“You and Mommy,” I repeat. But is that the truth? Was it ever?
Lying next to me, Atlas curls up to my chest. “Why do I have to go to school? It’s boring.”
I laugh lightly, his body shaking with the movement. He peers up at me, his hand tucked under his chin, cheeks pink from exertion. “You have to learn.”
“I learn from you and Uncle B.”
Rolling my eyes, I sigh. We’ve been over this for the last few months since Atlas discovered he had to start kindergarten and couldn’t become a fisherman at five. Apparently, all his time at sea had made him think life was just me and his uncle on a boat, and that’s how it would always be. “You need to learn stuff we can’t teach you. Like math.”
“I already know how to count.”
Sitting up, I reach for his pajamas in the suitcase next to the bed. “There’s more to math than counting to ten, buddy.”
He takes the pajamas in my hand, stares at them, and then frowns. “Like more than ten numbers?”
This one earns a laugh from me again. “There’s an infinity of numbers. They just keep going.”
His eyes widen. “Like the sea?”
“Like the sea. They go on forever.”
Atlas still believes when you’re on the water, it just keeps going until you turn around and return to port. I’ve told him it’s not, but I also love that he believes it’s limitless.
Eventually, I get him to sleep by reading The Old Man and the Sea. I’ve read it to him so many times the pages are torn, wrinkled, and dirty. He carries it with him, always. Unlike a blanket or a teddy bear, he carries a book. It’s the only thing Athena was able to give to him.
I think about the book and the meaning behind it. Though it’s a simple story, it’s deep. Deeper than a five-year-old should be able to comprehend, but he does. He understands this man’s pride, tenacity, and dream, fueled by thriving through struggle.
Though I really don’t want to leave Atlas again, I know being out on the water, away from reality, is exactly what I need. I can’t explain the attachment, or the connection—though one could argue that—because there is one. I just don’t want there to be. I wish I could say I was walking away, but I’ve never been good at resisting, in anything. I’m impulsive by nature and moderation isn’t my strong suit.
As a result, I’ve lost more than I’ve gained.
Leeway - To slip sideways downwind while moving forward.
I wake up freezing. And unfortunately, coughing. I open my eyes slowly, my fingertips gliding over puffy skin. I hold my hand to my chest and feel the beat. Though it’s not mine, I guess it’s a good thing it’s still beating.
Like most who’ve been a recipient of organ donation, I often wonder about the person who died so I could live. If they had family, kids… I don’t know. I never asked. You had to wait a year to find out any information about the donor, general information like their age, gender, and state of residence. Nothing else. There had to be a mutual want to communicate on both parties, and you had to start the process with a letter to the donor’s family. So far, I haven’t sent anything, and I haven’t received any communication, and it’s going on six years in November. I think I fear knowing. I don’t want to see the family’s pain that I’m living because their loved one isn’t.
And maybe they feel the same. Maybe they don’t want to know me. Maybe it will hurt too much.
I do, however, vividly remember the day I got the call that I would get a heart, and the gutting feeling that followed thinking someone’s life was ending.
I remember being in the hospital with Avie on one side and Presley on the other. I thought about that person, nearing the end, or maybe already there. I imagined their family sitting next to them, much like mine. On the same day, while I was celebrating, their family was listening to fading heart sounds and waiting on the “time of death” call they feared.
So similar, yet, so completely different. I should have felt happy, but instead, guilt hit me like a bullet. I’m here, and they’re not. That’s all I could focus on.
The night of the transplant, I remember telling Avie, “I might die on the table.”