I’m hesitant to follow Claire.
It’s not like we haven’t been in here before. In fact, the study is the most familiar part of the house. But something about this feels very mob-boss movie to me. How she walks in silently, closes the sliding door behind her. How she sits on the couch and gestures for me to sit across from her. How I obey. It’s all very Godfather—part one, of course, the best Godfather.
But she’s smart and knows my weakness. It’s the one thing that identifies me as being my parents’ son: I love knowledge. I live for it. Having information—all of it—is power. Information isn’t harmful or good; it’s neutral, and it’s about how you use it.
And Claire has all the information I could ever want.
But the silence? That I could do without.
“Ask anything you want,” she finally says.
“Is he telling the truth?”
She pauses. “My son, intentionally or not, speaks in half-truths. There is some honesty in what he’s saying, of course. But he doesn’t know the whole picture.”
“Because you didn’t tell him, or because he’s choosing not to tell me?”
“The former.” Those two words don’t come out easily. “You have to understand where I…where we were coming from.”
“I really don’t, Mrs. McIntyre,” I interject. “I appreciate what you gave me, I really do, but that doesn’t matter if it’s not the whole story. I don’t remember the philosopher who said this, but a good deed doesn’t matter if it comes with bad intentions. You gave me this liver because you were experimenting on me.”
“I was not,” she says. Hurt clouds her face. “I’m not that kind of person.”
“I believe you.” Or, at the very least, I believe that she doesn’t think she’s that kind of person. But somehow, that truth rings false. Like when someone says they’re not racist, but their actions prove differently. “Then why did you do it? Give me the liver?”
“Because you needed it.”
“And also because you were hoping, like Blake said, to pass on the time-traveling gene.”
“Those two things are not exclusive, nor do they need to be!”
I sigh and stand. I pace, walking back and forth in front of the bookshelves, filled with memories and histories that Claire has probably lived firsthand.
“You’re upset.”
“I’m not.” At least, I don’t think I am.
“Then betrayed? Hurt? Abused?”
Do I feel betrayed? No. That’s not the word I’m looking for. Neither are the other ones. I don’t know this family well enough to feel those things. The emotional hooks of friendliness and found family haven’t sunk into my flesh yet. If anything, I feel…validated.
Isobel was right. The lives of the rich are so far removed from our own that it’s like we don’t exist—or even coexist. We’re two parallel existences.
I should just walk out the door, I think. It’s my liver. I don’t owe them anything. I don’t need to be here. Time travel or not; it’s my choice.
Instinctively, I put my hand over my organ and feel the faint scar. It healed nicely, barely leaving a bump.
See, Dad had said, examining it. That’s the type of surgeon you can be. You’ve experienced firsthand how important it is to be good—no, great—at what you do. You’ll never forget this, champ. Maybe, if there’s one good thing that came out of this cancer, it’s showing you how much good you can do as a doctor.
Now those words make me sick to my stomach, like they’re rotten eggs just sitting in the pit of my bowels.
I don’t want to be a doctor.
I don’t want to be a surgeon.
Right now, I don’t know what I want to be. But I do know that I just want to be Andre, and now, for the first time in a year, I feel like I have the chance to decide what and who I want to be. And I’m certainly not going to let this weird family have any say in it.
My phone rings—loudly. The sound makes me and Claire jump. The ring is particular: shrill, loud, and unforgiving.
“That’s my VIP ringtone,” I mutter, fishing out my phone. It can only be one of three people: Isobel, Dad, or…
“My mom.”
I stare at the picture, my mom’s angular face, dark brown skin, and Afro on display, her broad face smiling contagiously back at me. She has me pulled in close, though I’m half out of the frame. She loves this picture. It’s her contact photo for me too, with her face cropped out and mine in the center.
“I need to take this.”
I don’t wait for permission because I don’t need it. Slipping out and into the kitchen, I take a breath, mentally counting how many rings I have left before it goes to voice mail, and then I pick up.
“Hey, Mom. I—”
“Get home. Now.”
What time is it? I pull my phone back to check—only 7:54. And it’s summer.
“Is everything cool? I’m just out with—”
“Andre Forrest Cobb, if you are about to lie to me right now about where you are, I swear to God I’m going to…”
She pauses, and my breath hitches. Not out of fear, but because my parents have never had to punish me. Before cancer, I wasn’t a liar; I wasn’t a problem kid or someone who snuck off. The “Black people need to be ten times as good” talk was given to me early, and it rooted itself, like a watermelon seed in someone’s stomach, and grew. Work hard now, play hard later. I embodied that.
This is new for both of us.
“Just get home,” she says. “I know you’re not at Isobel’s. I called her.”
“You’re checking up on me?”
“Really?” I can hear the eyebrow raise in her voice. “You’re the one who lied, and you’re going to try to accuse me?”
Her voice is begging me to challenge her if I dare, but I keep my mouth shut.
“Be home in twenty minutes,” she orders.
“It takes closer to thirty-five to get home from here.”
“Then you better leave now.”
And then the line goes dead, leaving me to stew in the vague dread of what will follow when I get home.