The Ariana Trilogy

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Josette stiffened at my side. “That’s her, Mom. That’s her! I recognize her voice!”

  “What young man?” I cried. “Where is he?”

  She rolled her head back and forth slowly. “I don’t know,” she said through heavy gasps. “He pulled me out, and then the ceiling caved in. If he hadn’t been wearing those skates, maybe he would have—”

  Josette wailed and ran to the edge of the crater. The woman stopped talking, and her eyes closed. Lu-Lu bent to lift her up, struggling under the weight. “I’m taking her to an ambulance,” she said. “I’m afraid she’s dying.”

  I wanted to help but felt torn. Pauline appeared at our side with the new bridegroom. “Let me help,” he rasped with a voice hoarse from his tears.

  When I reached Josette, a dozen or so men were climbing wearily out of the hole. “I think that’s all there are,” a short, swarthy-looking man said.

  “No! My brother! He’s down there, too!” Josette’s lips quivered as her eyes begged for help.

  He gazed at her kindly. “There ain’t no one else there, girl. And if there was, he’s dead by now.”

  “No!” Josette screamed, echoing my own emotions.

  “He’s down there,” I said firmly, hoping to convince them. I put a detaining hand on his arm. “Please. A lady just told us how he pulled her out. He was wearing roller blades.”

  The man shook his head, and the others did the same. “I’m sorry.”

  A dirty child ran up from the rubble behind them, and it was only by his voice that I recognized André. “My father needs help!” he yelled. “He’s found another.”

  Josette cried out. “Is it Marc?”

  André’s face crumpled, though it was hard to tell beneath the dirt. “He’s wearing roller blades.”

  “Don’t worry, Madame. We’ll get him out,” the swarthy man said.

  The group headed back into the deep recesses of the subway. I scrambled down the rubble and followed. A layer of broken cement and glass covered the area, dotted by unrecognizable pieces of metal. I could see the train ahead, most of which was blackened by fire. It was through this and to the other side that André led the men. I held Josette back and clasped André to me before he could protest, not wanting him to risk his life further. His face was a mask of devastation, as if he had seen too much. I ached to comfort him. This was an experience that would mark him for life, and I knew that Marc’s survival was important not only for himself but for my sensitive André. I didn’t want him to become an angry adolescent, bent on punishing the world and himself for the horrors he had seen.

  Now that they knew where to look, it took only minutes for the men to lift the rubble covering our son. Jean-Marc appeared from the wreck of the train, cradling a deathly still Marc to his chest. He was unconscious, but when we removed his helmet, we could see no signs of head injury.

  “He’s still breathing,” Jean-Marc said.

  “If he lives, it’ll be because of that helmet,” the swarthy man said. He and the others headed back to the rim of the hole, and we followed more slowly.

  “Josette, run ahead and get a doctor or an ambulance worker,” I said. “And a stretcher.” She obeyed quickly.

  Marc moaned and coughed, but he didn’t open his eyes. He looked worse with each passing minute. “A blessing,” I whispered urgently. “Give him a blessing! André, help me clear a place.”

  Jean-Marc laid our son on the ground, with his head cradled in my lap. No one paid attention to us as Jean-Marc reverently said the words of the prayer. No great claim of healing came, just the understanding that circumstances would depend on our faith.

  As we finished, Josette returned with two ambulance workers and a stretcher. They worked over Marc, taking his vital signs and inserting an IV. Before taking him to the ambulance, they removed the roller blades and left them on the ground. Josette swooped them up and held them tightly to her chest, her face pale and strained. I noticed they were the new ones Jacques had sent at Christmas.

  “Go with him,” Jean-Marc said to me. “I’ll bring the children along in the van.” I cast him a grateful smile. Holding onto Marc’s limp hands, I watched my family fade from sight through the small window in the back of the ambulance.

  Upon arriving at the hospital, Marc’s vital signs deteriorated rapidly, and the emergency room doctor rushed him into surgery. Despite my badgering, the nurses could tell me nothing of his condition. Details of the bombing filtered to me as I paced in the waiting room along with families of the other victims. Eight people were dead and thirty-three hospitalized, four of whom were in critical condition, including the beautiful woman Marc had risked his life to save. Nearly a hundred others had been treated for minor wounds and released.

  Jean-Marc, Lu-Lu, and the children arrived. I felt some comfort in my husband’s embrace, but without Marc’s laughing face, the room felt empty. Josette still clutched the roller blades, and André’s sullenness surfaced once again. Of the whole family, Pauline was the most calm. “Heavenly Father will take care of Marc,” she said confidently.

  “You don’t know that,” sneered André. It was the first time I had ever heard him talk that way to Pauline.

  But she smiled, half mysteriously. “But I do. He always takes care of us.”

  “Like He did your parents!” André didn’t wait for her reply but whirled and ran from us.

  “He doesn’t understand,” Pauline said softly, staring after him.

  “I’ll try to find him,” Jean-Marc said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I nodded. “And I’ll call my parents.” But after waiting my turn at the pay phone, there was no answer in their apartment. I left a message on the machine and hung up.

  The doctor came out from where he had been for over two hours with Marc. “We’ve stopped the internal bleeding,” he told me. “Only there are some other complications.” He paused and glanced briefly at the television in the room.

  The camera crews showed some of the nearly two thousand policemen and soldiers with machine guns patrolling the streets from Paris to the western sea coast. Policemen stopped cars for random searches, and others erected large barricades around schools throughout all of France, fearing an attack similar to the one on a school in Lyon several years before. People avoided the subway stations, especially school children, causing the roads to be packed with both cars and pedestrians. Taxis were in constant use. The news reporter interviewed people on the streets near the bombing; excitement and fear vied for dominance in their faces.

  “Marc’s kidneys are severely damaged,” the doctor continued, dragging his eyes away from the surrealistic report. “He’s stable, and for now we can use dialysis, but we’ll need to find a kidney for him.”

  “What!” My initial relief had turned to dismay. I couldn’t believe I was hearing his words correctly. Marc had to be all right!

  “When the cement from the bombing fell on him, it damaged his kidneys to such an extent that they cannot function. It also caused a great deal of internal bleeding, and frankly, I’ve seen less severe cases die on the operating table. But he’s a strong boy, and I think he’ll pull through.”

  “If we find him a kidney,” Jean-Marc said, almost bitterly.

  “Even without,” the doctor clarified. “People can use the dialysis machine for months, but they are not the ideal. All his blood will have to be purified at least three times a week, and it’s taxing for the body. He probably won’t have the same energy as before, and the treatments will leave scars on his arms.”

  Lu-Lu nodded. “I knew a man who was on dialysis for a year and was scarred from his wrists clear up his arms, and even on his legs. It was horrible. They are deep and ugly scars, and to this day he won’t wear a short-sleeved shirt because people stare and ask questions.”

  “She’s right,” the doctor said. “Dialysis has saved many lives, but it’s not easy or pretty.”

  Josette let out a small cry, voicing my own turbulent emotions, and the doctor looked at her k
indly. “I only tell you these things to prepare you. You’ll learn a lot more along the way.”

  “What exactly does a kidney do?” Pauline asked.

  “The kidney cleans and filters the blood, helps red blood cell production, regulates blood pressure, and several other things. It is vital to your body, but we can now use a machine to do some of the work the kidney usually does.”

  “Isn’t there any other way to clean the blood?” I asked.

  “There are portable machines, which are less expensive, but they are all just a temporary fix. Nothing is as good as a kidney.”

  “So how do we get a kidney?” I asked. Fear strengthened my resolve. Now that I knew my son was going to survive, I would somehow find the best for him. The faintness that had overcome me with the doctor’s announcement was already vanishing.

  “There are two ways you can go about this,” the doctor said. “And, of course, you’ll have to discuss the options with your own doctor as soon as you can. You can either find an organ donor from an accident victim or use a family donor. In the case of an outside donor, we put Marc on a waiting list and start praying. When a kidney becomes available, it is given to the patient whose tissues are the best match, meaning there is less chance for rejection. Of course, in any case immunosuppressive medications have to be taken for the rest of the patient’s life. Rejection can occur suddenly, even after many years. The good news is that kidneys are the most common of transplants and are often the easiest to maintain.”

  I couldn’t see anything easy or common in the situation. No one I ever knew had needed such a treatment. Despite my determination to be strong, I longed to cry until there were no more tears left.

  “What about the people who died in the bombing?” Marie-Thérèse asked softly. “Could any of them be a match?”

  The doctor lowered his voice. “I looked into that before coming to talk with you. Of the eight people who died in the accident, all but two are beyond transplant hope. Of those remaining two, one of the families refuses to let any organs be used, and the other has both kidneys already on the way to other hospitals for people who need them. But it’s unlikely they would have been a decent match anyway, and they won’t throw away a perfectly good kidney on someone who is likely to reject it. Marc’s blood type is fairly rare, which complicates things. Are any of you the same blood type?”

  “I am,” Jean-Marc spoke up quickly, his face alight with hope. “I’ll give him a kidney.”

  “Is there anyone else?” the doctor asked. “Though parents often give kidneys to their children, sibling donors are usually better matches.”

  “No.” I shook my head. The girls, André, and I had a more common blood type.

  “And they have to be at least eighteen,” the doctor added. That would exempt all of the children, anyway.

  “My mother has the same blood type,” Jean-Marc said.

  “How old is she?”

  “Nearly seventy. But she’s not in very good health. She has diabetes, among other things.”

  “Then she wouldn’t be a likely candidate.” The doctor smiled. “But you seem healthy enough.”

  “Can we see him?” Josette interrupted. It was what I wanted more than anything right then.

  The doctor regarded her for a minute. “You must be his twin sister.”

  “Yes,” she answered softly. “And it’s my fault. I didn’t stop him.”

  “You can’t blame yourself,” the doctor said. “He was awake before the operation and mentioned you. He said to tell you that he was wearing his helmet like he promised. Personally, I think that’s what saved his life.”

  Tears dimmed my vision. Josette had taken care of Marc!

  “You can see him for a few minutes,” the doctor said, “but he won’t really wake up for a couple of hours. Keep it quiet.”

  We waited until nearly midnight for Marc to awaken. Though he acted groggy and said little that made sense, at least he recognized us. We were all so grateful for his life that we knelt down right then and there, thanking our Father in Heaven. When Marc fell back to sleep, we left the hospital. Lu-Lu had gone on ahead with Pauline, but Marie-Thérèse and Josette had stayed with Jean-Marc and me. We had no idea where André was but hoped he had gone home.

  “Ariana!” It was my father, coming toward us, seemingly out of nowhere. It surprised me that he hadn’t come earlier.

  “When did you hear?” Tears sprang to my eyes, and I wanted him to hold and comfort me as he had when I was a young child.

  He came toward me, his unsmiling face gray under the stark white of his hair. Wrinkles stood out clearly on his brow and around his eyes. He looked older than I had ever seen him. “I’m sorry about Marc,” he said. “I didn’t know, or I would have come sooner. But that’s not why I’m here.” He paused before rushing on. “Your mother’s missing. I’ve been searching for her for hours.”

  “But where could she be?” Now at least I understood why they had not been in contact.

  “There was a message on the machine.” His expression was pained. “She said that I loved the Church more than I loved her.” Those were the same words my father had said to my mother when she had wanted to join the Church eleven years earlier. Now they had come back to haunt him.

  “She’s not here,” I protested.

  He frowned. “Not listed. But two of the bombing victims have not yet been identified.”

