It took me twenty minutes to pull myself together. Then I looked at the phone again, with determination this time. I needed to change the message. The thing was, I had no idea how to do it.

I wondered, too, what Grace would say. I remembered her reaction when she walked into our bedroom to see that I’d packed all of Sam’s clothing in black trash bags marked for Goodwill. He’d been gone two weeks by then, and I’d felt an extraordinary need to get rid of the clothes he would never be able to wear again. I’d heard that some women hung on to their deceased husband’s clothing for years, but another piece of my heart chipped off when I saw those suits and shirts and khakis and tracksuits in the closet each morning.

“You’re erasing him!” Grace had screamed at me when she saw the bags. I’d tried to hold her—I’d wanted us to cry together—but she’d pushed me away and run to her room. I’d thought, Tomorrow she’ll talk to me, but now two hundred tomorrows had passed and she was as cut off from me as ever. Why had I gotten rid of Sam’s things so quickly? Was it normal? I’d thought it would help, not seeing his clothes in the closet each morning. I hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to see the emptiness in their place.

I picked up the phone and pushed a few buttons, trying to figure out how to change the message. Grace would probably not even notice, anyway. She never used the house line.

I was listening to the instructions when Grace walked into the kitchen. I jumped. I hadn’t realized that she’d beaten me home from school, and I hoped she hadn’t heard my breakdown. From the start, I’d felt the need to be strong for her. Now I turned the phone off quickly, not wanting to change the message in front of her.

“What are you doing?” She stood on the other side of the island, eyeing the phone with suspicion.

“I thought it was time I changed the outgoing message,” I admitted, “but I can’t remember how.”

“To take Dad’s voice off it, you mean.”

I tried to determine if there was an accusation in her words. “Yes,” I said. “I thought it was time.”

She looked at the phone in my hand instead of at me. “I guess.” She reached for the receiver. “I can do it if you want.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

She deftly hit a few buttons, then said, “Hi, this is Grace.” She held the phone out to me and I stared at it, not certain what she wanted me to do. She gave me a look that said, You are a dork, and pressed a button. “I’ll say, ‘This is Grace,’ and you just add, ‘And Tara,’ and then I’ll finish it. All right?”

“Yes. Good.” I moved closer to her, our heads touching. I could smell her shampoo. I was so lonely for that scent. It put a lump in my throat.

“Hi, this is Grace.”

“And Tara.”

“Leave us a message,” she said, and then she hung up. “There.”

“Thank you.” I smiled.

“Anytime.” She picked up an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and turned toward the hallway. I wanted to grab her. Keep her in the kitchen with me. Were you able to get back to sleep after your nightmare last night? I wanted to ask her. Tell me about your day! Who’s your favorite teacher this quarter? Have you spoken to Cleve lately? But I forced myself to keep my mouth shut, because what just happened between us, insignificant though it seemed, felt like magic to me and I didn’t want to ruin it.



21

Anna


Washington, D.C.

Bryan and I sat across the desk from Doug Davis, the transplant specialist at Children’s, as he leafed through Haley’s thick file. He pulled out one of the sheets of paper, set it on the desk and tapped it with his finger. “I have the report on Haley’s bone marrow,” he said, “and unfortunately she has a cell type that’s a bit more challenging to match but certainly not impossible, so there’s no reason to be pessimistic.” He was looking directly at me. Did I look pessimistic? I was scared out of my wits. Was that the same thing?

It felt strange to be at Children’s without Haley. She was with Marilyn and the kids for a long weekend and I couldn’t wait to hear all about it tonight. I was glad she was having a getaway, but three days without her and I was in withdrawal. I missed my daughter. I hated that I’d have to bring her back to Children’s tomorrow for another dose of the maintenance chemo.

She’d called me that morning and I could tell she was having a blast with her cousins. They’d skated at an indoor rink, cheered at Megan’s soccer game, camped out in the backyard, went to the movies and hung out for hours at the mall. I wasn’t crazy about kids hanging out in malls, but I felt like cramming as much fun into Haley’s life right now as possible. If she wanted to hang out at the mall and she was safely with her herd of Collier cousins, well, then, damn it, let her.

