he was getting around amazingly
well for a man who’d had his chest split open and his heart replaced a mere
four weeks ago. But when he returned,
hand in hand with Calhan, she could see the tip of his scar peeking over the
top of his shirt collar and the puffiness in his face from the steroids he took
daily to keep his body from rejecting the new heart.
While
some of his medications upset his stomach, others made him almost insatiably
hungry, but due to the risks associated with weight gain, he was on a
restricted diet – low fat, low sodium.
Baked noodles smothered in melted cheese and topped with crackers hardly
qualified as either, but Becci was so proud of the progress Brian had made over
the past few weeks, she’d wanted to satisfy his craving. She placed the pan of macaroni on a hot pad
in the center of the table and announced, “Okay, guys, dinner’s ready!”
Brian
rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
“Hungry for some mac and cheese, buddy?” he asked Cal.
The
toddler reached out his arms, wanting to be picked up, but when Brian started
to bend down, Becci quickly intervened.
“Ah, ah, ah! No lifting!” she
scolded Brian gently, swooping in to scoop up Calhan and set him in his high
chair.
“You’re
right… my bad,” said Brian, flashing her a sheepish grin as he sank into his
seat. It would be at least two more weeks
before his breastbone finished fusing back together, and until then, he was not
allowed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds or drive a car. It would be Becci behind the wheel when they
went out that night.
Aside
from his daily walks around the block and bi-weekly visits to the heart
institute, Brian had barely left the house in the two weeks he’d been
home. Because of his weakened immune
system, he wasn’t supposed to be out among crowds of people, but Becci knew how
much it meant to him to see his choir perform their Christmas concert.
“Dig
in,” she urged Brian, after they’d finished saying grace. “I told your mom to be here by six so we can
get there early and get good seats.”
“Oh,
we don’t need to be there that early,” said Brian. “I already called the school and asked the
new guy, Carter, to reserve us a couple of seats in the balcony – front row
center.” He smiled, sounding pleased
with himself. “He said he’d be happy
to.”
“Oh
– well, okay! That was good thinking.”
Brian
winked and shoveled a forkful of macaroni into his mouth. Becci turned her attention to Calhan, who had
already abandoned his baby fork in favor of using his fingers to push his
macaroni around on his plate. She picked
up his fork, used it to spear a few noodles, and held it out to him. “Bite?”
Calhan obediently opened his mouth, and she slipped the fork in. “Now you try,” she encouraged, loading the fork
again and handing it to him.
As
Calhan clumsily fed himself, Brian got up from the table. “Did I forget something, hon?” Becci asked,
watching him walk over to the refrigerator, open the door, and stand there
staring into it. “What are you looking
for?”
“Found
it.” He grabbed a green bottle off the
bottom shelf of the door and brought it back to the table.
Becci
blinked. “Lemon juice??”
Brian
didn’t answer at first. Bewildered,
Becci watched him open the bottle of lemon juice and splash it over his plate
of macaroni and cheese. When he looked
up and saw her staring, he just grinned, shrugged, and said, “Sorry, babe. It just needed a little extra kick of
something.”
It
didn’t occur to Becci to be offended.
She waited while Brian swirled his fork through his pasta, letting the
lemon juice soak in, and then watched as he lifted another morsel to his
lips. She expected him to make a face
and spit it right back out, so she was surprised when he swallowed and smiled
with satisfaction.
“Better?”
asked Becci in disbelief.
Still
smiling, Brian nodded.
Becci
was stunned. “What on earth gave you the
idea to put lemon juice on your macaroni?” she wondered aloud, not bothering to
hide the tone of revulsion in her voice.
Brian’s
smile faded as he shook his head and shrugged again. “I have no idea.”
***
Brian’s
mother Jackie came over to babysit Calhan that evening, so Brian and Becci
could go to the high school Christmas concert.
In ten years of teaching at West Jessamine, Brian hadn’t missed a single
one, though it would be the first he wasn’t conducting himself. Becci could tell he was nervous by the way he
kept tugging on his tie. But he’d left
his choir in good hands, even serving on the interview committee that had met
in August to select his temporary replacement.
