4

SIBBY HANDS THE MIC OFF TO OUR PRINCIPAL AND PROMPTLY tackle hugs me.

“You were amazing—total baller to my sniveling mess,” she says, squeezing tight.

When she releases me, the corners of her eyes are still damp with tears and the sight of them steals any desire I may have to confront her here and now. I have to believe she has no clue she just threw me under the bus.

So I fake a smile to match hers. “You were great too.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever lied to Sibby before—at least not about anything real—and it churns in my stomach.

She grabs my arm. “Ready for Phase Two? I had them hold a table aside for us and you have to see the lime-green visors I got us off the Donate Life site to wear while we man it. They’re très chic . . . by which I mean, they have zero fashion value. None. I love them. C’mon!”

I glance toward the gym’s exit into the lobby. Most of my classmates are filing out the sets of double doors, but a few of our friends hang back, clearly waiting to talk to us. Well, to me, I’m guessing. I haven’t told them a thing about any of this—not even my GI bleed—and I’m sure they’ll want to know what gives. I make eye contact briefly with my friend Nells and she juts out her lower lip in an exaggerated sad face while crossing her hands over her chest in a long-distance hug that whooshes any bravado I had left straight out of the gym.

I can’t be here. I can’t let everyone gush about how tragic my situation is or spew “hang in there” platitudes at me—I’ll never be able to keep it together. Dr. Wah said to do what I need in order to stay strong mentally and I know without a doubt that it’s to get as far away from here as possible.

My mother approaches and I grab at the lifeline her appearance offers.

“Sib, I think—I think I might cut out with my mom instead,” I say, hoping I look and sound casual. “I don’t mean to abandon you but, um, this was a lot of, um . . . excitement . . . and so . . . would that be totally shitty of me?”

Her eyes go wide, then she shakes her head emphatically. “Of course not! You need to keep your immune system in tip-top shape—the last thing we need is you getting run-down because you’re pushing yourself to do too much.”

No, the last thing I need is to start using my biliary atresia as an excuse to get out of things, and I wasn’t trying to suggest I was physically tired, but clarifying would mean getting into my emotional state more than I’m willing to, so I just nod and thank her for being so understanding and for doing the assembly with me. I bite back anything else I could add about how it didn’t turn out at all the way I’d envisioned.

At all.

Mostly thanks to her actions.

I just want to go home.

Both Dad and his bike are propped against my mother’s car when we emerge from my school.

“Hey, Sunshine! I thought I was only grabbing Mom. Luckily, I got an extra coffee just in case. Call it father’s intuition,” Dad greets me, sipping from his own travel mug. His smile is a little too bright to be natural, but I pretend not to notice that. Fresh air and a change of scenery are exactly what I need to help the last hour fade. At least I know I can always count on Dad to keep things easy and light.

He reaches behind him for the two mocha cappuccinos he’s set on the car roof. I would ask how he biked here balancing three coffee cups, but he’s been pedaling Cambridge’s streets his entire life and could probably have managed it with six more, plus a random tuba on his back. He hands me one and I accept it gratefully.

“How’d it go?” Dad asks. I take a quick sip to buy time to formulate a decent yet uncomplicated answer, but immediately spit it out.

“Oh, blech! They forgot my sugar!”

“Whoops, that’s Mom’s.”

He makes the exchange and I gulp at mine to wash away the bitter taste, before saying, “That just means they forgot Mom’s, though.”

I’ve known my mother’s “three spoonfuls of sugar, heavy on the cream” coffee order since forever.

“I’m . . . trying something new,” Mom says, avoiding my eyes.

“Your mother’s sweet enough all on her own,” Dad answers, cuffing her chin.

Uh, not especially true when I put the Cheerios back in the cabinet with a handful of stragglers at the bottom of an otherwise empty box, or when I accidentally leave my skate bag from practice in the back seat of her car over a summer weekend. But my parents are kind of gross and lovey-dovey this way (which I pretend to hate, but secretly don’t).

“Should we blow this Popsicle stand?” my father asks.

I roll my eyes. “Dad, no one says that anymore.”

“Then how do you explain me? Because I just did.”

“There is no explaining you, weirdo.” My sigh is appropriately exasperated as I round the car and pull open the door, but inside I’m thrilled we’re having this totally normal exchange. Normal is all I crave these days. Especially this day.

But then I happen to turn my head as I prepare to duck inside, and I catch my parents having one of those private conversations that involve nothing more than locked eyes. Mom’s face is so raw that it physically hurts my heart. Dad’s hand reaches for her and my mother steps into him, but then glances over and catches me staring. She must whisper something under her breath because Dad’s eyes jerk up to mine and widen slightly, before he schools his expression into a smile.

