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As I was leaving the hospital, his doctor hurried after me, his face pale. He was holding something behind his back so I couldn’t see it.
“Wait! Please, wait!”
⸻
Something in his voice made me stop.
⸻
“Julian gave me this three weeks ago,” he said. “He was very specific. You weren’t supposed to see it while he was alive.”
⸻
Dr. Whitfield led me to a small consultation room off the main corridor, the kind of quiet, carpeted space hospitals reserve for exactly this sort of conversation.
⸻
He set a sealed envelope on the table between us, along with a second, smaller card.
⸻
“I need to explain something first,” he said. “Before you open it. Julian asked me, about six weeks ago, whether directed donation was possible — designating a specific recipient for a particular organ, rather than leaving it entirely to the standard matching system.”
