Violet
“So you really like this boy, then?”
The unexpected voice sends me jumping in the air.
“Jesus, Mum, you scared me… what are you doing in here? Is everything okay?”
She’s sitting in my living room, making herself at home on one of my couches.
It’s not that she’s not welcome, but she’s never done this before – I’ve never come home to her alone in here like some type of creeper.
“Everything’s fine. I was just waiting for you to get back from your date.”
“Why? Why didn’t you call? How long have you been here for?”
I strip off my jacket and toss it over the back of the seat before joining her on the couch.
“I haven’t been here long, and I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just let myself in like that.”
I’ve never been particularly concerned about boundaries with my mum before this point in time, other than with my paintings that is, but now that I have a real life boyfriend and I’m not a child anymore, I’m suddenly hit with the desire for privacy.
My phone chimes in my pocket with an incoming message and I can’t pull it out fast enough. I already know it’s Rylan. He’s like a drug to me, and even though I don’t need him like I need my anti-rejection pills and my other daily dose of medication, I can feel myself beginning to rely on him like he’s keeping me alive the very same way.
To: Violet
From: Rylan
Ever since you left I’ve been trying to convince myself I don’t miss you already.
It’s not working.
I can’t help the smile that spreads wide across my face as I read his words. I’ve momentarily forgotten all about my mum sitting only an arm’s length away, but she hasn’t forgotten about me it would seem.
“Well that answers my question about you and that boy then, doesn’t it?”
As I sit the phone down I can feel myself blushing. “I’m not sure he should be classed as a boy, Mum. A man might be more appropriate.”
She raises her brows at me and I realise that I’ve just insinuated that I’m familiar with his manhood.
I cover my eyes as I feel my face flaming even deeper red.
Mum laughs at my predicament.
“Not like that! You know what I mean… he’s not a kid, oh God, this is so embarrassing.”
“So… he seems very nice,” she prompts me for more information, clearly not yet having got what she’s after from this little talk.
“He is, and yes, I do like him… I like him a lot actually.”
I don’t know where she’s planning to go with this conversation, but just in case she’s about to give me the birds and bees talk, I decide to get in first.
“I know I’ve never had a real boyfriend, but I’m not fifteen anymore, okay? I’m a grown woman and I can take care of myself.”
She nods her head in acceptance, but I can’t help but feel a little guilty that she’s missed out on that particular milestone with me.
It’s a mother’s rite of passage to stress about their daughter getting drunk and winding up pregnant, but that was never going to be an issue for me. She more than got her money’s worth with Auggie however, so I guess it all evened out in the end.
“I just worry about you.”
She’s always worried about me and she probably always will, but at some point she’s going to have to let go and let me live the life she’s fought so hard for me to have.
“I know you do, but I’m fine, really I am. He’s a good man.”
“Does he know about your heart?”
I nod, and it feels so incredible to be able to answer that question with an honest yes.
“I told him today… it was like I’d confessed something as trivial as the colour of my eyes.” I huff out a laugh of disbelief. “Must be the doctor in him.”
Mum smiles at me in a knowing way and I instantly feel like a little girl who still has so much to learn.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Vi, and it’s got nothing to do with the fact that he’s a doctor.” She shrugs. “He’s in love with you.”
The way she says it, like it’s totally straightforward and uncomplicated makes the heart in my chest gallop like a race horse.
I might be too old for the safe sex lecture, but I’m not too old to talk to my mum about the new man in my life, so I do.
I tell her everything about him and by the end of it, I’m well aware that I’m in love with him too.
He might not have asked me anything much when I first told him about my heart, but he’s certainly making up for it now.
He wants to know everything.
Only, the questions he’s firing at me aren’t the ones I expected to hear.
He doesn’t seem to want to know about my illness so much as he does my life – he wants to know what I’ve done with my new heart these past three years.
So I tell him.
“Before my transplant I was studying business.”
He raises his brows at me in surprise.
“Mmm hmm.” I nod. “I don’t know what I was thinking… I dropped it as soon as I was well enough to convince Mum I’d thought it through.”
“What did you change to?”
“I didn’t...” I shake my head. “I decided that I wanted to explore my real passion.”
“Painting.” He nods in understanding.
It probably should surprise me that he got the answer correct in one, but it doesn’t. He sees me, and even though he hasn’t seen any of my work – he already seems to know it’s important to me.
“I signed up to some local art classes and some short courses. I’ve done painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, design… you name it, I’ve probably taken a class.”
I taught a few painting classes too, but I decide to leave that part out. This conversation is teetering on the edge of dangerous territory as it is, the last thing I want to do is encourage him to ask to see my work for himself – because I’m not sure I’d have it in me to say no.
“I could have studied art and gotten myself a degree, but what would be the point? I don’t need a degree to paint.”
He’s smiling at me like he agrees with my logic.
“So when you’re not working at the shelter, you’re painting?”
I crinkle my nose sheepishly. “So, I don’t actually work there… I’m a volunteer.”
“Huh… that’s cool. Do you volunteer anywhere else?”
“Sometimes I hang out with the Heart Kids group I used to be a part of, but that’s about it. I’d love to spend some time in the children’s ward at the hospital, because I spent so much time in there when I was little, but I can’t. My immune system isn’t what it should be. Animals have a lot less I can catch.”
I don’t go into details about the medication I take and how it suppresses my immune system in order to reduce the risk of my body rejecting my new heart – he’s a doctor and he probably understands my condition better than I ever could anyway.
