Chapter 3.
Emma's point of view
I used to pretend that I wasn't really part of the three-ring circus that I call my family, I pretended that I had been left on the doorstep and that my real parents would walk through the door any moment to wrap their arms around me and take me home to my real house. I imagine that I would have a bedroom all to myself, the size of my current living room that I could decorate any way I like and have entire wardrobes stuffed full of all the designer clothes and stiletto heels I could ever wear. I imagine having a chauffeur that could jump into one of a fleet of limousines and take me wherever I needed or wanted to go without having a curfew or spending limit, I could go to all my favourite shops or sports games or fast-food restaurants and wouldn't have to worry about anything. I could have the latest phone without having to worry about the price of the bill and could spend hours talking on it.
The only irony is that the first person I would call to crow over my new fortune would be Lilly.
Lilly has her dialysis sessions three times a week for two hours at a time, she gets hooked up to the machine via her port. Her blood (well if I'm being petty I suppose it's MY blood) leaves her body through one needle, goes through the machine, gets cleaned, and then returns to her body through another needle. Lilly says that it doesn't really hurt her, it's just really boring for her to be tied to her bed for two hours. Sometimes she brings a book or some magazines, or her headphones and laptop but mostly we play games together. While she is immobilised and tied down, I play at being her eyes and ears. Sometimes she dares me to sneak up to the nurses station and listen to their gossip until they catch me or try to flirt with the young male nurse who Lilly has a moderate crush on. I like playing those games most of all, it gives me a taste of what our lives might have been like if Lilly had been healthy.
Today however, she is reading some crappy fashion magazine and I wonder for a split second if she notices that every time she sees a model that vaguely resembles her, she strokes their long hair, or lightly taps the space on their chest where she has a port, and they don't. Isn't it funny how life throws stones instead of lemons at you sometimes?
"This is so interesting!" my mother says as she suddenly comes into Lilly's room, and I see she is holding a pamphlet "Kidney Transplant: the real info" as though I have agreed to the surgery, that or she is trying to convince me to agree to the surgery.
"Emma, Lilly, did you know that they don't remove the old kidney? They just transplant the new one in and hook it all up and that's it?" Mom says, pointing to a diagram.
"That gives me the creeps. Imagine the coroner cutting you open and seeing that you've got three kidneys instead of two!" Lilly shudders.
"I think the whole point of the transplant is so that the coroner won't be cutting you open any time soon" my mother says pointedly, swatting my sister with the pamphlet.
I don't have the heart to point out that the fictitious kidney that they are both discussing is currently residing inside my own body. I've read that same pamphlet from cover to cover, and I think that it is lying. Kidney donation is supposed to be considered 'safe' surgery but in my experience, anything that has been called 'surgery' has never been completely 'safe'
When you donate your kidney you have to fast and take laxatives the night before the surgery, and when you're actually getting the surgery, you are under anaesthesia which can carry risks including heart attacks, strokes, or lung problems. The surgery itself isn't exactly easy either: for a start it can take up to four hours from start to finish, there is a 1 out of 3000 chance that you could die on the table, but if you do survive, you are kept in hospital for up to a week afterwards, but recovery can take up to six weeks. Not to mention the life-changing complications, issues with pregnancy, having to refrain from contact sports as your sole remaining kidney could be damaged, not being able to drink alcohol, and issues with your blood pressure.
Sounds like a riot, doesn't it?
I remember this one time when Lilly was nine and I was six and we had this huge fight and decided that we didn't want to share a bedroom anymore, as Neal was still living with us back then, there was no alternative so Lilly drew a line in red marker down the centre of the room, over the carpet and as far up the walls as she could reach.
"what side would you like? I'll even let you pick" she said as diplomatically as a nine-year-old can be.
"The side with my bed" I answered, thinking I had won the lottery as the side with my bed on it had our television and our barbie dolls.
"Deal. But remember, you've made a promise now and only cheats go back on a promise" Lilly warned
"Deal" I said haughtily as I picked up the tv remote and began to play my favourite movie while playing with our barbies. Lilly didn't say a word, but she sat watching me, almost like how a tiger would watch an antelope before it pounces on it and rips it apart.
She stayed just like that, until our mother called us downstairs for lunch. Lilly smiled at me and walked out of the door… that was on her side of the room.
I went over to the inked line and scuffed it with my sneakers, but it stayed, as vibrant as poppy petals and wouldn't budge. Just when I considered crossing the line and going back on my promise, Lilly put her head around the door.
"Remember your promise. I hope you're not a cheat, Emma" she said as she swept down the stairs and out of my line of vison.
I stood at the line for what felt like hours, but I now think must've been only about ten minutes until my mother came to investigate, obviously perturbed by my lack of appearance for lunch and went to pick me up and carry me over the line
"NO! No! I won't be able to get back in if you do that!" I wailed
She plonked me back down and went away for a few moments and when she came back, she was carrying a basket of old towels, Neal's small sweatshirts, and my dad's massive football jersey which she dropped here and there on Lilly's side of the room and then she beckoned me close and whispered in my ear "It might be Lilly's pond, but these are my lily-pads and I say that you can hop across them to move to a different pond"
And that is exactly what I did, hopping from item to item and laughing at my bending of Lilly's rule, and even now, that memory makes me smile. I remember the times when I looked at my mother and didn't think about the future, instead I thought only of making it down the stairs to enjoy the shocked look on my sisters face when she realises that I got around her rules. I remember just being a kid.