“Hop in, Sunshine,” he says, sidestepping Mom and hefting his bike up and into the trunk of the car.

I follow instructions rather than acknowledge what I witnessed. The dismissal bell shrills across the courtyard as I buckle my seat belt and we pull away just before people begin spilling outside. Thank god for that. I exhale loudly, which Dad, turned sideways in the front passenger seat, catches. He raises an eyebrow. I’m okay, I communicate with my eyes.

Lie. I’m not okay, even though the distance we’re putting between us and school is helping.

He turns back to Mom. “So, I never got an answer from either of you—how did it go back there?”

Mom catches my eye in the rearview mirror, indicating I should take this one. I have no idea what her impression of that assembly was and I’m a little curious to hear, but I also would love to never think of this afternoon again. Ever.

“Fine,” I reply.

Dad raises that eyebrow again, but I simply shrug. He turns forward. “Okay, well . . . that’s good. So what’s on deck for the weekend?”

“Do you think we should find you someone to talk to? You know, like a therapist?” Mom blurts.

“What? Mom, no! I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“I’m just saying, I think it could help. You’ve been processing this in a bubble the last couple of weeks but now that it’s out in the open, it’s, well, it’s a lot to deal with.”

“I’m fine. Dr. Wah said to go about life normally,” I protest.

“And to stay strong mentally,” Mom adds.

Yes, and spending hours on a couch exploring outcomes that are way too dark to even think about would really help with that. Or not!

I tamp down an annoyed reply because I’m not trying to be a bad patient; it’s just that I don’t really see the point of talking ad nauseam about something when doing so can’t change anything. I’d still need a liver, and as a bonus I’d be hyperfocused on it.

Maybe I’m being obstinate, but I don’t think so. It’s basic human nature. We’re all experts at self-preservation, right? We all purposefully choose to ignore the unpleasant things we don’t want to acknowledge. We climb onto dizzy-fast rides at two-bit parking lot carnivals that weren’t there the previous week and won’t be there the next. We use the TV remotes in our hotel rooms, even after watching those Dateline specials where the hosts take black lights to them and expose all the poop germs left behind by the previous guests. We eat sausages, which . . . what the hell is in those anyway? And if we even bother to stop and really think about any of it, we shudder . . . and then push the knowledge away so we can carry on in denial.

My not wanting to put scenarios for my future under a microscope isn’t really so different, the way I see it.

Besides, sitting around opening a vein on deep feelings is nothing I could ever picture my mother doing, so I’m not sure I’m loving the double standard here from Miss Cool and Collected.

“I’m fine,” I repeat. And I will be too, as soon as I wash my brain of the remnants of today’s assembly and get some of my mojo back.

Mom executes a left turn onto Mass Ave. “Fine isn’t exactly an optimal state of being.”

Dad turns to wink at me. “Leave her be for now, Nat. ‘Fine’ might be plenty good enough at her age. You remember eighteen.”

Picturing my father on a therapist’s couch is even harder than imagining my mom on one. I knew I could count on him to have my back.

“Most of what I remember about being eighteen was sneaking out to meet you in the alley behind the Coop,” Mom answers dryly.

Right around the time Alex left for college two years ago, my parents stopped censoring themselves around me. Which is normally flattering and, in cases such as this, sometimes horrifying.

“Inappropriate! Child in the back seat!” I screech.

“What?” Mom’s voice is all feigned innocence now. “We met to study.”

“Yeah . . . chemistry,” my dad murmurs to her, but not so subtly that it escapes my ears. I choose to ignore him.

Mom catches my eye in the rearview mirror again. “Funny how you insisted you weren’t a child anymore when you were trying to convince us to let you drive to DC with Sibby.”

The reminder of our abandoned trip stings, but I push it away. “I’m not a child when it comes to being able to handle myself with something like that, but consider me always one when it comes to hearing about parental sexcapades. Two words that never, ever belong next to one another, by the way.”

Mom reaches across the front console to squeeze Dad’s hand and I close my eyes briefly. My parents are giant dorks and sappy as hell and . . . it’s everything. It’s us and it’s normal and it’s uncomplicated. Three things I desperately need right now.

And then my mother ruins it again.

“If you don’t want to talk to someone in a one-on-one setting, what about a group thing, because, you know, you just might—”

I cut her off. “I get that you’ve seen The Fault in Our Stars, but you are never going to convince me I might find my own hot cancer boy there, just waiting to whisk me away to Amsterdam. Nice try, though.”

“Did you ever wonder why Amsterdam has more bicycles than people?” Dad interjects. “Is it because people need a spare or because some of the owners have died off and there’s a slew of abandoned, homeless ones, or—”

“Not helping, Jeff,” my mother says, but now she’s hiding a small smile.

