99 Percent Mine

“But he left Patty.” I have to marvel at how my heart can keep beating this slow and steady, even as I put my face into Jamie’s shoulder and cry.

* * *

“I EMAILED HIM the appointment details,” Jamie says to me as we take a seat in my cardiologist’s waiting room. “I sent it to his old email address. I bet he still checks it. He’s going to make it. I know it. Today is the day.” Stronger, he assures me, “He promised you.”

I don’t respond. I’m not using my voice a lot lately. I’m just a faded half person, kept alive by Truly hand-feeding me candy and Jamie pouring water down my throat. It’s bizarre seeing them in the same room. They bustle around together, arguing and pushing and cajoling. Jamie’s right. She thinks he’s a nightmare. A really handsome nightmare.

Luckily he hasn’t noticed it yet.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Truly had burst out with the moment she walked in to sit on the side of my bed, but I just shook my head wearily. Who cares. I know what my brother is like. Who could resist replying to one of his cheeky, funny emails? No one. Not a single person on earth who had met him could ignore him. I shouldn’t keep holding my friends to a standard they can’t achieve.

She hugged me until the sky went black, and Jamie ordered a pizza. If I wasn’t so heartbroken, I’d dig around in their relationship a little, but I can’t do anything except hold Tom’s phone, and correct myself every time I falter.

He’s going to come back to you. He will.

I watch as Jamie selects a magazine for me. “Golf Digest,” he says, trying to make me laugh, and unfolds it on my thighs to an article. “Come on, Darce. Gotta work on your backswing.”

“Fine. But you need to improve yourself as well.” I choose a magazine for him. “Learn how to bake a glazed ham.” These days, we’re all ab

out self-improvement. We’re determined to make ourselves better versions. We both focus on our assigned reading until Tom’s phone buzzes. Like always, we jump and scrabble for it.

“It’s a message from the real estate agent. Margie’s coming at three. Will we be back in time?”

“Yes, and if not, Colin can take her through.” It’s been two months. It’s hard to believe that we have a fairly well-formed house to show an agent. She wants to prepare a game plan. The demand for properties in our area has gone red-hot.

“Two months,” I say to Jamie, and he knows what I mean.

We sit and stare blankly at the receptionist’s desk for a while. I turn my head with effort to look at my brother. My mirror. He looks as bad as I do.

“Yeah, we look shitty,” he says as he rolls his face to mine. We’re just two blond cadavers. “It’s fucking ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“How we can’t live without him.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’m worried they’re going to tell me in this appointment. I’m a goner, Jamie.” I groan tiredly and slip into a half snooze.

As the minutes tick along, I have to accept it. He’s gone. He’s not coming back for me and my stupid heart. I check the phone in my hand again. I want to squeeze a message out of it. Just one word that he’s okay, and I can get myself hooked up and they’ll find a heartbeat.

The name is called that turns both our heads. “Barrett?”

“We just need to wait a minute longer,” Jamie argues politely with the cardiologist’s assistant. “We’re waiting for our friend to come to the appointment, too.”

“I’ll bring them in when they get here,” the receptionist tells us. “We need to keep to the schedule.” Defeated, the Barrett twins skulk down the long white hallway. I’m scared. My heart is a dead apricot kernel. They’ll have to sew me to Jamie to borrow his, and we’ll have to live as Siamese twins.

Jamie’s hand closes on mine, and I’ve never been this scared for myself. “What am I going to do?” I whisper to him as we are seated. “What?”

“I don’t know,” he replies to me, hushed. “But you’ll be okay. I’m here.”

“Darcy Barrett,” Dr. Galdon says to me with a flourish. He’s known me for years. “I have not seen your face in a long, long time.” His smile fades off when the witty rejoinder he’s expecting doesn’t happen. From either twin. “What’s happening?”

“Just a little brokenhearted,” I say listlessly. “It’s not feeling good in there.” I point at my chest.

“Hmm,” Dr. Galdon says, and I try to not read too much into his expression as he checks my blood pressure. I know I look absolutely terrible. I’ve got blade cheekbones and my eyeballs are permanently pink. Tom thought my clothes were falling off before? I look like a mop slid into black fabric.

“Let’s get you hooked up.” I change into a gown behind a screen at the end of the room. Dr. Galdon helps me sit up onto the edge of the examination bench and wheels over the heart monitor. He sticks little pads all over me, connecting the wires to his machines. This used to scare me so much as a kid. I thought I was going to be shocked to life. Maybe that would be a good move for me now.

“She eats nothing, forgets her medication, it’s expired,” Jamie snitches on me in a dull automatic way. “Drinks too much. No exercise whatsoever. Cries all day. Sugar, good Lord, the sugar.”