Gabby awoke as her family arrived.
‘Mum!’ Celia draped her body across Gabby’s, whimpering like a puppy.
‘Hi, baby girl,’ she said, her voice tremulous.
Summer and Charlie rushed in too, reaching over each other to kiss her and hug her. Monty followed, looking grim. They all wore expressions of expectant dread, and it hurt her to see it.
‘What did the doctors say?’ Charlie asked, standing up straight. He towered over her bed. Her throat squeezed. The problem with living on the verge of death was that it meant she looked at everything through a lens of impending loss. She wanted to see Charlie as a man, watch him find his way in the world, celebrate his loves and comfort his losses, and snuggle his babies one day too. They all stared at her, waiting.
‘Have they given you any answers?’ Monty asked, touching her orange plastic identification bracelet.
‘It’s an episode of rejection, but they’ve got me on the right medication now so I’ll be fine.’ She gave Celia an encouraging smile. Her little girl’s face had paled. Gabby hoped this wouldn’t send her back into an anxiety spiral, especially after what had just happened with Cam. What a terrible thing, for her children to face the prospect of losing both parents within twenty-four hours.
‘What grade rejection is it?’ Charlie asked, narrowing his eyes so that his ginger eyebrows pulled together with worry. Her children knew too much about this stuff. It was hard to downplay what they knew was so serious. Rejection was to be expected. But once transplant recipients were through the early stages of recovery the fear diminished.
‘Grade four,’ she said.
‘Oh, no!’
‘What?’
‘The worst grade?’ This from Summer. She inched back from the bed and Monty placed his hand on her shoulder to steady her.
‘It is the highest grade, yes. But I just need a few days on the drip and then I’ll be good as new. I’m sorry to have given you all a fright, but rejection happens, right? We all knew that.’
‘Yes, but you’re two years on now,’ Charlie said.
‘I know.’ Gabby held out her hand for him to take and he squeezed it for a moment, the mood in the room sombre. On a physical level, this episode of rejection was her body rejecting the heart. Only she knew it was triggered by the change in Evan’s vibration. His withdrawal had created a disturbance, and her body had panicked and did what it thought it should do. But it would settle, it would accept the new normal, and it would be all the stronger for it. This heart was hers now – truly hers – because Evan had given it to her.
‘Look, I know this is scary and it’s come as a shock to us all. But I have no doubt I’m going to get through this, okay?’
‘Of course you will,’ Monty said confidently. There were other murmurs of agreement and support, but she had the feeling they were offered because they were expected and not because they were believed. Pippa stormed into the room, interrupting them, her four children trailing behind her, and Gabby was suddenly reminded of mother opossums that amble around with litters of babies clinging to their backs.
‘Bloody hell, Gabby!’ Pippa said, cranky, as if Gabby had orchestrated this crisis herself. In a completely irrational moment, Gabby laughed.
‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I was just thinking how lucky I am to have you all,’ she said, then burst into tears.
Luciano arrived after dinner, after Gabby’s family had gone home and after he’d organised for his mamma to look after his kids. She heard his boots in the hall. He had a strong, even gait she’d come to recognise and it made her smile even before he turned the corner, carrying a cardboard carry tray with four cups of coffee.
‘I know it’s probably too late for coffee but I couldn’t think what else I could do,’ he said, placing them on the table next to her bed. She pressed the button on her bed control to raise herself to sitting, simultaneously pleased to see him and mortified that she must look like a wreck and that he was seeing her like this – as a sick person.
‘I brought you a long black, a Vienna, a mocha and a flat white.’
She inhaled the beautiful aroma, her mouth watering immediately. ‘You’re a star. The coffee here isn’t worth drinking.’
He murmured sympathetically, then tentatively leaned down to kiss her.
‘You taste like amaretti biscuits,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘My mamma baked them today.’ Then his face dropped. ‘I should have brought you some too.’
‘No, I’m not really up to food right now. But thank you.’
He pulled up the visitor’s chair and perched awkwardly on the edge. Even in her hazy state, she could see he looked good. His floppy fringe was hanging just the right amount over his forehead, swept to the side with the smallest amount of product. He was in his usual attire of jeans, collared shirt and Blundstones, but this evening he wore a hint of some sort of musky cologne, which she suspected was for her benefit. The idea made her warm.
‘Which one would you like?’ he asked, gesturing to the coffees.
Gabby swept her hand through her messy hair. At least she had some pyjamas now that her family had brought her some supplies, and was not stuck in a shapeless and revealing hospital gown. Her head spun with the movement. She felt weak as a kitten.
