They Gave My Heart to My Sister and Forgot My Last Birthday novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Gate

In front of police and cameras Deirdre says what her father did and refuses his hand, then a courier brings word that she has been struck off the transplant list.

The Mulcahy house in Marblehead sat on a rock above the water, and I saw almost none of it.

I saw a ceiling, a bed with a rail and a woman in grey scrubs who changed my cartridge in under a minute.

She said she was the house doctor, and my numbers were bad but not as bad as they'd be without the drip.

"Two cruisers at the gate," Dermot called from the hall. "And a van with a dish on it. Donny's out there, being charming."

Donovan was not being charming.

When I got to the front window, holding the battery bag against my ribs, he was standing on his own gravel with his hands in his coat pockets.

A sergeant stood in front of him.

Behind them was the iron gate, and on the other side of it a row of cameras.

The news van's light turned the rain white.

I took the porch steps one at a time with a hand on the rail, and I went out into the rain without waiting to be asked.

Donovan turned when he heard me.

He didn't tell me to go back inside.

He took one step toward me, which put him at my left side, and he put his hand flat against the small of my back.

It held me up and it didn't ask anything.

Through my wet gown I felt every one of his fingers.

"Ms. Kilbride," the sergeant said. "Are you here against your will?"

"No."

"Has anyone threatened you or stopped you from leaving?"

"No. I left the hospital on my own two feet."

I glanced at Donovan.

"I got into his car because he opened the door and nobody else would."

The gate opened, because the sergeant wanted me closer to the cameras and not further.

I walked to the line of lights and held up my left wrist, where the plastic hospital band was still on.

"My name is Deirdre Kilbride," I said. "I'm twenty-six years old as of this morning. I'm in heart failure and I'm on a pump that I need to live."

"Today a donor heart came to St. Brendan's, and my father is the board chair there."

I looked at the lens.

"In front of the whole fourth floor, he told the doctors to give it to my sister instead of me."

Nobody on the other side of the gate said a word.

"He didn't say it was medical. He said she'd earned it."

My voice shook, and I let it.

"I was told that on my birthday, and my mother didn't know it was my birthday, so I left."

The sergeant had stopped writing.

A reporter at the front, a woman with a microphone, lowered it an inch.

"Mr. Mulcahy didn't take me. I took myself. If you want someone to arrest, go ask the hospital who signed that order."

I stopped, because my chest had begun to hurt, and Donovan's hand pressed once against my spine.

Headlights came down the road behind the news van, and a navy sedan drew up to the curb with its wipers going.

My father got out of the back.

He wore his navy overcoat and no hat, and he walked straight through the cameras.

"Deirdre," he said. "Honey. You're confused. You're not well."

Seven microphones swung toward him.

"I've never been less confused," I said. "You told me not to come back. I'm remembering it."

"You're a sick girl and this man is using you."

"Then let me ask you one thing, in front of all of them." I stepped forward until I was out of Donovan's hand. "What was in the envelope?"

My father's face stayed smooth, and I thought, he's practiced.

"What envelope?" he said.

"The one the nurse gave you at the station. With my name on it."

"I don't know what you mean."

"He took it out of her hand," I said, to the cameras.

"It was a card from a stranger," my father said. "I threw it away. Sweetheart, please. Come home."

He held out his hand, palm up, the way he used to at the bottom of the stairs when I was small.

I looked at it.

Then I looked at the red light on the nearest camera, and I put my hand back in my pocket.

"No, thank you," I said.

My father lowered his hand.

He lowered his voice too, and only the people near the gate could hear.

"You have made a very expensive mistake," he said.

"You've made one since July."

He went back to his car without a word.

The sergeant told me he'd need a statement in the morning.

Then he and the cruisers and the news van left one at a time.

My legs held until we were inside.

Donovan caught my elbow in the hall.

"That was well done," he said.

"I felt sick."

"Yes. It was still well done."

A courier was waiting in the foyer in a yellow slicker, dripping on the stone floor, and he held out a thick envelope to Donovan.

"For Deirdre Kilbride," he said. "Hand delivery. St. Brendan's Hospital."

I took it.

It was one page, on hospital letterhead, with the committee chairman's signature at the bottom.

Due to the patient's voluntary departure, it said, her listing was removed from active status effective immediately.

I read it twice.

The house doctor read it over my shoulder, and she put her hand over her mouth.

"Without a list, the only way you live long enough to find another heart is a pump in your chest," she said.

"And it has to be tonight."

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