Chapter 3
Sarah was awake.
The room contained a single window, a vinyl armchair, three fresh sprigs of flowers in a glass vase, and a wall clock ticking softly. An oxygen concentrator hummed with a slow, rhythmic cadence.
Victor stood frozen in the doorway.
The woman in the bed looked far smaller than the wife he remembered. Her skin bore a faint yellowish hue, her cheeks were hollowed, and her dark hair was gathered into a neat, short braid. When her eyes met his, she showed no surprise.
“Your coat is buttoned wrong,” she said softly.
Victor looked down at his chest, his hands trembling. “Sarah…”
“Sit down,” she instructed gently. “You’ll get lightheaded standing there.”
He ignored the chair, stepping closer to the bed. “How long did you know?”
“Since December 9th.”
“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t say a single word?!”
“No.”
“Why, Sarah?! Why?!”
Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for a sharp wave of pain to pass. “Did you take your 8:00 AM anti-rejection meds?”
“I took them at 8:10!”
“That’s not 8:00 AM.”
“Sarah, please!” Victor broke down, tears streaming down his face. “You were dying, and you walked into an operating room to cut out a vital organ for me!”
“Yes.”
“You could have died on that operating table!”
“So could you.”
Victor lowered his voice, his chest heaving. “The transplant board approved you. How did you hide a terminal cancer diagnosis from a team of top surgeons?”
“My primary donor clearance was completed in October,” Sarah explained, her voice weak but precise. “When I began experiencing severe fatigue and abdominal pain in December, I went privately to an out-of-network clinic. By the time the biopsy came back, your transplant date was already scheduled.”
She took a slow, labored breath before continuing. “I didn’t forge any transplant labs. My routine donor bloodwork remained within acceptable ranges, and I simply didn’t disclose my new symptoms. On the morning I signed the final surgical consent forms, the transplant coordinator asked if I had experienced any new health changes. I said no.”
Victor felt a wave of nausea wash over him. “You lied to an entire surgical team just to get onto that operating table.”
“Yes.”
“What if something had gone wrong during surgery?!”
“I left detailed legal directives with Lucinda,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t want you to know before the surgery, because I knew you would cancel the procedure.”
“It was my right to know! You had no right to make that choice for me!”
Sarah nodded faintly. “In that regard, you are entirely correct.”
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“You refused cancer treatment just to give me a kidney?!”
“The oncologist made it clear that chemotherapy would only offer a few uncertain months, not a cure,” Sarah said plainly. “If I had started treatment, the transplant would have been canceled immediately.”
