Hold Her Heart (Words of the Heart) (8 page)

“It sounds as if you like these people, and that’s good. It’s a good place to start. And if you come to love them, I won’t feel as if it means you love me any less. If your mom were here, she’d say the same thing.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” I hadn’t called him that since I was younger than Fiona. It just slipped out. Maybe right now I wanted to be that little girl again.

When I was Fiona’s age, life was simple. My parents adored me. I adored them. And because of them I knew I could be anything I wanted to be, and they’d be there for me. Like tonight, when I called Dad. He’d picked up before the phone rang on my end. He’d probably been sitting with it in his hand.

“Really, thanks, Dad. I love you. Good night.”

“I love you, too. You call me tomorrow. And as soon as you hear from the doctors.”

“I will,” I promised.

I clicked the button and sat the phone down on the edge of the chest. It was easy to imagine people doing the same thing over the hundred-plus years it had been around.

I traced the letters again. T. P. E. I wondered who she was, this woman who’d originally owned the chest. And one day she’d passed it to her daughter. Then that daughter to her daughter and down the line. A line of women. Here I was on the other end of that line, and I knew nothing about them. Where they were from, what they’re names were.

I was a math and science geek. Though I worked with technology, I remembered enough of my biology classes to think of mitochondrial DNA. It was the DNA that comes from someone’s mother. It was microscopic bits that flowed down the river of time from one mother to the next. A long line of women, tied through time.

There was a very good chance that T. P. E’s mitochondrial DNA flowed through Piper and through her to me. We were linked through blood. And if the poor odds landed in our favor, that blood might be able to help Piper. My bone marrow to be more specific.

I thought of that long line of women who’d come before me and hoped beyond hope that because of them I could save Piper.

I didn’t open the chest. I also didn’t sleep well.

The room I was using was comfortable enough. It was small, like so many bedrooms in older homes. I didn’t mind that. I never thought a bedroom needed to have much more than a bed and a dresser or two in it. This one was adequate in that respect and had a small closet. It was painted a soothing light gray, and the bedding was a darker, steelier color.

No, it wasn’t the room or the bed that caused my sleepless night. It wasn’t even the chest that sat untouched in the living room. I was curious about Piper, but what I’d already learned was more than I could handle.

Every book she’d written she’d dedicated to me.

She’d started a food pantry in my name.

She’d never forgotten me.

She’d waited for me.

All night long those facts swirled around in my mind. I dreamed about her handing out food to babies. And in the dream, I saw her crying. A young girl, not much older than Fiona, crying.

I gave up pretending to sleep at 5:00. To be honest, I got up about that time most days. I’d always been an early bird. When friends bragged about sleeping away a weekend morning , I couldn’t imagine it. I considered 6:00 a.m. sleeping in.

I’d slept in yoga pants and a tank top. I slipped my OSU sweatshirt on and felt I was modest enough for a roommate.

I wasn’t sure if Logan was a light sleeper so I tiptoed past his door just in case, and then down the stairs, and into the kitchen. I turned on the small light in the hood over the stove and took him at his word and made myself at home. I hunted for the coffee. If I was going to stay for a while, I’d need to go to the grocery store, sooner rather than later.

Logan was right. The pantry was well stocked. I found the coffee and looked out the window as the coffeemaker chugged along.

Ned’s backyard wasn’t as jungle-esque as Piper’s, but even in the morning murkiness I could see Piper’s garden encroaching on his. I looked at the chestnut tree—Logan’s tree. It looked sturdy in the corner.

When the coffee was done, I found a mug and padded out into the backyard. The ground was cold and dewy as I walked along the woodchip path, through the hole in the fence, and into Piper’s backyard. I went to the bench we’d sat on yesterday and pulled my now freezing wet feet up onto the seat.

For a moment I sat in the silent morning but gradually realized it wasn’t silent at all. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of it waking up. There was a bird feeder up closer to the house, and I could hear the birds calling out. A series of chirps, clicks, and whistles. I realized that the yard was a cacophony of sound.

Suddenly the sounds altered. The birds’ calls grew shriller and then stopped abruptly. Seconds later, there was the sound of someone running on the path.

