The Heart Keeper Read online

  ‘Kaia’s at home. With my sister. Noa.’

  ‘You could have brought her if you’d wanted to,’ I say, focusing on maintaining my smile. I’m suddenly glad Iselin is here; maybe this was a good idea. If I were to befriend her, I’d be able to see Kaia again. I could stay close to Amalie, because in those intense moments that passed between Kaia and me, there was no doubt in my mind that there was something of Amalie there, in her eyes.

  No, I say to myself. No.

  ‘Well, come in,’ I say, holding my hand out for Iselin’s jacket. She takes it off, stomps snow from her boots, then removes them by the door, glancing selfconsciously at the dirty puddles they’ve left on the floor tiles. I smile at her and beckon for her to follow me into the living room, switching on lights as we go. She follows, carrying the large cylinder presumably holding the drawings.

  ‘Would you like red or white?’ I say, following her eyes around the room.

  ‘Umm, either,’ she says, ‘I don’t mind.’

  I suddenly realize that a photograph of the kids is on display on the glass table by the terrace doors, facing us directly. In it, Amalie is sitting on Oliver’s lap. Behind them towers a Christmas tree laden with garlands and baubles, and there are stacks of presents surrounding the children. I turned the photo face down, I know I did; Oliver must have turned it back around, and not for the first time. I keep talking, pointing out some of the artwork on the far side of the room to Iselin to distract her, while moving toward the terrace doors.

  ‘See that one up there? To the left of the doorway. Yeah, that one with the mountains. I took that. I mean, I’m no photographer, but I used to take a lot of pictures back in my twenties.’ Iselin gazes at my shot of the Matterhorn beneath an inverted crescent moon, a wash of stars spreading out on the night sky like pulverized glass. I discreetly turn the photograph around, then lead her toward the kitchen.

  Iselin takes a seat on a bar stool in the kitchen and stares out of the window at the black night while I unscrew a bottle of Pinot Noir. I try to swallow away the rancid taste of alcohol in my mouth – I must have had more than a few glasses of wine on the sofa before I fell asleep; I often do. If I get the balance right, a bottle of wine mixed with my prescription meds leaves me mellow, unable to hold onto any thoughts, and I can sit and watch mindless television for hours, not hurting.

  Iselin takes a long gulp of the wine and looks around the kitchen. It’s a sleek white space with little to look at; no children’s drawings stuck to fridges, no school photographs beaming from the walls. In a metal mesh bowl some limes have been left to rot, and they are the only colorful objects in the room. Will I frame Iselin’s drawings and hang them behind where she is sitting at the breakfast bar, clutching the glass with both hands as though it might warm them? Iselin has leaned the cylinder awkwardly against the breakfast bar but it clatters to the floor, and when she picks it up, I beckon to her to pass it to me. Her face lights up with a smile, but she’s blushing, and when she hands me the cylinder her hand shakes slightly. As I take it from her an intense energy passes between us, not unlike the deep connection I felt with Kaia as she perched on the stool next to me, those thin, translucent hands clutching the pencil, staring at me with her unflinching, pale eyes. I smile at Iselin, a sensation of premonition and perhaps fear spreading out in my gut.

  ‘I am so impressed you finished these in such a short time,’ I say. I take the cap off the cylinder’s end and look inside at the rolled-up drawings. I glance at Iselin again and she looks very young and nervous.

  ‘I hope… I hope that they will come to mean something to you.’ I unroll the first drawing, it’s the one with the outline of a little girl with the big, intricate heart inside. In the top left corner is a black bird I don’t remember seeing on any of Iselin’s other versions of the drawing, but I love it. There is something so familiar and sweet in the way it’s penciled – childlike and masterful in equal measures. I am reminded of Karen Fritz’s birds, how it was easier to stay in that chair when I could imagine myself up there, among the migrating birds, high and free. It’s been a while since I stopped seeing Karen now. I return to the drawing, lingering over every stroke of Iselin’s pencil.

  I imagine Sindre taking in the beautifully penciled heart, the medley of deep and bright reds nudged into its tiny chambers. I’ll have to lie. I can’t help the tears that flood my eyes, and one drops onto the edge of the drawing.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I say, ‘I just felt so moved by your work from the moment I saw it.’

