Safe With Me (4 page)

I quickly discovered that while I
could
copy some of her pictures, there was no
way
I’d copy her status updates, since they tended to be filled with multiple exclamation points: “TGIF!!! Bring on the boys and beer!!! LOL!!!” (I might only be fifteen, but I’m not an idiot.) Instead, I amped up “Sierra’s” (aka my) profile by liking what I hoped was a cool assortment of different pages. I kept it as close to the truth about me as possible, listing my music interests as hers (Coldplay, Fiona Apple, and Nirvana); giving her the books I adore (the Hunger Games series, Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina,
and
The Nanny Diaries
); and liking a few trendy pages: “Bacon” and “George Takei.” I changed the girl’s name (from Tiffani Myers to Sierra Stone), college (from none to WSU), and career (from model to aspiring graphic artist), then copied Tiffani’s profile picture and other snapshots from her albums, making backup files on my hard drive so I could use the images as my avatar in the chat rooms I liked to visit and the games I liked to play online. (I had to restrain myself from sending Tiffani what I thought would be a helpful, anonymous message: “You
do
realize the Internet is forever, right? That pic of you lying across the BMW in a red bikini, men lined up take body shots off you? Your grandchildren are going to see that.”) I accepted friend requests from anyone who wasn’t already friends with Tiffani, amazed by the number of random strangers who “Sierra” was suddenly “friends” with simply because of the way she looked.

Now, as I lie in my hospital bed with zero emails in Sierra’s inbox, I toy briefly with the idea of creating a profile as my
actual
self: a fifteen-year-old girl with a diseased liver, an emotionally distant father, and a sweet but overprotective mother. A girl who doesn’t
have
any friends. Who has never gone to a school dance or had a boy try to kiss her. A girl who, if she doesn’t get a transplant, is going to die.

I dig my fingernails into my palms and gulp hard, fighting back the tears. Most of the time, I’m able to keep the reality of my situation shoved into a corner of my mind. I can see it, I know the truth, but I can dance past it when I want, pretending to be Sierra instead of Maddie, hovering above what feels like an impending doom. Being in the hospital makes it impossible to ignore. I sleep most of the time, I can’t eat, and the looks on Dr. Steele’s and my mother’s faces tell me that things aren’t getting any better—they’re getting worse.

When I first got sick, I didn’t really understand what it meant. I knew I didn’t feel good—I was tired all of the time and I didn’t want to eat. I was six when I was diagnosed with celiac disease, which meant I couldn’t ingest anything with any sort of gluten in it. When I did, I’d ache all over and get incredibly nauseous. A year later, it became worse. After a couple of weeks of thinking my symptoms were due to my secret stash of my dad’s beloved multigrain bread, Mom took me to the pediatrician, who, while pushing gently on my abdominal area, discovered my liver was enlarged. Several blood tests and specialist visits later, my problem had a name: type 2 hepatitis, which, apparently, adolescent girls who already have some kind of autoimmune disorder like celiac are more likely to contract. It’s rare, but it happens. Lucky me.

“It’s treatable,” Dr. Steele told us. He prescribed an initially high dose of prednisone, then gradually tapered the amount down to try and keep my immune system in check. The meds worked, at first. I was able to stay in school, though I couldn’t run as hard or fast as the other kids in my class. And then one morning, in third grade, I woke up writhing and sweating in my bed. “I can’t get up, Mama,” I cried. “Help me!” I remember the fear, the agonizing ache in my bones. I remember vomiting so hard I saw streams of blood in the toilet. I remember my throat swelling and feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I was in the hospital that night, and didn’t leave for several weeks.

“Esophageal inflammation,” Dr. Steele explained to my parents when he met us in the emergency room. “When the circulation in Maddie’s body gets blocked because of scar tissue on her liver, blood can back up into other vessels. Mostly in her stomach and esophagus, which I think is what’s happening now.”

“And how do you propose to fix it?” Dad asked, holding on to the metal rail of my bed until his thick knuckles went white. I’d always hated my father’s hands: they gripped too tightly, slammed too many doors.

“We’ll try adding another course of anti-inflammatories and upping the prednisone. If that doesn’t work, we may have to consider surgically inserting a shunt, to drain the fluid from her liver,” Dr. Steele said, then looked over to me. “You’ll have to stay here awhile, Maddie, so we can get you better. I promise, we’ll take excellent care of you.”

