After His Heart Transplant My Husband Forgot His Daughter Chapter 02
The Novels Starts From Here
Chapter 1
My eight-year-old daughter placed her still-living father in the memorial section of her school project. Under his photo, she had written: Died four years ago, in that heart transplant.
Her teacher reminded her gently, “Your father is still alive.”
But Elodie only shook her head. “The dad I had before the surgery died. This one belongs to someone else.”
When the school called, everyone on the line seemed to wait for me to set my daughter straight.
I said, “She’s not wrong.”
Four years ago, my husband got a new heart.
His life was saved, but my daughter’s father never came home.
Every weekend, he went off to look after the donor’s family. He gave away the game console our daughter had waited a year for, and he turned a father-daughter camping trip into a memorial outing for another family.
Elodie stopped crying. She stopped asking when he was coming home.
Instead she used an old tablet to make recordings, every one of them opening with the same words: For Dad Before the Surgery.
In the fifty-eighth recording, she said, “Mom and I are moving to a city with no strangers.”
“You don’t have to look for me. You wouldn’t come anyway.”
After I listened, I opened a page of rental listings for San Diego, then pulled up the number of the lawyer I’d saved in my phone.
My husband had just finished another weekend that belonged to someone else, and he was driving home to play the part of a father.
He had no idea that in our daughter’s fifty-eighth recording, she had only one thing left to say to him.
He had no idea that in our daughter’s fifty-eighth recording, she had only one thing left to say to him.
“We’ll never see each other again.”
…
Before that fifty-eighth recording, Elodie had already buried him fifty-seven times.
The day after Family Tree Night, I was on break at work when an email from her teacher dropped into my inbox.
Attached was a photo of Elodie’s project.
A treetop, cut from green construction paper. The living family members were pasted onto the branches. The dead had been placed below the roots, in a section labeled In Memoriam.
Grady’s photo sat right there, among the dead.
Next to it, Elodie had written:
Died April 14 — the day he got Elias’s heart.
The teacher’s email chose its words with care.
“Ms. Marsden, I wanted to check in about Elodie. Has there been a significant change at home recently? She seems emotionally calm, but she insists that her father has passed away. Our school counselor is available if you feel she needs to talk to someone.”
On the dispatch floor, the call board was lighting up, one flashing signal after another.
I confirmed the address on the last emergency call before I typed my reply.
“Thank you for your concern. Elodie is emotionally stable.”
I hesitated a second, then added one more line.
“From her perspective, it’s the truth.”
That night, at eight, I heard a key turn in the lock.
That night, at eight, I heard a key turn in the lock.
Grady came in smelling faintly of alcohol, a rolled-up national park map in his hand.
“Elodie, look what I brought.”
He spread the map across the living room rug, his voice bright with forced excitement, as if the birthday promise he was already twelve days late on could still be rescued.
“We’ll leave Friday. We can do the lakeside trail first, then hike to the waterfall, and stay in a cabin overnight. They even have fire pits.”
My gaze went straight to the four-person cabin he’d circled in red.
“You promised her a father-daughter camping trip.”
Grady’s finger went still on the map.
“The plan changed a little. Renata and Finn are coming, too.”
“A little?”
“The more the merrier.” He frowned. “Finn’s been having a rough time. This trip might cheer him up. Elodie won’t mind.”
He called down the hall. “Elodie, come on out. Dad’s got a birthday surprise for you.”
The bedroom door didn’t open right away.
When it finally did, Elodie stood there in her old pajamas, hugging a battered storybook with curled corners. She didn’t run to him the way she used to. She didn’t call him Dad. She just stayed at the end of the hall and looked at him.
The smile on Grady’s face stiffened.
He crouched quickly, patting the spot beside him on the rug.
“Come here, sweetheart. Look—we can go fishing right here. Finn’s never been camping, so you can teach him how to pitch a tent.”
“Come here, sweetheart. Look—we can go fishing right here. Finn’s never been camping, so you can teach him how to pitch a tent.”
Elodie didn’t move.
“Wasn’t it supposed to be just us?”
