Chapter 10: The Other Donor

Carl's POV

I went up to the sixth floor on Friday afternoon with a pine cone in my pocket.

I bring Emmeline one from every job, and they sit in a bowl on her windowsill.

The floor is quiet and smells of hand sanitizer.

She has had the same corner room for eleven months.

I stopped in the doorway.

She was asleep with her mouth a little open and one hand on the blanket.

She is thirty-four.

When she was nine, she fell out of an oak I told her not to climb, and I carried her a mile to the road.

I have been carrying her ever since.

That is why I had not asked one question in three years.

You don't ask questions when you're carrying someone.

I set the pine cone on the sill, and I walked past her door to the nurses' station.

The transplant coordinator was there, a heavyset woman in a cardigan with a lanyard around her neck.

I'm on Emmeline's contact list, so she knows my face.

"Mr. Creedon. She's resting."

"I know. I want to ask about her file."

"I can't share clinical details..."

"You showed me a line from it last week," I said. "March third. A donor consent."

She stopped writing.

"I looked into that," she said carefully. "It came in on the proxy login. I flagged it for compliance."

"Good. Now tell me who else is in her donor file."

"Mr. Creedon."

"I'm her brother. I drive her to every infusion Nigel is too busy for."

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