Chapter 4 - GABRIEL’S MOTHER PUT HER HAND ON MATTEO’S CHEST AND STARTED CRYING
Rebecca Reed did not look like someone who had spent thirteen years inside my imagination.
That sounds ridiculous.
I had never known her name until days earlier.
Still, donor family had become a category in my mind.
Anonymous.
Sacred.
Untouchable.
Rebecca was just a woman in jeans.
Fifty-two.
Gray beginning in brown hair.
Bare feet.
A dish towel over one shoulder because she had apparently been cooking when we arrived.
Her husband Thomas stood behind her.
Tall.
Quiet.
Ava was twenty-two now.
Not nine.
Not the little sister from the letter.
A college graduate with Gabriel’s brown hair and an expression that told me she had spent a week arguing about whether this meeting was a terrible idea.
Probably healthy.
No reporters.
No black SUVs at the curb.
I parked two streets away because Matteo insisted.
One security officer remained outside in an ordinary sedan.
Rebecca opened the door.
Then stared at Matteo.
No one spoke.
My son looked suddenly younger.
Sixteen.
Hands shoved into his jacket.
Nervous.
Rebecca’s eyes dropped to his chest.
Not dramatically.
Automatically.
Then she covered her mouth.
Thomas put one hand on her shoulder.
Ava looked away.
Matteo whispered—
“Hi.”
Rebecca started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
She said immediately.
“I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay.”
Matteo looked terrified.
“I cry too.”
That made her laugh through tears.
Good.
We entered.
The living room contained family photographs.
That was the hardest part.
Gabriel at six.
Gabriel missing front teeth.
Gabriel in baseball uniform.
Gabriel holding Ava when she was a baby.
Gabriel beside a Christmas tree.
Not donor.
Boy.
Life.
I understood Matteo’s anger at the headline now.
A heart had been one piece of this house.
Rebecca noticed me looking.
“That one was his junior year.”
She pointed.
“He hated the haircut.”
“It’s bad.”
Ava said.
Thomas smiled.
“He chose it.”
“Still bad.”
Family.
Normal.
I almost left.
Not because I was unwelcome.
Because grief that ordinary feels intrusive when you are a stranger benefiting from its aftermath.
Rebecca turned toward me.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Luca.”
She hesitated.
“Luca.”
“Thank you for letting us come.”
Her face changed.
“You don’t have to thank us for that.”
I almost said—
I do.
Then stopped.
Maybe everyone in this relationship was tired of gratitude becoming debt.
We sat.
Elena beside me.
Matteo across from Rebecca.
No one knew how to begin.
Finally Thomas said—
“Gabriel would have hated this.”
Matteo froze.
Then Thomas smiled.
“Not you.”
“The emotional seriousness.”
Ava laughed.
“He would have walked in and asked if anyone had pizza.”
Matteo smiled.
A little.
Rebecca wiped her eyes.
“He was not profound.”
“Thank God.”
Elena said.
Everyone laughed.
Tension loosened.
They told us about Gabriel.
Bad jokes.
Cubs.
A summer job at a hardware store.
He once drove three hours in the wrong direction because he refused to admit he missed an exit.
He loved chocolate milk.
Hated fish.
Wanted to study environmental science.
Maybe.
Changed his mind weekly.
At seventeen, nobody really knows.
Matteo listened.
Every detail.
Then—
“How did he die?”
Silence.
I tensed.
Rebecca looked at Thomas.
Then Matteo.
“Bicycle accident.”
She said.
“A truck turned across the bike lane.”
Matteo swallowed.
“Was he awake?”
No parent wants that question.
Rebecca answered anyway.
“For a little while.”
Thomas looked down.
“He had a severe brain injury.”
“Doctors told us there was no chance of recovery.”
His voice tightened.
“Gabriel had registered as an organ donor when he got his driver’s license.”
Ava smiled sadly.
“He did it because Mom told him not to check boxes without reading them.”
Rebecca laughed through tears.
“He read it.”
“Then said he wouldn’t need his organs if he was dead.”
Matteo nodded.
“That was in the letter.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca’s face crumpled slightly.
“We didn’t know who received anything.”
“Only general information.”
“A child.”
“Adult.”
“Different organs.”
“Years later we were told the heart recipient was doing well.”
Matteo looked at his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Rebecca’s eyes sharpened.
“No.”
He looked up.
“No?”
“That is the one thing I need you not to say.”
She leaned forward.
“You did not kill Gabriel.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Matteo’s eyes filled.
Rebecca continued.
“Because I spent thirteen years imagining a child somewhere thinking he had to become extraordinary to justify my son’s death.”
My chest tightened.
She looked directly at Matteo.
“You don’t.”
“You can fail math.”
“Make bad decisions.”
“Break someone’s heart.”
“Waste a Saturday.”
“Sleep until noon.”
“You do not have to cure cancer because Gabriel died.”
