The Spare They Came Begging For novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Uncle

"Okay," Conor said on the phone.

Just that.

"Okay?"

"He's allowed to be out. That's the whole point." I heard him breathe. "I'll call his dad. I'll take him off the board."

"Conor."

"I'm fine. I've got a clinic."

He hung up before I could say anything.

He wasn't fine.

I'd heard that voice before, from families in the hallway who said "I'm fine" and then walked into a wall.

That night I found the Volvo in the staff lot with him sitting in it, engine off, staring at the windshield.

Sir was in the back, asleep on a blanket.

I knocked on the passenger window.

He reached over and unlocked it.

"Drive," I said, getting in.

"Where?"

"Somewhere you go when you're like this."

He drove to Castle Island.

It was nine o'clock and freezing, and the parking lot was nearly empty.

We walked the path around the old fort with Sir hopping between us on his three legs, sniffing every bench.

The wind came straight off the water.

The planes came in low over the harbor with their lights on, one after another.

He sat down on the low stone wall facing the water.

I sat next to him.

Sir leaned against our shins.

"My mother was on dialysis for three years," he said.

He said it to the water, not to me.

"Same as your bus guy. Three nights a week, in a chair in Dorchester. She used to bring me so I'd do my homework where she could see me."

I didn't say anything.

"My uncle was going to give her one. Her little brother. He was a match. Perfect. They had the date." His jaw moved. "A week before, he called her from a pay phone and said he couldn't do it. Said his wife was scared. Said he was sorry."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen when he called. Fourteen when she died."

The wind took the end of the sentence.

"She never got angry at him," he said. "Not once. She said it was his kidney. She said you can't take a part of somebody who doesn't want to give it. You'd feel it in you every day."

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