Grady’s smile turned brittle.
“Next time, it’ll be just us. The cabin doesn’t have enough beds this time, and you’re older now, so you can sleep on the foldout couch and let Finn have the little bed inside.”
Elodie dropped her eyes to the map.
She had waited twelve days for this, and all it had come to was a foldout bed on someone else’s trip.
Grady raised a hand to wave her over again, but his phone rang.
Three short chimes.
Renata’s custom ringtone.
Every time that sound went off, his attention snapped to the phone.
He pulled it out at once.
A text flashed across the screen.
“Finn’s asking for his dad again. He won’t stop crying, and he can’t sleep. Can you come tell him stories about Elias? I really don’t know what to do.”
Grady’s face softened in an instant. The impatience he’d shown Elodie simply drained away.
He tapped out a quick reply: “I’m on my way.”
Then he stood and grabbed his keys off the hook.
“Something’s come up over there. Sabine, you and Elodie can look over the route. I’ll be back later.”
The map was still spread across the floor.
“Something’s come up over there. Sabine, you and Elodie can look over the route. I’ll be back later.”
The map was still spread across the floor.
Elodie was still standing in the exact spot he had tried to call her to.
I stepped in front of the door.
“Take the map with you.”
Grady’s face darkened. “Do you have to do this in front of our daughter?”
“You’re twelve days late, and now you’ve crammed this trip with people who have nothing to do with her birthday. It might as well not happen at all.”
His phone lit up again.
A crying emoji from Renata, followed by: “He’s been waiting for you.”
Grady didn’t bother arguing anymore.
He stepped around me and hurried out the door.
The sweep of his headlights crossed the window, then disappeared around the corner.
Slowly, Elodie walked over to the map. She picked up the black crayon from the coffee table.
She scribbled over the cabin where Renata and Finn were supposed to stay. Then she crossed out the lakeside trail, the waterfall, and the patch marked Fire Pits.
She dragged the black crayon back and forth until the whole route was blotted out.
Then she set the crayon down, hugged her book to her chest, and went back to her room.
The door clicked softly shut.
Then she set the crayon down, hugged her book to her chest, and went back to her room.
The door clicked softly shut.
A few minutes later, I heard the chime of the old tablet beginning a new recording.
Elodie’s voice carried through the door, soft and calm.
“For Dad Before the Surgery, today is the fifty-first day since you died.”
“Someone who looks like you came by, but he’s leaving again.”
“That’s okay.”
“Mom and I don’t need him.”
Chapter 2
The next day, after my shift change, I didn’t leave the dispatch center.
The locker room was quiet except for the low hum of the vents. I opened my locker and drew an envelope out from behind my spare uniform and training manual.
Inside was an offer letter from the San Diego 911 dispatch center.
The salary ran higher than my current one. The health insurance covered dependents, and they offered relocation assistance. The deadline to respond was fourteen days away.
The letter had been sitting in my locker for three weeks.
I used to think Grady just needed time. Time to adjust to life after the transplant. Time to repay the debt he felt he owed. Time for us to become a family again.
But last night, after listening to Elodie’s fifty-first recording, I was done waiting.
I opened my digital calendar and set a reminder on the deadline.
The note held a single word: Leave.
Grady didn’t come home for three days.
When he finally walked in, Elodie was eating dinner. He didn’t ask how she was. He went straight to her room, as though he already expected to find the blacked-out camping map.
A few seconds later, I heard the scrape of a box being dragged across the floor.
“What is this?”
I walked to the doorway.
Grady was crouched by the desk, staring at a clear plastic storage bin. Inside sat his old baseball cap, his pre-surgery house keys, and the Father’s Day card Elodie had made him in preschool.
A sheet of white paper was taped to the lid.
Dad Before the Surgery’s Belongings.
The words had been formed slowly. The last one, “Belongings,” had plainly been erased twice before she got it right.
Grady stared at the label, his face darkening by degrees.
He shot to his feet.
“Sabine, did you teach her this?”
“No.”
