Heart Strings (10 page)

“But you moved into his room and help with chores. You take her to the store and visit George with her. You're kind, affectionate, polite and …” Keely pulled her hand free from Tripp's. “Everything Mark wasn't.”

The light in Rosa's room was dim but when Keely's eyes adjusted, she saw a man in an armchair in the corner of the room. He looked tired but seeing her, smiled, and she saw the similarity in his features to Rosa. She was on oxygen and paler than when Keely saw her last, but she gave a thumbs-up signal when Keely came in.

Rosa's father, after some urging, left to get a bite of supper, but not before kissing her and telling her he’d be in the cafeteria if she needed him.

“What kind of girl talk did you have in mind?” Keely asked when she'd settled into a chair close to Rosa's bed.

“If you've ever been to a high school dance, I'd like to hear about it. What it's like, what you wore, everything you can remember and want to tell me.”

Keely's heart wrenched, knowing why she was asking. But she told her about the dance she'd gone to with Mark, realizing with a shock halfway through her story that she saw Tripp's face when she talked about dancing. “It wasn't the best night in the world,” she confessed, after telling how Mark had talked cars most of the evening. “But it was a first, and my friend Megan says you always remember firsts. First boyfriend. First kiss.” Keely shrugged.

“Are you in love with this guy? Do you go steady with him?”

Keely smoothed Rosa's covers, and swallowing hard, told her about Mark. About his death and how she'd been sure she'd love him forever and Megan saying they were too different to be in love. “He was kind of wild, but he made me feel exciting. I'm calm and quiet. Mark and I never officially went steady.” She thought about the plastic ring from the gum machine and how she'd wished it was a real ring. “We'd just been dating a few weeks before he died, but we'd been neighbors for years.”

“Tripp is calm and quiet except when he's clowning.” Rosa reached for Keely's hand on top the covers and squeezed it. “Trippo's a good guy.”

“Somebody's playing matchmaker.” Keely smiled. “But you're right. Not many guys his age would donate time here at the hospital like he does.”

Rosa’s eyes drifted shut and Keely stepped back, frightened.

“She's fallen asleep.” Keely hadn’t heard the nurse enter the room. “Just let her doze a while.” The plump middle-aged woman who was getting ready to take Rosa's vital signs introduced herself as one of Rosa’s special care nurses. “Are you a school friend?”

“I'm a new friend. Tripp introduced us.”

“That boy is something else.” The nurse’s smile was sweet. “All patients who receive new hearts are grateful, but Tripp Andrews 'lives his thanks' by giving other kids hope.”

*****

Keely felt like she was in shock. Jonathan Michael Andrews III came close to dying and received the gift of life, but never mentioned to her. Why had he kept his heart a secret?

“Cat got your tongue?” Tripp asked as they pulled up in front of her house. She hadn't said a word all the way home and was hardly aware of him sitting next to her. “Or are you worried about Rosa?”

Keely turned in the seat to look straight at him. “Why didn't you tell me you had a heart transplant?”

Tripp looked as if he might faint. Bending over, he toyed with a knob on the dashboard. “I didn't want it to make a difference between us.”

“Why would it?”

“I hate being treated like a fragile ornament that needs wrapped in cotton.”

Keely remembered how pale he'd been earlier in the summer, and thought if she'd known, she might have worried. “Evelyn.” Keely started to understand things she hadn't before. “Evelyn didn't want you to mow the whole yard at once, or play ball at our barbecue.”

“She's a worrier.” Tripp grimaced and told Keely his health history in a few short sentences. “I can do almost anything I want,” he finished.

Evelyn gave him Mark's shirt so he wouldn't burn. But why had she tried to give Tripp the Harley? What did she want from him? “If you knew how overprotective she tried to be with Mark, you never would have told her about your transplant.”

*****

Tripp told Keely he couldn't keep his heart a secret from Evelyn because of the medications he took daily. Pinocchio time again.

“But you could keep it from me, and did,” Keely flared, “and that's not fair.”

Rosa told him she'd be mad, but she'd found out before he could even think about telling her the truth. And then she said he was everything Mark wasn't, like she felt bad about it. When Tripp's mother said something off the wall like that, his dad just shook his head and said, “Women. You have to love them even if you don't understand them.”