  ‘That means so much.’

  ‘Come, let’s go through to the other room. I want to hear everything about what inspires you and how you came to draw like this.’

  ‘Uh, okay,’ she says, smoothing down her trousers, which are a little tight across her thighs, and then she sits down on the maroon velvet sofa, placing her wine glass on the low bronze table in front of her.

  ‘The drawing is even more beautiful than I remembered. And thank you for coming up here with it. It’s so nice to catch up with you again; I’m always intrigued to meet someone with such an enormous talent – there are always interesting stories there.’

  ‘I… Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, it’s really nice to catch up again,’ she laughs a little, then looks around again, as though curious about whether we are here alone or if someone else might appear.

  ‘My husband is away on business,’ I say. ‘In Geneva. Oliver is at his mother’s this week.’

  ‘Oh.’ Iselin hesitates, pale eyes quickly scanning the room. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He just turned fourteen. It’s so funny, he is suddenly really grown up. He even has a girlfriend.

  ‘Oh, wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I like your house,’ says Iselin. ‘It must be nice to have the forest right outside like that. And the views. Wow.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes, well… I…’ It’s almost as if I have forgotten how to converse with another person. ‘I grew up in California,’ I blurt out, and look beyond Iselin to the window behind her, to the lights of the city far below. I need somehow to bond with her, make her feel we can be friends. ‘It was really different from this.’ Iselin seems slightly relieved that I’m suddenly so socially awkward, and flashes me a quick, wide smile.

  ‘I can only imagine,’ she says. ‘I’ve never been to the United States.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No… I always wanted to travel. I moved to Paris for a bit. To study. But then… I had Kaia, and, you know, it wasn’t exactly like I could do much traveling after she was born.’

  ‘Do you have any help with her? Family, or…?’

  Iselin looks stricken. She peers into the wine glass for a long while and I silently curse myself for being so inconsiderate.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, but she smiles and waves her hand like it doesn’t matter, but clearly it does, and I worry she may burst into tears. It would be disastrous if I’ve offended her; we’re strangers, and I need her to feel like we have bonded, not like I’ve pried.

  ‘No, no. It’s fine,’ says Iselin, taking a sip of her wine and then looking straight at me, unflinchingly, with shining eyes. ‘But no, I don’t have much family help with Kaia. Except for my sister Noa – she does help me here and there when she can. She lives in Paris, and she tries to come every month or so; we’re very close. The rest of my family lives, uh, far away too. In Nordland.’ We remain silent a long while, and I wonder if Iselin is trying to come up with an excuse to leave. I wouldn’t blame her – who would want to sit around drinking wine with a woman twice her age, who she doesn’t know and doesn’t apparently have anything in common with? But I don’t want her to go.

  ‘Tell me about Kaia,’ I say, softly, trying to give Iselin my most relaxed, uncomplicated smile. I wish she’d brought Kaia with her. Before, my every minute was consumed by thoughts of Amalie and the aching, black world I’ve lived in since she left us, but now I have found myself increasingly thinking about little Kaia.

  I
selin brightens; perhaps she’s more comfortable talking about Kaia than her own background. ‘Well, she’s had a very, very hard start in life,’ she begins, and I nod sympathetically. ‘It’s true, what she told you when she came to the studio. She had a heart transplant last summer after years of life-threatening illness. She tells everybody. She’s really proud of it.’

  ‘My God, that must have been so stressful.’

  ‘Yes. I mean… It looked very bleak. I’ve had to say goodbye to her so many times. But somehow, she’s pulled through.’

  ‘She must be very strong.’

  ‘Yeah, strangely strong for someone that little and fragile-looking.’

  ‘She struck me as a really interesting character. Grown-up, for, what, six, seven?’

