Sweet Lucia
On WGBX, an interview with a woman whose 16 year old daughter died by suicide, her donated organs saving two lives.
The recipient of her lungs, a 30 year old man with cystic fibrosis, now able to dive the reefs of Raja Ampat.
He sent a postcard from Indonesia, the woman says, which didn’t completely slay me, since she never wanted to travel too far. Actually, she loved Frozen, and wanted to go to Disney, but, well, I was single mom.
Much harder, a card in her mailbox containing a photo of a little girl, attention transfixed by a chocolate cake burning six candles.When my daughter turned six, the woman says,her voice cracking, she asked for a pet turtle and her aunt gave her a terrarium with a rock painted green because she wasn’t sure -
I can’t imagine what that’s like, interrupts the host. And I’m sure our listeners understand, since this is every parent’s nightmare. Which is why today, we have someone special on the line with an important message.
A man coughs and clears his throat. My heart is torn, mami, knowing you lost your angel for my sweet Lucia to live.
The woman inhales sharply.
Is this hard for you? the host asks. It must be so hard for you. For our listeners who haven’t figured it out yet, on the line is Lucia’s father. Lucia underwent a heart transplant a year ago - eight hours, a Herculean feat of modern medicine. She was 5 at the time, and the surgery saved her life. So, how does it feel right now, to hear from the father of the little girl who received your daughter’s heart?
There’s a boomy grunt, like someone’s been punched.
After a couple of attempts to get her to stop crying, the mics are cut.
*
WGBX shifts quickly into the second interview, a 20 year old UC Santa Cruz student who claims that heteronormative white people are complicit in the erasure of anyone unlike them. If you’re straight, white, and not screaming in the streets right now, something’s wrong, the student says. While you drink wine and shop online, bodies that do not look like yours are being harmed, daily. Black bodies, queer and brown bodies, fat bodies, disabled bodies, Muslim bodies. I’m here today to make you uncomfortable, I’m here to tell you to wake up, I’m here to tell you your silence is violence, hard stop.
The host scoffs. I can’t say I was prepared for this. Tell us more, hon? Are you saying that our white listeners are criminals who are ignorant of their crimes? Are you saying that being straight and white is violent?
I know when someone is mocking me, she says, crisply. I assumed it would be different with you, but I guess I was wrong. And I don’t labor to explain to deaf ears, so we’re done here.
Shoot, says the host, clicking his tongue. So, to the white folks out there who are tuning in, sounds like she is saying that the God-given color of your skin should rob you of peace. That if you’re living a quiet life, or a happy one, it’s violent. That the world’s social ills are the fault of a specific demographic. Hmmm, that sounds oddly familiar to me, and not in a good way.
Her voice drops. That’s not what I mean. And of all people, you should understand. She leans in to the mic, saliva crackling. If the dead can’t lift us, they’ll haunt us instead, she hisses. And you should know this.
The host laughs. One thing I know is that I don’t need some damn college kid telling me what I know.
You’d be singing a different tune if your audience wasn’t a bunch of fascists who have weaponized their privilege by refusing to -
Her mic is cut.
*
Commuters scald their tongues on coffee. Before they can change the station, a pop song with a nasty bass line replaces their discomfort. Mouthing lyrics, they imagine themselves rich and well-sexed, suddenly cool.
When the song ends, they return to their long list of anxieties.
*
The UC student spends the rest of her evening with her 38 year old boyfriend, who is queer because he sleeps with other women. He praises her for speaking truth to power, says it was physically painful to hear the Black host argue against his own interests - what a clown. He’ll make salmon for dinner while she relaxes, he tells her, sliding a hand over her ass.
From the balcony of his 7th floor apartment, she leans over the balustrade and stares down at the busy street. The drink he made her isn’t good - the ice tastes like something old in his freezer. She’ll take tomorrow off to recover, she decides. Call her mom and complain about tuition. Her mom should be generous, considering what she does for her brother, filling his fridge and meds every week, washing his bed sheets. Yes, she’s privileged as a white woman, but compared to her brother, she asks for nothing.
Her boyfriend drowns the salmon in beurre blanc and it gives her indigestion. She doesn’t dare complain after last time, so she gives him head and leaves early. Back at her dorm, ChatGPT diagnoses her with gallbladder disease. She swallows a glass of water and two sleeping pills. Though the pills don’t improve the quality of her sleep, they erase the memory of the spirits that visit her. She’ll wake exhausted, but she won’t remember the pain of their stories.
