Cellular memory is a hypothesis, yet to be scientifically proven, that memories can be stored in individual cells in all parts of the body, i.e., not only the brain.
Cellular memory is a pseudoscientific theory based on reported anecdotes from organ recipients who claim to have acquired the memories, habits, interests, and tastes of their donor.
This is what I thought. “Yet to be scientifically proven.” “Pseudoscientific.” “Based on claims and anecdotes.” In other words, it’s likely to be as real as Bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle.
But still, I can’t stop myself from clicking back on that blog I found in the library with Jane. I reread the story of our budding artist, Janet, and then scroll through a few other entries, including one from a man who swears he must have inherited his donor’s personality because he now likes jalapeño peppers and it turns out that the previous owner of his heart loved jalapeños on everything. Jalapeños? I mean, come on. It seems ridiculous. Then I land on the story of Dave, a fifty-five-year-old sales executive, husband, and father of three:
About six or seven months after my transplant, I was at a coffee shop and saw a guy I was sure I knew. I meet a lot of people through my job, so I figured he had to have been someone I met through a previous sales call or at a trade conference. “Hey, Ryan, how’s it going?” I said as he walked by, and I know I had his name right because he immediately looked my way. But as soon as we made eye contact, it was clear that he had no flipping idea who I was. I think he even came back at me with the universal I-can’t-remember-your-name response: “Hey! I’m well, thanks.” Then he went his way, I went mine, and I didn’t think much of it. Later on, I really got interested in meeting my donor’s family. I wanted to thank them and tell them how much this second chance meant to me and my wife and kids. The family agreed, and my wife arranged for them to come to our house one Saturday afternoon. She thought they’d be more comfortable at our house, not a public place. When the doorbell rang, I was pretty nervous. Turns out I had a good reason. I nearly had another heart attack right then and there when the guy from the coffee shop walked through the door — Ryan, the one whose name I knew and was sure I had met before. He was my donor’s brother. His brother!
I’m caught in that weird space between sound asleep and awake again, and can’t seem to pull myself out.
The tunnel dream is mutating.
I was, or am, somewhere else first, sitting beside the woman connected to all the tubes. A hospital room. The ICU? Her lips are dry and cracked. Her face is thin, her skin so pale, cheeks hollowed out. I’ve seen her before . . . where? But then I’m not in the hospital. The woman is gone. I’m on the beach, waxing my board. Something darts by to my left. It’s the silver-gray pit bull — squat, barrel-chested — chasing a ball. The dog turns and gallops back toward me, dropping the ball at my feet, but before I can pick it up, I am speeding into the tunnel again, lights rushing by. The curve. The tree. Burning rubber. Squealing tires. Everything goes blank.
“Chloe . . . Chloe, wake up.”
My alarm is blaring next to me and my mom is sitting on the edge of my bed, gently nudging my shoulder. She used to just flip on my super-bright ceiling light or yell from the kitchen “Chloe, get up!” when I overslept, but now I think she worries about startling me.
I look at my mom, at the glass of water she’s set on the coaster on my nightstand, at the way the vibration from the alarm on my phone makes the water ripple.
“You’re going to be late for school,” she says.
“Summer school,” I correct her, as I reach for my phone and turn off the alarm. “Nobody cares if I’m late.”
She studies me carefully, and although I can tell she’s trying to resist, she asks anyway, “Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just lazy.”
She stands and tries to pretend she’s her before-Chloe-had-a-heart-transplant self. “No time to be lazy. It’s seven thirty-five! C’mon, I’ll make you a bagel for the road. And don’t forget your medication.”
“I won’t,” I answer, and decide not to sigh or roll my eyes.
When I come down to the kitchen, my mom holds out a warm brown bag, toasted poppy-seed bagel wrapped neatly inside. My favorite.
I take it and she moves in to give me a kiss on the head, just like she used to do at school drop-off when I was little. Her movements are quick and stealthy, as if she’s trying to catch a grasshopper before it jumps. She doesn’t have to try too hard today. I lean in and wrap my arms around her, comforted by familiar sensations that I know are all mine: the soft, feathery feel of her favorite work-from-home wrap sweater. The coconut smell of her shampooed hair. I push the memory of the woman in the hospital room out of my mind.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she says. “Dad bumped into Emma’s mom yesterday. She reminded him about Emma’s graduation party this weekend.”
The party is not just to celebrate the end of high school but also Emma’s upcoming departure for Brown University.
I release my mom, breaking the warm fuzzy spell of our hug. “I know,” I say.
Like Emma, everyone in our circle is heading off soon to various U.S. News & World Report–ranked schools: Alexis Stewart and Mia Ryan will be sharing a dorm room at UCLA; Jordan McGuire got into Penn; Craig Swanson is a legacy at Yale (lucky for him and his unremarkable GPA). Party season is in full swing, as our senior class gathers around pools and barbecues and beer kegs to finally let off some steam, take a million group selfies, and pair up with their no-strings-attached crushes before everyone goes their separate ways.
I could be participating in this fun-on-the-surface-but-competitive-underneath ritual of “Where’d you get in?” if I wanted to. I was mostly done with my college applications when everything happened with my heart, and my mom helped me finish and submit them. At the time, it was a welcome distraction from the wait for a donor. Later, when the acceptances started coming in, it felt as if they were meant for a different person. But I do need to make a decision soon. I can tell it’s driving my mom to distraction, but she’s trying her best to give me some space.
She wouldn’t have before.
My mom picks up her half-full coffee mug from the counter and opens the microwave door.
“Did you and Emma have a falling-out or something?” she asks while waiting for her coffee to reheat. “You two haven’t seen much of each other lately.”
We haven’t. But there was no official falling-out. It’s been more of a quiet fade.
“No,” I say. “She’s just busy getting ready for school.”
My mom turns to face me.
“I know you feel a little left out of all the graduation stuff. But it would not be kind to ditch her party, Chloe. You’ll be there soon enough.”
But that’s the thing. Even though a top university is the destination I’ve been racing toward for the last six or seven years of my life, I don’t know if “there” is where I really want to be anymore. But I can’t tell my mom this. She’s convinced she missed her own chance at the Ivy League because her New Agey ’70s parents never pushed her hard enough.