  ‘Seven. And yeah. Kaia is… funnily remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. You know? She likes the stuff most little girls like. She loves animals. She draws a lot. She likes cartoons, especially Dora the Explorer. She’s eager to learn, and reads all the time. And yet… She’s never sat on a pony, or even cuddled a dog. Too risky. She’s never seen half of the things she likes to draw, like zoo animals, or the beach. She’s never been on an airplane, or explored anything beyond our little apartment. And she was only able to go to school for the first time last year. She loves it, though.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘That must have been so tough. For both of you.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never been able to work much. I would have liked to. It’s not… It’s not how I imagined my life. Looking after a very sick little girl.’ Iselin stares into her wine glass. ‘Though, of course, I’m not complaining about that,’ she adds, nervously. ‘Not at all. It’s just how it is. Or has been, until now. You can’t… You can’t imagine the changes in Kaia. It’s just incredible.’ She trails off, eyes shining.

  ‘Changes?’

  ‘Oh my gosh, it’s almost like she’s a different kid since before the transplant.’

  ‘Really? Tell me… Tell me more,’ I say, leaning across and patting Iselin’s pale, plump hand lightly with my own. I pour her another full glass of Pinot Noir and she glances nervously at it, but doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you want to talk about this? I mean, I don’t want to bore you—’

  ‘Iselin. It’s lovely talking to you. My husband works away a lot and most of my friends are spread out across the world, so it’s so nice for me to have some company. And I loved meeting Kaia. You have a wonderful daughter,’ I say, intending to continue, but stop because a lump is growing in my throat, making my words trail off in a whisper. I take a big glug of wine, and clear my throat a couple of times, smiling reassuringly at Iselin. She nods.

  ‘So,’ I continue. ‘You were going to tell me about the changes in Kaia since the transplant…’

  ‘Yes.’ Iselin scrunches her eyebrows together in a frown, and it occurs to me again, just how young she is. When I was around twenty-five, I was drifting around Koh Samui, selling bric-a-brac at the market with my boyfriend at the time, Rex, building a portfolio as a budding freelance feature journalist on the side. I was completely free, and the most challenging decision I’d make in a day would be whether to go to Chica’s or Lou’s Beach Bar for a cheap dinner. I look at Iselin’s sweet, unblemished hands, and imagine all the long nights she’s sat there, by a sick child’s bedside, clutching a clammy, limp hand, wiping a feverish brow.

  ‘Yes, well, it’s funny… She’s changed a lot. In some ways, it’s very obvious, and in others, it’s more… subtle. And it’s difficult to know whether all the changes are down to Kaia suddenly feeling healthy, for the first time in her life.’

  ‘What else do you think might have caused the changes?’

  ‘Well, I mean, obviously she has more energy than before.’

  ‘Sure. I can imagine.’

  ‘Like, for example, she now loves to play outside, which she was never able to do before. She seems to really want to push the physical boundaries all the time, which I guess makes me a little worried, but the doctors tell me to trust her to decide when enough is enough.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘She’s more affectionate. Much more. She likes to hug me really tight, which she didn’t before. But perhaps that kind of closeness would have felt uncomfortable when she was so sick.’

  I close my eyes for a moment. I can feel your hugs, how tight they were, how strong your baby arms were.

  ‘Alison? Are you okay?’ Iselin whispers, placing her warm hand on my cold, tense one. I nod, then gently retrieve my hand to pick up the wine glass. My heart trembles in my chest.

  ‘Oh yes. Sorry. I… I get these headaches sometimes. Like flashes. It helps to close my eyes. It’s gone already.’ I smile at Iselin. ‘Tell me more. This is so… fascinating. How incredible modern medicine is.’

  ‘Yes. It really is incredible.’

  ‘You know…’ I begin, watching Iselin’s open face carefully as I speak, ‘I read this thing a while back, I think it might have been in the New Yorker, about how there is substantial scientific evidence that some fragments of preferences or memories may be passed to a recipient of a transplant organ from the donor.’

  Iselin draws her eyebrows together in a frown, and suddenly resembles her daughter exactly. She seems to form her words carefully in her mind before she speaks again. ‘That is interesting. I guess I don’t spend much time thinking about that. You know, who the donor might have been. I am, of course, eternally grateful and I kind of wish they could know how much what they did for Kaia has meant.’

  ‘Yes. It is interesting, isn’t it? Research seems to suggest that memory, and experiences, and the core essence of what makes us us, is stored in different parts of our anatomies, not just our brains, so I guess it could make some sense in that way. They’re calling the gut the second brain now, aren’t they?’ I’m careful not to seem too interested in hearts.