“She’s eight years old! Would she pack a living man’s things into a keepsake box if someone didn’t put the idea in her head?”
“You can ask her.”
Grady dropped his voice. “You’ve been dropping hints that I abandoned this family. The family tree at school, too. Why didn’t you correct her?”
I looked at the coat he still had on, the one he hadn’t taken off in three days.
“In the past week, you were home for a total of one hour and forty-seven minutes.”
His expression froze.
“Last month, you took Elodie’s game console to give to Finn because, in your words, she hardly played it anyway. You were twelve days late for her birthday. Then you turned the father-daughter camping trip you promised her into a memorial for Elias.”
“That’s not—”
“In a child’s eyes, what does a father have to do to still be counted as alive?”
Grady’s lips moved, but nothing came out.
At her desk, Elodie quietly pulled a piece of drawing paper closer to her chest.
It was as if Grady only now noticed her. He turned and rifled through the papers on her desk, and the old tablet slid out from under a storybook and clattered to the floor.
Elodie jumped to her feet.
“Don’t touch that. It’s mine.”
But Grady had already lit the screen.
“What’s the password?”
Elodie lunged for it, but he lifted it out of her reach and unlocked it with her birthday.
The Voice Memos app opened.
The screen showed a list, every entry beginning the same way.
For Dad Before the Surgery — Day 1.
For Dad Before the Surgery — Day 12, Birthday.
For Dad Before the Surgery — Day 27, He went to Finn’s house again.
All the way down to Day 51.
The hand holding the tablet began to tremble.
He tapped Day 12.
Elodie’s voice filled the room, small and earnest.
“Dad Before the Surgery, I turned eight today.”
“Mom told me to make a wish, but I didn’t tell her what it was. I wished I could go back to before your surgery.”
“Back then, you would have eaten cake with me, and you wouldn’t have given my present to someone else.”
There were a few seconds of silence on the recording.
“Elias gave you his heart to save you.”
“But why did my dad have to be the price for Elias’s heart?”
“But why did my dad have to be the price for Elias’s heart?”
Grady went rigid.
He looked at Elodie. The anger in his eyes was gone now, replaced by pure panic.
“Sweetheart, I…”
Three short chimes cut through the room.
Renata’s custom ringtone.
A message banner dropped down at the top of the screen.
“Finn’s hamster died. He’s crying so hard he can barely breathe and says he wants to see you. Can you come? I really can’t handle this by myself.”
Grady didn’t answer her right away.
He turned back to look at Elodie.
She had already sat down again and picked up her paintbrush. Head bent, she was filling in the ocean on her paper, as if she hadn’t heard the recording, as if she hadn’t seen the words he couldn’t bring himself to say.
Grady swallowed, then locked the tablet.
“I’m just going to run over there and check on them.”
I didn’t stop him.
He shoved his phone in his pocket and said to Elodie, “I’ll be right back.”
Elodie kept painting.
Only after the front door shut did she stop.
She walked to the entryway and lined up the slippers Grady had kicked aside on his way in. Then she went back to her room and picked up the tablet.
“For Dad Before the Surgery, Day 54.”
“For Dad Before the Surgery, Day 54.”
“The person who looks like you came back today.”
“He heard my birthday wish. He looked a little sad.”
“But Finn’s hamster died, so he left again.”
“That’s okay.”
“He always says he’ll be back soon. I know ‘soon’ can also mean a lot of days.”
The recording ended.
Elodie climbed into bed and pulled the blanket over her head until she vanished under it.
I sat on the edge of the bed and patted her gently through the covers.
“Elodie, how would you feel if Mommy and I moved to a new city?”
A small stir under the blanket.
“There’s a lot of sunshine there, and a very long beach. You could see the ocean every day.”
After a long while, she poked half her face out.
“If we go there, do I still have to make recordings?”
“That’s up to you.”
She looked at the old tablet on her pillow, and her eyes slowly welled with tears.
“People from before the surgery can’t hear voice memos anyway, right?”
“Right.”
Elodie reached over and powered down the tablet.
“Then I won’t record anymore.”