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Charley was early. Years of cop training drove the decision. Get there first. Take the offensive. Make them come to you. Even then she almost didn’t recognize Melissa when her old friend came through the door. The Melissa she’d known in school had worn her blond hair in long bouncy curls. She’d been a consistent size twelve. Not thin, but not fat. With her oval face, full cheeks, and sparkling blue eyes, she’d been the picture of the all-American college girl. The Melissa she’d pulled over one night almost fifteen years ago had been bloated with an unwanted pregnancy. With her lifeless eyes and her dirty, unkempt hair hanging in oily ropes, Charley almost hadn’t recognized her.
The woman who entered the restaurant Wednesday afternoon was an entirely different version. This one wore her hair in a short blond wedge that swayed around her face as she walked. She’d lost weight, almost to the point of looking anorexic. And even though the outside temperature was pushing triple digits, Melissa wore a long-sleeved shirt. Charley frowned. She looks like she’s freezing. Those things registered in a blink of consciousness before their eyes met, and Melissa headed her way. Melissa’s blue eyes reminded her so much of Kinsley it almost stole her breath and caused her heart to flutter in her chest.
She stood as Melissa approached, unsure how she should greet an old friend who’d given her the best gift one woman could give another and whose very presence now put that gift in jeopardy.
In the end it wasn’t her decision. Melissa reached the table and held out her hands, and when Charley took them out of reflex, Melissa pulled her into a light hug. She held the embrace for just a second before stepping back.
“You look amazing,” Melissa said. “I would have known you anywhere.”
“Thanks. You look great.”
Melissa narrowed her eyes, and her lips ticked up in a half smile. “We both know that’s a polite lie. Let’s sit.”
Once they’d settled, a member of the wait staff approached for their drink orders. Charley ordered a large iced tea, unsweetened.
Melissa hesitated over her choice. “Do you have a child-sized drink?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “It’s in a small eight-ounce to-go cup.”
“Perfect.” Melissa smiled up at the teenager. “I’ll have one of those, lemonade.”
Once the server departed to fetch their drinks, the two women spent several seconds studying each other from across the table.
“You—” Charley began.
“I—” Melissa said at the same time.
“Go ahead,” Charley said. “You called the meeting.”
Melissa cleared her throat. “I was just going to say how much I appreciate your making time to meet with me on such short notice. As I said last night, I know hearing from me after all of this time must have been a shock.”
The waitress returned with their drinks and lingered to take their lunch orders. Charley ordered a burger and fries. She peeled the paper wrapping from her straw and used it to stir sweetener into her tea while Melissa dawdled over the menu, asking questions about salt content and quizzing the waitress about the cheese in the salad she finally settled on.
Charley used the time to consider what she should say. The secret this woman represented frightened her. That was tough to admit. But beyond fright, Charley found it impossible to ignore the debt she owed her friend. She blinked. My friend? Could she be a friend to a woman she sincerely hoped never to see again? I guess that’s up to her.
When the server left, Charley said, “It sounded urgent, and I’ve always been your friend. I’ll be your friend for as long as you allow it.”
“Allow it?”
Charley sat back, crossed her arms, and delivered reality in a blunt statement. “The state of our friendship rests in your hands. My family...my daughter...comes first. As long as you respect that...” She leaned forward and clasped her hands on the table. “You’re smart enough to know where I’m headed.”
Melissa bowed her head, and Charley watched as she took a couple of deep breaths. When she looked up, Charley recognized determination in Melissa’s too familiar eyes. “I’m not here to cause trouble for you or yours, and I’m not here to see your daughter. All I’ve ever wanted was what was best for the child. That was you fifteen years ago. It’s still you.”
Charley didn’t miss the empathized wording. She reached for her glass. “Thank you for that.”
“Unfortunately,” Melissa continued. “What I have to say does affect her.” She stopped and took an almost infinitesimal sip from her glass.
Charley couldn’t help but notice the way her old friend’s hands trembled.
Melissa swallowed, drew in a deep breath, and looked Charley square in the eye.
“I’m dying.”
Charley’s hand connected with her glass and knocked it sideways. She grabbed for it and caught it before it did more than slosh the amber colored liquid onto the tablecloth. “What?” Her empathy overrode her caution. She reached across the table and laid a hand on Melissa’s arm. “What’s going on?”
Melissa pulled free of Charley’s hand and used her napkin to dab sweat from her upper lip and forehead. She delivered the next statements like bullet points from a business briefing. “I have a form of rapidly progressing polycystic kidney disease. My doctors diagnosed it almost six years ago. I lost function in both my kidneys within the last year. I’m doing dialysis three times a week.”