  Iselin nods, and takes another sip of her wine, and from the flush creeping across her throat, it would seem she’s feeling the effect of the alcohol. ‘Yeah, I’ve read some stuff about, uh, the relationship between the mind and the body, too. And how psychological pain can, like, give you actual physical pain. So maybe it could be like that with memories or whatever.’

  ‘Yes. Do you think… Has Kaia, you know, done or said anything really odd since… since she received the new heart?’

  Iselin raises an eyebrow briefly, like it suddenly occurs to her that it might be peculiar that I’m asking a virtual stranger such questions. ‘Well, Kaia says and does weird stuff all the time, being seven,’ she says, laughing a little, and I laugh, too.

  ‘Yeah, I can imagine.’

  ‘But… yes. There have been a couple of things…’ I have to use all of my mental energy to just sit here, a calm smile on my face, holding the wine glass in my hand still. ‘She’s, uh, started doing this thing… this weird little thing. When she hugs me, she nestles her face in my neck on one side, then the other. And she goes, “Both sides, Mamma. We have to do both sides.” It’s little things like that, which she’s suddenly started doing and consistently does, over and over.’

  I close my eyes. Both sides, Mamma. We have to do both sides.

  Iselin is still talking, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. And then, a piercing, alarming feeling – a burst of pain, something wet, a scream, my own?

  ‘Oh my God!’ Iselin shouts, and I open my eyes and look into hers, which are wide open and frightened. ‘Oh God,’ she says again, standing up, and I follow her eyes to my hand, which has closed so hard around the wine glass it has shattered it, slicing open my palm. It’s bleeding heavily, squirting blood and splashing red wine onto the table, onto Iselin, onto my jeans and the parquet floor. Iselin rushes into the kitchen and returns with a dish cloth, which she ties quickly around my hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Iselin looks afraid, like I might suddenly hurt her the way I’ve hurt myself. I try to open my wounded hand but it is too p
ainful and I can’t stop the tears that begin to flow.

  ‘There’s glass stuck in my hand,’ I whisper, when I regain enough composure to bring the words out.

  ‘I think we should call an ambulance,’ says Iselin.

  ‘No!’ I say, my voice sharper than I intended. ‘No, please,’ I whisper, imploring her with my eyes. ‘Listen. It’s not as bad as it looks. These glasses are very fragile. Over there, in the kitchen, above the sink, the second cupboard to the left. There’s iodine and bandages… Bring it here… Please…’ Iselin does what I ask, her eyes not meeting mine.

  Iselin sits gingerly on the edge of her seat and runs a ball of cotton wool soaked in iodine across the inside of my palm. I instinctively pull my hand back; there really is a shard of glass stuck in the wound and it hurts badly.

  ‘Tweezers?’ asks Iselin, tilting my hand so that the embedded shard catches the overhead light.

  ‘Upstairs bathroom. On the side of the sink, I think.’ Iselin gets up slowly, and walks uncertainly out toward the hall, then I hear her footsteps rushing on the stairs and I close my eyes again. I decide to try to pull the piece of glass out myself using my nails and though it slips out easily, new, dark blood surges out of the jagged cut. This eases the pain, but I must have grazed an artery, judging by the amount of blood. I grab one of the bandages and start to wind it tight around my wrist, working my way up toward the gash in my palm. Is this cut deep enough to kill me? Could I just leave it unbandaged, go to bed, and never wake up?

  ‘Let me help you,’ says Iselin, softly, and I open my eyes to see her standing there, holding the tweezers.

  ‘I got it out,’ I say, and nod toward the bloodied splinter on the coffee table. ‘Could you just help me secure this?’ Iselin moves toward me slowly, like I wasn’t a middle-aged woman who’d cut herself on a wine glass, but a tiger in a trap. She purses her lips, concentrating on securing the end of the bandage with the metal hook. Already blood is seeping through the gauze and blossoming in the center of my palm. I watch her, and again I see the similarity between Iselin and her daughter, in the slightly pointy nose and the veins running visibly beneath the skin at the temples, like charcoal lines seen through an overlying sheet of paper.