How Do I Love Thee (18 page)

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I still care about you, you know. And I thank you with all my heart for the time we’ ve spent together. Seeing you every day, talking to you, just being in the same room with you has been the best part of my days. You may
find that hard to believe, but it is the truth. And that is what you want from me, isn't it? The truth?”

Once he was gone, she returned to her bed, buried her face in a pillow, and wept.

“You're just going to let your parents tell you who you can see and who you can't?” Bonnie had come for a visit on Saturday morning, and after hearing Laura's tearful story about Ramon, she'd fired off her question.

“Don't you think I'm dying inside about this?”

“But why is it so terrible for you to see him? I mean, you're stuck here in the hospital. What horrible thing is he going to do to you? “

“Ramon would never hurt me. Maybe he's done bad things in the past, but he's not a criminal now. He's trying realty hard to make something of himself. He works hard. He has plans for a future.”

“Hey, you don't have to convince me. It's your parents you have to persuade.”

The more Laura thought about it, the madder she got. What right did her parents have to pass judgment on Ramon without ever getting
to know him? It wasn't fair. He'd treated Laura with great respect. He was kinder to her than any boy had ever been, nicer, more respectful. “I don't know what to do,” Laura confessed to her friend.

“If it were me, I'd at least tell him how you feel.”

Going against her parent's wishes seemed foreign to Laura. She'd never lied to them. “I don't want Mom mid Dad angry at me, but I don't want to lose Ramon either.”

“Maybe people here at the hospital who know him can talk to your dad. You know-put in a good word I mean, Ramon wouldn't be working here if somebody didn't think he had value. Besides, everybody deserves a second chance.”

Bonnie was right. By allowing her dad to be judge and jury over Ramon, she had sided with her parents against him. She should have fought harder to keep her friendship with him, She liked him. She wanted to have him in her life. Who knew if such an opportunity would come her way again? Her diseased heart was directing her life already. Why should she let her parents direct it also?

“I'm going home today, before he comes in.”

“So see him after you get home.”

Laura chewed her bottom lip. “Will you help me?”

“Sure.” Bonnie's eyes lit up, as if she would relish the adventure.

“I guess I could get his address somehow, and his phone number.”

“Ask that nurse Betsy. Tell her you want to write him a thank-you note.”

Laura considered Bonnie's idea. “You have a devious mind.” She grinned. “But I do like the way it thinks.”

Bonnie bowed with a flourish. “What are friends for?”

Dr. Simon came in while Laura's parents were packing her things up to return home. “It's good to see you up and around, Laura.”

“I feel pretty good,” she said.

“Sit down,” Dr. Simon said. “I want to talk to all of you.”

Dread crept over Laura as she and her family settled into chairs and faced the doctor.

“What's up?” Laura's father asked.

“I have the results of your latest tests.” The
doctor opened a manila folder. “You've lost ground, Laura, I don't think you can afford another infection. Your heart's just too weak.”

Her bluntness startled Laura.

Mrs. Carson took Laura's hand. “So what are you saying?”

Dr. Simon gave the three of them a level but somber look. “I'm going to put you on the beeper.”

ou're recommending me for a heart transplant?” Laura asked, her heart thudding from a rush of adrenaline.

“Yes. It's your best hope. You know we've discussed it before.”

Laura remembered. Her diseased heart would be replaced with a donor heart. When one became available, she would get beeped on a pager that she would always wear. If it happened in the dead of night, she'd get a phone call. She'd have minutes to leave for the hospital, where she'd be prepped for surgery and wheeled into an operating room. Hours later, she would emerge with a new heart sewn into
her chest. She had wanted to keep her old heart, the one she'd been born with. She'd hoped that medical science would come up with another solution, but today Dr. Simon had closed that door with die assignment of a beeper. The idea of having her heart cut out and replaced was terrifying.

“There's no other way?” she asked.

Dr. Simon shook her head. “Not anymore.”

“Then let's do it,” she said, making up her mind in an instant. With a new heart, perhaps she ‘d be able to truly live again.

“When?” her father asked.

“Unfortunately, it could be a long wait, especially at this particular transplant center. There are many people in need of a heart ahead of you, and usually the sickest people get organs first. Some people actually sell their homes and move to other states to have a better chance of receiving an organ sooner.”

Laura absorbed die implications of Dr. Simon's words. Was she suggesting that they move to improve her chances?

“The problem with relocating, however, is that you may trade expertise in the transplant team for the shorter wait.” Dr. Simon glanced
from face to face, then added, “I just want you to know all the facts.”

“What about a
match?”
Laura's mother asked. “What are the chances that a heart will come along that suits her and no one else?”

“We only match blood type and body size because we don't have time to do much else once a heart becomes available. She'll need a heart that can fit inside her chest. Fortunately, she's achieved her adult height, so a comparable-sized heart should be easier to match. It would have been much harder when she was a child.”

