A/N: I appreciate every review! So thanks to all who comment. Reviews are one of the few rewards fanfic writers get. Well, that, and a temporary relief of the obsession...
[August 6]
Tami, Karen, and the kids settled into the living room while Eric and his father disappeared onto the back porch with a six pack of beer. The elder Taylors had invited the younger over for dinner.
Julie was preoccupied with mothering her uncle. "Dwew," Julie said. "Star!" She held up one of the shapes from his shape sorter toy.
"Arrrr!" Andrew attempted to repeat. He reached for the star. Julie drew it back. He made an irritated, squealing sound.
"No, Dwew," Julie insisted, still unable to say her r's before a vowel. Tami had read that could persist until six years old and still be perfectly normal, and she was only two. Julie was apparently talking very well for a child her age. Other people at the playground always asked Tami, She's how old again? "Dwew, you need to say star now!"
"No!" He grabbed for her hand, and Julie relinquished the object with a frown. He promptly placed it in the shape sorter.
"I bet he's going to end up being called Drew," Karen said. "But I'm always using Andrew."
Tami ignored the small talk. She had bigger things on her mind. "Do you think Garrett is trying to talk Eric out of giving up his kidney?" She peered through the open blinds of the sliding glass door. Mr. Taylor was sitting slightly forward in a deck chair, his head bent toward Eric, talking. Eric nodded, and then his laughter penetrated the sliding glass door.
"Well, I think he's leading up to it anyway," Karen said.
"Yeah. They don't sound like they're talking about kidneys at the moment."
"Do you need some wine, Tami? Let's go in the kitchen and get some wine."
Tami trailed after her. "Did Garrett go to Austin to talk to Wendy's brother yesterday?" she asked as Karen drew out a bottle.
"He did." Karen drove the corkscrew into the wine. "He left at seven in the morning and didn't get back until seven in the evening. Missed an entire day of work."
"Did he get anywhere?"
"The man says he's thinking about offering his sister his kidney."
"What did Garrett offer him?" Tami asked.
Karen smiled and poured the wine. "I think that's something Garrett would prefer to keep to himself."
Tami took the proffered glass. "Surely he told you, though?"
"Tami," Karen said, almost scoldingly, like an adult talking to a child, and Tami was suddenly reminded that this woman was, technically speaking, her step-mother-in-law. Karen treated her often enough as an equal that Tami sometimes forgot.
"I'm sorry for asking," Tami said and sipped. "I just...I'm worried about Eric. And if his father could succeed with this….it would take a lot of pressure off him. He's going to feel guilty if he says no."
"I know. Garrett loves Eric. You know that. He's doing what he can." She took a big sip of the wine. "He even talked to her. Though I gather that conversation did not go well. And he was an absolute bear for the rest of the day." She sighed. "This a weight on him, too. I'm worried about my husband too, Tami. This has dredged up a lot of old pain for him. I wish Eric had never..." She trailed off.
"I wish that too. But maybe when this is all over, he'll at least have closure. It might not have been a pleasant revelation, but at least now he'll never again have to ask himself what she might have been like."
"I don't know how much closure he's going to have if he ends up walking around without one of his kidneys," Karen muttered.
Tami glanced in the direction of the living room and wondered what Mr. Taylor was saying to her husband outside.
[*]
It was after eight when Eric and Tami drove home, and Julie fell asleep in her car seat in the cramped back seat of the extended cab of the pick-up. Tami was driving, because Eric had consumed four of those six beers. Unfortunately, he wasn't happily buzzed. He was quiet and solemn and his expression was a little bit surly.
"We need to get that second car soon," Tami said.
"A'ight. Start looking for what you want." He was staring out the window at the line of slowly moving traffic. An exit had been closed for construction, and there was a back-up.
She glanced at him with concern and then returned her eyes to the road. "What did you two talk about out there?"
"He tried to talk me out of it. He says if I do this, not only might it hurt my career, but it will establish a pattern. She'll ask me for other things in the future."
"And you don't think he's right about that?" Tami asked.
"No, I think he's right. But I also think if I say no, and she dies, I'm going to blame myself."
Tami exhaled. The traffic would have made her tense even without the weighty subject matter. Now she was tense and angry and worried and scared.
"I think, after I do this," Eric said, "I'm cutting off all contact with her, and we should change our phone number. So she can't ask me for anything else."
Tami swallowed. "Does that mean you've decided to do it?"
He buried a hand in his hair and leaned his head against the passenger side window. "I don't know. I just don't know. But she expects an answer at the end of the week. So I have to decide by then."