Keep Me in Your Heart (7 page)

She jerked away from him. “You’re both upsetting me. You can’t fight like this. I can’t take it.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Jeremy mumbled, feeling contrite. “I—I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that Jessica …” his voice trailed off.

His mother asked, “Don’t you think I understand what her parents are going through? I know what it’s like to stand by and watch your child die.”

Jeremy winced.
Of course she knew
. Tom had died in the emergency room while his parents held his hands.

“This discussion is over,” his father said tersely.

“Hear him out, Frank.” His mother’s command surprised both Jeremy and his father. She sat down on the couch, looking straight at Jeremy. “Tell us what you want to do.”

Warily Jeremy stepped from behind the chair he was using for support, came to his mother and crouched down in front of her. “Thank you for listening to me,” he said. Then he told them all he knew about organ transplantation. “Jessica’s doctor, Dr. Witherspoon, can answer any questions you have,” he said in conclusion. “We can go in together and talk to him if you want. He’d be in charge of the surgery, and he wants what’s best for both Jessica and me.”

“There are risks in surgery.” His father renewed his objections. “You wouldn’t be his primary concern. A doctor always puts his patient’s interests first—just the way an attorney always puts his client’s interests first.”

“Frank, please,” Jeremy’s mother said, cutting off the counterargument already springing to Jeremy’s lips. She looked into Jeremy’s eyes. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. In order for
you to be a donor, you need to be some kind of match at the genetic level.”

“Yes.”

“And if you aren’t a match, then this whole thing is dropped.”

He didn’t have the heart or the stamina at the moment to tell her that transplants could be done when there was no match. He figured it best to keep quiet at this point and be grateful for this bit of progress. “As I said, her doctor can answer any questions,” he responded evasively.

“And,” his mother continued, “they can determine if you’re a match by simply doing blood work.”

“Yes.”

She looked up at her husband. “That doesn’t seem so terrible, Frank. I mean a blood test seems harmless enough.”

“I’m against this, Marilyn.”

“They send a sample of my blood to a lab, Dad,” Jeremy said eagerly. “At least let me take that step.”

His mother was gazing up at his father with a look of resignation, and Jeremy knew by the
expression on his father’s face that he’d won this battle.

“I’ll sign the papers for the blood test,” Jeremy’s father said shortly, his words clipped. “But that’s all. One blood test.”

Jeremy rose, suddenly exhausted. “Thank you.” He was out the door when he heard his mother tell his father, “It’ll be all right, Frank. We should allow him this much leeway. He loves the girl. I mean, he has to match her in some way, and what are the odds of that happening? I’d say a million to one.”

“The odds aren’t high enough for me,” Jeremy heard his father say. “Not nearly high enough.”

When Jessica’s parents heard the news, they rushed over to Jeremy’s house and spilled out their gratitude with handshakes and effusive speeches. Jeremy didn’t miss his father’s tight-lipped expression or his mother’s polite but vacant stare.

“We’ll pay for everything,” Don McMillan said. “You don’t have to worry about any of the costs.”

“Is the test expensive?” Jeremy’s mother asked.

“Between six and eight hundred dollars,” Don said. “But who can put a price on Jessica’s life?”

His parents didn’t say anything negative. And when they met Dr. Witherspoon and signed the consent form, they asked no questions. It was as if they wanted only to get out of his office as quickly as possible.

“Are you certain there’s nothing you want to know?” the doctor asked, placing the form in a manila folder.

“Nothing,” Jeremy’s father said. He cupped his hand around his wife’s elbow. “It’s understood that our consent is only for the antigen test.”

“It’s understood,” Dr. Witherspoon said, “but as long as we’re taking this first step, why not let me go ahead with the other testing? We’ll check him into the hospital for a couple of days and get a complete picture of his eligibility as a donor.”

“We’d rather not.”

