heart noun: the most important part
of anything
Susan takes a huge pile of envelopes out of her bag before class starts today and hands them around.
She gives out the last one and then notices me. Empty handed. I don’t think she left me out on purpose. She just didn’t think to invite me. That’s the worst part.
Even Alyce has an invitation. She’s doing something unexpected, though, and for the first time in weeks I exist. She gives her invitation back.
‘I don’t think I can make it,’ I tell Susan and hand back the envelope.
‘Um, another thing,’ I say quietly. ‘My name’s spelt with a “y”.’
‘Right class,’ the teacher says in science, ‘listen in. Today we’re dissecting rats. I want you in pairs.’ My stomach clenches – not at the thought of the scalpel slicing through fur and skin, but because there is no one in the class who will want to work with me. I ask to work alone.
‘No, Gracie, you will need a partner for this.’ I feel sick. I’m in the waiting room. I stay here until either someone feels sorry enough for me to ask me to join them or the teacher makes someone work with me. Either way it’s about as enjoyable as the prospect of twenty fillings at the dentist’s.
I feel a tap on my shoulder. I know Alyce is asking because she’s in the waiting room too. I don’t care. ‘That would be great,’ I say.
We take our rat and tie his legs and arms to the nails that are sticking out of his flat wooden bed. I watch Alyce’s scalpel open his stomach like the zipper on a winter coat.
‘Alyce? I’m sorry, about what I said.’ She looks up at me, her eyes blurred by the plastic glasses she has on. The point of her scalpel is aimed at my heart. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ she asks. Her tone isn’t kind, but it’s the first time I’ve spoken to someone who knows exactly how I feel. I nod.
‘Take out the heart now, class,’ our teacher calls. We look at our rat. Everything that is in him out on display.
Alyce and I put down our scalpels. She closes his chest and I untie his legs.
The light wakes me this morning. It moves in through the slats of the dusty venetian blinds and draws bars across my face. The first thing I see is my old dressing gown hanging on the back of the chair. Gracie gave it to me for Father’s Day, years ago. She was nine.
She slammed into our room and landed face down on the bed between Helen and me, squashing the present underneath her. ‘Guess what it is, Dad,’ she yelled, her hands ripping at the paper with mine. ‘Do you like it? Put it on!’ We ate breakfast together, and I kept it on all day, over the top of my clothes. I wore it just because she wanted me to.
I open my wallet and look at their faces, smiling at me from the worn paper. We took it the day of Gracie’s first soccer match. Helen is hugging Gracie so tightly that the match has rubbed off on her: she has mud on her face. I smooth the edges out and hold it for a while. It is my map. Tattered, old. I will follow it home.
I’ll call Gracie today. I want to tell her that I love her.