Charley gasped. She forced a deep breath, letting her old friend’s words process. “Melissa, I’m so sorry.” She motioned to the kiddie drink sitting in front of Melissa. “Is that—?”
“I have to be very careful with my liquid intake, no more than thirty-two ounces a day. I also have to watch my salt and potassium.”
“And dairy?”
Melissa frowned.
“You were concerned about the cheese in your salad.”
“Oh, dairy isn’t a problem, but some of the additives in the processed stuff can be hard on me.” Melissa paused as their meals were placed in front of them. She forked up a piece of the salad, stared at it for several seconds before shaking it back into the bowl and turning her attention back to Charley. “I didn’t ask you to meet me so we could talk about my diet.” This time it was Melissa who reached across the table to make a physical connection with Charley. “Is...has...?” Melissa stopped and frowned across the table. “I don’t even know what you named her.”
Charley wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Kinsley.”
“Has Kinsley ever had a kidney infection?”
A kidney in... “No. Why?”
“Because polycystic kidney disease is genetic.”
Charley’s heart raced at the words. A dozen questions formed, and she opened her mouth to start asking, but Melissa forged ahead.
“That’s why I asked you about kidney infections. The fact she hasn’t had any is a good thing. And genetic doesn’t mean she has the disease. We went back to my great-great-grandmother before we found what looks like a confirmed case. But you need to have her tested. I obviously carry the gene, so she will by default.”
Melissa looked down at her lap, and red stained her cheeks. “I...um... You know I didn’t know who the baby’s father was. But if by some horrible chance he carried the gene as well...” Melissa pulled her shoulder bag from its place on the back of the chair and dug inside. She found a card and slid it across the table. “Like I said, you need to have her tested.” She tapped the card. “This is a specialist my doctor recommended. The test can rule the disease out completely, but if it shows that she’s affected...well, it can’t tell you when the disease will pop up, and it can’t predict the severity, but there are some things you can do now to minimize the effect.”
Charley picked the card up with numb fingers and stared at the words blindly. Father, please... She didn’t have words beyond that strangled plea. Appetite gone, she pushed her untouched plate aside, braced her elbows on the table, and lowered her head into her hands. She tried to digest what Melissa had just said, but all that processed were incomplete thoughts. “I don’t know how...” she muttered. “How do I...?” She gave up trying to make sense, closed her eyes, and breathed. She’d hoped to get out of this day with her secrets intact. Is there a way to do that? She needed to talk to Jason. She needed her friends. She needed her arms around her baby.
Melissa interrupted her musing. “I know I’ve blindsided you, Charley, but you can’t put this off. My great-great-grandmother died at forty-three. I’m forty and on dialysis.”
Charley finally looked up. “I’m not going to put it off. I’m just trying to decide what needs to happen next. Kinsley...” She reached for her glass and drank deeply. The cool, sweet liquid did nothing to quell the raging fear in her heart. She set the glass down. “Kinsley doesn’t know she’s adopted.” She raised the business card. “Her health comes first, of course, but...I’m just trying to figure out how to get this all done without raising questions I don’t want to answer.”
Melissa’s phone beeped an alarm. She looked at the screen and turned it off. “That’s between you and her.” She reached for the card. “May I?”
Charley nodded, passed it across the table, and watched while Melissa scribbled a phone number on the back.
“I’ve got to go. I have a dialysis appointment scheduled for this afternoon before we drive back to Houston in the morning.”
“We?”
Charley saw a quick smile on her old friend’s face. “I got married ten years ago. I don’t know what I would have done without Keith since my diagnosis. He’s been my rock.” She handed the card back. “Tell her whatever you need to tell her, just get her tested. Will you let me know what they tell you? I’ll rest easier knowing one way or the other.”
“I can do that,” Charley said.
“Thanks.” Melissa stood and took a step away from the table. Before she took a second, she turned to look back at Charley. Her eyes gleamed bright, and pain replaced the smile. “I didn’t want the baby. I guess...now...that turned out for the best.” She stopped to swallow. “But, do you have a picture? Now that I know her name...”
Charley bit her lip as she studied the mother of her child, the woman who’d been her sister in another life. She reached for her purse, dug out her wallet, and flipped through photos protected by plastic sleeves. Physical pictures might be out of date, but last year’s school pictures had been so good, she hadn’t been able to resist, she’d bought the whole package. Charley removed the one she carried and held it across the table.
