There Are Maps
by Gary Moshimer
Inside the medical center is a city, with sheets of rising glass and a giant fountain. You throw pennies to cure cancer, breathe the spray. There's a false sense of well-being. Units and operating rooms soar above. Visitors stir as on a city street, language and color mingling. McDonalds and Starbucks are there, little round tables sprouting like mushrooms.
I'm at one of these tables, by myself, high on caffeine and lack of sleep, while upstairs my wife gets her new heart. I have my eyes closed, feeling the mist, and when I open them three identical girls are there."We're real," one of them says, and they giggle, strawberry blondes in white dresses with pink flowers, pink tights and sneakers. Arms rise in unison with Shamrock Shakes, sipping without straws, pursed lips pastel green, minty fresh.
Belle introduces herself, points to her sisters: Brit and Beth. "There's another of us," she says, pointing upwards. "Not in heaven. In ICU. Her name is Bea, but we call her Bumble Bea, because she's clumsy. That's why she walked in front of a car. Now she's asleep."
"Quadruplets?"
"Yes." Our mother is right over there." She points crookedly.
The mother nods to us, probably used to the girls talking to strangers but too tired to care. She has tiny droplets in her hair but they aren't helping. She's wilted.
"Sorry about Bea," I say.
"Our father is not here. Mother says he's twisting himself in a knot at home because once he said, 'Four? Four of them?'"
"You look sad, mister," Beth says.
"Not sad. Tired, maybe. My wife is getting a new heart."
"From a dead person?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Cool. Bea needs a new brain."
"I don't think they can do that yet."
"Nope," says Belle. "Brains are too delicate. We know all about brains. The doctor gave us a map."
She goes to her mother's table and returns with a huge tote bag. She pulls out the map the doctor gave her, then a big roll of paper which she opens on the marble tile. The girls kneel around it. It's a good copy, done in pink and blue and yellow marker, the medical terms replaced with pictures of the girls and labels, like BEA AT THE BEACH 2005, the brain whorls like paths in a kid's board game, a journey through Bea's life. The brainstem —glowing gold, what keeps her alive—waits at journey's end.
"You have a heart map?" Belle asks.
I shake my head.
"You have to have one." She takes out another roll of paper and box of markers. She spreads the paper on the floor. "Do you have a picture?" She puts her hands on her hips.
"No. But I can draw it by memory. Once I was in pre-med."
"Well, get down here then."
I glance at the mother, but her eyes are closed. My knees crack as I go down. I take the markers and draw the heart in cross section, the atria and ventricles and valves, the cut-off vena cava and aorta, even the conduction system, the nodes and bundle branches and Purkinje fibers in yellow. I'm pleased with it, but when I go to stand up Belle pushes my shoulders.
"Now you make the map," she says.
"Where do I start?"
She makes a face. "Like when you first met her, and kissed, and had babies." They giggle.
I take the fine tipped marker and write on the sinus node. I knew at once our hearts would beat as one. "How's that?"
More giggles.
I follow the path to the next node and sketch a little plateau. "This is where we first kissed. In the city where we lived. They had just cut down our favorite tree, and we kissed on the stump. There's a delay here, because it was a good long kiss."
Sighs. They have shuffled around me, nervous from this grown up talk, and I can no longer tell them apart.
"We follow this path for a while. Here's our favorite restaurant. Here's where we found our kitty, Mr. Wiggles. Here's the river where we rode our bikes." I draw some bird wings in the left ventricle. "Here are the gulls stealing our picnic lunch."
I really have them now. They respectfully study my work and my face.
"Now we cycle back to the stump, and I ask her to marry me."
I color the tricuspid valve bright green. "Here's the door to our first apartment." With its three leaflets it looks like a magical door, something from Alice in Wonderland.
Then I make a little gold bundle tucked into the right atrium. I draw sunrays bouncing from it.
"What's that?" they ask, not standing the suspense.
"It's our baby. She was never born."
After a pause one of them says, "But you can have a new one, right? After the new heart?"
"Definitely." But I'm thinking they can't get another exact sister.
My yellow nerve fibers are the roots from which a tree grows into the left ventricle. The tree hangs over my townhouse and from the front windows we can see the fountain over the cobblestones. It's a larger version of this hospital fountain. I draw the water shooting up, color it red, and the girls say, "Gross," but I remind them this is a heart. They beg for a rainbow spray. I draw two stick people looking out the window, smiling and holding hands. In another window, Mr. Wiggles. The girl faces are expectant, so I put a baby between the stick people.
"Girls," the mother calls, "we have to say goodnight to Bea."
"That will work, Mister." They pack their stuff into the tote bag. One of them pecks my cheek. "Good luck."
I sit there cross-legged for a few minutes, looking at the heart. I roll it under my arm and head back to the waiting room, taking a detour past neuro. I see them through a window, sitting on Bea's bed, holding her hands. I touch the stickiness on my cheek.
Gary Moshimer has contributed stories to Storyglossia, Pank, Monkeybicycle, Smokelong Quarterly, Word Riot, and others. He works in a hospital near Lancaster, Pa.