“I thought I saw you,” Fiona said. “You’re an early bird, like me. That makes sense ’cause we’re sisters.”

She was fully dressed, but she obviously hadn’t brushed her hair. It stuck out this way and that from the remnants of yesterday’s ponytail.

“If you sit here real quiet, you can hear my sparrows. They come to the feeder first thing every morning to check it out. If you’re sitting closer to the house, you can see a couple come up and make sure there’s feed, and then they call out to all the rest of them, and soon the feeder’s swarming with them.”

“You like birds?” I asked.

She nodded, sending more wisps of hair bolting from the ponytail holder. “Yeah. I like ’em all. When we used to go to the beach, I’d take bread for the seagulls. Logan says they’re flying rats, but I like ’em. Did you ever read
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
? I think that’s why,” she said, not leaving me time to answer. “They’ve got snowy owls out on the peninsula now and bald eagles. And blue herons. Oh, and there’s a whole part of the beach they close down every spring ’cause they hope some birds nest there. Plovers I think. I’d like to go to the peninsula and spot them, but Mom’s not really up to that, so we just watch them back here. I got her garden certified as a wildlife habitat last year for her birthday. There’s a little plaque near the house.”

From where we sat at the back of the garden, the house was only just visible through the bushes and trees. In the summer, when all the leaves were full and green, I didn’t think you’d be able to see it at all. “I’m sure Piper loved the present.”

“I think so.”

“I don’t know much about bird songs, but I’ve always liked learning what groups of birds are called. They’re all something different,” I said. “A murder of crows, a raft of ducks, an unkindess of ravens.” I thought about
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
and added, “a squabble of gulls.”

“I didn’t know those.” Fiona paused and then went back to what was really on her mind. “She’s really sick, you know.”

“Yes.”

“If you can’t save her, then she might die,” Fiona said, voicing my secret fear.

I didn’t want the responsibility of saving Piper. It seemed like too much. But I couldn’t say that to Fiona, so I warned her, “They said me being a match is a long shot.”

“I know.” She sighed. “I got tested, you know.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t.”

“Mom said no, I was too young. So last spring, I got on a bus and went to her doctor’s office. I told them I wanted to be tested. Of course, they said no. I was a minor and they couldn’t do any tests on me without my parents’ permission. When they said that, I started crying. I mean, really crying. You know the kind of crying that when you start it you can’t stop? That kind. It’s so frustrating to be a kid and to have everyone think you can’t understand and you can’t help. I just couldn’t stop. They were going to call Mom, but I made ’em call Dad. And when he showed up, I said if he didn’t let me get tested, I was going to run away ’cause I couldn’t live with knowing I might have saved her if they’d have just listened to me.”

I looked at this young girl—my sister—with her sleep-tousled hair. She didn’t sound nine. She sounded like an adult. I realized that for more than half of her life she’d lived with Piper’s illness. She’d lived with the fears of losing her mother daily. It would be like living with a guillotine poised over your neck.

“I wasn’t a match anyway,” she said softly.

I set my coffee down on the bench next to me and reached over to her.

“They said kids aren’t generally a match for their parents,” Fiona said. “I think Grandma feels guilty. Like if maybe she’d had more kids, Mom would have a better chance.”

I wondered about this grandmother I didn’t know. Mom and Dad had both lost their parents before I came along, so I’d never had a grandparent.

“You tried. You did your best,” I said, knowing how lame the words were even as I said them. “And I’m here to do mine. And if I’m not a match, either, maybe they’ll find a donor out there.”

She shrugged, and I could see in her expression that she didn’t believe they’d find a donor. Rather than say so, Fiona said, “Mom will be up soon. Wanna come in and help me make her breakfast?”

“Do you think she’ll mind me just making myself at home?”

“She’s waited for you every day of your life. She gave me an Irish name because of yours. Siobhan and Fiona. We sound like sisters, don’t we? Siobhan and Fiona.” She said our names together as if she’d practiced them before.

I realized that she’d known about me her whole life. I felt bad about missing out on hers. A big sister should be there for a little one. And yet, Fiona was the one offering me comfort and support.