“And rejection?” Laura's father asked.

“Laura will have to take antirejection drugs for the rest of her life. But they've improved tremendously over the past few years. Once she heals, she should be able to resume a normal life.”

To Laura, it sounded like a dream coming true. How she had longed for a normal life! A new heart would make it possible.

Her father stood and held out his hand. “Thank you, Doctor. You've given us plenty to think about.”

Dr. Simon turned to Laura. “Now go home
and stay well. You'll be notified by the transplant center to come in for psychological evaluation. Organs go to people who are properly motivated to take care of themselves. I'd like to see you bade here in two weeks for a checkup. If there is any—and I do mean
any
— problem, you call me.”

Laura watched her mother complete the packing process, her mind spinning. She was going to have a heart transplant. That is, if she lived long enough for a heart to become available. She wanted to tell Ramon. The hurdle of her parents’ objections toward him seemed small to her now. Once she got a new heart, she'd be able to do what she wanted with her life. For the first time in years, Laura Carson felt as if she had a future.

Laura didn't have one second alone before leaving the hospital, so she never got to ask Betsy for Ramon's address. And once she was at home, she was tucked away in her bedroom where her father showed off the computer and Minicam system he'd installed for her.

“All you have to do is rotate this dial, and a camera will pick up in each of your classrooms.
See? Here's your English class.” He turned the dial, and a black-and-white picture of Mr. Arnold's classroom from a high back corner angle popped into focus on a TV monitor screen on her desk beside her computer. School was over for the day, but come Monday morning at ten, every chair would be filled. “Now you try it,” her father said.

Laura flipped the dial, and Ms. Stantonmyer's Algebra II classroom popped onto Laura's home screen. “That's neat, Dad. Not a bad way to go to school.”

Laura hoped she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. Her parents had gone to a lot of trouble and expense for her sake, and she knew she should be appreciative. But all she could think about was Ramon and the way they had parted.

“Each teacher will wear a wireless mike, so you'll be able to hear every word,” her father said. “No excuses for zoning out during lectures,” he added with a chuckle.

Laura began her electronic classroom attendance. With ambivalent feelings, she watched the kids in her classes moving across the monitor screen. A month before, she'd been a part
of their world. Now she was a watcher, looking at her high school peers unemotionally, hardly remembering why she'd thought it important to ever return to that place. The difference wasn't in them, but in the fact that she was going to get a new heart. And that she had met Ramon.

Three days later, she called Bonnie after school and said, “I've called the hospital and asked for Ramon, but I was told that he was an hourly worker and if it wasn't an emergency, I'd just have to leave him a message.”

“So what's the problem?”

“I've left him two messages, but he hasn't called me back.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I know he works at a grocery store called Sanchez Market in his neighborhood. I've found the address online.” Laura took a deep breath. “I want to go look for him. And I want you to go with me. You said you'd help me once before.”

“And I will. But how?”

“Mom's starting back to work Monday, so I'll be alone here for six whole hours. We can
go and get back before she gets home. They'll never know.”

“I don't know, Laura, it sounds risky. What if you pick up some germ?”

“I'll take the risk. I have to see him, Bonnie. Please … won't you help me?”

“Are you sure, girls? That's a pretty mean neighborhood.” The eabhie looked at Laura and Bonnie in his rear view mirror.

“We ‘re sure,” Laura said.

The ride across town to Spanish Harlem seemed to take forever and used a large chunk of the money Laura had saved up, but they finally pulled up to a crowded sidewalk in front of a small grocery store. A few homeless men sat in nearby doorways asking passersby for money while children played in the street. Laura stepped over an old woman curled up asleep on a grate. Inside, the store had harsh fluorescent lighting and smelled of exotic spices and vegetables. Narrow rows of cases were filled with produce, and the aisles were packed with ethnic foods in colorful boxes and bags.

Bonnie asked, “What if he's not here?”

That thought hadn't occurred to Laura. “He's got to be.”

She marched over to a cashier and asked for Ramon. The bored older woman looked her over, then pointed. “He's in the back, scrubbing floors in the walk-m cooler.”

Laura walked to the rear of the store, Bonnie dogging her heels. She stopped at the open cooler door, Her heart raced. Ramon's back was to her, and she said, “Hello, Ramon. How are you?”

He turned, his face registering shock. “Laura! What are you doing here? Why have you come?”

“Because you wouldn't answer any of the messages I left,” she said, her voice trembling.

“What messages? I got no messages from you. I was told never to contact you again.”

aura was certain that her parents had issued the order. “I apologize for my parents because they had no right to tell you that,” she said. “It's wrong. When I didn't hear from you, I was hurt. I thought maybe you were just tired of me.”