The Recipient

Praise for Dean Mayes

“A riveting read! All you can think about is turning the next page!” ~ Georgina Penney, Author of Fly In, Fly Out; Irrepressible You; Summer Harvest

“Mayes's characters inspire sympathy, and I kept reading to learn more about them.” ~ San Francisco Book Review

“Gifts of the Peramangk is an achingly beautiful story about perseverance and hope that I wished would never end. Dean Mayes clearly cares deeply about his characters, and his dedication to them shines through. I highly recommend this tale.” ~ Long and Short Reviews

“It has been a long time since I read a book that made me think about life and about serious issues instead of just escaping into a good story. (It was a good story too.) And a longer time still since a book made me cry because it was so wonderfully written and contained such a powerful, moving story.” ~ Once Upon A Dream Books

“Dean writes so beautifully that you can hear the music playing. You feel the emotions that are poured into compositions from the artists. I felt like I was back in orchestra, listening to a playback of a performance.” ~ Books Complete Me

“A poignant, thought-provoking novel that deals with the real issue of racism, and with characters that are so well developed, I wept for them and I cheered for their triumphs, however tinged they may be with diversity and hopelessness.” ~ Minding Spot

Copyright © 2016 Dean Mayes

Cover and internal design © 2016 Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

Cover Design: Michelle Halket

Cover Images: Courtesy & Copyright iStock: alenchi

Ride This Feeling: Words and music by Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall

© Copyright Sony/ATV Music Publishing Australia Pty Ltd

Print rights administered in Australia and New Zealand by

All Music Publishing & Distribution Pty Ltd ACN 147 390 814

www.halleonard.com.au

Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorised Reproduction is Illegal.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

www.centralavenuepublishing.com

Published in Canada
Printed in United States of America

1. FICTION/Thrillers - Psychological 2. FICTION/Horror

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Mayes, Dean, author

The recipient / Dean Mayes.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77168-038-7 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-77168-039-4 (epub).--

ISBN 978-1-77168-050-9 (mobipocket)

I. Title.

PR9619.4.M49R43 2016 823'.92 C2015-906277-2

C2015-906278-0

For Xavier & Lucy

Who asked me a whole lot of questions...

and then helped me to answer them.

And I'm gonna ride this feeling as far as it goes.

I'm gonna ride this feeling.

I don't know, I don't know,

Whether I'm flying or falling,

But I'm gonna ride this feeling.

~ Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall

The Recipient

CHAPTER 1.

H
e occupied a region of consciousness somewhere on the edge of sleep—but not quite. He was still aware. A jumble of disconnected thoughts swirled inside his head. He could make no sense of them and it maddened him.

In the depths of the night he lay in his bed, listening to the sounds around him that prevented him from succumbing to sleep. He cursed silently. There was the quiet tick-tock from the alarm clock on his bedside table. The soft, audible breath of his wife sleeping beside him. The sound of his own heart beating. They melded together in the darkness, tormenting him. He could feel his anger rising. The battle to quiet his mind was futile.

With these sounds was another, more pervasive sound—the rhythmic hum that came from a pump in the hall just outside. It delivered oxygen into the adjacent bedroom via a long, thin tube connected to a port on the pump's surface, along the polished timber floorboards of the hallway and through the doorway of the bedroom where it terminated at the soft plastic prongs of the nasal cannula that sat just under the nostrils of the petite figure who lay in the bed.

It was a young woman. It was his daughter.

Peter Schillinge's eyes snapped open. He ground his teeth together. The unwanted realisation that he couldn't fall asleep dawned upon him and, hissing in frustration, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He rubbed his eyes as his anger peaked. Peter rarely slept very well anymore. Night after night he waged the battle with himself. He had come to accept that it was one he couldn't win.

He finally rose, reaching in the darkness for a T-shirt that lay on the floor. He stumbled around the edge of the bed while pulling the shirt over his head. He cursed aloud then shushed himself as his wife stirred. Thankfully, Edie Schillinge did not wake.

In the hall, he felt for a lamp on a table and flicked it on, squinting in the soft light as he tiptoed to the doorway of his daughter's room. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he peered in.

A middle-aged woman with a kind face sat adjacent to the bed in a comfortable chair. She held a china cup and read a magazine. Looking up, she smiled. Sensing that he did not wish to speak or that, perhaps, he couldn't, the nurse remained silent as he stood in the doorway.

He gazed at his daughter.

She was pale, and painfully thin. Her hair, once a lustrous light brown—almost blond—framed her features. It had been lovingly shampooed by her mother the previous evening. The tubing from the nasal cannula sat on the powdery skin of her high cheek bones, which made subtle movements as she worked her jaw. It seemed she was in the grip of a dream. Occasionally, her petite nose wrinkled as the ends of the oxygen tubing tickled her nostrils. Her lips were dry and cracked; remnants of lanolin had been licked away or absorbed. She lay propped up slightly on pillows, arms across her chest, her ribs visible and prominent. They rose and fell under the thin cotton of her singlet with each breath she took. In the light from her bedside lamp, he could see her pulse visible on her neck, flickering rhythmically with each beat of her heart.

