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So this is what an organ transplant can do. It’s a new lease on life, just like when you put new parts into an old computer and it works like brand new again. Unlike computer parts, which are manufactured by the millions, human organs can’t be made. Only another human can give them, and only when he has no more use for them. In order for a person to keep on living, another one has to die.
In my father’s case, I know who had to pay the price.
“I was just thinking about Bart,” I say.
My father puts the apple core down on his tray. “I know. I can’t look at myself and not think of Bart, too.” He places his hand on his chest. “If not for his heart and his lungs, I’d be dead by now. That’s why I have to get better, to be an even better man than I was before. I have to put his sacrifice to good use.”
I nod. It’s just like my father to look ahead, not behind, to have a resolve instead of regrets.
He touches my arm. “How was the funeral?”
“Like any other funeral,” I answer.
People in black. Sad faces and choked sobs. A religious man quoting the bible. Flowers being tossed at a hole in the ground before it gets covered in dirt. Are any of them different?
“How was Jodie?” my father asks next.
Of course he’d ask that.
I draw a breath. “Like any other woman who has lost her father. Still in shock. Distraught. Lonely.”
So lonely she drank ten glasses of wine and then asked the man she hated to fuck her, thinking he was the ghost of someone who’s been dead for thirteen years. But I don’t say that.
“She’ll be fine,” I add instead.
My father nods. “I know she will be. She’s strong and smart like her father.”
Not exactly the image I had of her. Then again, I caught her at a bad time. The worst time, maybe. It would be unfair of me to judge her for that one moment of weakness and stupidity, especially since I believe it’s those moments that allow us to become stronger and smarter.
“Yeah,” I agree simply.
“I want to take care of her, both her and Nora. It’s the least I can do to thank Bart for what he’s given me.”
“Of course,” I say as I put my hands on my lap. “What do you want me to do?”
My father sits back against his pillow and lets out a deep breath.
I frown. “If you’re tired, I can go.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I was just thinking that I told Bart what I wanted to happen after my death, what I wanted him to do. And yet, now that I’m the one who’s alive and he’s dead, I have no clue what he wants to happen next. Was there something he wanted me to finish for him? To take care of for him? I never asked.”
“Because you never thought he would die so suddenly or so soon,” I tell him in an effort to ease his guilt. “None of us did.”
Again, he shakes his head. “No one should ever have to die in such a way.”
True. I think the reason Antonio’s death has been so hard to accept even with time is because he died precisely in that manner. Of course, there’s also the fact that he was killed, which Bart wasn’t. Then again, is murder so different from an accident when both cut your life short?
“You know, I always thought he would die from a heart attack at his desk,” my father goes on. “Maybe even in court. Or in his sleep. But a car accident? Bart doesn’t drive. The only time I’ve seen him driving was when he was behind the wheel of a golf cart, and that time he was going so fast the whole thing tipped over like a bottle of salt.”
I grin because I remember Bart telling me that.
My father sighs. “Of course, he’d die if the same thing happened in a car on the road.”
Of course. Still, after hearing what my father just said, the wheels in my head have started turning. Was Bart’s death really an accident? If Bart hated driving, why was he behind the wheel of that car? Where was his driver? And why was he out driving so late at night?
My father lifts a finger. “You better be more careful now, you hear? And I don’t just mean driving. I mean you better not get into trouble now that Bart isn’t around to keep you out of a courtroom or a jail cell. No more of that stupid nonsense you pulled off at your mother’s cafe.”
I frown. So he did hear about that.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I defend myself.
I was drinking during the day, yes, because it was the anniversary of my mother’s death. That’s also why I was at my mother’s cafe. But I wasn’t causing any trouble. Viola, Eileen’s niece, came to me and we started making out. So what? We’ve fucked before. And yet for some reason, this time, she decided to play hard to get and scream. That’s when that nosy woman barged in and hit me. She was the one who caused the trouble, not me.
