Home Again

The dreams bothered her.

She realized she’d been silent a long time. She felt Chris’s gaze on her, and she met it. “What?”

He smiled. “You never were any good at games, Madelaine. Just say what’s on your mind.”

She knew it would be smart to say nothing, but she’d learned in the last few weeks that sometimes being smart left you feeling lonely and confused. “It’s Angel,” she said cautiously. “He’s … changing.”

“The good ones do.”

“I think it’s more … surprising than that. He’s becoming …” She couldn’t say it. The words caught in her throat.

Allenford stared at her a second. She saw the moment he understood what she wasn’t saying. His eyes narrowed, and a frown tugged at his brows.

“He’s listening to Francis’s music, eating Francis’s food. Before the surgery, he says, he was allergic to milk—now he loves it. He’s … caring in a way I don’t think he ever really was before.”

“You said you hadn’t seen him since you were kids. People change, Madelaine. Besides, they’re brothers.”

“Maybe.” She leaned forward, crossed her arms on the table, and pinned a steady gaze on her old friend. “Could the heart have memory on a cellular level? Like a cell’s instinctive ability to re-create itself or replicate or—”

“Stop it,” Allenford said gently, touching her hand. “You’re grieving, Madelaine. Let it go. Accept Angel for who he is and be thankful he’s still around. Everything else … let it go.”

“I’ve been trying to, but sometimes when he looks at me…

“Don’t you think you want to see Francis in Angel’s eyes?”

She couldn’t deny the truth of that. She missed Francis so much that she imagined him everywhere—sitting on her couch, swinging in her porch swing, driving up in that battered old car of his. Sometimes she’d turn around to talk to him, and realize instantly that he wasn’t there, that she’d imagined his footsteps on the walk. “Yes,” she whispered.

“What if you didn’t know about the transplant—wouldn’t you think that all these changes were ordinary recovery? Think about it. When a patient goes through this program, he tends to change his life. They’re almost always more caring and more conservative. They’ve learned that each day, each moment of each day, is a miracle. That’s bound to change a man’s outlook.”

The rationality of Chris’s words soothed her. It was possible that she saw Francis in Angel because she wanted so desperately to believe that part of her best friend was still alive. “You’re probably right.”

He gave her a long look. “I don’t believe in that stuff, but we’ve all seen anecdotal evidence for what you’re talking about. Recipients who seem to know things about their donors that they can’t possibly know. I’m not egotistical enough to believe that anything in this world is impossible.” He touched her hand. “I met Francis—however briefly—and I know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If there is memory on a cellular level, your Angel couldn’t have gotten a kinder heart.”

Sighing tiredly, Angel went into the living room that Madelaine and Lina had created for him. He clicked on the television—and heard a reporter say, “Sources close to the superstar confirm that he has received a baboon’s heart in a successful transplant operation. However, cardiologists at St. Joseph’s will report only that—”

With a groan, he turned off the TV and flicked on the light switch.

It was cozy and comfortable, this living room that was and wasn’t his. Big overstuffed denim sofas and Navajo-print chairs huddled around the huge river-rock fireplace that dominated the room. They’d even put a few framed pictures on the mantel—Lina’s school picture, a shot of Francis and Lina snow-skiing, and an old, crackled photograph of Angel and Francis in front of their mom’s Impala.

Pictures of everyone but Madelaine.

She’d given him the trappings of a family life—comfortable furniture, photographs, milk (nonfat, of course) in the refrigerator—but it was too quiet to be real. There were no fingerprints on the glass of the pictures, no dust collecting beneath the furniture.

The only thing out of place in this perfect little cabin was him. The realization depressed him. Once again, he was just passing through life, observing as if through a window. For most of his life, that had been okay. Hell, it had been better than okay, it was what he’d wanted. He’d never wanted to be real, not like most men. He’d wanted to be Peter Pan, playing with the lost boys, gambling and boozing and ignoring the grownups’ rules. That’s why he’d sought out celebrity. It was life on Pleasure Island.

And if he didn’t change, really truly change, he knew that soon he’d start to slip. He’d go back to the life he’d loved. He’d call the wrong friend or decide that a straight shot of tequila—just one—wouldn’t hurt. But one would end up as two, then three, and he’d be back on the roller coaster.

He didn’t belong there, didn’t belong in his old life. But he didn’t fit in this new world, either. He was like a ghost, moving shadowlike through some plane in which he could never really touch anything, never really be touched. He couldn’t go back and he didn’t know how the hell to go forward.

There was a knock at the door, and he felt a surge of relief. He stumbled across the tiny living room and flung the door open.

Val stood in the opening, smoking a cigarette, holding a bottle of tequila. “I can’t believe you live in the suburbs.” He shuddered. “What were you going to do next, mow the lawn or barbecue?”

Angel stared at the bottle, at the sloshing beads of gold that clung to the glass sides. The sweet, familiar smell of the smoke wafted to him, set off a longing deep inside.