Organ Donor

Cynthia Graae

Word Count 1290

Ten rules for a good life were posted on our fridge for years. “Always be somebody’s sweetheart,” was easy—we had loved each other since we were graduate students. Also easy —“When the circus comes to town, be there.” We were fans of Cirque du Soleil. More difficult for me— “If you’re ever going to laugh about something, you might as well start now.”

Humor came naturally to him. He laughed about being held up at gunpoint and burning our holiday roast. His tales amused friends and family, as well as telemarketers and bank clerks. When he was hospitalized for heart failure, which happened frequently as he approached sixty-five, he entertained doctors, nurses, and the custodians who emptied his trash.

I was too serious, he claimed. Over the years, he soothed my angst about rejected manuscripts and overbearing supervisors by reminding me to start laughing now. And, to tell the real truth, when the situation called for realistic, I saved his skin—by getting him to work on time, for example, and stopping him from painting the kitchen while he was wearing his tuxedo. Together, like a thermostat, we kept our marriage running at a comfortable temperature.

During his final stay at Johns Hopkins Hospital, when his organs weakened hour by hour, no matter what the doctors tried, our stasis failed. Not a tad of humor nor a smidgeon of sound advice could keep him alive. That fridge-posted maxim about laughing was certainly not in my thoughts at the end, when his heart gave out.

To me, he was still himself, not the lifeless body the doctors and nurses saw as they left his room. Soon, our daughter and our other family members drifted away. Alone with him, I stroked his still-warm face and held back the tears I did not want his death-closed eyes to see. I clipped a lock of his golden, once-red hair to preserve his essence. I removed electrode pads from his chest, arms, and legs to erase his recent suffering. I barely knew that it was I, not he, who wanted to remember him as strong and healthy. As I whispered my love, I believed he heard me. I wanted to keep him alive.

At some point, orderlies took him away, jolting me into awareness of a world outside the hospital. It was Friday. Weekend beach traffic would soon clog the highway. Driving home to the Eastern shore of Maryland would take forever.

I headed to the elevator.

A nurse held me back. There was paperwork.

For hours, it seemed, I waded through forms relating to his personal possessions, medical records, insurance, a death certificate, and cremation. When I finally left the hospital, saying Goodbye to the doctors, nurses, orderlies, and guards felt as if I were severing ties all ties him. I said Goodbye to the hospital halls and parking garage, too.

Soon, I eased my car into the bumper traffic on the highway. For the first time, I was leaving Baltimore without him or believing I’d bring him home. I felt separated from all existence by a shroud of grief so heavy that I could not imagine that the sun had the power to rise or set again or that any life or even time could continue. I was a writer—how could I find the strength to write again?

On the bridge across the Chesapeake, my cell phone rang, sharp and piercing. A representative of the Maryland transplant organization asked if I’d be willing to donate my husband’s organs. My husband had been on the heart transplant list. Although he didn’t reach the top, the list had given us hope. I told the rep I liked the idea, but I was driving and couldn’t talk until I reached home.

We have to speak now, or your husband’s organs will no longer be viable for transplant, the rep said. He explained viable.

His organs are still alive?

Yes.

The revelation so startled me that I didn’t think about pulling off the highway to talk. I asked why he hadn’t raised the topic when my husband was alive or while I’d been doing paperwork at the hospital.

Against Maryland law, he said.

This should have alerted me that there would be other absurdities in the organ donation process, as well, but I was still, as my husband had told me, too serious.

I told the rep that my husband’s heart and valves were defective. His kidneys had given out. His eyesight was poor. His skin—a transplantable organ—was dry and covered with sores. What could be usable?

His long bones, the rep replied, for facial reconstructions or repairing fractured limbs, after an automobile accident, for example.

Thinking about his still-living bones improving a stranger’s life comforted me. What would our daughter think? His mother? His brothers? I didn’t want to cause more pain. I told the rep I’d call them.

I was ninety minutes from home when I phoned the rep back. Everyone approved.

I assumed our conversation was over.

I have a few questions, he said.

He began with my husband’s social security number, date and place of birth. I felt my husband goading me as I pictured someone engraving this data on his bones. After reciting dozens more, about his education, occupation, health, and family history, the representative asked whether my husband had traveled to England in the past year.

Yes. I sensed the Mad Cow question would be next.

Did he eat beef?

I couldn’t recall what either of us ate. He was frail then, and my memory of that trip was filled only with images of him regaling friends and family night after night with his funny stories.

The rep pressed for my best guess. His answer sheet had no space for Unknown.

My guess would determine whether my husband’s bones were free of Mad Cow Disease?

Yes.

I was being goaded again by Comedy Central Heaven, I was tempted to tell the rep that my husband would be laughing at these absurdities. Instead I said No beef. I warned myself, Never trust that donated organs are safe.

Miles of questions later, I was nearly home.

Last one, the rep announced. Has your husband ever had sex with another man?

Women carry AIDS, too. I almost called him on that. But it was clear this representative lacked the authority to change the biased script he’d been handed. And besides, the wording had gotten to me. Another man? I asked.

Yes.

Another? I repeated. Do you know something I don’t? Where was my sarcasm coming from? Not Comedy Central Heaven, this time.

The rep spluttered in confusion.

You’re saying he had sex with one man and are asking if there was a second? I said with exasperated patience, as if I were in a rematch with the heart failure that killed my husband, and this time I knew I’d be able to squash it flat.

But I should have known that when it came to exasperated patience, a man with a job like this rep’s could outdo me. He had the experience. And he held power over the fate of my husband’s bones. Please answer the question, he said as I pulled into my driveway. Did he ever, at any time, have sex with another man?

If you’re still accepting best guesses, my answer is no, I said.

The bones passed the test.

Laughter rippled through my cascading tears as I walked in the door to an empty home.

I was nobody’s sweetheart. That was the difficult rule now. I was grieving a widow.

The tears won out.

Cynthia lives in New York City and Hiram, Maine. Her writing has been published or soon will be by Exsolutas Press, Griffel, 10x10 Flash, Swallow Publishing, Alternate Route, Rogue Owl Press, The Common, Deep Overstock, Rubbertop Review, The Bridge: Journal of the Danish American Heritage Society, Maine Public, HuffPost, Spry Lit, Barren Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Résonance, Canadian Women’s Studies, the Washington Review, Bat City Review, Persimmon Tree, Garfield Lake Review, Kinder Link, the LA Review, Rattle, and Exchanges. She has been a Dorothy Parker fan for decades, thanks to her wonderful eighth-grade English teacher.