The Recipient (3 page)

She hated it.

Casey felt like some bizarre human experiment, destined for an eternity of analysis and scrutiny.

But there were also the other unanticipated things that no one, least of all she, could have predicted. Her insomnia was foremost. There were frequent periods where Casey could be trapped awake for days at a time, unable to calm her mind. It was a phenomenon that only existed since the surgery and it had not abated.

In order to function, Casey developed inventive strategies.

Work was one method. By taking on the most complex jobs she could find, jobs that would occupy as much time as possible, she would render sleep a luxury. So long as she was working, constructing, testing and problem-solving she could avoid dealing with the negatives of her insomnia. Medications helped too—and not the type that were sanctioned by her medical team. Casey had done enough research on the myriad of available stimulants and depressants to know what she could take safely, and in what combinations, if there was such a thing.

Despite this, Casey knew there was a limit to staving off sleep. Her body eventually called time-out and she had to succumb.

Then she dreamed. It was the thing she hated most of all.

With the completion of the contract and no new work on the horizon, she had run out of excuses to avoid sleep.

She drew the glass up to her lips again and sipped. Alcohol would numb her, but only partially.

Looking down, Casey spied a small wooden box on the table. Setting her glass down, she reached for it and balanced it on her knees as she opened it. Inside was a small metallic pipe and a Zippo lighter, both of which were surrounded by balled-up wads of green. She plucked up the pipe and pressed one of those wads into the conical spout, then lit the marijuana, taking a long drag. As the effects of the drug worked almost immediately, she reclined and smiled. Her muscles relaxed, the tornado of her thoughts dissipated.

If her physician knew what she was doing right now, he would have a shit-fit.

His drug-addled heart transplant recipient.

Fuck him and his rules
, she thought acidly.
This is what changing my life gets you.

Her life had indeed changed. It had shifted tectonically. No longer was Casey Schillinge the wide-eyed, optimistic young woman. The goody-two-shoes suburban daughter. The high achieving, straight-A university student.

The heart had changed everything. It had taken as much away from her as it had given her.

For now, the wine would anaesthetise her, but the weed would knock out her subconscious and give her what she so desperately craved: long, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 3.

T
he sharpened bevel of the needle touched down onto the skin and pressed inward, puckering the surface until it punctured it. A small bead of red blossomed, clinging to the shaft of the needle. The nurse winced at the sight of the blood; fearing she had missed her target, but she opted to persevere. Angling the needle downward slightly, she flattened its trajectory as she searched for the invisible target beneath the skin.

Casey watched as the nurse shifted on her stool. Telltale beads of sweat formed on the nurse's brow as she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, refocusing to try once more.

Must be a newbie
, Casey thought darkly, doing all she could to hold back a scowl. Instead, she kept her expression flat, watching the nurse like a hawk.

The nurse drew back with the most delicate of pressure, and her eyes brightened as a flashback of blood appeared inside the clear tubing that was attached to the needle. Reaching for a nearby vial, the nurse attached it to a barrel at the opposite end, and watched as a thin jet of Casey's blood flowed into the vial under pressure. She repeated the process with a second and third vial.

Withdrawing the needle, she pressed a ball of cotton wool to the entry site and Casey lifted her arm up, compressing the cotton wool against her skin.

“All done,” the nurse said, her voice filled with relief.

Casey slipped her feet into her shoes, then grabbed a nearby pen and scrawled her signature on the form that lay on the bench.

“Thank you,” she said quickly, leaving the room before the nurse could say goodbye.

___

The gentle whir of motors vibrated underneath her as the platform on which she lay slid backwards, entering into the circular tunnel of the Magnetic Resonance Imager.

Adjusting her head on the pillow, Casey closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing, rather than the intensely claustrophobic environment. An ominous thrum surrounded her and she bit the inside of her lip. For a moment, she felt a faint niggle of pain in her arm from where the nurse had taken blood earlier, and she focused her attention on that in an effort to quell her anxiety. Casey supposed she had the inexperienced nurse to thank now for providing her with a means of distraction while she was temporarily imprisoned in this technological monstrosity and she smiled inwardly, if a little bitterly, at the irony.

The earbud headphones Casey wore crackled with static, then a male voice sounded in her head. “We're about to begin,” it announced with cold detachment.

Casey nodded without responding, knowing that the source of that voice could see her via the camera situated inside the tunnel.

The shrill sound of classical music filtered into her headphones while, all around her, the hulking innards of the MR Imager rumbled to life. Its huge magnets began to spin, creating a bizarre, hammering cacophony that drowned out the music.

Casey couldn't decide which sound was worse.

