Surprised that he hadn’t come in through the garage, I took off running and threw myself into Daddy’s arms the second I saw him. He let out a pained groan as I squeezed him, and I laughed, thinking he was playing around.
Until I looked up at his face and saw his skin was gray, and even though he was grinning down at me, he couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I hurriedly apologized. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he assured me, kissing the top of my head and giving me a squeeze in return. “I’ve missed you so damn much.”
“Dray, dinner is ready,” Mom called out.
“Coming, Angel.” Tossing one arm around my shoulders, he guided me back into the kitchen. “Let me wash my hands, and we can eat.”
I took my place and picked up my napkin while Mom dished out the spaghetti onto each of our plates. As Daddy joined us at the table, he kissed her temple, telling her he loved and missed her. She leaned into the touch of his lips, and before she closed her eyes, I thought I saw a sheen of tears in her honey-brown eyes.
But when she opened them again, it was gone, making me wonder if I’d imagined it.
“How did work go today?” she asked as she took her place at the table and reached for the salad dressing.
“We finally decided on what sound we wanted to go with for that song Nik and I have been working on all week,” Daddy told her before stuffing his mouth full with spaghetti. “It sounds wicked.”
I listened to them talk as I ate, watching them both. But the longer dinner went on, the more tension I could feel radiating from both of my parents. It set my nerves on edge, and I began to watch them even more closely.
That’s when I started noticing the changes in Daddy. There were bruises on his right forearm, which surprised me because I couldn’t ever remember him having a bruise on him. It took longer to notice the weight loss because it was subtle, but eventually, I did.
And that was when I noticed the slight discoloration of his eyes. They had a yellow tinge to them.
“Are you sick?” I blurted out, unable to stop the words.
Mom’s fork made a loud clank as it hit her plate, her fingers having lost their hold on it as soon as I opened my mouth. Daddy’s eyes met mine, and I read the answer there even as he reached over and covered Mom’s shaking hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“We wanted to tell you ourselves,” he said with a grim twist of his mouth. “Yes, Nevaeh. I’m sick.”
“But…” I swallowed hard, feeling tears burning my eyes. My mind ran through the list of visible symptoms I could see. Bruising. Weight loss. Jaundice. I’d hurt him when I hugged him earlier, and I tried to remember exactly where my arms had been when I’d squeezed. But I wasn’t a damn doctor, and nothing was coming to mind because I wasn’t studying to go into the medical field. “What’s wrong with you?”
He glanced at Mom and sighed heavily before turning his gaze back to me. “Remember when I had that fender bender back in August? It was right after you went back to Virginia for the fall semester.”
“You said you didn’t get hurt,” I recalled aloud.
He’d been a passenger in Uncle Jesse’s SUV along with my other uncles when they’d gotten rear-ended on their way home from the studio. No one had gotten hurt from what Mom told me right after it happened.
“The seat belt caused some bruising across my abdomen, and I started having some pain. A lot of pain, if I’m being honest. Your mom made me go in for tests.” He swallowed hard and let out a strained laugh. “My past caught up with me, sweetheart. All those years of drinking caused some pretty significant damage. I have Stage 4 liver disease. I’ve had it for decades and didn’t even realize it. If it weren’t for the accident, I still might not have found out.”
“What?” I didn’t understand, or maybe I just didn’t want to understand. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that he was sick, let alone what disease he had. But it was starting to make sense, even though I really didn’t want it to. Because if there was a name for his illness, a diagnosis, then that made it real.
And I didn’t want it to be fucking real.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Mom finally spoke, but her voice was thick with tears. “Because Daddy is getting a new liver, and he will be just fine.”
I blinked at her in surprise. “Do you know how long people are on those damn transplant lists?” That much, I did know. “It could take years before he gets one and—”
“Uncle Shane is giving me part of his, Nev,” Daddy interrupted before I could start spouting off statistics.
“Really?” I whispered and finally lost the battle against my tears, letting them flow freely. “Are you sure he’s a good enough match? If he’s not, I’ll give you part of mine, Daddy. I know we have the same blood type. Surely we would be a better genetic match.”
“We’ve already had all the tests done, honey. He’s a positive match.”
“But maybe it would be better if I did it anyway. Let me do some research and figure out if it’s better if a child donates an organ for you to have a higher chance of not rejecting it than a sibling donating.” I picked up my phone, already typing rapidly.
Daddy reached across the table and snatched my phone from my hand. Placing it facedown on the table, he glared at me. “You are not donating anything. Neither are your sisters or your brother. This is happening because of my mistakes, and I’m not going to put any of you through that kind of pain and danger to fix them. The only reason I agreed to accept Shane’s offer was because your mom begged me to.”
“Are you crazy?” I didn’t mean to yell, but I was so upset, I couldn’t seem to control the volume of my voice. “Daddy, if the chance of survival is higher for me to give you a part of my liver, then of course, you need to take it. Don’t be stubborn. A small amount of pain is nothing if it means you get better.”
“I said no, Nevaeh. And that’s final.” He picked up his glass of water and downed half of it before pushing his chair back and standing. “Sorry, Angel. I’m not hungry.”
I watched him go before scrubbing my hands across my cheeks and finally looking over at Mom. “P-please. Let me do this. Just let me do the research, talk to the doctors, figure something out…”
But she shook her head. “He’s already made up his mind. It took weeks of me crying and pleading and making all kinds of ugly threats before he agreed to take Shane up on his offer.” Reaching over, she covered my ice-cold hand with her own. “I know this is scary. I’m terrified right now myself. But all we can do is accept your father’s decisions and pray everything works out.”
I couldn’t accept it, though. “But if I’m a better genetic match—”
“Honey, Uncle Shane’s tests showed that they are a perfect match. The doctors said they couldn’t possibly have gotten a better genetic match if they’d searched for a hundred years. Because, trust me, Aunt Natalie and Aunt Jenna both got tested, and while they were matches, they didn’t come anywhere close to what Shane’s is.” She stood and walked around the table to hug me. “It’s going to be okay, Nevaeh. We won’t lose him.”