“Yes, I’ve got Spencer.”
Ellie smiled at me. “I’ll be right back.”
She left the room and slid the door shut.
A few minutes later, a nurse came in and took Cricket for an ultrasound, returning her in half an hour.
When they settled her back into place, I leaned up and pressed my face into Cricket’s neck. I smelled her, felt her warmth, listened to her inhale and exhale and kissed her throat then sat back down. I needed all my senses to recognize her.
“Tell me the truth,” I said, my voice shaking. “Was Ethan your living donor?”
Her body went still and she studied me for way too long.
“Cricket,” I pleaded.
She audibly sighed. “He was. No one matched me except Pop Pop, and he was denied because of his age. Ethan was willing.”
My eyes stung severely. “I caused that.”
“You didn’t,” she said, palming my face. She bent forward and kissed my mouth. “I chose to release him, Spencer. It wasn’t fair for me to ask that of him when I wasn’t in love with him the way he was in love with me.”
“Oh God,” I lamented, kissing her hand. “I’ve ruined your life.”
“Spencer,” she spoke quietly, “you haven’t ruined my life. You’ve awakened me.”
I shook my head.
“Don’t argue with me, Spencer. I know the truth when I see it.”
“How long does it take to get a kidney, and when do you need it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. It all depends on what Dr. Caldwell finds.”
I nodded, ready to hear the truth, and if push came to shove, I’d crawl on my hands and knees to Ethan and beg him to consider donating.
She turned silent, reflective. “What’s up, buttercup?”
“I was just thinking about Eugie,” she said sadly.
“Cricket,” I sighed, “he was a good boy, a very good boy.”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “He was old reliable.”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
She started telling me pleasing and hilarious stories of times she and Eugie got into mischief, how Ellie would punish her, which would indirectly punish Eugie, and how he would complain to her grandmother by whining at her door at night.
I laughed with my whole gut when she recalled a particular incident in which she had decided at eight that she wanted an ice cream. She said that Ellie told her they didn’t have any and that they’d have to go into town later to get some because she was busy.
Well, apparently Cricket figured it was not at all unreasonable to take Pop Pop’s truck out to drive into the town for her grandparents.
“You know, because they were busy and all.”
Anyway, she said she got to the top of the hill at the end of the drive and she had to come to a stop because she saw Eugie running alongside her, jumping at her window and barking.
Thinking he wanted to join her, she opened her door, and he dragged her by her britches out into the road.
“That breed,” she declared, “or rather, that particular mix,” she amended, “is entirely too smart for its own good.”
“I think that was half breeding, half Eugie,” I said, laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my face.
“I believe you’re right.”
We immediately calmed when Dr. Caldwell entered the room. The expression on his face made me want to hurl, and no matter how obvious it was that he tried to school it, it wasn’t happening. My hands began to tremble inside Cricket’s, but I stilled them almost at once.
“Give it to me straight, doc,” she said, squeezing my hand.
“Well,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, “we can’t explain the rapid decline of the kidneys, but we recognize acute renal failure. You need a kidney, Cricket.”
She sighed. “Okay, how much time?”
“A few weeks?” he said, gutting me.
My heart began to hammer, to clobber my rib cage in overwhelming devastation.
“How,” I said, clearing my throat to keep from sobbing, “long does it take to get a transplant?” I asked.
Dr. Caldwell got that look on his face again, shattering me. “It’s a process,” he began, but I stopped him, shaking my head and holding up a trembling hand. Cricket already knew the details, no need making her hear them all over again for my benefit, not when I could very clearly understand what he meant.
I breathed deeply in and out of my nose to keep from vomiting. Ellie came in the room, dressed and with Emmett. I left the room so Cricket could tell her grandparents the bad news. I waited outside the room and broke down a little when I heard both her grandparents begin to cry quietly.
Dr. Caldwell, left Cricket’s room and I called after him. “Dr. Caldwell!”