Evelyn was working on a crossword puzzle when Tripp walked in. Looking up, she smiled. “Guess what. George knew me today. I wore my hair this way years ago, and maybe that's why. He looked right at me and said, 'Hi, Sweetie'.” Beaming, she patted her hair and Tripp saw she'd had it cut short. “The doctors are trying him on a new medicine and he's not as agitated. I actually enjoyed my visit today, and I believe he did.”

She laid her puzzle aside. “I'm sorry I mentioned the motorcycle when you were leaving to visit your friend at the hospital. If you don't want to ride, I respect that. You were right, you're not my son.”

“I hope I didn't hurt your feelings. I should never have said that.” He'd been afraid Keely hurt Evelyn's feelings the other night, but when he followed, she said she was fine.

“Yes. You should. I like you for who you are, and without realizing it, I may have tried to turn you into someone else.”

Tripp, knowing whom Evelyn meant, went to bed without asking permission to tell Keely the name of his heart donor.

*****

Keely lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, scenes from Tripp's life, as well as she could imagine it, going through her head. A small boy with a weak heart with a loving couple coddling him. A young teen lying in a hospital bed with a clown entertaining him. Tripp, lying on an operating table with his chest laid open. Moving ahead quickly from that painful image, she saw him sitting in the Jefferson kitchen, a row of medicine bottles beside him.

He said he hadn't told anyone in Branburg except Evelyn, but he didn't know anyone else except her, Megan, and Devon. And Will, if you could count Will. Will's parents made him into a big baby, but from all she'd heard about Tripp's folks, they were never around to coddle him. Were they afraid they'd spoil him? Or afraid he'd die and they couldn't bear it?

Keely sprang upright in bed. Did Tripp think if she'd known about his heart she'd be afraid to become friends? She'd been afraid to meet Rosa, so of course he did. But she was glad she'd let him into her life, and Rosa too. Remembering what he'd said about not living life afraid of death, Keely understood what he meant. She'd been afraid to love again after Mark died, but even if something happened to him, or Rosa, she'd be glad they met.

The phone rang and Keely snatched it up, hoping to hear Tripp's voice, but it was Megan. After some hesitation, Keely told her about the nurse at the hospital giving away Tripp's secret. “He had a heart transplant and never told me.”

“How exciting,” Megan squealed. “And romantic. He loves you with all his new heart.” Megan sighed dramatically. “Not to mention mysterious. I saw a transplant on
Murder, She Wrote
once.” A huge Jessica Fletcher fan, Megan knew every episode of the former TV show by heart. “This nurse's brother was waiting in the hospital for a heart, and when a patient died who’d signed to be an organ donor, the police thought she was responsible. But his heart and her brother's weren't compatible and that proved—”

“What makes hearts compatible?” Keely, gazing at the net heart over her dresser, wondered if she and Mark's were compatible or mismatched the way Megan thought.

“Blood type, size, and age are important, and as a nurse in critical cardiac care, this woman knew that, so she wouldn't have had any reason to let him die. So Jessica began to look for another—”

“Tripp couldn't have a two-year-old's heart then?” Keely didn't want to hear a rundown of the whole show. “Nor that of a seventy-year-old woman's?”

“Right. And Jessica discovered—”

“I wonder whose heart he has.”

“Would you let me finish a sentence, please?” Megan sighed dramatically. “I thought mystery was my bag and yours was romance.”

“It is.” Keely, laying her hand over her chest, looked at Mark's heart again. It was a faded reminder of the past, and it was time to live in the present. “That's why I wonder whose heart Tripp has.”

“It's his heart now, silly.”

Was it? Or did he love her with someone else's heart? Love. Keely became so engrossed in spinning daydreams, she barely noticed when Megan hung up.

*****

It was one of those lazy, hazy days of summer when Keely, Tripp, Devon, and Megan set out on Brookville Lake with her family's pontoon. Devon, with Megan's assistance, steered them to a quiet inlet where they planned to sun, swim, and snack until time to eat the picnic lunch they'd brought.

Keely took off her terry cloth cover-up and sat down on her oversized beach towel. Tripp, sitting on a bath towel he brought from Evelyn's cast a hesitant look at her before peeling off his tee shirt. A zipper-like scar stood out on his pale chest. He bent his knees and wrapped his arms around them. She understood now why he'd worn his shirt last time. “It's not bad,” she said softly.