Melissa gasped as she got the first look at the young woman her baby had become. She touched a finger to the picture and then brushed her own cheek, obviously seeing the resemblance. “Oh my...” She stared at it a second longer before handing it back to Charley.
“Keep it. I have more.”
Melissa pulled it back, her voice hoarse when she spoke again. “Thank you.”
***
KEITH SAT ON ONE SIDE of the hospital bed while a technician approached on the other.
“My name is James,” he said. “I’m your tech for this evening.” He tucked a loose corner of a sheet around Melissa. “It’s always a little chilly in here. Are you warm enough?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Good, let’s get you started.”
Keith flinched as the catheter in Melissa’s arm was swabbed and connected to the dialysis machine via the needles that would sip at her blood over the next five hours, sending the life-giving fluid through the machine and back into her body.
She’d assured him that the process didn’t hurt, but the tubes of the catheter stuck out of her arm in two places. He couldn’t be convinced that the thrice weekly manipulation didn’t cause some sort of discomfort.
Keith averted his eyes and stared at the floor. He’d refrained from asking Melissa how the meeting had gone. She’d returned from lunch upset, and they’d had barely enough time to locate the dialysis center on the fringes of the city. This was their first time to travel since her diagnosis. He’d watched her hands tremble with every motion, taking in the tight line of her mouth, not needing to be told that the combination of seeing her old friend and facing the procedure at an unfamiliar location had his wife functioning on her last nerve.
He had questions to ask, but he wanted to give her some time to settle first.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” James asked.
Keith looked up in time to see the technician on the other side of the bed pat Melissa’s shoulder.
Melissa gave the young man dressed in blue scrubs a smile. “No.”
“You rest and let the machine do its job.” He looked at Keith. “I’m sorry that our visitor’s chairs aren’t more comfortable. We have a family room around the corner. TV and coffee.”
“Thanks. I’ll stay here.”
“Not a problem.” He glanced back at Melissa, “I’ll be back in a bit to check on you. Use the call button if you need anything before then.”
Keith watched him leave, then settled into the chair. He laced his fingers with Melissa’s and leaned close to brush a kiss across her knuckles. He searched her face and, seeing that calm had replaced the earlier nerves, decided it was time to discuss her day. “I missed you today.”
Melissa squeezed his hand. “I was only gone two hours.”
“How did it go?”
She closed her eyes. “How do you think it went? I told one of the best friends I’ll ever have that her daughter might have a life-threatening illness.” He waited as she pulled in a deep breath. “I guess she took it as well as could be expected. She was shocked, but—”
“She agreed to the testing though, right?”
“She took the card. I’m sure she’s already made the call for an appointment.”
“And the transplant? Did you ask—?”
“No, Keith, I did not.” Her expression was sad, and it was several seconds before she spoke again. “They haven’t even told her about me. I always thought that was the way I wanted it.” The desolation in her voice broke his heart.
“We’ve had this talk,” she continued. “Any discussion of a transplant is premature. If the girl’s...if Kinsley’s tests come back positive, then a transplant is out of the question.”
“But if they come back negative, this kid could save your life.”
Melissa’s sigh was heavy as her blue eyes settled on his face.
“You are the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
“Ditto.” Her lips twitched at the word. Not quite a smile, but an improvement over the earlier melancholy. “Sweetheart, I know you love me, and I know you only have my best interests at heart. But, I’ve told you, I’m not keen on the idea of asking a fifteen-year-old child to make such a life altering decision. It’s not the direction I feel God has for me.”
The mention of God put his teeth on edge even though he did his best to hide it. As far as he was concerned, this kid was the miracle Melissa’d been praying for. “You know I respect your faith even if I don’t understand it, but—”
Melissa continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And even if I were, why would I broach such a subject today? Charley promised to share the results with me. If you were a parent, would you give that information to someone if you thought they only wanted to use it as a lifeline?”
Keith shook his head. “You make me sound like a heartless ogre.”
“I know you’re not, but we need to leave this in God’s hands for now. Once I hear from Charley, we can talk about options, if there are any.”
Her voice had grown softer with each word. She’d slept poorly the night before, and now the worry and stress of the day were taking their toll. He held her hand for five more minutes, only releasing it once he knew she was sound asleep. He opened the book he’d brought to keep him company, but he couldn’t concentrate. Moral dilemmas waged war in his heart. Maybe he wasn’t a Christian, but he considered himself a good man, a patient man. But his patience was wearing thin. There had to be a way to tilt this thing in Melissa’s favor. He wouldn’t rest until he found it.