A Hole in My Heart

for Bette

The characters in this book are all fictional, with one exception. I refer briefly to a doctor named Robertson. Doctor Ross Robertson was indeed a surgical pioneer in cardiology in Vancouver. For a brief article on the history of heart surgery in Vancouver with reference to Dr. Robertson, see Lawrence Burr, “Some early history of cardiac surgery in British Columbia,”
Surgical Times (the newsletter of the UBC Department of Surgery),
Winter 2007.

Staring out my bedroom window, I can't see beyond the waves of rain caught in the orange light of the streetlamp. I thought moving from Penticton to North Vancouver would make it better. But it's worse. Way worse. When it's not pouring, it's raining. When it's not raining, it's drizzling. My stupid skirts always smell of wet wool. If I wasn't already sodden and depressed, I'd get sodden and depressed just smelling them. And looking outside.

I want to go home.

I want things the way they used to be.

The front door bangs open. Thuds and stomps of feet.

“Hey, Bummer.” It's my sister Dorothy. “How come your shoes were outside under the bushes?”

“Don't call me that, or I won't answer.” My two sisters have blown in with suitcases and half the wet leaves of the neighbourhood. Plus my saddle shoes.

“Well, you just did. So how come?” Dorothy's holding my black and white leather shoes, muddy and wet, like they're two dead fish.

“Oh, bug off.”

Dorothy is nineteen, blonde, and showy, and mainly can't talk about anything except clothes and boys. She's called Dot for short, but I call her Dotty in my head — usually — because that's what she's like. Dotty, as in crazy.

My other sister, Jan, who's the opposite of Dot, quiet and dark-haired, greets me with a hug, a “Hi, kiddliwinks,” and a bundle of mail. I missed picking up the letters because I came in the house by the back door. I search through and pull one out.

“Oh good. It's from Lizzie,” I say, and start up the stairs.

Dad emerges from his study in the basement where he always has his nose in a book or two or three. He grabs me by the shoulder. “Oh no you don't, girly. No disappearing into your room with that letter. You have to help with supper. And what's this ruining your shoes business?” I curse inwardly. “Go stuff some newspaper into them, put them by the hot air vent, and be back upstairs to help your sisters with supper. Lickety-split.”

I yank up the bottom edge of my old sweater and shove it out in front of me. “Here.” Dorothy, her pink-lipsticked mouth screwed into an upside down
u
, drops one shoe at a time onto my waiting sweater-tray. “How are you going to be a nurse if you don't even like dirty shoes? What about wiping up sick?” I steal a glance at Jan. She smirks. “And wiping old men's you-know-whatsits?”

“Yeah, well, at least I'll get to give needles and can practise by sticking them into you.”

“Stop that bickering. Get a move on, all of you.” Dad's voice is harsh. He's more than irritated. “I'm hungry. We need to get supper started.” Somehow he's only around when I don't want him to be. “Nora, did you pick the carrots?”

I shake my head, no. Now it's Dorothy's turn to smirk.

During the weekdays, both Janet and Dorothy live in the student nurses' residence at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. They only come home on the weekends. Last year, after grade twelve, Dorothy didn't want to do thirteen so she worked in the office of a local motel for half the year and twiddled her thumbs the rest. But Mum and Dad said she had to have further education. The rest of us have to, too. I don't know why Dot, though, because all she ever wants to do is go out with boys. Anyway, when Jan applied to St. Paul's, so did Dorothy. Me, on the other hand, I'm stuck in North Vancouver going to Sutherland Junior High.

I want a new life. Or, better still, my old one back.

I can hear my silly sisters upstairs laughing and giggling. They come home so full of themselves. I scrunch up a double page of yesterday's Vancouver
Province
and wedge it into the toe of my right shoe. There's Dot carrying on — “
Oooh
, isn't Dr. Wispinski gorgeous? And Dr. Graydon?
Aaahh
, would I love to go out with him.” What a bunch of malarkey.

Last Saturday night, just to be mean, I locked the basement door so that when Jan and Dorothy came home, they had to come in the kitchen entrance and say good night to their dates under the bright outside light. Dot kissed a guy called Jerry McGibbon in full view of the neighbourhood. His Brylcreemed hair curled over his forehead like a horn. Dot thinks he's so cool. Drool, cool, my eye.
How come, Mum, you have three dumb daughters?

I jam more scrunched-up newspaper into the shoes. It feels good — like punching or pounding. My anger jams down and scrunches up too. I drop my shoes onto the heating duct. Maybe, like Mum, I'll get out of this life entirely.

