The Encore of Us novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Four Hours

"It's a grown-up word for paper," I said, and I turned the envelope face down on the sheet.

"It looks mean."

"It is a little mean. But it's only paper, bug."

Tove studied my face.

"Okay," she said. "But I want to hear it after."

They came for her at ten past seven.

I walked beside her gurney to the same red stripe, with her hand in mine, and the same doors.

"I'm right here," I said, but she was already half asleep from the first drip.

"Lin," she mumbled. "Don't let the pearl lady have my kidney."

"Nobody's getting your kidney but you."

The doors closed.

A hospital rule sent Rhea upstairs.

The donor needed someone of his own in the donor waiting room, and Anders had put her name on his form.

She hugged me hard at the elevator.

"Four hours, the surgeon said. I'll text every time they cut something."

"Please don't."

"I'll text when they cut something good."

So I went alone to the family waiting room on the fourth floor, with its fish tank and its stack of old magazines.

I had been there for twenty minutes, tearing a paper cup into strips, when the door opened.

Ingrid came in with her camel coat folded over her arm.

She looked at the empty chairs, and then she chose the one two seats away from me.

A nurse at the desk said, "Mrs. Brandvold is listed as the grandmother," in the tone of someone who had been told to say it.

"Of course she is," I said.

Ingrid sat down and crossed her ankles.

"I assume you read the petition."

"I read the first line."

"It is not personal."

"You had a deputy put it on a six-year-old's blanket."

"It was the only place you would take it from him."

She looked at the fish.

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