Chapter Seven
Wren told me in the parking garage.
She didn’t cry. She held out the appointment card like she was handing me a bill, and I read the date, and the concrete floor seemed to tilt about two degrees to the left.
“Thursday,” I said.
“Seven a.m.”
“My surgery is at seven-thirty.”
“I know when your surgery is, Elias. I can read.”
?
I have been in operating rooms where a patient bled out faster than we could pour blood in. I have made decisions in ninety seconds that decided whether a man would walk again.
I stood in that garage and could not make one.
?
“I’ll call the coordinator,” I said. “I’ll move it earlier. Tuesday. Wednesday.”
“Can they do that?”
“I’ll find out.”
She looked at me for a long moment. “You haven’t already found out?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she said. And then, very quietly: “I’m going to believe you, because I’m too tired not to.”
?
The coordinator called me back at 6:40 p.m.
Wednesday was impossible. The surgical team was booked. The operating room was booked. The only transplant surgeon qualified to do Mara’s side of the procedure was in Spokane until Wednesday night.
“Thursday,” she said, “or the week after. And Dr. Hale—after her labs this morning, her nephrologist doesn’t think she has the week after.”
?
I drove to Mara’s apartment. I told Wren where I was going before I left. I texted her the address.
I want credit for that. I also know I don’t get any.
?
Mara opened the door wrapped in a blanket. Her ankles were swollen. The whites of her eyes had a faint yellow tinge.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“You look worse.”
“I’m dying. I’m allowed.”
She let me in. The apartment smelled of lemon and hospital soap.
?
I told her about Thursday.
She didn’t hesitate. “Then postpone.”
“Your nephrologist says—”
“I know what she says. I was there.” Mara sat down heavily on the couch. “Elias. I will not be the reason you miss your son being born. I’ll take the week. I’ll take the risk.”
“It’s not your risk to take alone.”
“It’s literally my heart.”
?
We argued for twenty minutes. She won every point, and I still hadn’t agreed when the front door opened.
Diane Quinn let herself in with her own key.
She took in the scene in one glance—her daughter on the couch, me standing by the window—and set her handbag down very precisely on the counter.
“Mara, go and lie down.”
“Mom—”
“Go.”
?
Mara went. She gave me a look on her way out that said don’t listen to her.
I should have left then.
?
Diane poured herself a glass of water and didn’t offer me one.
“She’ll tell you to postpone,” she said. “She’s been telling me for a week she’d rather die than inconvenience your wife. It’s the most selfless thing I’ve ever heard, and I will not allow it.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“No. It’s yours.” She drank. “It’s always been yours, hasn’t it?”
?
“Say what you came to say, Diane.”
She put the glass down.
“My daughter has one kidney,” she said, “because of you. Her remaining kidney failed because it was doing the work of two. For eight years I have watched you build a beautiful life on top of that fact, and I have said nothing.”
“You’ve said plenty.”
“Not in public.”
?
The room was very quiet. I could hear Mara’s television through the bedroom door.
“You’re going to show up Thursday,” Diane said. “You’re going to keep your promise. Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure every patient you’ve ever had knows what kind of man their surgeon is.”
She picked up her handbag.
“And Elias? One more thing.”
She paused at the door.
“Does your wife know who was driving?”