“What?”
He swallowed.
“Would you still have donated if you’d known everything from the beginning?”
I thought about Lenora.
My grandmother.
My mother’s letter.
The scar across my body.
The marriage built around a laboratory report.
The years stolen from us.
Then I answered.
“Yes.”
His face twisted.
“Why?”
“Because you never understood the difference between us.”
“What difference?”
I opened the door.
“You thought my kindness made me easy to use.”
I looked at him one final time.
“It never occurred to you that I could be kind and still survive you.”
Then I left.
Two years after the surgery, Lenora and I stood together outside the original Bromel building beneath a cold October sky.
Workers had removed the old brass plaque.
A new one waited beneath a cloth.
Reporters gathered on the sidewalk.
Former employees stood nearby.
So did transplant recipients, donors, nurses, attorneys, and families.
Lenora squeezed my hand.