“I want her moved to a private suite as soon as possible,” Dad said.

“Please,” my mom quietly added to his demand, and Dad grabbed her hand hard enough that she flinched. He shot Dr.
Steele a charming smile. “I apologize. It’s just . . . Maddie is my little girl. I only want the best for her. You understand.”

Dr. Steele nodded slowly, then tweaked my nose. “I’ll see you after your ultrasound, missy. Can I bring you a Popsicle from the cafeteria?” I bobbed my head yes, because at eight years old, I still thought Popsicles made everything better.

Seven years and countless hospital stays later, I
detest
Popsicles. I’ve also managed to build up a tolerance to the drugs that are supposed to suppress what Dr. Steele calls my “hyperimmune response,” so they aren’t working anymore. They make me fat and bloated and
still
my stupid immune system thinks my liver is its enemy and keeps trying to kill it. And the unfortunate side effect of that is killing
me
. Unless I get a transplant. Unless some other person with the right blood type dies and saves my life.

I try to distract myself from these depressing thoughts with a quick review of Tiffani’s profile, scanning for material I might be able to snag for Sierra. I note that she’s taking a trip to England for a car show next week, so I know there’ll be new pictures to use. I cringe, imagining Tiffani’s Facebook posts as she travels: “OMG!! Big Ben!!” and “I ordered chips and got French fries. LMAO, y’all!!”

My mom reenters the room just as I close the browser and lock the screen. She doesn’t know much about computers past being able to email and surf the Web, but I password-protect mine, just to be safe. “Your dad sends his love,” she says.

“
Awe
some. Why
be
here when he can just ‘send his love’?”

Mom frowns at my sarcasm. “Maddie—”

“What?” I snap, closing my laptop. I get so tired of her pretending that Dad is such a great guy. I know she’s trying to protect
me. I know she hopes I don’t notice what goes on in our house, but I’d have to be a moron not to. I’d have to be Tiffani.

Suddenly, the weight of overwhelming fatigue clamps down on my body. My heartbeat thuds inside my skull, chipping away at my consciousness, and I have to close my eyes. It hits me like this sometimes. I’ll be feeling almost normal (well, normal for me, at least, which Dr. Steele says is probably how most people feel when they have a seriously bad case of food poisoning), and out of nowhere, I think,
Okay, this is it. These are my last breaths.
I try to have meaningful thoughts, to wish for world peace and the end to childhood famine and Miss America-y things like that, but usually, like now, I think about how I wish I could have a bowlful of chocolate gelato just one more time. I wish I could lie on the beach and get a sunburn, listening to the waves crash against the shore. I wish I wasn’t going to die a virgin.

Mom rushes over to my bed. “Are you okay?” she asks, placing a cool hand against my forehead. I know I have a fever—my skin crackles beneath her touch. In the last year, there has only been a total of about a week that I
haven’t
had a fever.

“I’m in a hospital, Mom,” I say with a weak smile. “So, no. Not so much okay.” I force my eyes open. “Thanks for asking, though.”

“Sassy.” Mom shakes her head, but smiles, too.

I pat the top of her hand. “These stupid pain meds are making me dizzy. I feel like shit.” Mom is quiet, worried lines etched in deep parentheses around her mouth. I jiggle her arm gently. “What, no ‘watch your language’? I must
really
be going to die this time.”

Seeing the look of horror that takes over her face, I want to
reel the words back the second they tumble out of my mouth. “Madelyn
Bell,
” Mom says. Tears gloss her pretty hazel eyes. “Don’t you
talk
like that.”

“Sorry,” I say, with a guilty shrug. She hates it when I joke about death, but for me, it’s the easiest way to deal. Plus, the way I figure it, if I’m happy and laughing, I
can’t
die. God would have to be a total asshole to strike me down in the middle of a giggle.

Mom looks like she’s going to say something, but then Dr. Steele rushes into the room, practically tripping over his long legs. I consider briefly that he and Tiffani, with their superextended, alienlike limbs, might make an excellent couple.

“We got it!” he says, and my mother starts to cry. I must look confused, because then he says, “She hasn’t told you?”

I throw my gaze back and forth between them. “Told me what?”

He smiles, a wide motion that shows his gums, top and bottom, and his big Chiclet teeth. “We need to get you prepped for surgery,” he says. “This is it, kiddo. Your whole world is about to change.”

