Chapter 18: Forty Names

The transplant coordinator closed the door of her office and sat across from me with a clipboard.

"Before you sign," she said, "I ask every living donor the same question in a room with nobody else in it."

"Go ahead."

"Is anyone pushing you?"

I almost laughed.

For eight days I had been the most pushed-around person in the county, and now somebody was asking.

"No," I said.

"Is there anyone you're afraid of disappointing?"

"Not anymore."

She looked at me for a moment.

"What do you want, Ms. Hallam? Not what is right. What do you want?"

Nobody had ever asked me that.

I sat there with the pen over the form, and it took longer than I'd expected to find the answer.

"I want to wake up and see my sister breathing," I said. "And I want to go home to a place that's mine."

"That I can help with. The first one, at least."

I signed.

It took four signatures, and my hand stayed steady for all of them.

When I walked out into the hall, my parents were standing against the far wall.

They had been there an hour.

My mother came toward me, and my father stayed a step behind.

"Is it done?" she asked.

"I signed."

"Oh, thank God." She reached for my hands.

I didn't take them.

"Mom, there are rules."

"Rules?"

"Tomorrow, or Friday, whenever they set it. You can't be in the prep room with me. Not at the door either."

"Shanna, I'm your mother. If something..."

"If something goes wrong, they'll call you. That's what the form is for."

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