Matteo laughed through tears.
“I’m good at sleeping until noon.”
“Excellent.”
Ava said.
“Honor his legacy.”
More laughter.
Then Matteo’s face changed.
“Can I ask something weird?”
Rebecca smiled.
“This entire meeting is weird.”
“Fair.”
He touched his chest.
“Do you want to…”
He stopped.
Rebecca stopped breathing.
Matteo swallowed.
“Feel it?”
The room went completely silent.
I looked at Elena.
She was crying.
Thomas covered his mouth.
Ava turned away.
Rebecca stared at Matteo.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
He smiled weakly.
“But yes.”
He stood.
Rebecca stood too.
Slowly.
She approached.
Not like someone receiving something back.
Important.
She placed her palm lightly against Matteo’s chest.
Over his shirt.
Left side.
Waited.
One beat.
Then another.
Her knees almost folded.
Thomas caught her.
Rebecca started sobbing.
Not delicate tears.
Grief.
Thirteen years.
Her son gone.
His heart alive inside another body.
No sentence can make that simple.
Matteo began crying too.
Rebecca pulled her hand away.
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head.
Then hugged her.
She froze.
Then held him.
I looked down because watching felt too private.
Elena took my hand.
Hard.
I thought of Sofia.
Her body in a hospital morgue.
Matteo at three.
Fourteen days.
A donor family somewhere making the worst decision of their life while I sat beside my son begging death to negotiate.
This was where tomorrow came from.
Not medicine alone.
Not money.
Somebody else’s catastrophic night.
When Rebecca and Matteo separated, Ava walked over.
She looked at his chest.
Then him.
“I’m not touching you.”
Matteo laughed.
“Thank you.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
Then Ava said—
“I used to hate you.”
The room became still.
Rebecca looked alarmed.
“Ava.”
“No.”
Matteo sat.
“Why?”
Ava’s eyes filled.
“Not you specifically.”
“The idea.”
“That somebody got something.”
“And we got a funeral.”
Matteo nodded.
Fair.
“I was nine.”
Ava continued.
“Adults kept saying Gabriel saved lives.”
“I hated that.”
“Because he didn’t want to die.”
“Everybody made it sound beautiful.”
Her jaw tightened.
“It wasn’t beautiful.”
“It was horrible.”
Rebecca cried quietly.
Ava looked at Matteo.
“Then later I felt guilty for being angry because you were a sick kid.”
“Which made me angrier.”
Matteo whispered—
“That makes sense.”
Ava looked surprised.
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“I get angry he died too.”
Silence.
“Because if he didn’t…”
Matteo touched his chest.
“…I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“And that feels disgusting sometimes.”
Rebecca immediately said—
“No.”
Matteo shook his head.
“I know intellectually.”
“But feelings are stupid.”
“Extremely.”
Elena said.
That helped.
Ava sat beside him.
“Okay.”
Not forgiveness.
No need.
Just okay.
We stayed three hours.
No money discussed.
No foundation.
No photographs for publicity.
Before leaving, Thomas handed Matteo a small box.
Inside—
a Cubs baseball cap.
Blue.
Faded.
Same style as the photograph.
Matteo looked at them.
“Was this his?”
Rebecca nodded.
“You can say no.”
Matteo touched it.
“I want it.”
Then—
“Are you sure?”
Rebecca smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
He put it on.
It was slightly too small.
Everyone laughed.
On the drive home, Matteo said almost nothing.
Halfway through Illinois, he finally spoke.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Did you ever feel guilty that I got a heart?”
I looked at the road.
“Yes.”
He turned.
“What?”
“Not because we caused anything.”
“Then?”
“Because when the call came, I was happy.”
The word hurt.
“I was sitting beside you.”
“Dr. Pierce said a donor heart was available.”
“And for one second…”
I swallowed.
“…I was happier than I had ever been.”
“Then I realized somewhere another family had just lost someone.”
Matteo looked down.
“I hated myself for being happy.”
Elena squeezed my knee.
I continued—
“Eventually I understood two things can happen at once.”
“Their worst day.”
“Our hope.”
“Neither cancels the other.”
Matteo stared out the window.
Then—
“I like Rebecca.”
“So do I.”
“Ava scares me.”
“Good instincts.”
Elena laughed.
Matteo touched the Cubs cap.
“Can we see them again?”
I asked—
“Do they want that?”
He smiled faintly.
“Rebecca already texted.”
Of course.
“What did she say?”
“Next time bring better coffee.”
I looked at Elena.
She smiled.
“Ordinary.”
Yes.
That was exactly what I wanted.
Then three days later, Rebecca called me directly.
Not Matteo.
Me.
Her voice was shaking.
A reporter had followed Ava from work.
May you like
And someone had offered the Reed family two hundred thousand dollars for an exclusive interview about “the mafia heir carrying Gabriel’s heart.”
I had not been that angry in years.
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