Her heart.

That failing heart continued to beat inside her chest, oblivious to everything but its biological programming. It continued to beat, but for how much longer nobody could be sure. Diseased and swollen, the malfunctioning organ stubbornly refused to fail. No one knew when it would. It was a time bomb whose detonation could occur in the next twenty seconds or the next twenty days.

He leaned against the door frame and tilted his head so that it rested on the timber. He gazed at her, his eyes becoming reddened and swollen with tears.

Peter Schillinge had watched helplessly as Casey had been ravaged by the effects of the disease that she had unwittingly contracted. Even now, after all this time, he still couldn't pronounce it properly.

Loeffler's Endocarditis
—or so the literature said.

A condition caused by a worm called a helminth that inhabits tropical climates.

His eyes drifted from his daughter to her bedside table and mirror, upon which sat many of Casey's favourite things.

Prominent among the pretty scarves, jewellery, skin care products and assorted ephemera sat a group of photo frames. They were photographs of Casey from what seemed like another lifetime. Vibrant and healthy, the beautiful young woman in the images seemed like a stranger now.

There was Casey in the midst of a lacrosse match, her lithe frame compact in contrast to her tall competitor. Armed with her lacrosse stick, she was poised in staunch concentration. There was Casey receiving a national mathematics prize from a bookish-looking man in a rumpled suit. Casey at her university graduation, posing in a traditional cap and gown with himself and Edie proudly standing on either side of her. Casey's smile was a thousand watts—beaming forth her proud achievement. Alongside these framed photographs were other, more recent images.

Casey, grubby and sweating in hiking gear, posing with a group of her close friends at a jungle camp site, a lock of her auburn hair hanging down the side of her face from underneath her cap. A close-up shot of Casey, her hands resting on either side of an elephant's trunk as she nuzzled against it, grinning broadly. Casey standing at the tiller of a long boat on an expansive Asian waterway, her large, green eyes taking in the sheer limestone karsts which jutted vertically from the emerald water on all sides of her. Visual mementos from a backpacking trip through South East Asia.

The source of her troubles.

They could never have anticipated it.

After four long but rewarding years of study at university where she had achieved high distinctions in her dual degree in mathematics and computer science, Casey had treated herself to a once-in-a-lifetime chance for travel, soaking up the beauty of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand with a group of her uni friends.

She was happy, carefree and smiling in every photo. From hiking through a thick rainforest to riding on the back of an Asian elephant and sitting in an open, long boat travelling down a river, those experiences belied any hint of trouble for Casey.

On her return to Australia, her arrival at the airport signalled to her parents right away that something was not right. She'd lost weight and she looked dishevelled, unwell. Casey dismissed it as a flu; a gastrointestinal complaint that would soon pass.

But it didn't pass.

The lethargy, vomiting, and diarrhoea worsened. Her weight plummeted. She eventually succumbed, collapsed and was rushed to hospital. The diagnosis was confirmed quickly. Their worst fears were realised. Acute and irreversible heart failure.

Without a transplant, their daughter would die.

Though they were quickly put onto the heart transplant waiting list, they were under no illusions that the prospects for Casey were anything but grim. Donor rates in Australia were incredibly low and there were no guarantees of anything happening quickly.

Casey's doctors stabilised her as best they could; after which, there was little more they could do for her at the hospital. With supports in place, Peter and his wife brought their daughter home.

Home to wait? Home to die?

In the half-light, Casey stirred and coughed. The nurse got up from her chair while Peter remained where he stood, seemingly unable to move.

The nurse supported Casey into a sitting position so she could cough some more.

“There, there,” she whispered softly. “Take your time, love. Let it pass, let it pass.”

Casey leaned into nurse, resting her head on her shoulder until the coughing passed, then she lay back down into the pillow.

She blinked and looked across in her father's direction. She guessed it was him, though she couldn't focus enough to see him clearly.

Casey opened her mouth to speak. Snapping himself from his trance, Peter kneeled at her bedside and gently placed his fingers on her cracked, dry lips.

“Sssh,” he whispered tenderly, lifting his hand to stroke her forehead. “Just rest, sweetheart.”

His voice was as ragged as his emotions. They overwhelmed him. His anger, frustration, and powerlessness raged at having to watch his beautiful daughter die before his eyes. He cursed the unfairness of it all. He wanted to lash out with his fists and punish whatever invisible force it was that had done this to Casey.

The moment and the torment passed. He focused on his daughter's fragile face.