She reflexively tried to put her hand to her head but stopped when the male voice crackled in her earphones. “Please keep still!” It ordered harshly.

In a booth outside the MRI unit, detailed images of Casey's internal anatomy began to appear on a screen in front of the radiographer. His thin fingers danced over a keyboard, tapping a series of commands as the front-on images became a series of transverse, top-down slices of Casey's chest. He regarded them blankly, behind impossibly thick glasses and scratched his neatly clipped beard thoughtfully.

Inside the tunnel, Casey grimaced, trying to close out the unnerving racket as well as the tinny classical music. She drifted into her thoughts, using an exercise that she employed whenever she was outdoors.

Casey touched a distant silence beyond the cacophony and rode on it for the final few minutes of the test. Then, suddenly, she felt the bed slide out from inside the machine. She blinked, looking up to see the radiographer and his assistant.

“We're finished, miss,” he said flatly. “You can get dressed.”

He turned on his heel as his assistant, who flashed a disapproving glare at him, took her hand and helped her into a sitting position. Scowling at the back of the man's head, she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“He was different,” Casey remarked dourly.

“New guy,” the assistant replied. “Not really a people person.”

Hopping down from the bed, Casey slipped her feet into her shoes and retrieved her bag from a nearby chair.

The radiographer appeared in the doorway of the MRI suite armed with a large envelope. “Here are your hard copies. Your consultant will have electronic ones in a few moments. The images aren't bad but you shouldn't have moved inside the imager.”

Handing Casey the envelope with about as much emotion as if he were handing her a drive-through hamburger, the radiographer left the room without another word.

___

Casey lay on an examination bed in a darkened room, waiting impatiently.

An ECG machine sat beside her, its leads connected to adhesive pads strategically placed across her bare chest. She lay there now, covered only by a paper sheet, grinding her teeth. The machine was switched on and an annoying fault alarm was issuing from it.

The technician who had been attending to her had been trying to rectify whatever error the machine was experiencing, but she had failed miserably and had gone to seek help. That was nearly five minutes ago. No one had come back and the stubborn alarm continued to beep.

Looking across at the machine, Casey grasped an orange power cable that protruded from its rear and yanked it.

The machine's display went dark. The alarm silenced.

She sighed with relief and lifted her wrist to look at her watch.

Where are these people
?

“Come on,” she snarled.

As the words left her lips, the door to the room clicked open and Casey snapped her head up. Her eyes grew wide as Francis Arlo entered.

“Hello, Casey,” he greeted warmly. “How are you?”

Blinking in surprise, she nodded at the young surgeon, offering him an awkward smile. “I'm okay.”

Her frown was obvious, but Arlo ignored it as he sat down on a stool beside the bed.

Though it wasn't unusual to encounter the members of her original transplant team here in the clinic, she didn't expect to see Arlo—one half of the surgical team who had saved her life—performing duties that would usually be carried out by nursing or technical staff.

On reflection, however, she realised it wasn't that much of a surprise.

Francis Arlo was undeniably attractive. His Mediterranean ruggedness combined with his soft-spoken, friendly manner made him a popular figure in the transplant clinic among both staff and patients. Casey had to admit to having something of a crush on him. While he was first and foremost a surgeon, Arlo—like his superior, Fedele—often consulted at the clinic so that he could remain up-to-date and connected with the progress of their various patients.

Turning his attention to the recalcitrant machine, Arlo began pressing buttons on its control pad.

“The girls seem to be having all sorts of problems with this unit today,” Arlo said.

“Apparently,” Casey replied bashfully, reflexively lifting a hand up underneath the sheet to cover her breasts. “I ahhh, had to take matters into my own hands.”

She gestured with her eyes at the cable on the floor. Arlo grinned knowingly and picked it up, plugging its end back into the socket. Powering it up, he waited for a moment then turned towards Casey.

Seemingly unaware of her embarrassment, Arlo leaned in and gently drew down the sheet so that he could examine the cables. In the process, he inadvertently brushed his forearm over her breast.

She shivered and blushed.

Oh God, please hurry up!

“Sorry,” he apologized, examining the cables underneath her breast. “I better take a look at the cables. These machines never do what you want them to do.”

“It's all right,” she replied.

Turning to a trolley beside him, Arlo found a box of adhesive ECG pads.

“You're seeing Fedele today, I take it?” he inquired, inspecting each of the cables in turn.

Casey nodded. “This afternoon at three. Just gathering the usual data for him to pore over.”

“Oh that'll be
fun
,” he commented with a knowing smile. “I take it you've been running to and fro here.”