She seeks me out in the rearview mirror yet again. “Would you at least agree to consider it?”

If it will end this conversation, I will agree to bathe in habanero sauce for a month. I shrug in semi-acquiescence and both my parents return their attention to the road. My coffee isn’t hacking it solo, so I rustle through my backpack for the spare granola bar I usually carry.

“Do you have a meeting tonight?” Dad asks Mom under his breath. It’s clearly not intended for me to hear, but I perk my ears as I pretend to be absorbed in searching the depths of my bag.

“Weight Watchers?” my mom whispers. “Yeah. But I think I’m going to hit one before work in the morning instead. I’m kind of wiped.”

I was wiped too, but now I’m wide-awake—intense shock will do that to a person. If you told me my mom was going to a meeting but didn’t specify which kind, my first three guesses would be National Organization for Women meet-up, book club, or neighborhood association. My last three guesses would be Ultraconservatives of New England, Satan worshippers, or the American Association of Model Ship Makers.

Weight Watchers wouldn’t even make the list.

And not because there’s anything wrong with Weight Watchers, but because if there is one thing my mother is one thousand percent of the time, it’s body positive. And while I completely understand and embrace that someone can have a healthy relationship with their body and also still have a desire to lose weight, that second part has just never, ever been my mom. She’s always given me the message that I alone get to decide the weight where I feel most comfortable and powerful and beautiful. Her own might not be the conventional number a fashion magazine would dictate, but it’s what she’s always insisted was perfect for her and she owns it with pride.

So what’s changed now? Is this what the new coffee order was all about?

We turn into our driveway and both my parents unbuckle, but I don’t make any moves to get out.

“Why are you going to Weight Watchers meetings?” I ask.

My dad lifts his eyebrows and says, “Love you, ladies, but that sounds like my cue to leave. If you two need me, I’ll be in my Fortress of Soli-Dude checking my March Madness brackets.”

He disappears inside and my mother turns in her seat so she’s half facing me. “It’s not that big of a deal, really. I just thought it was time.”

“Time for what? You’ve never wanted to lose weight before. And how come it’s some secret between you and Dad?” I hear how accusatory I sound, but I can’t help it. First Sibby went soft on me in the middle of a rally and now Mom’s dieting? What is happening to regular world order?

“I didn’t tell you because I wanted to avoid this discussion.” My mother glances at me, then drops her gaze to her hands, which are fiddling with her car keys. “The truth is, I need to lose at least thirty pounds to qualify as your potential living donor.”

Oh.

Oh no. No, no, no. My heart cracks in two.

“Mom,” I say as gently as possible, “you know Dr. Wah doesn’t support that in my case.”

Some patients with liver disease can accept a partial liver from a living donor. In a side-by-side operation, a chunk of the healthy person’s liver is sliced off and inserted into the sick person. Within a matter of months after the surgery, both the donor’s liver and the recipient’s will have grown back to a whole size. It’s pretty cool actually. But it only makes up one half of one percent of all liver transplants.

“Yes, well, Dr. Wah’s not the only hepatologist in Boston.”

“Mom.”

Her shoulders drop. “I know. It’s a long shot. But I’m the only one of us who matches your blood type and she may not recommend the surgery but I can’t support simply sitting around waiting for my daughter to get sicker and sicker while hoping, by the grace of god, some stranger with a heart symbol on his license decides to text while driving? Shit, Lia. I don’t know how to do that.”

I choke back a gasp. My mother never curses. And I don’t remember ever hearing her voice tinged with despair, the way it is now. My mother is a force; I study at her feet. She has a long history of activism herself, and her work as an immigration lawyer is her way of turning that passion for bettering the world into something that can also sustain our family. Mom cares deeply, but she’s got hard edges, honed by years of fighting to keep her clients from being deported. Sure, I’ve seen her emotional over losing particularly brutal cases, but on those occasions she’s been angry or resigned or pragmatic . . . not despairing.

Tears press at my chest and I shove them back down. I don’t know how to feel these emotions and stay upright. If I allow them to burrow in, I won’t recognize myself anymore.

My mother clears her throat and reaches through the opening between our seats to tug lightly on a chunk of my hair. She’s been doing that since I was a little kid, our private code for “I love you.”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry or think I was doing it because I felt obligated,” she says. “This weight loss thing is something that’s helping me feel like I have some measure of control over things, so I’m hoping we can leave it at that, okay?” She finishes with a heavy sigh.

I wrap my arms around my backpack and draw it to my chest. “Okay.”

“Would it help if I promised not to force any green smoothies on you?”

She smiles and I know my cue here is to smile back, so I do.

But it doesn’t reach my eyes.