The nurse placed her hand on his shoulder.

“What say I go and put the kettle on? Make us a cup of tea. I know I could use another one.”

Peter nodded absently then glanced at her.

“Yeah,” he ventured in a whisper. “That would be nice, Bernie.”

The nurse rose and turned from the room while Peter picked up a small tube of lanolin from the bedside table, opening it and squeezing a small, shining globule onto the end of his finger. He coated Casey's lips tenderly.

It was a small task, but it was much appreciated. Casey relaxed under his gentle touch.

His eyes went to a clock on the bedside table next to the photo frames.

1:25AM.

Too many hours until morning, he thought wearily, rubbing a knot of tension from the back of his neck.

Suddenly the sound of the telephone cut through the serenity, causing Peter to stiffen. He cocked his ear but couldn't react right away. He could not be sure that what he was hearing was real. Not until Bernie appeared at the door.

Peter hesitated as his eyes met hers and a jolt of electricity passed between them.

Peter stumbled to his feet and charged through into the hallway. He went to the telephone and lifted it to his ear.

His throat was so dry that he couldn't greet the voice at the other end. He croaked out an incomprehensible sound; his voice catching on the edge of his tongue.

Bernie steeled herself, watching him expectantly.

Peter forced his jaw to work. “H-hello?”

“Mr. Schillinge? Mr. Peter Schillinge?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Schillinge, it's Verity Goodall, Transplant Coordinator at the Medical Centre.”

“Yes.”

“I've just been advised, sir. We have a heart. They've found a heart. I've mobilised an ambulance to you. They should be arriving at any moment.”

The muted sound of an ambulance siren sounded from the other end of the house, while the familiar blue and red flashes of light splashed across the hallway walls.

Bernie was compelled to action. Ignoring the whistling kettle, she rushed down the hall to the front door, leaving Peter standing in the darkened living room. He was frozen with the handset to his ear.

“Peter? Can you hear me?”

“Yes. I understand. I understand.”

He could hear the front door opening, the rattle of an ambulance gurney being wheeled through it, the familiar green uniform of ambulance officers as Bernie directed them to the bedroom.

Bernie met Peter's eyes and she saw something in them that she'd thought she would never see: hope.

We have a heart.

Edie appeared in the hallway. Peter snapped back into the moment. He clutched the receiver to his ear once more.

“We're on our way,” he said, and hung up. He went to his wife.

Edie Schillinge held her breath as Peter embraced her and smiled. It was the first smile she'd seen in what felt like an eternity.

“Was that the hospital?”

Edie regarded Peter carefully, in quiet contemplation.

Peter nodded, kissing her forehead.

“They've got a heart, darl,” he said. “We better get our bags.”

The paramedics had already lifted Casey onto the gurney and were strapping her in while Bernie made sure that her travelling case was ready and stationed it in the hallway. She then rushed to turn off the screaming kettle and gather both Peter's and Edie's bags.

“Peter, you ride with Casey,” she said, meeting them in the living room once more. “I'll follow you with Edie, all right?”

Peter and Edie nodded and quickly dressed while the paramedics loaded Casey into the ambulance.

This was it.

The realisation reverberated in his mind. The long months of agonising wait evaporated in an instant. It was too much to comprehend.

Gathering his keys and wallet from his bedside table, he stood as Edie entered the bedroom. He met her steady gaze.

“This is really happening.”

“Yes,” he rasped. It was all he could manage.

“Central. This is Unit 24 en route, Oakford Avenue, Brighton to the Alfred with lights and sirens.”

The voice echoed, as though distant. Casey couldn't determine where it was coming from.

She felt hands moving across her body as belts were tightened, holding her in position. There was vibration and movement. The rumble of an engine spluttering to life. The sound of a siren.

With a great effort, Casey opened her eyes and tried to focus. She tried to speak but couldn't.

Through the haze of light, the familiar shadow of her father hovered as he sat down beside her and took her hand in his.

“W…wha…happen—?” she uttered in a barely audible croak.

“They've found you a heart, honey,” Peter said into her ear. “We're taking you to the hospital right now.”

Casey tilted her head. “A…heart. But that's good news.”

Peter clucked and wiped his eyes. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“It is, love. It is indeed.”

The ambulance reversed out of the driveway and raced towards the city that twinkled with light. Casey thought she could hear a distant pattering above her head. “Is it raining, Dad?”

Through his tears, Peter smiled, feeling a rush of emotion. Even now, with her hold on life so tenuous, she was still aware of the smallest things in the world around her—as though they mattered.

He squeezed her hand and nodded. “Yeah, love.”

___

Edie stood before a window, thumbing her gold necklace as she gazed thoughtfully at the cityscape. Rain pattered against the window. Rivulets of water snaked down the glass creating distortions of light and rainbows of colour.