Rose Andersen - The Heart and Other Monsters

For the women that loved her

Carol

Sharon

Ilena

Tess

CONTENTS

Had I known but yesterday what I know today,

Id have taken out your two gray eyes

And put in eyes of clay;

And had I known but yesterday youd be no more my own

Id have taken out your heart of flesh

And put in one of stone

TAM LIN

Throughout this book, I have speculated or imagined events concerning whether or not my sister was murdered. I have no outside knowledge or evidence not disclosed to readers about these speculations. The reader should not conclude that I have any concrete facts or proof that my sister was murdered.

There are many ways into this story.

The Girl.

The Dog.

The Boys.

The Drugs.

The Gun.

The Man.

My Heart.

I told my sister once that if she died she would ruin my life. We were sitting on my couch, facing each other. She was going through withdrawal, and I was trying to talk her into sobriety by any means I could think of.

I know, Sarah said.

When I was little, I thought I had two hearts: a healthy, shiny, blood-filled, glorious beast, and a gnarled one that hid behind it. The second heart fed on the first, taking blood and oxygen in large, greedy gulps, but somehow never lost its withered shape. I thought the second heart was where all my bad thoughts lived. This is her home now.

This is what I know.

My sister died on November 19, 2013.

She died of an overdose in her bathroom.

She was dead for four days before her body was found.

Her dog spent those four days trying to claw and bite his way through the bathroom door.

Sarahs boyfriend, Jack, found her.

I have never been able to ask him what her body looked like.

The police thought she had accidentally ODd, and she was cremated within another few days.

This is what I know. Some months after she died, I saw a rumor online that Sarah had been friends with people who had committed terrible crimes. I learned of a gun that was sold to intimidate but instead killed, of a body that was cut into pieces, of a man who was with her the morning she died. I filled up a legal pad with notes about my sisters unknown life. I have gone to great lengths to resurrect her; I have read her diaries, attempted to hack into her email, collected newspaper clippings, studied articles and records, sifted through our family history. I have examined each memory and replayed every shared moment, but I cannot summon a story that doesnt end with her death.

The night we heard of her death, my stepmother, Sharon, took my hand and told me, Its all on you now. Her own sister, Janet, after years of failed suicide attempts, had killed herself by jumping off the Bay Bridge when Sharon was just twenty-eight years old. Their mother began showing signs of early-onset Alzheimers within months of Janets death. Sharon turned into her familys caretaker the second Janet stepped off the bridge and into the welcoming water. I put my hands on my stepmothers chest and told her she had to agree not to kill herself in response to Sarahs death. Two hours later, I would grab my mothers arm and make her promise the same thing.

One day my heart will stop thumping, and blood will stop circulating through my body. I will watch everyones hearts run around this lovely, dim world; they glow from space. I will watch those bright, twinkling specks that stars gaze at. I will hear those hearts singing. They only know one refrain. It repeats through the universe as their valves open and close: love is not enough, love is not enough.

If only my heart were a time machine.

I would go back to that day on the couch with her.

I would say, if you die, it will ruin both our lives.

I will look for your body at every turn.

I will spend my life with your ghost running right behind me.

I will spend my days imagining the lives we could have had.

I will live in the ruins of your absence.

I will nightmare you alive in my sleep.

I will wake up and tell myself: dont let this death become what your days are made of, let it flicker on the horizon, give it a home only on the edges of your life. But some part of my brain will always be calling your name.

If you die, Sarah, the universe will never be the same.

She has spent the last few hours desperately texting the Man to come pick her up so they can go get some dope. It is early, just before sunrise, but she knows he will be awake. He picks her up in his beat-up Dodge truck. They drive to someones house, and when heroin isnt available she settles for something else. A high is a high is a high. Her bones are beginning to chatter with withdrawal.

The Man drops her back off at her house, promising to swing by later, to take a few hits with her, after he runs an errand. Sarah promises to wait, but they both know she is lying.

After he leaves, she assembles the ribbon, the spoon, the ball of cotton, the needle, the cup of water, and sits on the floor of her bathroom, back against the door. She smokes a cigarette, enjoying the shooting pain in her legs for a moment because she knows it will be gone soon. The anticipation, at this point, is sometimes better than the hit.

She measures out some, then thinks, What the fuck, a little more . She puts the white powder on the spoon. It looks about right, the amount of H she typically does. She sets the spoon carefully on the tile floor, watches as it spends a millisecond finding its resting point before turning her attention to the syringe.

She puts the syringe into the cup and pulls up a little water. Carefully, she picks up the spoon and releases the water into it, using the tip of the needle to mix everything up. She likes this part, the dissolving of powder to milky wet wonder. Once thats done, she takes a small piece of cotton and rolls it between her fingers until it is the size and shape of a pea, a vegetable she hates. She puts the cotton ball into the spoon and lets it soak up what she has made.

She picks up her needle and gently places the tip into the cotton ballwhich will filter out any larger chunksand then slowly pulls the plunger back. The syringe is full and ready for her.

The needle is placed back on the floor while she ties herself off. She usually likes someone else to do this part and to inject her. The Man, Jack, Ryan. One of the many boys who love her. But she doesnt want to wait for the Man to come back; then she would have to share. She picks up the red ribbon and looks down at her thighs. She is skinny now, finally. But she is still worried the ribbon wont be long enough. It is, of course; she used it last night. Sometimes she wakes up and imagines all her fat has come back to her in her sleep.

She ties it tight. It takes a while to find a vein. She cant use her arms anymore; her veins have collapsed. But at the back of the knee, she still has one that lights up for her. It glows blue in the gray of early morning. She places the tip of the needle at the pulsing, shimmering center of the vein and slides it in. She is desperate, this close to the rush, but takes the time to pull the plunger back a little to make sure she has hit blood. For a second, the swirling red and white reminds her of cherry blossoms.