Jeremy watched the doctor’s face and realized
that Dr. Witherspoon knew exactly what he was up against. “The antigen test alone might not knock him out of contention,” he told them. “However, the other testing may. We don’t want to get Jessica’s hopes up prematurely. Therefore, if you’d allow Jeremy to do the full battery of tests, it would give me the total picture as to his suitability as a donor.”

Jeremy suppressed a smile. Dr. Witherspoon was clever, and he knew how to get what he wanted from the most reluctant people.

“Frank, perhaps that’s not such a bad idea,” Jeremy’s mother said. “The psychological tests may show that Jeremy is unfit.”

Jeremy didn’t think so, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Frank told his wife. “But I said I’d cooperate through this point. So if the full battery of tests will settle this matter once and for all, go ahead.”

Jeremy watched them march out of the office; he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. If the tests were favorable, he knew, he’d only just begun to fight.

Jessica’s emotions swung wildly between euphoria and fear. She was ecstatic about the prospect of getting a new kidney, but terrified too. When Jeremy was admitted to the hospital for three days of intensive testing, she stayed with him as much as possible. It wasn’t easy watching a perfectly healthy person go through blood work, X rays, an electrocardiogram, a renal arteriogram, and probing questions from a psychologist, all for her sake.

“My father’s getting a perverse pleasure out of this,” Jeremy told her the evening before he was to be discharged. They were sitting in a waiting area because he couldn’t stand being cooped up in his hospital room. “He thinks all this medical stuff—the needles and machines—will scare me off. But it won’t.”

She’d had dialysis that day, but already a headache was gathering behind her eyes and her skin was starting to itch. “I feel bad for you,” she told him. “You’re going through so much just for me.”

“If it were my brother who needed a kidney, they’d let me donate mine to him.”

“But it isn’t your brother.”

“Yeah. Tom’s dead. So I can’t do anything
for him. But if he were alive, believe me, he’d be one hundred percent behind this.”

“Well, all this may be for nothing anyway.”

Jeremy clasped her hand. “No way, Jessie. The tests will show that I’m a compatible donor. I’m going through with the surgery.” He’d made up his mind to be a nonrelated donor one way or another. And he felt strongly that Dr. Witherspoon would take him in order to help Jessica.

“Not without your parents’ permission.”

“Why is it necessary to get their permission for everything? I hate being sixteen. I wish I were eighteen. Then I’d be emancipated. Then I wouldn’t have to ask them for anything.”

“They’re just worried about you. They care about you.”

“Big deal.
I
care about you.” She started to cry, and he took her into his arms. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he apologized.

“The whole thing’s upsetting, Jeremy. I feel like I have no control over anything. I’ve been accepted to Georgetown for the fall semester, but I’m afraid to make any long-term plans.”

“It’ll work out, Jessie. I promise.”

“I still can’t figure out why this is happening
to me. Have I been a bad person? Did I do something to make God mad at me?” She couldn’t stop sobbing.

“It’s just life, Jessie. Like Tom’s accident. Bad things happen, and nice people get crushed. There aren’t any answers. You just have to believe that whatever happens is under someone’s control, for some kind of purpose. If you don’t, you’ll go nuts.”

She pulled away, staring deeply into his golden brown eyes. What she saw was no immature sixteen-year-old, but an insightful, comforting friend. What she saw was love, so open and honest that it wrenched her heart. She leaned forward and kissed him. And knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jeremy Travino was going to pass at least the psychological portions of his testing with flying colors. The rest of the test results would be in the hands of God.

“I
f I hadn’t read the results of the antigen test with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.” Dr. Witherspoon’s voice boomed with enthusiasm.

Standing in the doctor’s office with Jessica and her parents, Jeremy couldn’t stop grinning.

“Are you saying I’ll make a good donor?”

“An amazingly good donor.”

Jeremy felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. His parents would have to reconsider his desire to donate his kidney to Jessica.

