The Spare They Came Begging For novel · Chapter 22 of 32
Chapter 22: Paid in Full
A few people laughed politely.
My mother's smile held.
I read the front first.
"Albright Hope Foundation. Augusta Albright, President. Costs of raising Clare Albright, ages zero to twenty-two." I looked up. "Four hundred twelve thousand, eight hundred sixty dollars."
The laughing stopped.
"My mother handed me this at dinner in September, in front of her documentary crew," I said. "With a kidney consent form for my sister. Surgery already booked."
I turned the page over.
"This is the back. I wrote it that night."
"Cord blood. Day one."
I pointed up at the screen, where the montage had been.
"You just saw that bag. She called it my first gift. I was an hour old."
Nobody moved.
I didn't look at the card. I knew the rest by heart.
I looked down at my mother.
"That photo of me asleep, alone in that bed. That was the third day."
"Paid in full," I read.
Then I folded it.
My mother stepped forward and reached for the microphone.
"Thank you, Clare. That's enough, darling. She's been under a great deal of strain..."
I stepped back out of her reach.
"I'm not finished."
At the A/V table by the kitchen doors, the camera operator lifted one hand.
The screens changed.
The consent form from Commonwealth came up, six feet tall.
My name. Left kidney. Monday, October sixth.
"That's not my signature," I said. "At two o'clock on September eighteenth, the time on this form, I was doing CPR in Harbor's ICU. It's in the chart."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Spare They Came Begging For are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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