He smiled and shrugged. “It will fade some with time.”

“Do you ever wonder whose heart you have?” Her question popped out.

Tripp’s face totally lost its color. “It's not something I like to talk about.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked.” Keely slathered suntan lotion over her body, then offered it to him. “Your chest might burn.”

He shook his head. “I'll put my T-shirt back on in a little while.”

She lay down on her back, stretched her arms over her head, and sighed contentedly. Her two piece navy swimsuit stayed put when she moved. She'd wanted something skimpier but watching Megan's constant tugging to keep her bikini top up and bottom down, Keely was glad her mom put her foot down. She closed her eyes and listened to the gentle slap of the water against the boat. Today was perfect. If she had to die today, she would want her heart to go to Rosa. Keely fantasized a romantic day for Rosa lying on a pontoon deck, sorry her donor died, but grateful to live. “Do doctors ever tell patients who their hearts came from? If I were you, I'd be curious.”

“I thought romance was your thing, and mystery was mine.”

He sounded just like Megan, but to prove a point, she took his hand and batting her eyelashes, kissed it.

Tripp grinned. “That's more like it, and the answer is 'no'—they usually don't. Now, I think this Stephen King fan needs to cool off.” Seconds later, she heard the splash as he hit the water, and another as Devon joined him.

Megan, who'd been sitting several feet away, moved closer. “I couldn't help overhearing, and it doesn't matter whose heart Tripp loves you with. It's his now, and you two are so perfect together, I'm glad you met.”

Keely smiled without opening her eyes. Megan thought Tripp loved her. “I couldn't move on with my life, but then I met him.”

“And broke Will Laughlin's heart.” Megan chuckled. “Seriously, he's dating someone now.”

“I hope his folks raised his allowance or she has a job.”

“Didn't I tell you? He's working at Hoosier Hot Wings.”

“Will's working?” Keely let out a shout. “He must be in love.”

“Who?” Tripp's head appeared and then the rest of his body as he clambered aboard the pontoon again.

“You.” Megan pointed a finger at him.

He dropped down beside Keely and smiled. “Could be,” he said so softly that only she could hear.

Devon hit the deck like a beached whale, and the water he threw on everyone brought shouts and retaliation. Laughing and splashing, they played until Megan complained she was hungry and everyone stopped to eat. But all the while, Keely hugged Tripp's words to her heart, and whenever she caught him looking at her, gave him what she hoped was a mysterious smile.

On the way home, in the back seat of the Hendrix van which Megan was driving, Keely teased Tripp about his red and blue striped swimming trunks, asking where the white stripes were. “You are going to dress like Uncle Sam for the Fourth, aren't you?”

“If you'll dress like Mrs. Sam.” Leaning his forehead against hers, he looked far more serious than his words. And then he bent his head to steal a quick kiss. Breathless, Keely looked up into his eyes.

“I am in love,” he whispered. “Are you?”

Nodding, she raised her lips for another kiss, and received one better and longer than before.

*****

CHAPTER 10

Tripp wished he had the whole week of Freedom Days Festival free, the same as Keely whose mother was between cheerleading camps. But his schedule was busier than usual. Branburg's biggest Little League tourney of the year was scheduled for the morning of July 4
^th
, and Joey wanted to practice daily. Tripp had “his kids” to visit, especially Rosa who'd been moved to the top of the list of patients who needed heart donors. Her father was supposed to be her only visitor but hospital rules were bent for Tripp. He was part of the staff and as important as her medicine, Rosa insisted, and her doctors agreed.

Aunt Ev had surprised him by volunteering to help decorate a float for Heartland. “I used to help with the PTA float when Mark was in grade school,” she told Tripp over breakfast one day. “And with George in the nursing home, I decided to get involved there. Now that he's calmer, I believe he recognizes me sometimes. Maybe if I'm lucky, he'll call me Sweetie again one day.”

Tripp gave her a hug before carrying his dishes to the sink.

“Tripp? I think I should apologize to Keely for spilling the beans about her and Mark. I think she saw I was taking advantage of you before I did, and I want her to know I wasn't trying to cause trouble between you two when I mentioned her dating.”