A Mother Collapses In Court After Being Called A Liar By Her Husband And His Mother, Then Discovers A Real Heart Condition And Fights To Protect Her Daughter And Win

PART 2

“That’s a ‘not tonight,’” I said.

The doctor’s name tag read Anjali Mehta, MD, Hematology/Oncology. She lowered her pen slowly, the way people lower a gun in movies when they realize the situation is more complicated than they were told.

“I understand,” she said, and the strange thing was that she sounded like she did. “But I’d be failing my patient if I didn’t tell you that unrelated donor searches can take weeks. Your brother may not have weeks.”

“Then my parents should start calling realtors,” I said. “Houses sell fast in Lakewood.”

My mother made a sound like I had slapped her. “Clara Anne Pierce. Your brother is dying.”

“I know what dying looks like, Mom.” My voice didn’t rise. That was the part that seemed to frighten her most. “I watched it for eleven months. You visited twice.”

My father lifted his head then. For one second I thought he might say something real. Instead he looked past me, toward the glass, and his mouth closed again like a door someone had decided not to walk through.

I stepped around my mother and walked to the elevator.

Nobody followed me. That was familiar too.

The parking garage at St. Vincent smelled like rain and motor oil, and the fluorescent tubes buzzed the same flat note as the garage in Boston. Level 3. Row F. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped my keys twice. On the second try I just stood there, staring at them on the concrete, and I let myself remember what I never let myself remember: Lily’s weight against my shoulder, her bald head warm under my chin, the intake coordinator’s voice on the phone saying, I’m so sorry, Ms. Ellison, without the deposit we have to release the slot to the next family.

The next family. Somebody else’s daughter got Lily’s chance. I hoped she lived. I had spent three years trying to mean that.

“Clara! Clara, wait!”

Footsteps echoed down the ramp. I turned, half expecting my mother, ready for round two.

It was Megan.

Daniel’s wife was five months pregnant and running in ballet flats, one hand braced beneath her belly, her blond hair coming loose from a clip. I had met her exactly four times. At the engagement dinner. At the wedding I attended for forty minutes. At Lily’s funeral, where she cried harder than my mother did. And once at a gas station, where she’d started to say something and I had driven away before she finished.

—END OF Chapter 1, —PRESS NEXT PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT Chapter

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