Chapter 12: A Hundred Percent

The sixth floor was dim at nine on Saturday night, and the corridor lights hummed.

Carl walked me to the corner room, and he stopped at the door.

"She asked for you alone," he said. "I'll be right here."

"Don't go far."

"I won't."

I went in with the box of ranunculus held in both hands.

Emmeline was sitting up in bed with her short hair brushed and a cream blanket folded over her knees.

A bowl of pine cones sat on the windowsill, and a single lamp lit the corner.

She smiled when she saw the flowers.

"You came," she said. "Thank you. Please, sit."

"I'll stand."

"Of course."

She did not argue, and she did not look hurt.

I had expected tears.

I had expected a speech about how sorry she was and how none of this was her idea.

I had even been ready, a little, to believe her.

She folded her hands on the blanket.

"I owe you the truth," she said. "I told Carl I would. Do you want to know what it is?"

"Yes."

"I picked you."

I waited.

"Three years ago I relapsed," Emmeline said. "I was thirty-one."

"The doctors said I would need a donor within two years."

"Carl is only a half match, so my father's foundation paid for a drive. Four thousand swabs, Geneva."

"In Lawrenceville."

"On eleven corners, in eleven neighborhoods."

"We ran every result against mine, one at a time, on a Sunday in my father's old office."

She looked at the flowers in my hands, and then at me.

"I picked you out of four thousand swabs, honey."

The hum in the corridor seemed to go away.

I stood with the box against my chest, and I could hear my own pulse.

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