“Hurry up, Bummer,” Dorothy calls down the stairs. “Where're the carrots?”

I step wide around the girls' suitcases on the landing, climb the remaining stairs two at a time, and burst into the kitchen. “In the garden, where they belong.”

“Quit sassing me, you little brat.” Dorothy grates potatoes into a bowl. “Dad says you're to pick the carrots, so go pick. And Jan, would you
pulleeease”
— emphasizing and stretching the word out as only Dot can do — “put away our suitcases or you-know-who will ruin them?”

How come she gets a please and I don't?

Mean old witch.

• • •

“Here.” I toss a handful of muddy, scraggly carrots into the sink. Their green tails splat bits of black on the counter.

“Hey, watch it. You're getting dirt in the potatoes. You should've rinsed them outside.”

“And here's some more dirt.” I fling my socks at Dorothy, the ones I'd tramped around outside in after I kicked off my shoes. She ducks.

“You drip. Dad,” her voices rises, “tell Nora to do something right.” Dorothy jams her hair behind her ears.

“Whine to Daddy, eh?”

Dorothy's face flushes.

“Oh, go do something useful — like put the sausages on.”

“Why can't Janet?”

“Just go do it.” Jan is nowhere to be seen when Dot and I argue. “And while you're at it, change that sweater. It's filthy.”

“You're not my mother, so shut up.”

Silence.

Dad enters the kitchen. Of course. He's always there when I do something mean, never when Dorothy does. His voice is low and cold. “You apologize to your sister and don't use those words in this house again. Ever.” More silence. I'm trying to think of something not smart-alecky but I'm definitely having trouble with basic thinking. “Well?”

“The you're-not-my-mother part or the shut-up part?” Dad's normally reddish face — from his freckles that cover almost everything — deepens to explosive red. His ears seem to stick out further too. This is a clear sign of a soon-to-happen blowup. Backtalking is not allowed.

“Sorry, Dad. Yes, Dad.” I turn to my sister and put on the sweetest, smarmiest smile so she knows I don't mean it. But Dad can't see. “Sorry, Dotty.” The room relaxes. Somewhat. I yank the cast-iron frying pan from under the stove, bang it down on the right back element, and plop the sausages on.

“Don't forget to prick them.”

I hunch my shoulders, force them down with a sigh. Then, with vicious delight, I spear each sausage once, twice, three times. There are words I want to say but don't. Even in my head. I pat the letter in my pocket and watch the sausages sizzle and spit.

• • •

Penticton

September 6, 1959

Dear Nora,

I miss you. Jenny's still away and I have no one to talk to at school.

It must be a lot better going to a junior high than a straight high school. The big kids aren't so big and you don't have to wait for five or six years to be at the top of the totem pole like here at Pen High. Have you seen any totem poles yet, for real?

So far Mrs. Cramer is nice. I sit smack in the middle of the middle row in homeroom. She put us in alpha-betical order, so Jenny will be right up at the front of the class near the window when she comes back. Vicki sits one over from me but she seems really cozy with a new girl with a fancy name — Melinda, the teacher called her, but, I thinks she wants to be called Linda. She wears frilly blouses with a sweater half open in front. She says it's the latest 1959 fashion in Winnipeg, where she comes from.

Who are your new friends? Your letter sounded a bit lonesome. I thought you were really looking forward to moving, getting away from here. The school is having a Halloween party. The grade twelves and the student council are putting it on. I don't I want to go because I'll have to sit on the sidelines. But I probably will because Jenny will insist.

I had to go to the doctor's again. You'd think I'd be used to it after all these years. I hate having to undress in front of him. I hate him putting his stethoscope all over my chest and back. My parents use the term blue baby for my condition but he says Tetralogy of Fallot, the fancy medical term which means the same thing, but just makes me feel sicker. Much worse than I think I am. My purple toes and lips and fingernails are just my purple toes and lips and fingernails. Nobody else's. They're me — but they do remind me of my breathing difficulties, my tiredness, a sign of what's wrong inside.

Apparently the doctor I see in Vancouver has been doing a new type of surgery for kids like me. That means going into hospital again sometime in the next few months, another operation, and another big scar on my chest, I guess. That I am not looking forward to, the hospital, the operation, or the scar. But I'll get to see you so that's good. And get fixed.

My little brothers are bugging me. What's new? They're trying to snatch the paper from me as I write. They want me to quiz them from
World Book
again. I have to go before they rip this.

Please write often.

Your cousin,

Lizzie

PS I got
Anne of the Island
out of the library. Have you read it?