Mary-Margaret's point of view
I can still remember the first time we made the journey to the hospital and at the reception I asked for the oncology ward, all while holding Lilly's hand and hitching Emma on my hip. The receptionist smiles at me sadly but her eyes flicker between my daughters, as though she is trying to work out which one is the sick one. I feel immediately that I am among my own people when we get out of the elevator on the fourth floor and see the arrows pointing us towards the waiting room and ward reception. I see children walking with emesis basins tucked under their arms like comfort items and some are attached to IV poles that click and squeak. These children and their parents have been here before and this settles me slightly, there is safety in numbers.
A nurse showed us into the office of Dr Pan and murmurs that he will only be a minute before she runs off. We wait first ten minutes, then twenty.
"He's late" I say for the fifth time to my husband who looks as though he would rather be anywhere else but here. I take a moment to look around the room and I see a few pictures on his desk of his children, his son holding a prize fish and his daughter on her birthday. I notice a sunflower plant on his windowsill where it languishes, its leaves turning brown and its petals shrivelling up. I certainly hope that he has a better track record with his patients than he does with plants.
Lilly is beginning to look frightened, and I decide that it might be better to see her laughing than crying so I inflate a glove into a makeshift balloon, and we play a complicated game of 'don't-let-the-balloon-touch-the-floor' and sure enough she starts to giggle. On the glove dispenser is a prominent sign warning parents against doing this very thing. Suddenly the door opens, and we are introduced to the man who is going to save my daughters life.
"Mr and Mrs Nolan, I presume?" he asked, directing the question to the nurse at his side more than us.
He catches my balloon one-handed and his face forms a frown
"Well, I can already see a problem"
Taking the sharpie marker out of his coat pocket, he adds a smiley face to the blue latex, even taking the time to add some strands of hair like Lilly's. His face changes into a smile that seems to brighten his whole person
"there" he says as he hands the balloon back to my daughter who takes it with a grin.
"I think that we're all going to get along very well" Dr Pan smiles as he rests his hand on Lilly's head.
My family is disconnected, and that is putting it mildly. My two daughters share a bedroom but are as different as chalk and cheese. My son doesn't even live with me anymore, and my husband spends more time at the station than in his home, though he always answers his phone when I call. I never see my own parents, my mother died when I was nine and my older sister Regina took over the role immediately. Our father did the best that he could but what did he know about nine-year-old girls and how they behave? Regina was my rock and at ten years my senior, was the person I needed when I was growing up. She was the person who comforted me when I skinned my knees, the person I ran to when I got my first period, and the person I loved more than all the world.
Regina lives about an hour and several philosophical miles away from me and that is why I only see her once or twice a year. We don't talk about work as she knows I gave up my job when Lilly first got sick. I don't completely understand what her job entails, but I think she gets paid a hefty sum of money to be generally unlikeable and boss everyone around. She started with me when she was nineteen. Regina became my second mother overnight; she cooked, cleaned, and made sure that we had everything we needed for school. She made sure that I did my homework, filled out my college applications and never gave up. She was smarter than anyone else I knew and always knew just what to say to get what she wanted, she also had to natural skill of observing a disaster and then finding a logical solution to it and it was this skill alone that has made her the success that she is today. She makes everything look easy, so who on earth wouldn't want a role model like that?
She loves her nieces and nephew more than anything, and I know this. She sends them carvings from Africa, wooden animals from Turkey, shells from the Caribbean, and snacks from England. Emma used to say that she wanted an office like her aunt when she grew up, all mirrored, polished, and ordered.
"We can't all be your aunt Gina" I said, when what I really meant was that I couldn't be her.
I think that over the years, we became swallowed up in the distance between ourselves and stopped trying to keep in contact. And it is this reason alone that keeps me from picking up the phone until about a week after Lilly was diagnosed. I dial direct, and her secretary answers
"Regina Mills' Line?"
I swallow hard
"Yes, is she available?"
"She's in a meeting, I could have her call back later on if that suits you?" her secretary simpers
"Please could you go and get her? I'm her sister" I implore, and this nameless faceless woman does just that, leaving me on hold.
Just when I think I have made a terrible mistake and think about putting the phone down, I hear the line click and a velvety smooth voice fills my ear
"Mary… it has been a long time"
Every memory I have of her and I comes flooding back on fast-forward. I remember telling her about the bullies who pushed me over in the playground, feeling my panic at my period ebb away as she held my hand and reassured me, rejoicing with her when I was accepted into my first-choice college and then holding my breath when I told her I was pregnant with Lilly and watching a slow smile spread across her face.
"Gina?" I ask because I am an idiot
"How are you?"