The Other Woman's Son

Mom squeezed her eyes tight but tears still ran down her face. “They had a baby girl. Darcy.”

Jenna’s mouth dropped open. She knew that Margo had a son about her age, but Jenna couldn’t picture her with a baby. Jenna had only seen Margo once, in front of a restaurant back when Mom and Dad were still married. Margo didn’t look like a mom. She looked like a model in a magazine.

“Grandma wanted to tell you Dad won’t be coming to visit this weekend after all,” Mom said.

Jenna’s stomach felt like it dropped to the floor and splattered. Since they moved to Little Rock, Dad had only been to see them once. Jenna didn’t remember exactly when that was but it had been cold enough that she’d been wearing her red winter jacket.

And now Dad wasn’t coming to visit because of the baby who was making Mom cry.

Maybe Dad loved the baby more than he loved her and Jeff. Jenna got a yucky feeling behind her eyes and blinked hard a couple times to try to get rid of it.

“I’m going upstairs for a little while.” Mom squeezed Jeff’s hand, then got slowly out of the chair.

Mom took the other way out of the family room, away from where Jenna still stood. But the house was so small that Jenna heard Mom sobbing again on the stairs. Jeff left the house, the screen door leading to the cement back porch banging shut.

Jenna blinked some more, then followed him outside. Jeff would make things better. He always did.

She found him sitting in the shade on the cracked top step, staring at the water spraying from the sprinkler. He barely glanced at Jenna when she sat down beside him.

“I heard you and Mom talking,” she said.

“Then you know about the baby.” His voice sounded funny, like he was trying not to cry, too. Her heart jumped again, like that frog was trapped inside her. Jeff had just turned thirteen. She hadn’t heard him cry in forever.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Mom said they named her Darcy.”

“A dumb name for a dumb baby,” Jeff spat out.

They sat in silence, watching the water soak the brown grass. The grass even smelled dry. Jenna heard birds singing, dogs barking and, in the distance, what sounded like a baby crying.

Jenna liked babies. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Margo and Dad had one. Their baby would be real tiny so of course Dad had to stay with it in Memphis this weekend. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t come to visit Jenna and Jeff other times.

He might even bring the baby. Before they’d left Memphis, Jenna’s best friend Rachel’s dad had a baby girl with his new wife. Rachel lived with her mom but told Jenna the baby was her sister.

“Jeff,” Jenna asked softly, “is baby Darcy our sister?”

He whirled on her, his face all scrunched up and fierce looking. “No!”

“But if she’s Dad’s baby, wouldn’t she be our—”

“No,” Jeff snapped. “And don’t you ever say that again.”

That horrible feeling behind Jenna’s eyes returned. “But why?”

“Didn’t you hear Mom crying? Dad left her for Margo. He left us for Margo, too.”

“But he still loves—”

“If he loved us, he’d come visit. He loves Margo and the baby now. And Margo’s son, too.”

Jenna tried to stop her tears from coming, but her eyes still got as wet as the grass. She no longer felt like singing a Blues Brothers tune or playing in the sprinkler.

Long moments passed before Jeff awkwardly patted her thigh. “Aw, don’t cry, Jenna. Mom and me are all the family you need.”

For the first time Jenna could remember, Jeff hadn’t made her feel better. That could be because he was crying, too.

CHAPTER ONE

Twenty-two years later

CLAY DILLON COVERED his sister Darcy’s much smaller hand with his, hoping the dread flowing through his veins like icy river water hadn’t chilled his skin.

She glanced at him with wide blue eyes, and he tried to convey with his expression that they’d get through this crisis no matter what the news.

Their mother Margo sat rigidly on the opposite side of Darcy, her pink lipstick standing out starkly on a face that had gone pale despite her expertly applied makeup.

If the patient consultation room hadn’t been rather richly redecorated and the slim, somber man behind the gleaming mahogany desk hadn’t lost three-quarters of his hair, time would seem as if it had rewound.

Dr. Phillip McIntyre tapped his chin, a habitual gesture Clay recognized from the last time the family had dealt with him. It meant the doctor was having difficulty putting his thoughts into exactly the right words.

“I’m sorry to have to inform you of this, but the biopsy confirmed our suspicions.” His somber voice contrasted vividly with the Memphis sun streaming through the blinds. “The kidney is indeed failing.”

Clay’s stomach plunged like a skydiver realizing that his parachute wouldn’t open. The diagnosis, though, came as no surprise. The creatinine levels in Darcy’s blood had been rising, an early indication her kidney wasn’t filtering out waste products the way it was supposed to.

The doctor’s compassionate gaze zeroed in on Darcy, who’d inherited their mother’s heart-shaped face and blond good looks. Except now Clay let himself notice that her complexion appeared sallow and her skin puffy. Clay tightened his hand on hers. Blood seemed to rush to his head, clogging his ears, making it seem like Dr. McIntrye’s voice came from a distance.

“Darcy, we need to put you back on the transplant list.”

A voice in Clay’s mind screamed at the injustice, but he schooled his features and said nothing. Neither did Darcy, whose right hand sheltered the spot where the doctor had extracted a sample of tissue from her kidney to be biopsied.

“But she was doing so well.” The anguished protest erupted from their mother. “And you said the kidney could last for decades.”

Dr. McIntyre pushed the glasses up his nose and tapped his chin some more. The sunlight shone on him through the skinny slats of the blinds, casting his face in both light and shadow. “I said that although there have been cases of cadaver kidneys lasting for decades, those instances were isolated. We hoped the kidney Darcy received would last longer than five years, but that isn’t a terrible result for a cadaver organ.”

Had it really been five years?

The ordeal actually began even longer ago than that. Darcy had been only ten or eleven when the family’s new pediatrician discovered that a previously undiagnosed strep infection had damaged Darcy’s kidneys. Still, it had come as a shock to learn that Darcy had end-stage organ failure at age sixteen.

The shock precipitated a nightmare that Clay remembered as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.

Four-hour dialysis sessions three times a week that purified his sister’s blood but drained her of energy. The dawning realization that she needed a transplant. The agonizing wait for a cadaver organ. Then the anxiety-filled predawn trip to the transplant center when a matching kidney finally became available.

The transplant had been successful, and the nightmare ended. Until today, when it started again.

“You’ll have to go back on dialysis until a donor organ becomes available. The sooner, the better,” Dr. McIntyre told Darcy. “Let’s see. Monday’s Memorial Day. So I’d suggest you start the treatments Tuesday.”

Today was Friday. A muscle in Darcy’s jaw tensed, but other than that she exhibited no outward sign of the disappointment that must be raging inside her. Her silence worried Clay more than an outburst would have done. Even at her sickest, Darcy was the most unremittingly cheerful person Clay knew.

“How long do you think it will be before my daughter can have another transplant?” Their mother’s voice shook, and Clay wished he’d sat between the two females so he could hold both of their hands.