“Oh, sure. It's been a real party,” Casey retorted dryly. “It seems like this entire bloody hospital is filled with people who are in desperate need of a personality transplant.”

Arlo chuckled pleasantly. “This place tends to breed eccentric personalities, I'll grant you. But, you appreciate the importance of all the tests.”

Casey clicked her tongue. “As you say…”

“He does like his data,” Arlo finished for her. He raised an eyebrow and both of them laughed. Casey noticed that his mischievous smile had broadened.

“You wouldn't be taking the mickey out of him, would you?” she remarked. “You're skating on thin ice there.”

“Never,” Arlo retorted jokingly. “He's my mentor and inspiration. I couldn't
possibly
.”

Casey giggled at his mocking tone, appreciating that it helped to put her at ease.

“You're doing well?” he asked, changing the topic.

“I am,” Casey said. “I could do without all of this attention. It's no fun feeling like Fedele's personal voodoo doll. But, I'll survive. I guess.”

Casey was surprised when Arlo's eyes glinted with sympathy.

“I can appreciate how disruptive it must be. It won't always be like this though.”

“Here's hoping.”

Arlo took the last of the cables, the one attached to her shoulder, and examined the alligator clip attached to the adhesive pad.

“Looks like we've got a faulty clip,” he said, swivelling on his stool and retrieving a replacement from the wall cupboard. “Luckily, it's easy to fix.”

He swapped out the removable clip from the cable, then replaced the dot before reattaching the cable. Glancing at the ECG display, he hissed triumphantly as the missing wave form finally appeared on screen.

“Ahhh,” he mused. “Okay, I'm going to ask you to take a deep—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Casey filled her lungs with air and held it. Arlo grinned and keyed a series of buttons on the ECG machine. Casey watched the screen, waiting for a small ‘complete' icon to appear. She didn't have to wait long. A printout began to emerge from a desktop unit nearby.

“All done,” Arlo said. “You can get—”

Casey didn't wait for him to finish. She sat up and began peeling the sticky pads from her chest as quickly as she could.

Arlo retrieved the printouts and placed them into a clear plastic folder. By the time he turned back to Casey, she was fully dressed.

“I've emailed these over to Fedele,” he said. “But hang on to these just in case.”

“Thank you.” Casey took the folder.

“It was good to see you, Casey,” he said warmly. “Give my best to the boss, won't you.”

She nodded. “It was good to see you too, Arlo.”

Arlo's eyes narrowed slightly, but he maintained his smile. “How many times have I told you? It's Francis.”

“Right,” Casey blushed. “Francis.”

Flipping him a jaunty salute, Casey turned and left the examination room.

___

The consulting suite was a world away from the cold and clinical confines of the hospital. Though it was a modern and minimalist environment, there was a surprising sense of warmth. Casey sat on an L-shaped, cream leather sofa centred in the expansive suite, looking out through a floor-to-ceiling window that took in a view of Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs and the skyscrapers of the city itself. Though there were a couple of art pieces on the pale, wood-panelled walls on either side of her, the scenery beyond the glass was artwork in itself.

Her hospital experience had faded, becoming just another one of her bad memories.

They weren't even bad memories really. Just a trio of awkward experiences she would relegate to the periphery for another month until, inevitably, she would have to drag herself back to do it all over again.

For now, she let go of the tension that had gathered in her and relaxed. She could do so because of the environs she found herself in now.

This was the office of her chief surgeon, Simeera Fedele, one of the most celebrated heart transplant specialists in Melbourne, if not the entire country. His reputation as a leader in the field of transplant surgery was renowned worldwide and his expertise was routinely sought from around the globe.

Of all the clinicians she had consulted with or who had some hand in her care, Fedele had been with her since the beginning, not only as her chief clinician but also as a type of mentor and confidant.

The charismatic surgeon was especially known for forging close professional relationships with his patients. He did not see them as just another case file. Each of them were important and valuable individuals and Casey had to admit that she held a grudging respect for him.

It was hard for her to see him as just another intrusive member of the medical profession wanting to pick her apart and examine every corner of her body. Fedele's interest in her seemed purely centred on her total well-being: mental as well as physical and, unlike everyone else, it did not focus solely on the heart she carried.

Not to mention that his taste in interior design was impeccable.

Twisting in her seat, Casey regarded the shelving behind the desk, noting a considerable collection of books: medical texts mainly, along with a smattering of other academic titles. There were also a number of photographs featuring Simeera Fedele posing with other esteemed scientists and medical colleagues, some of whom Casey was familiar with through her own experience. There were a couple of pictures featuring prominent community figures, in particular refugee and human rights advocates.