And she began to speak of you, even though when you were born, she had said the most terrible things to me, and over the years acted as if you didn’t exist. But now I know that wasn’t her talking so much as what she had endured. In the end, she spoke tenderly of you, of all the milestones she’d imagined for you. She called you by the name I gave you. It made me realize that you’ve been alive in her all those years, too. It made me wonder if, in her own way, she too had been writing you letters in her head. It made me feel like a family.
I will continue to write you letters and to “write” you letters. Maybe one day you will let me share them with you. But even if you don’t, it is okay. It is the writing them that matters. And I like to believe that whether you read them or not, they are reaching you just the same.
—Janice Pickering
By the time Janice finished, they were both crying.
“Thank you,” Janice said. “Thank you for giving me the idea to write about the letters.” She gestured to the scrapbook of notes to the twins Maribeth had shown her. “Will you send those to your children?”
She picked up the scrapbook. The cover was embossed with the word MEMORIES and with all the letters she’d written, it felt heavy, substantial.
Maribeth suspected Janice was right. That it was the writing them that mattered. She liked to think she was right about the love. That it would find its way to them. And that she, too, would find her way to them.
“One day,” she said.
71
That night, she woke up suddenly. By the time she’d sat up in bed, her hand had already found its way to her heart.
Shit.
It hurt. Her chest hurt. A corrosive pain that radiated all the way up her torso and down her arm. Her left arm.
If that time at her desk had been subtle, this was as obvious as a punch to the nose.
No! She’d had the heart attack, had her heart tested and dyed and removed from her chest and stopped, operated on, and shocked back to life. She’d gone through all of that to prevent this from happening again.
“A subsequent event . . . fatal . . .” she heard Dr. Sterling say in his stupid hee-haw voice.
Get out of my head, Dr. Sterling. I fired you.
Her heart was beating wildly now, flinging around her chest like a trapped bird.
Calm down, she told herself. Calm down. Take ten deep breaths.
One, two, three.
Breathing hurt. She should go to the hospital. Call someone. Phone? Where was her phone?
She found it, charging next to her bed. She should call 911. But it was Jason’s number she dialed. “Hey, it’s Jase. You got the dreaded voicemail. Leave me a message.”
It was the first she’d heard his voice in months. And it was his fucking voicemail.
“You said you’d pick up on the first ring.” She sounded hysterical. “It’s me. Maribeth. I think I’m having a heart attack. Call me back. I’m scared.”
Ten deep breaths. Where was she at? Three? Four. Keep going. Call 911.
“Nine, one, one, what is your emergency?”
“I think I’m having a cardiac event.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Ma’am, can you speak up?”
“Heart attack. I’m having a heart attack. I had one before.”
“What is your location, please?”
She recited the address.
“Ma’am, I need you to stay calm. I want you to take some aspirin. Do you have any nearby?”
“Yes.”
“Keep me on the phone while you take your aspirin.”
As she fumbled for an aspirin, she started to cry.
“Ma’am, are you still with me?”
“I’m all alone,” Maribeth cried. “I know we all die alone, but I don’t want to be alone.”
“Ma’am. You’re not dying, and you’re not alone. You have me.”
“You don’t count. I don’t mean that. Everybody counts.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But I don’t want to be alone. Can I go get Todd and Sunita? They’re my neighbors.”
“Go get Todd and Sunita.”
“You’re nice. What’s your name?”
“Kirsten.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“Keep me on the phone, and go get Todd and Sunita.”
She pounded on their door. They could still be out at their party. She had no idea what time it was.
A sleepy-eyed Sunita shuffled to the door in her Steelers night shirt. “M.B., are you okay?”
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” Maribeth said.
“What? Todd! Wake up!” she yelled but Todd was already there. “M.B.’s having another heart attack!”
“Call an ambulance,” Todd yelled.
“I already did,” Maribeth said. She could hear the siren whining in the night. “I think that’s for me.”
“I’m getting dressed,” Sunita said. “I’m coming with you.”
“Me, too,” said Todd.
Maribeth got back on the phone. “My friends Todd and Sunita are coming with me.”
“That’s good. They sound like nice friends.”
“They are.”
Todd met the medics in the hall, and by the time they were entering the apartment, he had filled them in.
“Second heart attack?” the female medic asked, putting the pulse monitor on Maribeth.
Maribeth nodded.
“First one was in October and she had bypass surgery,” Todd said.
“Any other symptoms before tonight?” the burly guy medic asked.
Todd looked at Maribeth.