The new director was a recent college graduate who had gone back to
school to get his teaching degree after a failed singing career. Brian had spoken highly of him, and when he
brought her back to the choir room to meet him, Becci could see why.
“Becci,
this is Nick Carter, the choir director.”
She noticed that Brian left the words “new” and “temporary” out of his
introduction, and she was filled with love for her husband, so humble, so
considerate of others’ feelings. “Nick,
my wife Becci.”
Becci
smiled at the tall, blonde man who reached out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said, and smiling
back, he echoed the same. He was young,
still in his twenties, and handsome in his crisp, black suit. Becci pictured the high school girls swooning
over his boyish good looks – the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the crooked
smile. But when the members of the choir
started to trickle in, they ran straight to Brian, swarming around him like
bees to honey.
She
stood back and watched as Brian offered careful hugs and high-fives to his
students, even loosening his tie and undoing his top two buttons to show them
the tip of his scar when one of the boys asked to see it. He answered their questions and assured them
that he was feeling better every day and couldn’t wait to come back the
following school year. Becci knew he
missed the kids, and she could tell how much they cared about him, but she was
glad when the new guy, Nick, clapped his hands together and called out, “Okay,
guys, time to get warmed up! Places,
please!” The students reluctantly
scurried to their spots, allowing Becci and Brian to go and find their seats.
“Do
you want to take the elevator?” she asked, noticing the stream of people filing
up the stairs that led to the balcony.
Brian
shook his head. “No way. I can handle the stairs – good exercise.”
Becci
smiled and offered him her arm. “Stairs
it is, then.”
The
mask he still had to wear in public earned them a few curious glances, and as
they started up the stairs, they were stopped by several staff members and
parents who wanted to see how Brian was doing.
Becci was relieved when they were finally seated, but even then, she
found it difficult to settle down and relax.
She had spent the past year worrying herself sick over Brian, and now
that he finally recovering, she supposed it was time for her to start healing,
too. But it was hard to let go of the
fear she’d felt for so long.
The
two weeks Brian had spent in the hospital after the transplant had almost felt
like a vacation for Becci, and not just because she had been granted a leave of
absence from work to be there for him.
The real break had been an emotional one, a break from the anxiety that
had ruled her life for eleven months. It
seemed strange that she should worry less about her husband after his heart
transplant than she had before, but the first emotion Becci had felt following
the surgery was an overwhelming sense of relief. She knew that Brian was in good hands in the
hospital and that, if something should happen to his new heart, he would be
taken care of.
Outside
of the hospital, she didn’t have that same assurance. Even though Brian was looking and feeling
better than he had all year, she still worried that something was going to go
wrong. When they’d walked into the high
school that evening, she’d looked to make sure the AED – Automatic External
Defibrillator – was still on the wall outside the auditorium, where it had been
all year. She had never noticed it
before Brian’s diagnosis, but ever since, she hadn’t been able to walk past it
without imagining having to use it on her husband. She had been a nervous wreck as she’d watched
him conduct his choir at the spring concert, worried that he would suddenly
collapse, clutching his chest, and go into cardiac arrest right there on the
stage. He hadn’t, of course, but even
now that Brian’s failing heart had been replaced, Becci found that her own fear
could not be cured completely. It would
always be there, lying dormant in the dark reaches of her mind, until another
scary situation brought it back to light.
She
was glad that Brian was sitting next to her that night and not standing down on
the director’s podium. Maybe she would
actually be able to relax enough to enjoy the music this time. The Christmas season was her very favorite
time of year, but last Christmas, she and Brian had only gone through the
motions for Calhan’s sake, still reeling from Brian’s bleak prognosis. This Christmas, having already received the
greatest gift they could have hoped for, they could simply rejoice.
With
that thought in mind, Becci smiled, slipped her hand into Brian’s, and settled
back in her seat to enjoy the show.
***
Afterwards,
as they walked out to their car, Becci started to ask, “So, what did you
think?” But as soon as she set foot
outside the school, she gasped, as a blast of icy air took her breath away.
