Green Eyes, Gray Eyes, Hazel, and Blue
1.
The lady's name is Paulette. Paulette what, I don't know. The Organ Donor Society doesn't think it's a good idea to exchange full names. They're a little shaky about this so-called reunion to begin with. But, with the constant clamoring of the grateful recipients and the questions of the donor families, well, they'll try it and see. That's what the woman who calls me says. She says, "We'd like to offer the opportunity for closure." She says it slowly, softly, sorrowfully, reflectively, respectfully.
"I thought that's what the funeral was for," I say. "That's what the funeral people said anyway." I laugh, I cackle, I'm kidding. I'm kidding for Christ's sake! You have to joke. This has got to be funny sometimes. It's got to be!
"Yes," the Organ Donor Society woman says. "And we'd like to expand that sense of closure."
She is not kidding.
2.
I imagine my mother's eyes floating in a Mason jar.
I know that it's not possible that her eyes were put into a Mason jar for two reasons. One, it isn't the whole eye they take, or it isn't the whole eye they use, in any case. What they use is parts of the eye. This, I know. Not only parts, but invisible parts: a transparent sheet of eye, a coin of Saran Wrap, not really an eye at all. Two, even if they do take the whole eye, they do not put it in a Mason jar. No. Most certainly not. There must be a special container made for the purpose of holding my mother's eyes--not only her eyes, but people's eyes. The donors. Doctors do not use Mason jars. Show me a Mason jar! There are none. Where I got the idea is that in tenth grade I saw a cow's eye this way. It was bigger than you might guess. Bigger and it had spindly but sturdy-looking strings coming off it like a radish left too long in the ground.
What color were my mother's eyes? Blue.
3.
I drive to Duluth alone. The wind is blowing and combined with the cold the temperature is thirty degrees below zero. I park my car and go into the building to wait for my brother and step-father inside the door.
There's a banner, Donors Are Friends For Life! There's a wall of green and white balloons with people gathered in front of it, taking photographs. People with the kidneys, livers, God knows what . . . hearts (hearts!) of other people. People with the people who loved those other people. People who used to have tea with those other people, help them finish their math homework, fuck them on Tuesday mornings, throw frisbees at them in parks, read "Dear Abby" out loud to them. Those people and those people and those people.
I watch them in my long wool dress and cowboy boots. I brush my hair with my hands. Such hair! Such beautiful hair, my mother would say. Hair you could eat. Hair like cheesecake. Hair like bread.
4.
"Whose idea was this?" That's what my brother says when he gets there.
I say, "Don't be here then. Just go."
But he doesn't go. He stands next to me and cups his hands over his mouth and blows hot breath onto them.
We don't say anything more.
Our step-father arrives. We hardly see him anymore. He's got something new: an earring, a tiny sparkling stud. We haven't been together, the three of us, for ages.
"We're here," I say looking up from behind my hair. "We're here and we're all here and that's what counts." That's what I say.
5.
An old woman in a special hat greets us. There are several women in these hats&emdash;stiff and red, creased along the top with blue stars stitched on the sides and gold pins pinned to them. The woman leads us to a table with a silk bouquet of pink lilies. She pours us coffee. She brings us cream. She brings us sugar. She brings us spoons and a plate of cookies and celery sticks. She tells us she'll bring Paulette.
She brings Paulette.
Paulette stands in front of us with her hands clasped together. We all stand up. This is what we came for!
We look at her.
We cannot bear to look at her. No.
6.
Paulette is a small woman in a sweater that covers her hips and buttons up the front. Her hair is gray and black and short. She cooked bacon this morning and she smells like it, but she doesn't know it. She puts her hands on the back of a chair. She's got glasses on. She says, "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for what you…for what your…family…gave me." My stepfather says, "Why don't we all have a seat?" And we all have a seat.
Paulette's eyes don't look anything like my mother's, but I can't help but start to cry anyway. For God's sake, I think, FOR GOD'S SAKE.
"Oh dear," Paulette says, and hands me a napkin.
I pat my face with the it, but it's so hard it won't absorb my tears. "It's okay," I say. "It's just that..."
"I know," Paulette says. "I can only imagine." She's got a necklace on that's the head of a hippopotamus.
Then my brother and our step-father cry too and I'm so surprised by this that I stop crying. Paulette gives them each a napkin.
My stepfather slowly takes his glasses off and massages his eyebrows. After a while he says, "We're happy you got the help you needed. That's what she would've wanted."
7.
Paulette folds a napkin into a triangle and then into a square. She says, "I'm fifty-two. I thought I should tell you about myself." She tells us things. All the things she can think to tell. She lives with a woman named Liz, who is a professor of history. Her specialties include America since 1850, pioneer women of the upper Midwest, and the Grand Portage. Paulette is a housewife. It's their joke, the joke she has with Liz, it's what they say when it's just the two of them. To others she says she's a farmer, which is somewhat true. It is true that she sells her parsley and zucchini to the grocery store in the summer. And on occasion, at a table she sets out near the end of their driveway, eggs.
She turns the napkin square back into a triangle.
She takes her glasses off and wipes them with it.
8.
Oh how we love Paulette! We all stand up and take turns hugging her and say how we will keep in touch over the years. We want to take her home with us. We know this is unreasonable but we cannot stop ourselves from wanting it. Oh, how we want to keep her. The things we would do to keep her! Ask. Just ask. Anything. Anything!
We sit back down and look at each other. Paulette says, "Your mother, your wife, she was a good person. I remember that every day. Every day I say thank you, thank you for what you've given me."
She looks straight into our eyes, and we look into hers. They are green eyes, gray eyes, hazel, and blue. Paulette's arms are resting on the table in front of her, fanning out, reaching towards us and we are holding onto them, all of us, clutching her at once and she is clutching back. Clutching back!
We will never see her again.