Dad still meddles and so do the poor staff that he employs to do various things pertaining to me. The poor sons ‘o bitches. They come around on occasion and I send them right back to wherever the fuck they came from. Sure, I’ve had to sacrifice a golf club or two across the windshield of a black Lincoln, but it makes no difference to me. I never use my clubs anyway and Grandpa’s clubs are safely tucked away in the corner of my coat closet. A busted windshield usually communicates my point pretty thoroughly and they scramble for their cell phones to call my dad. Of course.
I want privacy. Is it that fucking difficult to understand that a man in my position would do just about anything to get some privacy? Some peace? Some distance from prying eyes and reporters that egg me on in hopes that I’ll pop off and lash out?
Nothing I’ve done today had seemed to occupy my mind long enough to forget the widow.
Sadie Parker.
I turned her name over in my fucked up head a few times, playing with the way it sounded. “Sadie,” I whispered, staring out at the Atlantic through my sliding glass doors, my vegetable juice in hand. I peered down into the glass, wishing that I had some vodka to toss into the concoction. Wishful thinking from a heart patient. I left the hospital with a new lifestyle that had been force fed to me.
No drinking, no smoking, no partying, no bar brawls, no scandals, no fucking up nosey ass reporters, no blowing up on the green when you completely shank a drive. No golf, for that matter.
Fuck if they didn’t try to put my ass on a leash. I made it out of Atlanta just as quick as I could. I refused to be kept like some caged animal. If I had to surrender my lifestyle, I knew I had to do it on my own terms. I wouldn’t be forced into shit. Not by them. Not by him.
Now—two years after the transplant that saved my miserable ass—I had been mentally preparing myself for the meeting that I agreed to. I didn’t know why the hell I agreed to it. I didn’t have to. That was made clear to me by the organ donation agency’s counselor. She’d told me in very clear, nearly irritating terms, that both parties had to be in agreement and then they would begin correspondence for us, mediating along the way. I saw it as being nosey along the way and told them I was fine communicating directly with Mrs. Parker as long as she was fine with communicating directly with me. I guess she was because two days later I had received an email from [email protected].
I’d opened the email expecting something…that would be difficult to read. Mrs. Perkins had given me just the basics as far as information was concerned.
Sadie Parker. 26 years old. Atlanta.
I expected a sad story and to walk away feeling worse for the fact that someone else had died and I had them to thank for getting a new heart and subsequently another shot at life. I expected a heartbreaking story from a young widow. That’s not what I got, though. I opened an email that was frank and to the point and lacking any clear emotion. She seemed almost bitchy through her typed message.
Mr. McBride,
I’m glad you agreed to speak directly. Thank you for allowing Mrs. Perkins to pass along your email address. I’m sure that she explained that I wanted to begin talking with you on some platform in the hopes that we could maybe meet someday. Soon. I’m wanting to meet a few of my husband’s organ recipients. I hope that you’re interested, but if you aren’t, please don’t feel obligated. I don’t have to meet you. Please consider and let me know what you’d prefer. Or don’t. Either way.
-Sadie Parker
I had read her email at least a dozen times, thinking that some part of me should feel bad. But something about this woman—the way she spoke so freely, so plainly—made me curious about her and glad that I had someone to talk to. Did all widows talk that way? Surely there’s more to her than what she gave away in the email. Who is Sadie Parker, [email protected]?
The emails that we exchanged fed my curiosity. Something in those emails sounded so familiar. She reminded me of myself, in a way, so it was no surprise when I sat by my laptop refreshing my inbox every five minutes hoping for another email from her. Something about this woman had me wanting to get in my Jeep and take my ass back home to Atlanta. When I had mentioned the heart patient thing in my email, it ran her off. I could tell. I could almost feel her withdraw. She probably hates me for it. I hate me for it too. My parents should have left well enough alone, but instead I got a new heart and a mountain of guilt to go along with it. Sadie seemed to help though. She took my mind off of it and for a shadow of a second I even thought I felt relief that I’m still alive.
Never in my wildest fucking dreams would I have expected that I’d end up meeting her sooner rather than later.
I’d stood there in front of my sliding glass doors with my vegetable juice in my hand, groaning to myself about just how bad I wished that vegetable juice could be a Bloody Mary when I saw something moving along the beach south of where my house stands. I hurried to the counter and grabbed my binoculars, popping the lens caps off as I strode back to the glass door. I always made sure to keep them handy. They proved to be useful pretty regularly.