by Emma Scott
“The nephrologist will confirm, but it’s likely he’s developed chronic kidney disease.”
I fought the urge to bury my head in my hands, but the doctor read my face.
“The early stages of chronic kidney disease show few signs or symptoms. It’s often not apparent until kidney function is significantly impaired.”
The words battered me, but Miller needed me to keep it together. To stay clearheaded and take care of him like a doctor would. “What happens next?”
“The first step is to get him to regain consciousness. The tests will determine what his exact kidney impairment is, and then we go from there.” He smiled kindly. “One of the nurses will tell you when you can see him.”
He left, and Tina bent into my line of vision. “Miller’s mom is on the way.”
“Great, thank you,” I said, trying not to sound as helpless as I felt.
After another agonizing stretch of time, they let me into the ICU room. Inside, Miller was hooked up to a dozen different machines. IVs trailed lines into his arm, and a bedside glucose monitoring system showed his levels. A nurse was bent over him, coaxing him to open his eyes. Underneath his eyelids, they roll back and forth, fluttering open and then closing again. I joined her at the bedside.
“He’s almost there,” the nurse said with a kind smile. “Are you the girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Talk to him, honey. He’ll listen to you better than me.”
“Miller,” I said softly. “Miller, wake up. Wake up and look at me. Please.”
His eyes opened, closed, and then opened again, glazed and unfocused. Then they met mine.
Relief so profound, it nearly took my legs out from under me, swept through me. I took his hand. “Hi, baby.”
His face was still so pale beneath the scruff of his beard. “Vi,” he croaked.
“There he is,” the nurse said. “Welcome back, honey. Let me take a look at you.”
She worked her way around the room, making checks and taking readings, while I dragged a chair next to the bed and sank down into it, feeling a sense of déjà vu. Another hospital, seven years ago.
“What happened?” he asked, turning his head slightly on the pillow.
“The pump malfunctioned and dumped too much insulin into your system,” I said. “Your numbers dropped.”
“That’s the long answer.” The nurse came around to check his IV lines. “Short answer: she saved your life, is what happened.”
Miller’s lips pulled back as he tried for a smile. “She did. A long time ago.”
His eyes fell shut, and I looked at the nurse fearfully.
“He’s just resting, sweetheart. You look like you could use some sleep, too.”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t about to leave that chair for anything, my hand welded to his.
Hours passed, and Miller came awake for a few minutes at a time, then slipped back into sleep. They ran more tests, and I watched Dr. Monroe huddle at the door with the nephrologist, both of them looking grim.
Miller’s mother arrived close to nine pm. I’d only seen Lois Stratton a handful of times when I was in high school. She’d always looked tired and gray before her time. Miller had moved her to a bright apartment in Los Angeles, and now she seemed healthier and vibrant, though her face was painted with worry.
She rushed to Miller’s side, her gaze inspecting him frantically. “I thought he’d woken up. They told me it was a coma but that he woke up.”
“He did,” I said. “He’s sleeping now.”
She sagged into a chair. “My sweet boy,” she said, then looked at me tearfully. “Oh, Violet. Thank you, sweetheart. I’m so grateful you were there when he needed you most. Both times. The night in your backyard and now. The highest high and the lowest low.”
“I should have been with him everywhere in between. The entire time. I could’ve taken care of him.”
“That was my job first.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I left him, too, in a way. I left him to take care of himself. I brought bad things into his life because I was so tired. I needed help and didn’t have any.”
“You did the best you could,” I said.
“And so did you.”
A warm moment passed between us, the two people who loved Miller best.
A social worker entered, carrying a bouquet of flowers. “From someone named Brenda at Helping Hands. I’ll just put them by the window.”
She set the bright yellow daisies mixed with white roses on the windowsill, offered to bring us both coffee, and left.
“Helping Hands?” Lois asked, both of us talking in hushed voices. “Is that the charity Miller’s going to give all that money to?”
I nodded. “For homeless families.”
She smiled sadly. “Of course. He was adamant about doing something to give back. But even before he got famous, he had a compassionate streak in him. Injustice made him sad. And angry. Even as a child.”
“There’s nothing sadder than a birthday cake with only one piece cut out.”
“I can think of a hundred things sadder,” Miller said.
I smiled to myself. “He was like that when we met.”
“He was born with it, I think. Certainly, Ray and I didn’t teach it to him. We were so young when we had him. Hardly more than twenty years old, like you both are now.”
With a soft smile, Lois brushed a lock of hair off Miller’s brow, a reflexive action she’d probably done a thousand times when he was little.
“Once, he and another boy were playing in the sandbox,” she said. “Miller must’ve been three years old; the other boy was a little bit older. This older boy reached out and snatched the plastic shovel out of Miller’s hand and snapped it in two. I hurried over and scolded him, expecting to have to comfort Miller over his broken shovel. Instead, he just looked bewildered. It’s hard to imagine such a look on the face of a three-year-old. He didn’t cry. He only wanted to know why. ‘Why did he do that, Mama?’ He couldn’t comprehend it, the cruelty of it.”
