Chapter 16

Life sucks then you die.

-T-shirt

Reed

“The damage is too severe,” the physician, Dr. Albert Morris, that had taken over Krisney’s case said. “Her liver function, as well as kidney function, are at less than fifteen percent at this point. It’s been less than eight hours. I expect, by this time tomorrow, all function will be non-existent.”

“So, what does that mean?” I asked.

I knew the basics, of course.

I’d become an MD, after all.

But I was hoping, despite knowing, that he’d have an alternative that I hadn’t thought of yet.

“She needs a new kidney, and a new liver,” he told me bluntly. “There is no other option for her at this point. With one, or the other, we could’ve worked with it. With both, as well as her weakness from the birth…well, her prognosis is not good.”

With that heartbreaking, final news, he patted me sharply on the shoulder and left the room, leaving me looking at the broken woman who had just had her life taken away from her.

***

I slammed through the last of the hospital doors and came face to face with my entire family.

They were all standing there, looking at me expectantly.

“She’s dying.”

“What?” That was Travis.

“Dying. They expect her liver and kidneys to fail by this time tomorrow, if not sooner,” I told them, feeling numb.

“There’s nothing they can do?” Dante asked.

I couldn’t even scrounge up enough happiness to see Dante there. He’d been practically non-existent in our lives since his family had died…and now I knew how he felt.

I closed my eyes as tears threatened to take over.

“She can get a new kidney, as well as a new liver,” I said. “But the donor registry won’t accept her at this moment in time. She’s too high risk. They have other, more healthy candidates that would have a much higher percentage of surviving at this point that they won’t even consider her.”

“Test us,” my brother said.

I looked over at Baylor.

I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

“It’s not that easy,” I said. “There has to be an exact match. Exact.”

“How will you know unless you try?”

That came from Hannah, Travis’s wife.

She was right.

“But y’all have kids,” I said. “Young babies…”

“Test us.”

That came from Evander.

I dropped my head even further into my hands. “I’m headed down there myself.”

***

What felt like days later, but was likely only hours, the nurse walked in with a giant smile on her face.

“You’re a perfect match,” she said, handing over the papers.

I took the papers and scanned over them, making sure that they weren’t fucking with me.

Not that I thought they would, but this was better than anything I could’ve ever hoped for.

“I’m a perfect match.” I handed the page to Dr. Morris.

The doctor looked over my test on his own this time and nodded his head.

“Perfect,” he agreed.

My eyes closed, as relief poured through me.

The last eight hours, as we all waited for the results of our tests, had been agonizing.

Each hour that passed, I watched Krisney deteriorate just a little bit more.

“Do it now.”

“No!”

I looked over at my mother, not feeling a thing.

“Yes.”

“No.” She stood up. “I’m not losing another one of my children!”

The room went absolutely quiet.

Anger poured over me, though.

“You can’t mean that.”

My mother crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ve had two of my children die, Reed Hail. I’m not allowing you to do this,” she persisted. “You won’t understand…”

I stood up.

“I won’t understand?” I asked. “I have two children, right now, fighting for their lives. The woman I love, the woman I’ve loved since we were young, is now fighting for her life and likely won’t make it until tomorrow without me. I’m doing this, whether you like it or not.”

She turned her back on me. “Well, then I won’t be here when you do it.”

With that she left, leaving me to stare at her in disbelief that she said what she did.

“Thank fucking Christ you finally admitted it,” Travis muttered. “It’s about fucking time.”

I looked over at my brother, surprised to see not just him, but my entire fucking family, standing there.

“What?” he asked.

That was when Baylor, my other brother, entered the conversation.

“Takes her almost dying for you to say something,” Baylor muttered.

“Y’all…” Baylor’s new woman, Lark, said. “This is not the time.”

No, it wasn’t.

I turned toward the doc. “Tell me what we need to do.”