*
The mother of the teen dead to suicide spends her evening staring into a drink, wondering if she’ll ever be forgiven. The social worker from the Organ Procurement Team used the term “legacy of generosity.” A chance to transform a tragedy into the gift of life, she’d said, folding her hands. Your choice, of course.
Though her memory of that interaction is a living nightmare that can stop her heart, she remembers the smell of the woman - talcum and coffee - and how ink from the pen stained her desk.
She pours a second drink to ease the feeling of being watched, even though she’s alone in the house - not the first time she’s felt this. She calls her boyfriend, who doesn’t answer, so she cuts the lights and drinks in the dark.
*
The straight, white ghost of the 16 year old girl, still in pajamas, swings from a rope above the kitchen table. Abused by her mother’s boyfriend for a decade, she repeats his name. Her lips move but make no sound, feet swaying where her mother drinks.
Her mother grips the glass and curses the house. Always a draft. Always that horrible image. She touches the back of her neck - bitterly cold - before refilling her drink and picking up the phone.
*
The host of WGBX is sipping coffee, driving to his second job. He’s still pissed about being lectured by that white bitch. He takes a big breath and relaxes his forearms. His granny would tell him to swallow bitter herbs, never chew.
He takes the last swig of coffee and pulls into a parking spot. A few more years of working two jobs until he can retire early with his boyfriend, hopefully somewhere tropical. Serenity to accept, courage to change, wisdom to know the difference, he prays aloud, collecting his stuff before heading in.
Halfway up the steps to the group home, he stops. He can hear them again, now that he’s sober. He waits a few seconds, but there’s nothing more.
He can’t be late.
*
The shift at the group home is slow. No one wakes in crisis, or needs meds. He sits in the common room, on an uncomfortable couch, imagining a strip of hot white sand and teal green water. He checks the listener statistics of the afternoon show - always a good bump when there’s drama. He wanted to ask the mother whether there were ethical concerns about donating organs from suicide. Why she bypassed her anonymity? Why she chose to be so…public? But the onslaught of tears and snot cut the interview short. Frustrating, that she couldn’t hold it together. She’d said she was ready. He wanted to push her, dig deep, keep his listeners rapt. Instead, the studio trashcan was full of snotty tissues by the time she left.
Before the show, his producer had suggested he ask about the timeline for a successful harvest. How long before organs go bad? But he’d refused. The word ‘harvest’ left him with goosebumps. Harvest was a word was for fresh eggs and unhusked corn, not an organ in a cooler.
The back of his neck is suddenly cold. The windows in the facility are drafty.
Pulling a sweater over his head, he wonders if Lucia inherited a heart that remembers. Whether pain can travel like that - from body to body. He wonders why the young teen took her life, whether Lucia can feel that terrible ache. The thought makes him nauseous, so he closes his eyes and imagines clear, green water, white sand.
*
Later tonight, before bed, Lucia’s father bags up Anna and Elsa, his daughter’s favorite dolls. He’ll replace them with something else, just no more Frozen characters. Strange, how attached she is to those things.
He cracks a fresh Modelo, feeling shitty for sticking to the script, for calling that lady ‘mami.’ He would never use that word on a white lady. He heard her weeping before they cut his line.
Tomorrow, he’ll go to confession.
He turns on Fox News and nurses his beer. Shakes his head at all the illegals pouring in. He’s not anything like them - he has light skin, he’s Christian, he works hard. Even Lucia speaks perfect English. His doing. When she speaks Spanish, he wants to cry.
*
Yesterday, he was the first person on the dive to spot the Tasseled Wobbegong. His second visit to Indonesia is even better than the first. Hard to believe, but he doesn’t torture himself with questions anymore. He takes a big breath - salt air fills his lungs. Lowering the mask over his face he jumps in, flippers first.
*
Sweet Lucia sucks her bottom lip, a habit that came with the transplant. She’s dreaming of flying. She can see the roof of her house, the park with the metal slide, the man with the same red MAGA hat as her dad, walking his dog. She dips below the trees, then launches up like a rocket. Above the clouds, she floats on her back. Everything up here is blue like the ocean, she thinks, before flipping over and racing for the horizon.