Jessica’s parents were both teary-eyed. They kept hugging Jeremy and saying “Thank you,” but he scarcely heard them. He had eyes only for Jessica. She was sitting in a large leather
chair, staring up at him in absolute amazement. He dropped to his knees in front of her. “Are you happy?”

“Numb,” she confessed. “I never dreamed …”

“I dreamed it for both of us,” he said softly. Despite the others in the room, he felt as if they were sealed off in their own private space.

He thought Jessica looked frail. She’d been steadily losing weight despite her mother’s efforts to feed her properly. Yet her hands and legs were puffy and swollen with water weight. Her once thick and shining hair looked dull. Dark circles ringed her eyes. He knew instinctively that his compatibility as a donor hadn’t come a day too soon.

Her gaze bore into his. “I want to be happy about it more than anything. But it’s so
big
, Jeremy. A new kidney.
Your
kidney. An operation. Recovery. Being free to eat the things I like again.”

“I’ll buy you the biggest plate of french fries in Virginia when you’re well,” he said. She didn’t smile. “Hey,” he said, “you’re not going to back out on me in this deal, are you?”

“You still have to get your parents to agree,” she said, hedging.

“I’ll do it.” He wished he felt as confident as he was pretending to be. “Once they see how important this is, they’ll fall in line.”

“But, Jeremy,
you’re
the one who’s important to them. Not me.”

“Then they’ll just have to realign their priorities, won’t they?”

She smiled. “You’re very stubborn.”

Dr. Witherspoon came over and placed his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “I’ve been thinking; how’d you like me to talk to your parents about this first?”

Jeremy rose to face the doctor. “You?”

“I’m a professional, and I’m not involved to the same emotional degree as you are. I might be able to persuade them.”

Jessica’s parents stepped up beside the doctor. “We understand their reluctance,” her father said. “It’s a hard decision for a parent to make.”

Feeling irritated, Jeremy asked, “What’s so hard? It’s
my
body. I should have a say-so in what I do with it.”

“One step at a time,” Dr. Witherspoon said. “Let me talk to them, explain the procedure. It isn’t without risks, Jeremy. Any time a person goes under anesthesia, there are risks.”

“Such as?”

Dr. Witherspoon glanced down at Jessica. “We can discuss them later.”

“I don’t care about the risks; I want to donate my kidney to Jessie. My
compatible
kidney,” Jeremy added for emphasis.

“I’ll call your father this afternoon and arrange for them to come to my office as soon as possible.”

“I’ll come too,” Jeremy said.

The doctor shook his head. “That might not be a good idea. Let me talk to them as calmly as possible in neutral territory. I’ll see what kind of progress I can make on my own.”

That afternoon Jeremy returned to his father’s law office. He’d taken his father up on his offer to be a law clerk. Fortunately his father was in court, so Jeremy didn’t have to talk to him. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about the test results, and he wanted Dr. Witherspoon to handle revealing
the information. Also, he didn’t want another volatile confrontation. He hated to hurt his mother, but his father was being impossibly stubborn.

Later Jeremy grabbed a burger at a fast-food drive-through, drove to Jessica’s and called his mother, saying he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

She said, “Your father and I are seeing Dr. Witherspoon tomorrow morning.”

“Oh? Well, let me know what he tells you,” Jeremy said as casually as he could.

“Your father and I love you, Jeremy.”

Caught off guard, Jeremy stammered, “I—I know, Mom.”

“And we only want to do what’s best for you. Even … even if you don’t agree.”

Her statement sounded ominous. “Everybody wants to do ‘what’s best,’ ” Jeremy answered. “That’s the problem. Sooner or later, someone has to give in.”

Once he’d hung up, he took Jessica out to the backyard. Twilight was falling, and the June night closed around them like a soft whisper. Night-blooming jasmine perfumed the air. Overhead a violet sky was deepening to
shades of midnight blue, and stars flickered on like fireflies. At the far end of the yard, between two thick tree trunks, a porch swing swayed. He sat Jessica down and settled beside her.