“Insurance…”

I waved that off. “I don’t care. I don’t care who gets billed for it. Yes, I have an emotional attachment to the patient. No, I don’t care if it’s going to be a problem. Just get it done.”

“Get ‘er dun!” Travis teased.

“Umm,” the transplant specialist said to the family members in the room. “Would you mind waiting outside? We have some things to discuss.”

I flipped Travis off discreetly as he left, no longer in the same state of mind that I’d been in earlier thanks to knowing that I wouldn’t have to watch the love of my life die.

He started to laugh and went back outside, waiting for me to come out and let everyone know what was going on.

“Tell me what I need to know.”

***

Krisney

"Don't do this."

My eyes fluttered open, and I struggled to keep them open as I looked around the room.

"Give me one good reason, Mom."

A flutter of happiness flitted through me.

That was Reed's voice. It didn't matter where I was, or what I was feeling. The man's voice always made me happy.

Always.

Sad, hungry. Dying.

It didn't matter. The man had a way about him.

"You could die," Reed's mother snapped.

Silence followed that proclamation.

"If I don't do this, she'll die.” He paused. "I don't think I could survive her death, Mom,” he growled in frustration. “I could die crossing the street on the way to get coffee in ten minutes. Tomorrow, I could not wake up, having passed away in my sleep. I know better than anyone that life isn’t always promised. I have to do it. I have to save her, even if that means giving her everything I have to give.”

Something terrible started to churn in my belly.

What were they talking about?

"A hepatectomy is a big deal, Reed. This isn't just a surgery that you get up and walk away from. And we aren’t even mentioning the probability of a kidney transplant, also.

“Not to mention the potential bleeding problems you could suffer once you've gone through with the surgery,” she continued. "And honestly, you have two children now. It's time to stop thinking with your heart and using your brain. They need you."

Children? What?

And then it all came back to me in one huge blow straight to my heart.

I'd gone into labor. But the labor hadn't been normal. Everything had been wrong. The doctors couldn't get my contractions to stop. My liver and kidneys were failing. And I'd had to deliver our babies eight weeks early.

Oh, and I was dying.

My head moved, and I found him.

Reed was sitting at the end of my bed, pouring through a chart. His eyes were scanning the pages like only a doctor would. A doctor that was trying desperately to save a patient. He was searching for something that he wasn't going to find.

"Mom..."

"You haven't even seen them!” He hadn't?

"You haven't gone to see them?"

Reed and his mother's heads snapped toward me.

Reed was on his feet moments later.

"I haven't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to see them without you. I want you with me when we see them for the first time. I don't want to experience that alone."

"Reed..."

"You're getting a new kidney, and part of a liver."

"Whose?"

If I remembered correctly, my prognosis wasn't good. And they wouldn't even put me on the donors list.

So, if I was getting a liver...it had to be from someone I knew.

Reed.

"Reed, no," I whispered. "You can't."

"It's not that I don't want you to live."

My eyes moved to his mother.

"What?"

"I have never blamed you."

Tears started to form in my eyes.

"I don't want him to do this, either." I swallowed. My voice sounded so weak, and it was scary.

"I love him more than life, but I would never be okay with this. And you're right. He has someone—two someones—to live for now."

She smiled at me sadly.

"You'll always come first to him.” She looked down at her hands. "He’ll do anything to make you happy. Even going to see his babies that he refused to see because he wanted to experience that with you."

I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

"I'm going to die."

Her eyes sliced to mine. "Then you'll take him with you."

I looked away. It was the hardest thing to do in my life.

"You never saw him like I saw him after he broke up with you. But he's never been the same since. He loves you. Has never stopped loving you." I heard the tears in her voice. "That day irrevocably changed so many lives. My daughter's. Your brother's. Yours. Reed's." She cleared her throat.

"Nobody more than yours and Reed's, though.” She exhaled. "I'm happy and sad to have him back. And the reason I have him back is because you're dying. I don't know what to say. What to feel."