Lois smiled fondly at her son.
“He was that way for a long time. Open. Curious about life. I think that’s where he got his talent for writing songs. He had observations about life, and he wrote them down with music from that guitar Ray gave him. His most prized possession.” She sighed heavily. “But everything changed when Ray left. Miller shut down. Turned guarded. He didn’t want to love anything anymore. If he played music, I never heard it. That broke my heart.”
Lois looked up at me over Miller’s sleeping form.
“And then you came along. You opened his heart, Violet. I know that Evelyn woman gets a lot of credit for discovering Miller, but he sang for you first. You are the reason he has the career that he has. Because he loves you so much, he couldn’t contain it. Even when he pushed you away, I knew. I always knew you were his girl.”
His girl. I’ve always been his girl.
“I think I did, too,” I said, smiling through tears. “Even when I didn’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I opened my eyes to see sunlight streaming in from the window at the end of the small room. My body felt welded to the bed, heavy and weak. Violet was there, her head pillowed on my mattress, her hand clasped in mine.
She hadn’t left my side in the two days since I’d been moved out of the ICU. Two days in which Dr. Monroe and his team performed every test under the sun and gave me the solemn news that my kidneys, like my pancreas, had quit on me. A dialysis machine had been added to the bank of machines in the room, and my name had been added to the miles-long donor waitlist. And because my diabetes would only destroy whatever kidneys might become available, I could only be approved for a simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation.
“A whole do-over in my guts,” I’d said to Violet to try to make her laugh when she’d wanted to cry. She’d held my hand through it all, and that old guilt found me, too, that I put her through this again.
That morning, she sensed my waking and ra
ised her head and smiled tiredly at me. “Hey, you.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“She went down to the cafeteria to grab a coffee. How are you feeling?”
“Ready to get out of here.”
“They said it could be soon. Tomorrow maybe.”
Because there’s no donor match.
She smiled wanly and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Vi, what’s wrong? Aside from…” I waved my hand. “All of this.”
“Nothing. Just tired.”
“You forget I have your every expression memorized. Something’s wrong, and it’s not just my shitty kidneys.”
Violet pretended to think. “That’s a punk band, isn’t it? The Shitty Kidneys? I think they headlined Burning Man…”
“Tell me.”
She plucked a thread on the sheet. “I had myself tested to see if I could be a donor for you. Your mom did, too. But we’re not compatible.”
I pulled her to me. “I disagree. I think we’re really fucking compatible.”
Violet sniffed a laugh and climbed on the bed, burrowing into me. She rested her head against my chest, and we lay in the relative quiet of beeping machines, me stroking her hair that was black against the white of my shirt.
“You’re going to be okay, Miller,” she said. “I’ll to make sure of it.”
“Are you really going to give up being a surgeon?”
“I’m not giving it up; I’m moving it out of my way. I was meant to take care of you, and I will. There’s hemodialysis that you can do at home. I’m going to learn everything I can about it while we wait for a donor.”
I pressed my lips into her hair, kissing her and holding her tight to me. She was making it sound easier than it would be. There was a shortage of organ donors; I could be waiting for years, and we both knew it.
The next day, I was packing my shit to leave while Violet wrangled all the balloons, bouquets, and stacks of get-well cards from fans that covered every available surface of the window ledge.
“It looks like someone emptied the goddamn giftshop in here,” I muttered.
“Your fans love you.” Violet flipped around a card to show me the front. A photo of me in the green room at the Key Arena. “From Sam. Don’t read what he wrote inside unless you’re ready to cry for three days straight.”
“What’s this about crying?” Dr. Monroe entered the room, a tight, strange smile on his face. “No crying when I have good news. A match has been found.”
The card fell out of Violet’s hand. I dropped the shirt I’d been putting in a small travel bag. “What? Already?”
“We need to run a few more tests, but I feel confident we can schedule surgery for the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s amazing,” Violet said, reluctant hope wanting to bloom over her features. “Oh my God…”
“But the Donor Network said the wait time could be years,” I said. “They found a match already?”
“For one kidney and partial pancreas, yes.”
Violet and I exchanged glances. “So, it’s from a living donor,” I said. Pancreases, it turned out, like livers and lungs, could be portioned out to give the recipient part of the organ without harm to the donor.
Dr. Monroe rocked on his heels. “This will change your life, Miller. No more insulin shots, no more highs and lows…”
“Who?” I asked, going cold all over. “Who’s the donor?”
Dr. Monroe shifted. “I’m afraid I can’t speak anymore to that. Confidentiality is of upmost importance in situations like this—”
“Tell me.”
“Miller, I—”
“It’s my dad. My dad’s the donor. Isn’t he?”
Dr. Monroe’s expression shifted, a miniscule wince, and I knew I was right. I sank down on the bed. “Holy shit.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Protocol dictates that you’ll need to speak to Alice, from the Donor Network before any—”
“No,” I said, getting back to my feet. “Tell Alice—tell Ray that I don’t want his fucking donation. Wait, you said we could do the surgery in two days?” My blood ran hot in my veins. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
Violet moved to put a soothing hand on my arm. “Miller, let’s stay calm…”
Dr. Monroe wore a sympathetic expression. “I understand it’s a complicated situation—”
“It’s not fucking complicated,” I snapped. “It’s really damn easy. I don’t want his help. Tell him to go back to wherever he’s been for the past seven years and stay there.”