There is a moment—only a moment, right when she wakes up—when sunlight streams in through the streaked windows of her new apartment and the world is still too fuzzy to tell dream from sleep, that Hannah doesn’t remember. She doesn’t see the shell of Emily’s body as it lay hooked up to machines in the ICU; she doesn’t hear the steady
beep . . . beep . . . beep
of the EKG monitor. Dr. Wilder told her that this was the machine’s heartbeat, not Emily’s. Emily—
Hannah’s
Emily, whom she fed strawberry waffles that morning—was already gone.

Emily is gone.
The weight of this truth lands like a boulder on Hannah’s chest, and suddenly, everything falls clear. She remembers it all, a scene stuck on replay in her head, no matter how hard she tries to stop it. She sees Sophie standing next to her, crying softly as Hannah leans over to kiss Emily’s forehead.

Her daughter’s skin was taut and cool; her head had been shaved for the surgery that didn’t save her. Her eyes were
closed, and there was a black-stitched, horseshoe-shaped incision on her scalp.

“Baby girl,” Hannah whispered. “Oh,
sweetie
. I love you so much.” Her jaw trembled, her entire body jittered. She looked at Dr. Wilder. “Please . . . are you
sure
there’s nothing you can do?” The words caught in her throat like jagged bits of metal.

Dr. Wilder pressed his lips together and shook his head before speaking. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was.”

Hearing this, Sophie released a shuddering breath and crumpled into a chair by the window, shoulders curled forward and her hands over her face. Hannah glanced at her, then back to Emily. She felt strangely hollow, as though her insides had somehow slipped out of her onto the floor. She searched her daughter’s face for some hint of the girl she knew—the girl who scaled the pear tree in their backyard like a monkey, who sketched intricate drawings of dragons and queens, who danced in her room to rhythms that played only in her head.

“Can we wait for her grandparents?” Hannah asked. Sophie had called them when she arrived at the hospital and they were already headed to the Boise airport. Isaac was on assignment somewhere in Hong Kong and hadn’t answered his cell, but Sophie left him a message to call as soon as he could.

“Of course,” Dr. Wilder said. “But I need to know . . . have you decided if she’ll be a donor?”

“She’d want that . . . don’t you think?” Hannah asked Sophie. Her words quaked.

“Of course,” Sophie said, dropping her hands to her lap. “She is such a kind girl . . .” Sophie’s voice broke and tears streamed down her cheeks. Even crying, she was beautiful. Her
red hair lay in a smooth sheet well past her shoulders, and her model-like cheekbones forced you to appreciate her clear green eyes and arched brows. She was the kind of woman other women accused of plastic surgery but was guilty only of exceptional genetics.

“She is, isn’t she?” Hannah said, running her hand over Emily’s smooth cheek.

“Yes,” Sophie said softly. “Kind and generous.” She let loose a heavy breath. “It’s the right thing to do,
chérie.
”

Hannah knew this was true. There had to be something good that came out of this horror. Some drop of joy amid an ocean of sorrow. “What do I need to do?” she asked Dr. Wilder.

“I’ll contact the transplant coordinator,” he said. “Zoe Parker. She’ll take care of everything.”

An hour later, a petite woman with short black hair and a clipboard entered the room and went over the entire process. Confidentiality was guaranteed—all the recipients would know was Emily’s age and city, and that was all Hannah could know about the recipients. “I can tell you right now that there’s a girl here in Seattle who desperately needs a liver,” Zoe said. “She’s been ill for years.” She paused. “Your daughter will save her life . . . and many more.”

Hannah nodded—she opted to donate every viable part of Emily: her heart, her lungs, her liver . . . even her skin to help burn victims—but inside she was screaming,
What about
my
daughter’s life? Why can’t someone save
her? Still, she signed where she needed to sign and wished with everything in her that she could cry. Since her initial tears in the ER waiting room, her breaths had become tight and dry, scorched and cracked as the desert. Nurses swirled around Emily’s bed, injecting
medicines into her IV that Dr. Wilder said would prep her organs for successful transplants. Hannah tried not to think about the surgery, about scalpels slicing into her daughter’s skin. But over the next several hours, as she sat by Emily’s side waiting for her parents to arrive, she couldn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind.