Reclaiming Lily

by Patti Lacy

Or not. Like Kai, PKD robbed Shereen of her appetite. Unlike Kai, who still worked part time, Shereen could no longer hold her executive position at an insurance company. Shereen’s name—and her life—had been posted on the transplant waiting list. Shereen played the waiting game. To a lesser extent, so do I.

  “You’ll be on five.” Erica hustled to the station nearest the window with a view of a small garden. Pots of butterscotch-colored mums stair-stepped a ladder. Whimsical statuary, oblivious to Boston’s winds, rose from a foundation of grass and rotting leaves. Kai’s favorite was a chubby baby, forever tossing flower petals to heaven. Surely God would respond to such joyous wooing!

  “You ready? Kai? Kai!” Erica touched Kai’s shoulder.

  Nodding, Kai focused on Erica’s tender smile so she wouldn’t feel the two needle stings. Of course she wasn’t ready. This was her fourth treatment since they’d implanted her fistula. Not one four-hour session had gone “according to plan.” Twice her blood pressure had plummeted, she’d fainted, and they’d had to pump blood back into her body, causing unexpected swelling. Twice her blood pressure had skyrocketed and stretched four interminable hours into five.

  Unlike Mr. O’Malley, who had for thirty-five years juggled dialysis with a clerk job, or Mrs. Bastrop, who had driven herself to treatment for two decades and went to the beauty shop after her Friday dialysis, Kai experienced nausea, chills, and a tiredness that creaked her bones. She inhaled, exhaled, and whispered a prayer for help. If God answered, she did not hear. Perhaps she was not flinging her petals high enough.

  As Erica finished hooking Kai to the dialyzer, David rushed into the restricted area, bypassing an aide talking on the phone. Gone was his congenial air. His complexion was flushed, his lab coat rumpled. “Kai!” His hands on his hips, he rushed to Kai’s lounger, then stepped back when Erica lasered him with a glare. “What are you doing here?”

  “Plans changed.” Kai tried to infuse her voice with gaiety.

  David glanced toward Shereen, who had buried her head in a fashion magazine, pretending, at least, not to listen. Right.

  “What happened to the carpool plan? Me or Cheryl?”

  “Something came up.” Kai exaggerated a shrug. It hurt to see webbed lines about David’s eyes and know she caused him pain. He caused her pain as well, though he could not help it. “Erica worked me in.” She widened her eyes and sent an SOS to Erica.

  “As you see,” Erica said crisply, “we’re not exactly swamped.” She winked and smiled. “Would you like a cookie, Dr. Cabot? Looks like you need sweetening.”

  David ignored Erica and tapped his shoe. “Hmm. Any objection to me staying till you’re done and taking you home?” Is he staring at me . . . or ignoring Erica?

  Kai felt her insides quiver, and it wasn’t because the arterial line was draining her blood. Nor was it because of the slight hum of the pump, doing its work. Kai struggled with David in his friend role as she struggled with dialysis. Having him sit here, out of pity or a need to be a Christian brother, wreaked havoc on her emotions. What could she say, with Erica holding her breath to hear the dialysis drama, with Shereen’s big eyes peeking over that cover girl swathed in furs?

  “You can stay, David—” Kai grabbed her briefcase, which Erica had set on an end table by her lounger—“and watch me study patient charts. I will take a cab home.”

  “We’ll see about that,” growled David.

  “Good morning, Doctor.” Erica’s voice shrilled.

  Startled, Kai looked up.

  Dr. Duncan, holding a bouquet of violets, strode onto the treatment floor.

  Heat rose to Kai’s face. The poor man had spent enough hours covering her calls, covering her case, having Janine juggle the schedule to accommodate her treatments. To come here on his day off was beyond the call of duty . . . and downright embarrassing.

  “What is this, an American Medical Association meeting?” Erica threw up her hands in mock disgust. Or maybe she was ticked. This was no place for a lounge-type chat.

  “How’s my favorite manager?” asked Dr. Duncan.

  Erica reached for the flowers. “Tell me if those are for me, and I’ll let you know.”

  Dr. Duncan reddened. “Actually they’re for Kai. But there’s always a next time.”

  “For me?” The burn spread to Kai’s neck. Surely Paul didn’t remember her fondness for Joy’s former hair color? She had heard, through office scuttlebutt, that Paul had been a devoted husband who’d thrown his passion into the practice after his wife’s death. Now Kai believed every snippet. Here he was, pampering a lower-level colleague. Wasting his valuable time. Still, he’d brought . . . her favorite flowers. “They’re . . . beautiful,” she stammered.

  Erica raised a can of Pepsi in a mock toast. “Here’s to next time,” she growled, yet her coy smile revealed affection for Dr. Duncan.

  Though Kai also longed to toast, she could only manage a weak wave, already feeling the cramps and chills that were constant companions here. She tried to smile, for Paul’s sake. The man needed a break from the bean-shaped organs that consumed his life. “How are you, Dr. Duncan?” Kai managed.

  He held out the flowers and half-set, half-dropped them in her lap. For a moment he wore the expression of a lost child. Strange, here in his element. “Do you know David? Dr. Cabot?” Kai rushed her words, eager to soothe whatever worried her boss.

  Paul gave David a curt nod, which was returned. Kai swiveled her gaze between the two men, whom she had assumed got along. Obviously she had been mistaken.

  Shivering, Kai opened her mouth, wanting to say something witty to smooth the suddenly chilly room. Or was her body temperature plunging in response to medicine’s best attempts at purifying her ailing renal system?

  “Kai?” Dr. Duncan knelt, one knee on the floor, and pressed his hand against her pulse. She closed her eyes, unable to continue the charade that all was okay.

  “One-thirty and climbing.” Dr. Duncan turned to Erica. “Bring her chart, please.”

  Kai swallowed hard. She could not cry in front of David, in front of Paul, in front of Erica, who labored to please at this thankless job. Rebellious tears trickled down her face. It was maddening to have her weaknesses exposed for the world to see.

  Paul approached David. “Would you mind if I spoke to Kai in private?”

  David’s mouth twisted. Nonetheless, he wheeled, strode to the door, and planted himself at the monitor station. Erica joined him, got Kai’s chart, and then admitted a new arrival. Only Shereen seemed to track every movement of Paul, who sat next to Kai.

  Kai worked up a smile. At least I am distracting Shereen from dialysis.

  “We’ve put you through four of these.” Concern stretched tan lines on Paul’s angular face, making him look every bit of his forty-seven years. Still, he had a craggy handsomeness she seemed to be noticing more often. Perhaps he had begun a new exercise regimen. “The fistula’s not doing any better than that catheter.”

  Painful surgery and weeks of healing, down the drain. Nauseous, she glared at the machine. Like my blood. More tears pooled. It was torture to worry the man she admired more than anyone . . . except old Dr. Ward, who was in the grave . . . or perhaps in heaven.

  “You know what we need to do.”

  Kai shook her head. Felt her lips tighten. Not that. No.

  “Why do you resist?”

  Paul’s question gobbled up Erica’s banter, the new patient’s chatter. David and the aide zeroed gazes at her. Shereen’s magazine plopped into her lap.

  Heat again rose, though Kai shivered as if packed in ice. How strange it was to be assailed by temperature extremes. And mood swings.

  Paul’s chair creaked as he leaned close enough for Kai to see silver hairs woven in dark eyebrows. He cupped her hand in his warm palms. “This isn’t working, Kai.” His thick accent deepened. “Unlike others, you have an option. A slam dunk.”

  “I cannot do that to a young girl.”

  “She is of age; ready, willing, and
able.”

  Kai jerked out of his grasp. “You talked to her?”

  Paul sighed. “No. I just guessed. Looks like I hit the bull’s-eye.”

  “You’re certainly a sports fan today,” Kai snapped, all pretense of keeping her health issues private melting away. Like her control . . .

  “Should I contact her, or should you?”

  Kai gathered her blood lines and moved gingerly to avoid painful tugs. “You cannot do so.” A triumphant smile fell flat. “You would breach privacy agreements, state law. Not to mention receive the censure of the hospital ethics committee . . . of which you are a member.”

  A sneer flirted with his mouth. “So you will sue me? File a complaint?”

  Kai struggled to keep her composure. How dare he meddle in her affairs? To rip Joy from her idyllic campus, where she was acing tests, joining clubs, making friends—Kai eased her arm onto the recliner armrest. No. She would not allow it. “Look for another donor,” she finally managed.

  He clenched his fists. “That makes no sense when we have a hole in one.”

  “Now you have taken up golf.”

  “This is no joke.” He leaned close enough for her to study the color of his eyes. Gray-blue. Or were they blue-gray? “It’s your life.” He rested his hands on her shoulders and looked at her as if they were the only two people in the room.

  Her breath caught, seeing his tight jaw, the muscles cording his neck. No wonder patients, colleagues, staff—she was three for three—idolized this man.

  “With Joy, you’re six for six. It can’t get any better.” A tic started in that jaw. “It’s a travesty to our profession for you to disregard a perfect match.”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders, causing discomfort, as did the truth. If she sought an alternate donor, she would rob a kidney from another desperate soul. She battled an urge to pull at her hair, but that would rip both lines from her arm.

  “Promise me you’ll think about it, okay?” The tan lines softened, the tic disappeared, as if he knew her very thoughts. He would. He had hired her, had supervised her, and now was doctoring her.

  He sounds like Joy. I’ll tell him what I told her. “I will think about it.”

  “Let me amend that. Like Nike says, just do it.”

  “So you can just up and change things?” She would have sat up straight . . . but her body would not let her.

  “You’ve been thinking about it.” Strangely, his voice was tender. “For two long years. It’s time to act.”

  “Okay . . . Paul.” She spoke his name, wanting him to know what a . . . friend he had been to her. Not just her boss, her doctor, but . . . her friend.

  He again took her hand. “Will you think about one more thing?”

  At his touch, she tensed from head to toe, not easy when hooked to a machine. Had he blinked during this entire conversation? She had not. “Maybe,” she managed.

  “Call me Paul more often.”

  After he left, Kai ran her fingertips along the soft petals of Paul’s violets and stared out the window at her statue baby. Oh that the God of heaven would reach down, pull her close, and tell her what to do! About Joy as a donor. About this other thing as well.

  David broke her reverie and sat in the seat Dr. Duncan had vacated.

  Kai’s chest tightened. Here sits that other thing I must deal with. Apparently sooner rather than later.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear what you two were discussing.” Now David, with his slender tapered fingers, cupped her hand.

  Kai risked a glance at Shereen, who was videotaping the dialysis drama with those wide eyes. Great.

  “You should listen to your doctor,” continued David.

  Which one? Her jaw tight, Kai studied the heart doctor who dared act as if he had a say in the matter. “Both of them?” she spat out.

  David’s eyes narrowed. “All of them. Not counting yourself. I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s no good. For your sister. For you.”

  Resentment melted. He does care. They all do. That does not help.

  “But what does God want?” Kai spewed, then clapped her hand over her mouth, surprised at the intensity that welled. “Isn’t that what matters?”

  Confusion made a rare visit on David’s pleasant face. As did speechlessness.

  Kai settled back in her lounger. So Christians do not have all the answers about their God. Yet somehow that does not provide the comfort that I hoped it would. I must navigate my own way in matters of the heart. At least for now. “Thank you for coming, David.” The decision clicked in place and brought a strange settled feeling. “I appreciate it. As I said earlier, however, a cab will take me home.”

  Shereen gasped.

  David tottered, as if unsure whether to sit, to stand, or to leave.

  He took the third option.

  Kai sat alone, except for that strange feeling of closure. She curled into her recliner, stared at her flower-petal baby, and drifted to sleep.

  28

  Gloria sipped the last of her coffee. Caffeine and the lingering warmth of Andrew’s good-bye hug staved off a November chill and a touch of empty-nest blues. Last week, they’d driven to Waco for homecoming and experienced all that parents of a freshman could want: Joy, in her lab rat costume, throwing candy from her “cage” on the Biology Club float, a chatty lunch with Joy’s roommate Caroline and her parents, the Bears, pulling off a win for Andrew and a stadium full of frenzied fans wearing the green and gold. Memories of Joy, wearing a silly “frosh” beanie, made Gloria grin.

  The phone rang and cut through the bubbling of the stew she’d fixed for dinner. She’d best get organized if the position they’d prayed about, she’d dreamed about, came through. She picked up the phone. It could be the director. “Hello.”

  “Have you heard from Kai, Mom?”

  Gloria fell into the kitchen chair. Kai seemed to return her calls during Wednesday night service or her lunch volunteer shift. Gloria suspected Kai’s phone tag wasn’t coincidence. “Actually, I haven’t. Have you?”

  “Huh-uh. Just e-mail. She hasn’t been calling me back.”

  “I’ll try to get through to her.” Or Cheryl.

  “Something just doesn’t seem right.”

  Gloria rubbed the shiny surface of their new portable phone. Like Kai, Joy majored in analytical thinking. “What doesn’t seem right?”

  “I ask her about her symptoms, and she just tells me about her patients. Not lying, but not telling the truth.”

  How well I know that act.

  “I’ve been reading up on PKD. It can get bad fast. Maybe it’s bad.”

  Joy at her best. Blunt . . . but good. “I’ll call right now.” Gloria jumped to her feet, flew to the sink, grabbed a rag, and scrubbed the counter with a vengeance. Her motherly side had prayed this day would never come, but she had known, deep inside, that it would. They would help Kai, no matter what it cost.

  “Thanks, Mom. Call me back. Promise?”

  “Of course, Joy. Bye.” Gloria hung up and punished the counter, as if it were the horrid PKD, which, like germs, could not be eradicated. At least not yet.

  Kai balanced a sack full of takeout food on her knee while she unlocked the apartment door and hurried inside. There stood Cheryl, hands on hips. Staring. With a slam, Kai shut out a biting wind that had ended a week of Indian summer weather. Looks like I’ve run into another storm front. This one named Cheryl.

  “I’ve got Chinese.” Kai unloaded containers of ginger chicken, peppercorn shrimp, and steamed dumplings and pulled plates out of the cabinet. She glanced at the phone, which blinked news of four messages. Will Cheryl notice if I tiptoe over and delete them?

  “You’re not supposed to be eating that.”

  “I had them hold the MSG and salt.”

  Cheryl shook her head, as if to say she didn’t believe a word of it. “Speaking of holding things, you’ve got a few calls.” Cheryl pulled chopsticks and napkins from a drawer and slid onto a barstool. “And
I am not covering for you.”

  Kai studied her roommate, her mentor . . . her best friend. “It’s just so hard.”

  “To do the right thing?” spurted from Cheryl.

  “I asked David if it was the right thing.”

  “When?”

  Kai made a show of studying her watch. “About five hours ago. When he stopped by the dialysis center.”

  Cheryl arched her eyebrows. “I thought you’d changed days.”

  “An opening came up. I just called a cab.”

  “Why do you refuse our help? Why are you shutting out the Powells?” Cheryl pointed a chopstick at Kai. “Don’t tell me they aren’t family or I’ll stab you with this.”

  “It’s not that easy.” Kai’s voice broke as she mounded steaming food onto two plates. “I’ve got Joy to think about.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Cheryl jumped from her barstool, pulled glasses from the rack, filled them with water, and slammed them down. Water sloshed onto tile and drew a sigh. “I’m sorry. Let’s pray. We should’ve done that to start with.”

  Kai hung her head, sorry that she’d involved her best friend in this mess.

  Cheryl took her hand. “God, I thank you for my friend Kai and all she’s meant to me over the years. Make clear the paths for us to walk. Grant us wisdom, courage, and the peace that passes all understanding.” Cheryl squeezed tight. “Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus that you heal Kai, by whatever route you choose. May the food nourish our bodies. May our conversation honor you in every way. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  They shoveled food onto their plates. Though Cheryl ate with her usual gusto, Kai poked at a shrimp and made designs with rice kernels. The phone call she needed to make obliterated hope for a festive dinner and the return of her appetite.

  Kai stared at the blinking light on the answering machine. Finally Cheryl set her napkin beside her plate. “I’ve thought a lot about how to say this, Kai. You know I want only what’s best for you.”

  “I do know that,” whispered Kai.

  “It is wrong for you to lie to Joy.”

  Kai gripped the bar’s tile edge. “I am not lying.”