  My heart nearly stopped beating, and I felt the blood drain from my face. The all-too-vivid picture of the weeping bridegroom identifying his wife by her wedding ring came to my mind. My mother had left the café on foot shortly before the explosion. Depending on what she had done before heading to the subway, she might have been caught in the worst of the blast. Perhaps she had even paused that fateful few minutes to leave a message on the answering machine. No wonder my father appeared so ill!

  No! I thought. No!

  The possibility was too much for me to take. The room wavered and spun, and for the first time since I was eighteen and pregnant with my first child, I fainted.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jean-Marc must have caught me as I fell, for he was holding me as I awoke. A nurse waved a foul-smelling mixture under my nose. I opened my eyes and gasped, pushing her hand away. The girls and my father stared at me anxiously. Jean-Marc stroked my cheek. “I’m taking you home,” he murmured in my ear.

  “When was the last time you ate?” the nurse asked. “You’ve been here all evening with your son.”

  “I’m fine. But my mother . . .”

  My father’s jaw tightened. “I’ll take care of that. I should have been more careful in telling you, what with Marc’s accident and all. Don’t worry, everything will be all right.” He kissed my cheeks. “You go on home now, and let me worry about your mother.”

  Marie-Thérèse had found an apple somewhere and gave it to me. Jean-Marc and Josette helped me out to the van, though I felt all right now that the original shock was fading. At home, Pauline and André—who had gone home after all—slept peacefully in their beds, and Lu-Lu was in the guest room. We woke her up, but she had heard nothing from my mother. Jean-Marc offered a prayer, and we snuggled together in bed. To my surprise, I slept soundly and without bad dreams. When I awoke, Jean-Marc was in the kitchen, and my father was on the phone.

  “They’re not your mother,” Jean-Marc said. “The burned bodies at the hospital. One turned out to be a man, and the other is wearing jewelry that isn’t your mother’s.”

  I sagged against him wearily. “Thank heaven!” Of course my mother was still missing, but she was a grown woman and could take care of herself. Most likely her anger toward my father had prompted her to stay at a hotel that night.

  Later that morning, Jean-Marc and I met with a transplant specialist our regular doctor had recommended. Dr. Albert Juppe was about the same height as Jean-Marc but stocky, with plump fingers and black hair. As we entered his office, he sat back in his chair, seemingly relaxed; yet his intense black eyes showed
concern for our son and love of his work, inspiring confidence. In a concise manner, he explained the specific details of kidney transplants. Because of his age and good health, Marc was an excellent candidate for a transplant, though he might have to wait for more than three years because of his rare blood type.

  “You see,” Dr. Juppe said, “there are several types of matching and tissue typing we must do to match a kidney with a recipient. One is blood type, and the rarer yours is, the longer you usually have to wait to find a match. Other typing can help determine which of the people on the list within the same blood type will be a better match for the donor kidney. One of these tests, called human leukocyte antigen typing, or HLA typing, is a blood test that determines if the two people involved have similar antigens.”

  “Antigens?” I asked.

  “Yes. Each person has six different antigens, and we try to find as close a match as possible. Having all six match would be like having your identical twin give you one of his kidneys, and it doesn’t happen often. A family member, especially a sibling, is generally a closer match than a total stranger. Though we can transplant when there are zero matches, the better the match, the less immunosuppression medication you have to take. In the case of the list, there are a number of factors involved, but Marc will most likely be waiting a long time.

  “Your best bet would be a family donor,” Dr. Juppe continued. “Though I have to tell you at this point that one of the patients at the hospital, who is in critical condition, seems to be a good match for Marc.” He glanced at the papers in front of him. “A Madame Danielle Massoni, whose husband gave permission for me to talk with you about the case.”

  Massoni. The name was familiar to me, but I couldn’t place why.

  Dr. Juppe cleared his throat. “Danielle is listed as a future donor, though like Marc, one of her kidneys was irreparably damaged when the debris from the bombing fell on her. But because Marc is at this hospital, it is very possible he could receive her remaining kidney, especially if you talked to the family. Knowing you, they could request that the kidney be given to Marc.”