‘Maybe the flat white,’ she said. ‘The Vienna sounds appealing in theory but I don’t think I could stomach the cream.’
Luciano’s dark eyes crinkled around the edges with concern. He lifted out the flat white and passed it to her.
‘Did you go into the cafe to make these on the way over?’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it for you.’
She tasted it. ‘Damn, you do make a fine brew.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and reached for the long black. He sipped slowly. ‘How are you feeling?’
She raised one shoulder and let it drop. ‘Not fabulous, to be honest. My temperature’s up, which is giving me aches and shivers on top of the nausea.’
‘I think you look beautiful,’ he said, huskily.
She looked up at him and smiled, embarrassed. ‘That’s very kind of you to say.’
‘It’s not kind,’ he growled, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘It’s bold and … disarming.’
She snorted with laughter. ‘Disarming? Have you been reading romance novels?’
‘I’m a complicated man.’
She scoffed. ‘I think I might have you beat at that game.’ Luciano watched her but didn’t say anything, so she ploughed on. ‘I think maybe this thing, whatever this is with us, it’s got no future, no legs.’
He put down his coffee and folded his arms.
‘I’m a bit … problematic,’ she said, trying to be truthful but not ashamed of her body and the difficulties of living with a heart transplant. She wasn’t a catch; she knew that. ‘Apparently, even more so than I realised, and that’s kind of the point. This journey is so unpredictable – and I know all relationships and all of life are totally, completely, utterly unpredictable,’ she said, rushing to halt a protest that Luciano seemed to be about to wedge into her speech, ‘but I think that’s even more reason why I need to keep some things stable and solid so my life isn’t entirely full of moving parts.’
Luciano drummed the fingers of his right hand on his jeans, like a cat swishing its tail in agitation while its face remained impassive. She felt nervous then, worried he might leave his job, which would be awful.
‘Please don’t leave The Tin Man,’ she blurted.
His fingers stopped moving and he shook his head, bemused. ‘Why would I do that? I love my job. I love The Tin Man.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes!’ He seemed aghast that she would think otherwise.
‘Because I know it’s selfish to say I want you in one part of my life but not the other –’
He held up his hand and she fell silent. ‘Listen to me. You don’t get to claim the top prize for complications. I am still reeling from losing my brother. And the kids?’ He shook his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘They’re great, don’t get me wrong, and I would do anything for them, but I feel like I’m ten years behind where I need to be and they are checkmating me at every turn. They’re emotionally volatile, unbelievably hungry all the time, and they ask dozens of questions I simply can’t answer. Every single day, I’m a drowning man grasping for driftwood to keep myself afloat. I’m relying on my mother to bail me out of trouble every second day.’
‘I live with my father,’ she countered.
‘Cooper sleeps in my bed most nights.’
‘The dog sleeps in mine.’
‘I’m forty-five and I have a mortgage I can’t afford and no savings.’
‘I’m forty-one and I’m in debt to a business loan, for which my parents were guarantors.’
‘Then between us, we’d better make sure The Tin Man is a raging success,’ he said.
Gabby wanted to keep protesting. The prospect of their being together was futile, wasn’t it? But a much bigger part of her wanted to take this lifebuoy he was throwing her. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you’re a complete mess too.’
‘Mess? I’m a bloody natural disaster! Someone should call the Red Cross to come and oversee the rebuilding of my life.’ He reached over and took her hand in between his two big, strong ones. ‘So, this is what I think we should do. Ignore it. All of it.’
‘Ignore it? That’s your plan.’
‘I think it’s a valid life choice. We’ll thoroughly ignore how messy we are and just, you know, jump in.’
‘Jump in,’ she repeated, feeling the stirrings of a giggle rising in her chest.
‘We might need a lifeguard to come and rescue us every now and then, but I think we’ll learn to swim eventually.’
She looked at her hand in his, safe and warm, and felt a sense of peace spread through her chest. Maybe all hearts, even the bruised and battered ones, were here simply to be given away to others, because that’s when they were the most powerful.
‘I’ll probably be on dialysis tomorrow,’ she said, throwing out her final objection.
‘Gabby, you could have one less leg, be wearing a sack and covered in cow manure and I would still want you.’ He seemed to genuinely mean it. What an amazing turn her life had taken recently, which just went to show you really could never know what was coming next.
She raised her coffee cup. ‘To us and our mess.’
He tapped his cup to hers. ‘To our beautiful mess.’ Then he kissed her, and it was delightful.