“Can you test us today?” Bryan asked Dr. Davis. “I don’t understand why this isn’t being rushed. Why no one’s running in here right this second to swab our cheeks.”

Dr. Davis smiled. He was so young. I woke up one morning and all the doctors I dealt with were suddenly younger than me. “We’ll see if you’re compatible,” he said, “but parents are usually the last resort. They’re rarely a good match. Best, of course, is a sibling. Does Haley have any brothers or sisters?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Bryan beat me to it. “We had another child.” He cleared his throat. Adjusted his glasses. “A girl,” he said. “She disappeared shortly after she was born. We don’t even know if she’s alive.”

His words rocked me. They were my words. The ones I usually said. The ones that made my throat tighten up every time I said them out loud. He hadn’t mentioned Lily once since his sudden appearance in Haley’s hospital room two months ago. Had I thought he’d forgotten our lost child? There was real sorrow in his voice. There was agony. I’d thought I was alone with that sorrow all these years.

“How tragic.” Dr. Davis took off his own glasses. “Both for that little girl and for Haley,” he said. “There’s a one in four chance that a sibling will match. When we get into the general population, it’s closer to one in twenty-five thousand.”

The sudden anger I felt at Bryan—at the world—surprised me, and I struggled to keep it in. If we hadn’t lost Lily, we’d have a one in four chance of saving Haley. It was that simple.

“She has cousins,” I said, wondering how cousins would fit into the confusing picture of who would be a compatible donor and who wouldn’t. “Four girls. They’re Bryan’s sister’s children.”

“We’ll test all of them,” he said. “But most likely we’ll be turning to the global donor database. If any of them are a possible match, they’ll be asked to give a blood sample. Donors are almost always found—” he nodded encouragingly “—it’s just a question of how quickly.”

I thought of all the stories I’d heard of people who died while waiting for a transplant. I remembered a little boy who’d been receiving treatment here at Children’s when Haley was a toddler and how they’d been unable to find a donor for him in time. I began to shiver as if I were freezing.

“We’ll keep Haley on the maintenance regimen until we find the donor,” Dr. Davis said. “The good news is that she’ll probably get some hair back.” He smiled. “At least for a while.”

“Why just for a while?” Bryan asked, and I realized he hadn’t seen her hair since she was a year old. Back then, it had been downy and nearly blond. As a twelve-year-old, she wore it in a messy ponytail, long tendrils of it coming out of the elastic band and falling around her face. She didn’t care what it looked like. I wanted her to reach the age of caring. I’d never really reached that age myself—I was still a low maintenance sort of woman, not even wearing makeup unless I had a speaking engagement. I didn’t care if she was like me or not. I just wanted her to have the chance to figure out what kind of woman she wanted to be.

“When we find a donor, we’ll begin preparing her for the transplant. She’ll have a couple of weeks of intense chemotherapy and radiation, and she’ll lose her hair again. After the transplant, she’ll have at least another month or longer in the hospital and about four months’ recovery at home.” He told us about the isolation area and the extreme hygiene measures we’d have to take in caring for Haley.

“Whew.” Bryan sounded as overwhelmed as I felt. Nothing the doctor was telling us was a surprise to me. I’d done my research. I’d seen other kids and their families on the unit go through this ordeal. But the reality of the situation was only now hitting home for me. Now it was Haley I pictured enduring the ordeal ahead of us.

Bryan and I were pretty quiet in the car on the drive back to Alexandria. We stopped in Old Town for lattes, carrying our cups to a bench on the waterfront. The day was spectacular. One of the white riverboats was docked to our left. It positively glowed in the sunlight and the Potomac River was a sheet of silver in front of us. Everything I experienced in that moment, I wanted for Haley. I wanted her to be able to see that riverboat. To take a ride in it. To sit on the bench and marvel at the silvery water. To taste a caramel latte. I couldn’t seem to see or smell or touch anything without desperately wanting her to be able to do the same.

Bryan and I sat in silence for a few minutes, taking in the view as we tried to digest everything we’d heard from Dr. Davis.

“I’m scared,” I admitted finally. “Even if they find a match, it seems like there are so many things that could go wrong.”

He didn’t say anything right away. He sipped his coffee and stared out at the water. I was about to prod him when he finally spoke.