That’s when the thought occurs to me. He delivers babies, and the defect I have – I was born with. Someone like him probably brought me into the world.
“Have you ever delivered a baby with a heart condition like mine?”
He looks at me with a pained glance and my stomach flips.
“You have, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“The baby didn’t survive, did it?”
He shakes his head. “The parents decided against medical intervention.”
Tears spring to my eyes and I blink them back fiercely.
That could have been me.
If my parents weren’t as strong as they are – not that I think those other parents necessarily made a weak choice – they did what was right for them, but in my mind, the strength is in the fight.
I’m so thankful that my parents chose to fight.
“So, you sell your art?” he questions, no doubt in an attempt to distract me from the current topic of conversation.
I laugh nervously. “God no.”
That would require people to actually see my paintings.
His expression is confused. “Sorry for the intrusion, but how exactly do you pay the bills?”
He sits down his chocolate milkshake on the table, picks up my strawberry one and brings it up to his lips to suck it through the straw.
This conversation was bound to come up at some point; I knew it would, and it’s not that I don’t want to tell him, but discussing my financial situation always fills me with a feeling of guilt.
“You remember I told you about my Aunt?”
He nods. “Rita, right? She gave you the ring and the house.”
I like that he hasn’t forgotten what I told him about the ring around my neck, and I appreciate that he recognises it’s just as important to me as the big, beautiful house is.
“That’s the one… She also left me money – a lot of it. It’s invested well and turns over a pretty solid income, so given my medical situation and the fact that I don’t really know what I want to do for a job, I’ve just been volunteering my time and living off the money she left me, even though I don’t feel like I deserve that luxury most of the time.”
If it was anyone other than him I’d be expecting a question about just how much money I inherited, but I know he won’t ask – he’s not that type of guy.
“She must have loved you very much. Why wouldn’t you deserve it? She obviously wanted you to have it.”
I think about the truth in his words for a minute.
She did love me; she loved me like I was her own daughter. She’d been a big part of my life since the day I was born, and I know all she ever wanted was for me to have a real life. It’s a hard pill to swallow that I finally got one, and she’s not around to see me enjoy it.
She passed so quickly and unexpectedly, none of us saw it coming or had time to process it. She never even told anyone that she was unwell.
“She knew she was dying. She had everything all mapped out, her money, her assets, letters for us all… even her funeral was planned for us. She didn’t even look sick.” There’s tears pooling in the corners of my eyes and I know it won’t be long before one escapes down my cheek.
He reaches out and intertwines his fingers with mine across the top of the table.
“You miss her.”
I shake my head. “Well I mean, yeah…” I sniff. “I miss her like crazy, but that’s not it. It’s the guilt that gets me. She left us a couple of months after I got my new heart. All that time she was unwell and the only thing she worried about was me and my family. She was there supporting us when it should have been the other way around.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons for that.”
I don’t doubt that she did – Rita had her reasons for everything, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to accept.
“I just don’t understand. Why did I get to stay when she had to go? Why was my life deemed more important than hers?” I choke the words out.
He squeezes my hand but says nothing – I think he knows I’m not really looking for an answer to my question.
“In a way it feels like I’m responsible for two deaths,” I whisper.
“You’re not responsible for any deaths, Violet.”
He pulls on my hand so I look at him. His blue eyes are burning into mine with sincerity.
“I know I didn’t kill them, but I benefitted from them dying, Rylan. How is that not the same thing?” My voice cracks as I voice my guilt. “A donor – someone I didn’t even know – gave me their heart, their actual heart. The very thing that keeps us alive was taken from their body and put into mine. I can literally feel another person’s heart beating in my chest.”
“I’m not going to pretend to understand how it feels to live because somebody else died, because I don’t, but I do know that none of this is your fault – you didn’t ask to be born with this condition, Violet. This isn’t on you.”
He makes a valid point, but it’s still something I have a hard time getting my head around.
“I know they were going to die anyway, and that I needed this organ to live, but it’s just so conflicting to think about.”
He gives me a sad smile.
“And Rita, she gave me so much – she’s not just given me money and a roof over my head, she’s given me freedom. She gave me the means to do everything I ever wanted… she’s the reason I got to travel the world.”
“You travelled?”
I nod and smile. “I saw everything I’ve ever wanted to see.” I rest my hand over the spot where my heart it. “When I was stuck in the hospital, I promised myself if I ever got a second chance to live, that I’d tick off all of the boxes on my list, so when I got my new heart, that’s what I did.”
I’m not sure if he’s grateful for the change of subject, or if the sights of the world is something that gets him excited, but his face breaks into a smile and his eyes light up.
“Tell me.”
“Lucy, Emmett and I went for six months; and Charlie joined us for a month over his summer break.”
I sigh as I think about all the incredible places I went and all the amazing things I saw.
“I saw the Louvre and the Mona Lisa in Paris, the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City, Michelangelo’s David in Florence, Banksy in London, The Colosseum in Rome… we went to Vienna, Venice, New York, Barcelona, Mexico, Istanbul, Athens… if it had art, I saw it.”
“I think she would have been happy to give you that, Vi. She didn’t leave you all of that because she wanted you to feel guilty, she gave it to you so you could live.”
He squeezes my hand and I can’t help but smile in agreement.
“I think the only reason you’d have to feel guilty is if you weren’t doing exactly that.”