“You have the right to consent or not for this procedure,” Dr. Monroe said, trying for calm. “But I have to advise you that if you turn this down, you will spend whatever time it takes to find a suitable match with the same dangerous, wildly fluctuating glucose levels, compounded by chronic kidney failure. You’ll need to set aside three days a week to spend four hours a day on a dialysis machine until that donor becomes available.” His face softened. “He’s a perfect match, Miller. One in a million. Please think very carefully before you make any decisions.”
I gritted my teeth and waited until he was gone.
Violet slipped her hand in mine. “Miller…”
“No fucking way.”
“Listen to what Dr. Monroe said.”
“I heard what he said, and I’m not doing it, Vi. When Dad left, I vowed that no matter what happened, I would never need him again. Ever. And I did it. I took care of Mom and…” The emotions were rising in my throat, threatening to choke me. Stinging my eyes. “It’s not right. It’s not fucking right that he shows up after all this time. And when he does, it’s for this? A fucking organ transplant that I’d be an idiot to refuse?”
I went past her to pace the small space in front of the window. A giant aluminum balloon with a yellow happy face drifted in front of me. I punched it out of my way.
“I know,” Violet said gently. “It’s a lot.”
“It’s too much. I can’t say no, right? I’m a fucking idiot if I say no. If I say yes, I betray every fucking thing I worked so hard for.”
She moved to stand beside me. “It only feels that way because you haven’t reconciled with him. Or tried. Talk to him, please. Talk to him first before you decide anything.”
I shook my head, wiping my eyes on the shoulder of my T-shirt. “What the hell do I say to him, Vi?”
“Everything, Miller, that you’ve ever wanted to say to him.”
“That’s too much.” I shook my head, the armor I’d forged in the fire of abandonment reforming around me. “No, forget it. He doesn’t get to do this. This is not how it happens.”
“Miller,” she said, pleading. “You need this. You need his help.”
“Not like this.”
“Miller…”
“I’m checking the hell out of here. I’ll get through this the same way I have for the last seven years. Without his fucking help.”
“And I’m supposed to be okay with this?” Violet said, her voice rising, tears standing out in her eyes. “You’re sick, Miller. And your dad is trying to do what parents are supposed to do. Make it better.”
I closed my eyes, willing her words not to seep in between the cracks in my wall. But I was so tired of fighting. Tired of carrying the pain around with me.
It’s making me sick.
Violet took my hand again, her voice softer, soothing. The voice she would use with her own patients a decade from now.
“You have the right to be angry and hurt, but it’s eating you up inside. Stop holding yourself back from him. Holding back to keep from being hurt never did either of us any good.” She held the back of my hand to her lips. “Talk to him. Not for his sake, for yours. Give yourself some peace.”
I stared at the ceiling, then at Violet’s beautiful face. The anguish in her eyes, the same as it had been seven years ago. The same as it had been every time I pushed her away and hated myself for it later.
But God, how could I look my mom in the eye?
I sh
ook my head. “I can’t do it. Even if I wanted to…” I cleared my throat. “I can’t do that to my mom. It’d be a betrayal.”
“I already know,” Mom said, stepping into the room. “About Ray? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He’s been calling me too.” She smiled kindly at Violet “Can you give us a minute, sweetheart?”
“Of course.” She gave my hand a final squeeze and went out.
“You talked to him?” I asked Mom. “When?”
“Last week. He was asking about you. Worried.”
“And you’re okay, talking to him after so long? After what he did?”
“Not at first. But when you threw Chet out of the house in Santa Cruz, it was like coming out of a trance. I’d let that man hurt you and that was unforgiveable. But you forgave me.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s not the same thing.”
“I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve been,” Mom said. “Chet was gone and it was a second chance. I vowed that I was done letting men dictate my life. When your dad called last week, I was afraid to pick up. But my God, I’m tired of being afraid. So I answered. And I’m so glad I did. We’ll never be friends, but I don’t have to carry him around with me anymore. I let him go.”
“Is that why he’s here now?”
“He’s here for you. No other reason.” She took my hand. “If you want to say no to him, that’s up to you. But don’t do it for my sake. I’m your mother. The only thing a mother wants is for her child to be healthy and happy.” She smoothed a stray lock of hair off my brow. “It’s not too much to hope you could be both.”
The next morning, I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I’d agreed to meet with my dad but not in my goddamn hospital room with me looking pathetic and weak. Someone he felt sorry for. But a glance in the mirror showed I did look pathetic and weak. Pale and drawn and at least ten pounds lighter than when I checked in.
The hospital had a garden on the grounds with winding paths and a Celtic labyrinth painted on the cement. Under a bright sun, I walked the labyrinth, head down, hands in my pockets, following the path that curved in on itself, round and round.
