After the critical condition notice was issued, I posted three updates on social media.
"Mom, Dad—you used to call me your treasure. But ever since Lavinia came back, I can't even breathe without making room for her. Refusing to give up my kidney and my fiancé makes me unforgivable?"
"I really want to see whether you'll feel even a shred of guilt after you've driven your own daughter to death."
After that one, I tagged my fiancé, Murray Delgado.
"Your love is filthy. I don't want it anymore."
Through the crack in the door, I listened to my closest family curse me, one voice after another.
I braced myself against the wall and shuffled out of the hospital room. From the one next door came the sound of a little girl crying.
A nurse was saying how pitiful the blind child was—her mother had just passed, and now nobody would want her.
The girl couldn't see light. Her mother had died today.
My world had no love. My family didn't want me either.
Why not go be her mother instead?
——
Around the corner, sobs spilled through a half-open door.
"Mommy! Don't sleep! Melody Abbott's scared!"
I peered through the gap.
A woman lay on the hospital bed, her face covered with a white sheet.
A tall man knelt at the bedside, both knees on the floor. His hands gripped the edge of the sheet so hard the veins stood out across the backs of his hands, and his eyes were raw and red.
Beside him, several elderly relatives leaned on one another, weeping so hard they could barely breathe.
A little girl in pink pajamas knelt on the floor, groping blindly.
"Mommy... answer Melody... Melody can't see, I can't find you..."
Her head struck the bed frame. The skin on her forehead swelled red instantly.
The man lunged forward and swept her into his arms, burying his face against the curve of her small neck. His shoulders shook violently.
"Melody, Mommy went somewhere very far away."
His voice was shredded.
"No! I want Mommy! You promised you wouldn't leave Melody!"
The little girl flailed her hands, grabbing at nothing but air.
The whole family surrounded the bed, suffocating in grief.
The same kind of goodbye—life torn from life.
Her mother had died here, and every person in this room would have traded places with her in a heartbeat.
I was dying too, but my family was calculating what price my kidneys would fetch after I was gone.
I looked down at my own skeletal fingers.
I didn't want to live anymore.
But watching this family shatter around the hospital bed, watching their unbearable, gut-deep refusal to let her go, a wild, reckless thought took root in me.
Since none of you can bear to lose her. Since I have nothing left and no will to go on—
Then this life of mine, I'll live it for her.
I pushed open the door.
The crying stuttered to a halt.
Every pair of eyes snapped to me.
I ignored them all. I walked straight to the little girl and crouched down in front of her.
I reached out with a hand riddled with needle marks and caught her flailing fingers.
"Melody."
I lowered my voice.
The room went dead silent.
The man's head jerked up. His gaze locked onto me, sharp as a blade.
His pupils contracted. His entire body went rigid.
The girl stopped struggling. Her small fingers traveled along the back of my hand, up my arm, and finally settled on my face.
She touched my tears. They were ice-cold.
"Mommy? Is that you?"
Her voice was tiny, trembling, desperate with hope.
"It's Mommy." I gathered her into my arms. "I didn't leave."
The girl clung to my neck with everything she had and burst into sobs.
"You're so cold! Melody will warm you up!"
Her small palms pressed against my cheeks. They were so warm.
I lifted my gaze and met the man's eyes.
He stared at me. Shock, suspicion, and the faintest flicker of relief churned behind his expression.
He didn't expose me.
He rose to his feet and murmured something to the stunned elderly relatives beside him.
They covered their mouths, tears streaming, and one by one filed out of the room.
"Come with me."
He pointed at me, his voice tight.
The unlit stairwell.
The man leaned against the wall and struck a cigarette to life, but he didn't smoke it.
The flame guttered and flared, casting hard light along the edge of his jaw.
