There was only one thing she could think of to quiet enough of her mind that she might temporarily pass for her usual self. And before she knew it, she’d been picking up the phone and making the appointment to come.
It was too strong, the lure of putting all these worries to rest with a negative result, though the alternative still terrified her.
It was too clear that she would never stop wondering otherwise.
She turned warily toward the woman who’d spoken across the waiting room. She was perched a few chairs to Caroline’s right, lightly graying hair in a bun as tidy as her outfit: tailored blouse, black slacks. She had fifteen or twenty years on Caroline, but her aura projected palpable energy, ready for anything—a pop quiz, a footrace. Caroline glanced around, hoping for someone else to take up the chat, but they were alone save for the receptionist, who paid them no mind behind her sliding window.
“My half sister,” she said, averting her eyes, hoping the woman might get the hint that she wasn’t eager to swap stories. This was hardly the stuff of casual conversation with strangers.
She couldn’t even talk it over with the people who knew her best.
“Understandable,” the woman said. She picked up a home decor magazine and started thumbing through. This was what Caroline had wanted—conversation closed—yet the odd response jarred her.
“I’m sorry? Is your situation not—understandable?”
The woman laughed easily. “Freudian slip, I guess.” She flopped the magazine closed, unread. “Depends on who you ask.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you have a connection to the recipient. Should be obvious to people why you’d want to help. Whereas I…” She rolled her eyes congenially. “I’m what they label an ‘altruistic donor’—you know, for a stranger? You wouldn’t believe the backlash I’ve gotten.”
Caroline blinked. “People say things to you?”
“Not that I’ve asked for opinions. It got so bad I’ve stopped telling people—but it’s not like I can hide going away for six, eight weeks to recover. You can stash a pregnant teenager in a convent, but where the hell do you put a fifty-something psychologist?” She laughed again, seemingly unbothered when Caroline didn’t join. “Anyway, you’re lucky to avoid all that, is all. I should’ve told people this guy was my brother. I mean, assuming it’s been better for you?”
Caroline hesitated. This woman seemed further along in the process. And was a psychologist. Maybe Caroline could learn something.
“I’m just here for prelim testing. I’m probably not even a match, so it seemed premature to mention it.”
The stranger nodded. “Well, once it gets rolling, it’s rolling. Brace yourself.”
Caroline slid over a chair, closer, dragging her purse and coat with her. “Why do you think that is?” she asked. “The backlash, I mean.”
“As not just the target but a therapist, I sincerely wish I understood. Best I can come up with is that some actions elicit an implied question, or comparison. You know, like, My friends are all getting married—should I be getting married too? In this case, if people find themselves wondering what’s stopping them from donating, and they don’t like the answer? Say, that they could save someone’s life if they were a little more selfless or noble or brave or whatever? They don’t like the way that makes them feel about themselves, so it translates into finding fault with me.”
Noble. Well, Caroline did know that not everyone would classify donating as such.
“Why are you doing it? If you don’t mind a more empathetic party asking?”
“Et tu, Brute?”
Caroline cracked a smile. “I’m not judging,” she assured her. “I’m hoping it might rub off on me.”
“In that case…” The woman held out her hand—not a handshake, but more of a wave. “I’m Kay Adams, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you.” Caroline hesitated, reluctant to give her name. Assuming the test was negative, would she ever tell anyone—other than Sela, of course—that she’d come? Or would she have them all think she’d let the idea go?
“I’m Caroline.” Surely last names were not required.
“Well, Caroline, I never married. No kids. And it’s not that I haven’t found my purpose—the opposite, actually. I love my job to the point of being one of those annoying people who says I’ll never retire. What I love most about it is knowing I’ve helped make a difference for someone—which isn’t as often as you’d think, but just often enough to keep me going.”
Caroline nodded, as if she could relate. But if anyone were to press her on what she liked best about her own job, her answer would be simply that she was good at it.
“I’ve treated patients who are chronically ill, and witnessed what a toll that takes on all aspects of well-being. Then I stumbled upon this story about Selena Gomez, of all people, getting a kidney from a friend, and I got to thinking about how less privileged people might not fare so well, and—I don’t know. I guess I’m doing this because I can. Nothing is holding me back other than my own self-absorption or fear. And I’m in a position to equip myself with the tools I need to deal with that. So here I am.”
She reminded Caroline of Keaton, the way he’d been moved by those patients who didn’t share his good prognosis in the rehab hospital. If there’d been something he could have done to help them, would he have? She wished she could ask him.
Caroline wanted to know about Kay’s tools and whether they might work for concerned third parties, too. But she couldn’t inquire without confessing to being … well, self-absorbed and fearful.
Besides. She wouldn’t need them. Because she wasn’t going to be a match. That’s what she’d come to confirm.
“I think it’s great,” she told Kay sincerely. “And bullshit that anyone would tear you down for doing such a good thing.”
“I guess it’s healthy to have our sense of social justice challenged. Keeps us sharp. But thanks.”
“How does it work, giving altruistically? Do you have a say in who gets your kidney?”
Kay nodded. “There are a few ways. Some people handpick recipients—there are even websites for it, almost like online dating. But I chose the chain.”
She was looking at Caroline as if she should know what this meant, but Caroline stared at her blankly. “Basically it goes to the top person on the wait list who you match and who has a willing but incompatible donor,” she explained. “Have you heard of donor swap?”
Caroline shook her head.
“They’ll tell you about it today. The gist is, say someone is willing to donate to a friend or family member—like you are—but isn’t a match.” Like you are. Caroline couldn’t even hear the words without recoiling.
I’m not, really. I just feel so guilty.
“If that happens,” Kay went on, “you can sign up for donor swap, which means you’d be willing to donate to someone else if they have a willing friend or family member who doesn’t match them but matches your intended recipient. It’s complicated, but when you start the process with an altruistic donor, instead of an even, crisscross swap it can set off a chain effect where it pairs off a bunch of other zigzag swaps down the list. I heard about one donor who spurred fifteen transplants.” She grinned. “Matching donors and recipients is no small feat, so I find it amazing they can orchestrate all that.”
“Shouldn’t every donor choose the chain, then?”
“People argue that. But, others say it’s your kidney, so you should get to decide who receives it. Like, you might rather give to a ten-year-old than a forty-year-old. That’s valid too.”
Caroline had to admit she’d find it harder to decline to help if Sela were a child. Becoming a mother had reprogrammed her that way.
“It didn’t bother you, though? Not to have any say?”
Kay shrugged. “I wanted a little say. Most important to me was to give to someone who has good odds of their quality of life improving—who isn’t too far gone to return to a healthy lifesty
le. This pick from the list takes that into account. Sometimes people actually get taken off if they’ve been waiting too long, because the toll on the rest of their body has been too great.”
Caroline nodded along, but her mind was drifting. She’d already known, of course, that she needed to know more about Sela’s situation but was beginning to realize all the reasons why.
But oh, that reprogramming. A child was caught in the crosshairs of Sela’s disease. It was impossible to hear Kay talk so earnestly about wanting to make a real difference for someone, and about chain reactions, and all the rest, and not think that whoever helped Sela would undoubtedly help Brody, too. It came at a price, a sacrifice, but still.
The least someone could do was try.
The door to the exam rooms opened, and a nurse called Kay’s name. Caroline watched the woman leap to her feet—no deep breath to steel herself, no furtive glance at the exit. Her ready energy didn’t waver.
“Good luck,” Caroline told her. “And I hope you don’t stop telling people. For every naysayer, you might inspire someone.”
Kay smiled. “Good luck to you too. And your sister.” She turned to follow the nurse, then paused to shoot one more look at Caroline over her shoulder. “And hey, if you’re not a match, you could always sign up for donor swap. You never know.”
The door caught behind her in the frame, stopping just short of latching closed.
32
Sela
Tot Time at the Asheville Art Museum lived up to the promise on the signs: Mixed-Up & Messy! The kid-parent pairs had been turned loose in the permanent collection rooms to seek out the shapes they’d just finished painting in the activities corner, and many of the tots sported paint-smeared clothes and fingers. A few sucked applesauce from packets as their mothers pretended not to see the NO EATING OR DRINKING notices, more willing to beg forgiveness than to risk a hangry meltdown.
As the littles ran in an excited clump for the more obvious contemporary choices—there, three circles on a gridded background; there, a pattern of trapezoids floating in a hypnotic black sea—Sela came to a stop before one of her own favorites, George C. Aid’s etching of Carcassonne. The early-1900s work showed the French medieval fortress in hard lines and deep shadows, and she knew Brody could easily spot the triangles of the turrets, the square openings in the stone walls, the tall rectangular towers.
Ecca had showed her you didn’t need to dumb down art for children, didn’t require special programming to take them to a museum. The important thing was to take them at all. But if you showed up on a weekday morning to almost any remotely educational place, chances were you’d stumble into events catering to the stay-at-home parent—or, in her case, the work-from-home-on-a-flexible-schedule parent. So it had been today: She’d arrived expecting a quiet gallery and instead found the program getting off to a boisterous start.
Brody would love this, she’d thought.
But Doug had taken Brody, along with Oscar.
Sela had had to agree that she could use a few days to pull herself together.
Now, though, being here without her son felt wrong.
Her impetus for coming had nothing—and yet everything—to do with Brody. She’d lost her spark, Ivy had said. Well, Sela knew how to get that back. In this, one of her favorite exhibits away from Brevard and its memory-laden galleries, she was nothing if not flammable. Ideas flickered at her everywhere she looked. But so, too, did the children.
Outings like this required energy, and hers was in such short supply that she’d selectively forgotten that whether she possessed said energy was irrelevant. She had to summon it and come anyway, for Brody’s sake as well as her own. Doug was right to remind her of that. Of the fact that her own mother had believed the necessary push-push-push of Brody would be good for Sela, even if Doug had not been so sure.
That’s the point, isn’t it? he’d said. Or have you lost sight of that too?
Ecca had never worried the way the others had about whether Sela, in her state, could handle motherhood. Ecca had never insulted Sela by wishing Brody away.
Sela used to call Ecca from galleries when something struck her. She missed having her mother’s voice a speed dial away. Missed how Ecca always answered by saying Sela’s name in a way that made hello seem euphoric. “I’m in Asheville,” Sela would whisper into the phone. “Stopped in my tracks by—” And then she’d name the work and artist.
“Ooh,” would come the breathy response. “Describe it for me.” Their game. Sending a picture was cheating.
Sela had called about Carcassonne, in fact, the first time she’d seen it. “It’s like a fairy tale that hasn’t figured out its moral yet,” she’d said. “Sepia, waiting for color that won’t come.”
Ecca had hummed with approval. “I see it.”
“What are you working on?” Sela had suddenly needed to picture that, too.
“It’s … what it might look like if the sun could rise and set at the same time.”
Her mother’s descriptions were always better.
When Brody was born, then whisked away with Doug to the NICU, her mother had grasped her hand and leaned close to Sela’s ear while the doctors worked to stanch the bleeding between her legs.
“Stopped in your tracks by Brody,” she’d whispered. “Describe him for me.”
Sela had caught only a glimpse of the infant, but it had been enough. “The biggest dream,” she’d said, “in the tiniest body I’ve ever seen.” And she’d burst into tears.
“Child of your heart,” her mother had amended later, resting her unmoving eyes on Brody. “Fighting to give you both the future you deserve.”
Ecca had been her only real comfort then. Sela never managed to outgrow that: When something wondrous happened, wanting her mother. When something terrible happened, wanting her mother.
Maybe, if Sela stared at Carcassonne long enough now, its moral would find her at last. It still felt right to have come here, wrong as it seemed to be doing it alone.
If you didn’t get out in the world, you could forget what a beautiful place it was. Filled with stained-glass windows, and arched doorways, and open arm staircases, and high, curved balconies. With the expansive sound of live music on an outdoor stage. With those big, boisterous families who resemble one another so strongly you know at a glance they’re a clan. With wafts of sugar, even now, from the creamery next door, smelling of a special treat, a reward, a smile.
Those things might have been beyond her reach just now—forbidden, even. But if such impossible everyday beauty existed, surely there was more to keep her fire lit for. If the ordinary could in fact be extraordinary, maybe she could find the only thing she truly wanted that she had even a slim chance of conjuring: the right actions or words or feelings to draw her sister closer and set her free at the same time. And the strength to embody a paradox of her own: opening herself to one possibility while resigning herself to another outcome beyond her control.
Sela couldn’t be half a sister to Caroline any more than Sela could have ever been half a mother to Brody or half a daughter to Ecca. The fact that she could be half a wife to Doug was the reason she no longer was. If this second meeting taught her anything, it was that Caroline was the same way—all or nothing, and clearly uncomfortable stuck in the middle. With her parents, with Keaton and Walt, and with her.
No matter that when it came to Sela, her father chose nothing. Just as well, unfair as it was that he had all in ways Sela never would: a spouse who loved him enough, for better or worse, to go to great lengths to keep him, and stood by him even now; a daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren. He might have suffered a heart attack, but he had people taking care of his heart.
Well, Sela could take care of her own.
She might not have the energy, but she had the firepower to dream up a thousand better ways to live, to reach out and make one of them true. To imagine taking Brody’s little hand in hers and stepping with him inside the frame of this etching, up those weathered stair
s, into the formidable fortress, and up the highest tower, where they could admire the hilltop view of the whole walled city of Carcassonne, the mountainous haze in the distance, the tiers of green below.
So far away, foreign. Yet not so different after all, once inside, from their Blue Ridge mountain home.
33
Caroline
The suitcase thudded stair to stair as Caroline made her way down sideways, pulling it awkwardly behind her. The bag should’ve been small enough to lift, but she’d gotten carried away. How to guess what relics of their unshared past Sela might want to see—photo albums, yearbooks, wedding pictures, the last shots she’d taken of their grandparents before they died? She’d given up and packed them all. Choosing a hostess gift was no easier. If Sela was like most KDC patients, she lived with a dizzying array of inconveniences, worries, and pains. Meanwhile, Caroline might as well have dipped the woman’s poor kidneys in a deep fryer on that first visit. After an hour of browsing the farmers market, she wound up with an assortment of hand-poured candles, though she worried they didn’t reflect the thought that had gone into them.
It seemed important to bring some kind of comfort now, a sensitivity or peace offering.
Especially since she hadn’t exactly been invited. Crystal clearly uninvited, in fact.
“Caro?” Maureen threw open the front door as Caroline reached the foyer, just missing knocking her backward. “Shit! Sorry.”
Caroline shook her head. “To think I wondered why you hadn’t texted me back yet.”
“Are you kidding? I came as soon as I heard. How long do we have till Walt gets home?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe?”
“And you’re already packed.”
Mo shut the door behind her as Caroline rolled her bag against the wall.
“I didn’t want to lose my nerve.” Caroline sank onto the bottom step, and after an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation, Mo joined her.
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