As if on cue, she added, “Mom loves you. She won’t mind. She’ll love it.”

I nodded. I picked up my coffee cup and we walked toward the house. Fiona stopped. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“What?”

“There was a different bird call. Not a robin or sparrow. I’ll tell Mom. We’ll watch for it. She wrote
Fiona and the Magic Feather
for me, ’cause I loved birds so much.”

With a different cadence to her voice, she said,

Fiona heard a call that she’d never heard before and ran to the feeder. She saw a feather resting on the ground. It was a very large feather. Blue and green and brown and black. The colors seemed to glow. She understood it was a very special gift . . . she was little enough to know magic when she saw it. Grownups were often too busy with the real world to notice that magic was real and that it was all around them.

I realized she was quoting the book.

“I believe in magic,” she said. “I always believed you’d come home, and here you are. Magic.” She opened the back door into the house.

I followed her in. “That must be so exciting to see your name in a book.”

“It is.” Fiona gave me a look that again was far too old for a nine-year-old. “But you know she wrote everything for you.”

“I know. For Amanda,” I said as we entered the kitchen. The sink and counter were filled with the remnants of last night’s dinner dishes. I thought about Piper, making me a dinner despite the fact that food made her nauseous. It might be presumptuous to make myself at home, but I could at least get this cleaned up for her.

“Yeah, and—oh, you only read the older books. Hold on.” She tore out of the kitchen and was back a few seconds later. “Here.” She handed me a book called
The Naming of Things
. “This is one she wrote before I was born.”

“To Siobhan . . . and Ned. You are my heart.”

My hand trembled as I read the words. Piper had changed her dedications. She’d used my real name.

“And this one is after I was born.” Fiona handed me another one. “For Ned, Siobhan, and my little Fiona.”

“You have always been part of our family,” Fiona told me. “Even before you knew us.”

Fiona walked over to the pantry as if what she’d shown me was no big deal. I stood another moment, my finger tracing the letters of the dedication.

I felt another stab of guilt that I’d waited so long to come find Piper. And Ned and Fiona, too.

“I like to feed her healthy stuff,” Fiona said.

I set the book aside as my sister and I—I realized I liked thinking that,
my sister and I
—made steel-cut oatmeal and finished cleaning the kitchen while it cooked.

When the last dish was put away, I said, “Why don’t you go get a brush. I’ll show you a braid my friend Jaylin used to do on my hair.”

“Cool. Then we can make some fruit salad.” Fiona dashed from the room almost silently. That she could move so quietly didn’t surprise me, I realized. She’d had a lot of practice as she tried not to disturb Piper.

Piper came down half an hour later and smiled when she saw me and Fiona sitting at the table, Fiona’s new braid in place.

She ran her finger across Fiona’s woven hair and said, “Beautiful.”

“Siobhan did it. Her friend Jaylin used to do her hair like this. She’s got lots of hair like we do. She says it’s called a fishtail, but her and Jaylin always called it a Canadian braid ’cause Jaylin learned to do it from some Canadian girls at school. And when you got this much hair, a braid is always good.”

“It is,” Piper agreed and then added, “You cleaned the kitchen.”

“Yep,” Fiona said, willingly carrying the conversation. “Me and my sister are a good team.”

Fiona bound from her chair and pulled out the one next to hers. “Sit down. Me and Siobhan made breakfast for you. She gets up early like me, and we were in the garden. I heard some new bird, so maybe later we can go out and see if we can spot it. Did you know a group of seagulls is a squabble?”

Piper sat down at the table. “No, I didn’t.”

I felt awkward and intrusive, though I already knew that Piper would deny both. “I hope you don’t mind. Fiona thought—”

“This is your home, Siobhan,” Piper said simply, though there was nothing simple about meeting her, meeting all of them.

Piper managed a few bites of her oatmeal. I think she only managed that much for Fiona’s sake. I could see that it was taxing. She didn’t look like someone who’d just gotten out of bed. She looked exhausted.

“Can I get you something?” I asked softly as Fiona ran to get her a bowl of fruit salad.

“Maybe you should go get Ned. I think there’s a chance I need to get to the doctor’s. I think I’m running a bit of a fever.”