Prologue

My earliest childhood memory is probably me sitting in an OR gallery watching my mom doing surgery. That's pretty much how I spent my days. Watching my mom saving people's lives. They'd come to her for help from all over the world. It fascinated me, how quick she was. She definitely was an artist. I loved watching her, even though some people said I should be in daycare or someplace else because an OR wasn't a place for a kid to grow up. Uncle Ross always said they were just jealous of my mom. And me. Because there were some procedures I understood better than most med students. Well no wonder, she told them to me as bedtime stories. Most people think it's weird to tell your kid about surgery, all kinds of diseases and clinical trials. Especially clinical trials. She once told me that when I was born, she had barely started her research about 3D bioprinted hearts. She said she only had accomplished to put bioprinted conduits into patients. She always said that if I should ever become a doctor and have a trial I shouldn't have kids. At least not at that point in my life. Not the nicest thing to say to your six year old daughter. I asked why she had me if the start of a world – changing trial wasn't the time to have kids. Then she said, "Honey, you are not a regular kid. You are my kid. Of course your timing was bad little lady, but please believe me that I wouldn't trade you for anything in the world. Even if my research would be a lot easier without you." I knew that she didn't mean the last part. I knew her, she sometimes said those things, but she never meant it. Other people weren't as understanding as me though. They'd call her a bad mother and wondered how I was able to live with her. It never bothered me. But I knew it bothered her. She tried, she tried really hard to be a good mother. To be the mother I "deserved" as some people liked to call it. But for me, she was the best mother I could've asked for. In my whole life, there wasn't one day I spent in a daycare. Sure, she always brought me to the hospital with her (I mean it was her hospital she could do whatever she wanted to do) and I'd stay in her office, watch her doing surgeries or play with uncle Ross. She'd spend every free minute with me. And I loved it. Of course I didn't know it any better, but that was my life. And it stayed that way until I started going to school. I went to a very fancy private school close to the hospital. Only then I started to realize that there was more to life than hospitals, surgeries and take – out food. The other kids at school had families. With a mom and a dad (eventually even siblings). I had never had a dad, let alone a brother or a sister. I was actually glad that I had my mom to myself, but I always wondered what had happened to my dad. Of course I wasn't brave enough to ask my mom about him. Men weren't a topic she liked to discuss. In general. The only clues I had regarding my dad was an old picture in her office desk I found once I was waiting for her to pick me up. She had left the drawer open and I could see it from the corner of my eye. It showed her with a tall blonde man. She was wearing a red dress and he wore a suit. They looked very happy, very in love. If the dress hadn't been red but white I would've known that it was their wedding picture. I always wondered if he was my dad. I couldn't really tell just by my looks because the Asian gene had definitely taken overhand. I looked so much like my mother it was almost scary. My dad could've been pretty much everything but black. So I just stuck with my version of the story in which the tall blonde man from the picture was my father but left me and my mom for some reason. I couldn't really be mad at him because I had no idea what had happened before I was born. I just knew that my mom had just moved from Seattle to Zurich and that it had been just the two of us ever since I was born nine months after the move. The only person from her past I had ever met was Shane Ross, who moved to Zurich with her (educational purposes only as she promised me once) and was my frequent babysitter, and Meredith, her best friend who still lived in Seattle with her kids. I never met the kids or the husband (if there even was one I had no idea). Everytime she visited I wanted her to bring her kids because in my opinion, some contact to a person under 30 wouldn't have hurt. But I still liked her. She always brought me gifts and spent time with me when my mom had to work (which was pretty much every day). Work was always very important in our household. School or hospital, a Yang had to achieve greatness in everything. No exceptions. Work was also the reason why we traveled a lot. She always took me with her to her conferences and galas all over the world. I wouldn't admit it now, but I kind of liked the trips. Paris, London, Hong Kong, Vienna, Berlin… I had pretty much seen the whole world by the time I was eight. Except for the USA. For some reason she never took me there. Of course now I know why, but back then I never quite understood why she wouldn't show me her homecountry. All my begging, all my supplication was completely useless. She wouldn't take me to the US. The funny thing was she wouldn't even go by herself. She avoided the States like the plague. Until the day she was nominated for the famous Harper – Avery award for printing a fully functional human heart. She was so excited in a way that would've been appropriate for a person my age (10). Her only problem was that there was no babysitter available except for Meredith and she only offered my mom to drop me off at her place because she couldn't leave Seattle for some reason. So that didn't leave her with a choice. We would both go to the US. I was more than excited. I had no idea that this weekend would change my life. Forever.