It
was a chilly night, and Brian’s teeth were chattering too hard to answer her
anyway. He just gripped her arm tighter
and walked faster, his head bent forward to break the wintery wind. When they were finally inside the car, with
the heat cranked on high, he said, “I think that was one hell of a Christmas
concert. Nick did a good job.”
Becci
laughed, caught off-guard by his uncharacteristic use of a curse word, but
quickly collected herself enough to nod and reply, “I think so, too. I really enjoyed it.” And she had, once she’d been able to relax
and really listen to the music. She and
Brian both loved Christmas music, and this year, with the transplant behind
them, she looked forward to singing songs like “Joy to the World” with genuine
joy again, truly celebrating the season and the gift they’d been given.
As
she let the car idle in the long line waiting to turn out of the parking lot, Becci
turned up the volume on the stereo, which was playing a CD of Christmas
songs. It had reached one of Brian’s
favorite tracks, a contemporary Christian song called “Mary, Did You Know?” so
she was surprised when he reached out and switched over to the radio.
“Sorry,”
he said, when Becci looked over at him, her eyebrows raised. “I need a break from all this Christmas
music.” As she inched the car forward,
he flipped through the frequencies, finally stopping on a classic rock station. Becci recognized the song that was playing as
The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love,” but when she snuck another peek at Brian
and found him bobbing his head in time to its beat, she didn’t know what to
make of it. Her husband loved R&B
and contemporary Christian music; the only oldies he listened to were by Motown
artists like The Temptations. She’d
never known him to be a Beatles fan, but here he was, humming along in harmony.
She
didn’t say anything, but later that night, as she lay awake in bed, she puzzled
over Brian’s odd behavior. It wasn’t
just the Beatles, but a number of strange changes she’d noticed in her husband
over the last few weeks she’d spent at home with him. She supposed it was only natural that an
experience as traumatic as undergoing a heart transplant would change a person
somehow, but sometimes Brian seemed so different. She’d been blaming the changes on his
medication, knowing that steroids could make a person moody and that certain
drugs affected the way food tasted, but she didn’t think they could alter
someone’s taste in music, too.
Stop thinking so much, Becci scolded herself,
rolling over to face Brian, who was sound asleep beside her. Some things never changed: she was always the one who stayed awake
worrying about one thing after another, while he went right to sleep.
She
had just started to drift off, when suddenly, she felt the mattress move, as
Brian’s body jerked. Her eyes snapped
open to see him sitting up in bed, holding his chest with his hand. “Brian?”
She sat up, too, instantly alert and alarmed. Her immediate concern was for his heart, and
as that thought crossed her mind, her own heart began to race with fear. “What’s wrong?”
He
shook his head slowly, giving her a vague glance. “Nothin’… just a bad dream.”
“Another
one?” Becci frowned, but felt some sense
of relief. The nightmares were nothing
new; he’d been having them ever since he left the hospital. They upset Brian more than they bothered
Becci, who had attributed them to yet another effect of the drugs he took each
night before bed. But now, seeing how
shaken he seemed, she wondered if they weren’t another sign of something
amiss. “What was it about?” she asked.
“I
was running… running away from something; I’m not sure what. My heart was pounding so hard, it felt like
it was going to beat itself right out of my body.” He continued to rub his chest.
“Is
it pounding now?”
“It’s
starting to. It’s so weird, to feel your
heart racing for no reason, like you’re still scared even though you’re not.”
Becci
squirmed beneath the covers. He may not
have been scared anymore, but she was.
“Check your pulse,” she urged him.
“I’m
fine,” he assured her, but he checked it anyway, something his doctor had shown
him how to do. Becci watched the clock
as he counted beats, and together, they waited anxiously for his heart rate to
finish climbing and calm back down to its new “normal.” Once the adrenaline had left both their
systems, they lay down again, Brian spooning Becci from behind. “I’m okay,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”
The
gentle breeze of his breath on the back of her neck comforted Becci, allowing
her to drift off into a dreamless sleep, and when she awoke the next morning,
her worries were forgotten.
***