Page 14 of Serenity
“What?” My mom’s head jerked up, and she yanked the letters from my dad’s hands. Her reaction answered any questions I’d had about her possibly knowing about Faith’s connection to Declan and that being the reason why she’d reached out to her in the first place. “Faith’s kidney came from Declan? That’s what your argument was about? No wonder she was so distant with us when we tried to talk to her onThursday.”
“She must be the patient the surgeon was talkingaboutwhen—”
“You’re right. She has to be,” my mom interrupted my dad as she glanced down at the letters. “There was a doctor who came in to talk to us about donating Declan’s organs. He explained how the process worked and how many lives we could save if we agreed. But we struggled with the decision because it meant saying goodbye to your brother. And then he made itpersonal.”
My dad continued the story when my mom couldn’t go on because she started to sob. “He told us about a young girl they’d been treating who was likely to never get a transplant because she was too much of a risk. She didn’t have any family to help her after the surgery, and the odds of her making a full recovery were slim. He said that her only chance was a direct donation, but there wasn’t anyone in her life who cared enough to make that kind ofsacrifice.”
“When we agreed to allow Declan to be a donor,” my mom sniffled. “It was under the condition that she was one of the recipients if they were a match. If your brother was going to save lives with his death, we felt that he would have wanted one of them to be someone who wouldn’t have had that chance without him. You know how he always loved to root for theunderdog.”
They were right. If Declan had been alive to make the decision, he would’ve wanted to save someone like Faith. I could understand and respect their decision to donate his organs, and their story explained how Faith had gotten her kidney when she’d thought it was impossible. But there was still one detail that didn’t make sense to me. “But how was that even possible? You guys told me he died in the crash. Faith’s transplant was a month after that. The only way his kidney is inside her is if you guys lied to me. But why would you do that about something as important as Declan’sdeath?”
My parents shared a long look, and my dad nodded before my mom turned to me again. “The doctors had warned us that your recovery was going to be incredibly difficult. We’d been preparing ourselves for that, and then you woke up and your only concern was Declan. Not yourself, even though you were hooked up to so many machines and had to have been in pain. You were desperate for us to tell you aboutDeclan.”
“Because I needed to know what happened to him. He was my twin. I deserved thetruth!”
“I’m sorry we lied to you, Dillon. But we didn’t feel like we had much of a choice because we didn’t think you could handle the truth.” I shook my head at my dad’s confession, refusing to believe it. He hurriedly explained more about why they made the decision they had. “The psychiatrist we talked to said it was likely that you would struggle with survivor guilt. We expected it to be worse because of the circumstances surrounding the accident, and we were right. You blamed yourself, no matter how often we told you it wasn’t yourfault.
“We had just lost Declan, and we were desperate to make sure we didn’t lose you too,” my mom cried. “So we told you what you needed to hear to make sure that didn’thappen.”
“It would have devastated you even more to know that he spent a month in a hospital bed next to you but didn’t survive. You had a hard enough time dealing with his loss when you thought he died in thecrash.”
I couldn’t deny the truth in my dad’s words. Not when the one thing I’d held onto for so long was the fact that Declan hadn’t suffered. It destroyed me to know that wasn’t the case, but it would’ve been worse if I’d known itbackthen.
I dropped my head and stared at my hands while I tried to come to terms with the actual truth and not the story my parents had fabricated in their attempt to protect me. “It’s going to take me a while to wrap my head around the fact that you guys lied to me forsolong.”
My mom stifled another sob and choked outmyname.
“Later, Elaine. Let him come to terms with this first,” my dad murmuredsoftly.
My head jerked up and I searched both their faces, trying to figure out what he could be talking about. “Laterforwhat?”
“To push you on how you’re dealing with Faith being the recipient of Declan’s kidney. How she’s holding up since we backed off when it seemed like we were the last people she wanted to talk to about your fight. You know how your mom likes to meddle, but now isn’t the time. Not while you’re dealing with what we’ve already told you. It’s enough for the time being. Anything elsecanwait.”
“It’s not meddling to worry about how he and Faith arehandling—”
She paused as though she couldn’t figure out the right word to use, and I filled in the gap. “Our strangeconnection?”
She sighed and nodded her head. “I can see how you’d feel like this changes everything between the twoofyou.”
Shit. That wasn’t the kind of meddling I’d been expecting from her. I’d been hoping for words of wisdom that would help me come to terms with the fact that Faith had Declan’s kidney. Not understanding andagreement.
