They Chose My Sister, Then Learned She Was Dying novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wrong Report
At Sunday dinner Shanna's parents say she is dying, the clinic calls to say the report is Maisie's, and her father forbids her to even ask Maisie to donate. She decides not to tell them yet.
My parents called a family dinner on Sunday to tell me I was dying.
My mother had made pot roast, my favorite, and nobody had touched it.
The envelope from the clinic lay open between the salt shaker and the butter dish.
My name was printed at the top of the page.
"Sit down, Shanna," my father said.
I sat.
My sister Maisie was already at the table with her hands in her lap.
She was twenty-two, and she looked worn out, and the whites of her eyes had gone a little yellow.
Our mother kept saying she needed more sleep.
"It's your liver, honey," my mother said into a dish towel. "The report says it's failing."
My father laid his hand flat on the page. "Without a transplant, you have about a year."
I opened my mouth, and my phone buzzed against my hip.
It was the clinic.
"Don't answer that," my father said.
"It's the clinic, Dad. It's about the report."
I took the call in the hallway and shut the kitchen door behind me.
The doctor spoke quickly and kept her voice low.
"Ms. Hallam, I'm calling you myself because this is our mistake. Two blood samples were mixed up in our lab. Yours and your sister's."
I put my hand on the wall.
"You and Maisie were drawn the same morning. Same first initial, same Bombay blood type. Nobody caught it."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're healthy, Ms. Hallam. Your liver is fine. The failing liver on that report belongs to Maisie."
The hall light buzzed above me.
"Maisie doesn't know?" I asked.
"Her results are hers to hear, and I'll call her directly. But I need you to understand something now. With a blood type that rare, she needs a living donor, and the only realistic match is a sibling."
"Me."
"You."
I thanked her. I don't remember how.
When I came back, my mother was holding the wrong report against her chest.
My father was shaking his head before I had even sat down.
Maisie was the only one who hadn't looked up when I came in.
I could have said it right there.
They were wrong about the report, and I could have said so and watched them turn the pages over.
Instead I heard my own voice go quiet and calm.
"The doctor says a donor's liver grows back in a few months. People go on to live normal lives."
My mother pressed her hand over her mouth.
"Don't," my father said.
"Clifton, let her talk," my mother whispered.
"Joyce, I said no."
"Maisie is my only match, Dad. Maybe if she..."
"Don't you dare say it."
He hit the table so hard the salt shaker rolled off the edge and broke on the floor.
"How can you be so selfish?" my mother said. She was crying now. "You want a surgeon to cut open my baby? For you?"
For me.
I looked at Maisie.
She was looking at the broken glass, and her mouth was shut tight.
Every year on her birthday I had been sent upstairs, and my slice of cake came on a paper plate outside my bedroom door.
I was twenty-six, and I was still sitting at the bottom of that staircase.
"Maisie has her whole life ahead of her," my father said. "We'll pay for your care. We'll find you the best doctors. But nobody is touching her."
He said it proudly, as the offer of a generous man.
My mother wiped her eyes and looked up at me.
"And please don't discuss this with your sister. She can't carry it. Let us handle it."
Nobody told me I was loved.
Nobody asked if I was afraid.
So I decided, right there between the roast and the broken glass, that I would not tell them.
Not tonight.
For one night I wanted to know what I was really worth to them, with nothing to gain from lying.
I stood up and took my coat from the back of the chair.
"Where are you going?" my mother asked.
"Home."
"You should stay. We'll make up your old room."
It was the first time in years they had offered it.
I almost said yes.
In the driveway my phone lit up with a text from my sister.
Are you okay? Call me when you get home.
She hadn't asked who the clinic had been.
I sat in my car with the engine off and read the doctor's voicemail, left a minute after our call.
"Ms. Hallam, one more thing. With her numbers, Maisie doesn't have a year. She may have until spring, and less if she gets an infection. She needs this surgery soon."
I held the phone until the screen went dark.
My parents had just refused to save her.
I was the only person alive who could.
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