I wanted it to beme. I wanted my eyes on Clara, every second of every day so I could ensure that she didn’t go anywhere, that she didn’t grow or change without me witnessing it. I wanted to soak up every second I could because there was a real possibility there would be a time—a short fucking time—before she would no longer walk this earth, when there wouldn’t be any more seconds left to look at my daughter.
Now that we had the transplant scheduled, there was a very real chance she could beat this. That I wouldn’t have to continue waking up wondering how many days my daughter had left. How many daysIhad left.
I mused over Naomi’s arrival, hervolunteeringfor the transplant. Apparently, she wanted nothing from us. Which made me brace, suspecting imminent disaster. The woman hadn’t even looked back after leaving her daughter when she was still an infant. She couldn’t be relied upon; she would bail at the last second, and I’d be a fool for hoping that I’d get more time with my brilliant, vibrant daughter.
At the crunch of wheels in the driveway, Clara scuttled over me, putting her pink tutu-covered booty in my face as she peered over the couch to look at the woman getting out of the car.
I didn’t bother looking. I instead gazed at my daughter resting her head in her hands, watching the driveway carefully. I memorized the angle of her nose, the color in her cheeks, the life in her eyes. The way the small dark curl fell on her forehead. I tried to grasp the moment like a physical thing, to imprint it onto my being. I wanted to will Clara into being here forever. There was simply no other option. There was no way this world could keep spinning if she wasn’t in it. No way my heart could continue beating unless hers did.
“She’s pretty,” Clara declared.
I forced my expression to something resembling normal. I tried to let go of the desperation clawing at me—the constant, silent begging for my daughter to live—so she didn’t see it on my face. As if it wasn’t stitched into my every inhale and exhale.
As if I wasn’t bartering away pieces of my soul with every passing moment.
“That’s nice, but as I told you with the last four, it doesn’t matter if she’s pretty; it matters if she’s qualified.” While speaking to Clara, I marveled at the perfect composition of her features, her upturned lips, the gap in her teeth. Her dark hair was piled into a messy bun at the top of her head, butterfly clips scattered through her hair. She’d insisted on putting them in herself.
Clara had called each of the women “pretty” whether that was objectively true or not. I barely noticed what they looked like. I’d actually tried to find older women who wouldn’t cause any shit with me—shit being whatever crap my brother would give me if I had a remotely attractive nanny.
“She’s younger too,” Clara remarked with light in her eyes. “Maybe she’ll know whatWednesdayis besides the third day of the week.”
I gritted my teeth to hide a smile. The older candidates were highly qualified, experienced, but hadn’t quite known what to do with my co-interviewer, especially when most of her questions were pop-culture related.
“Maybe.” I shrugged, getting up to answer the door, my knees smarting as I did so. My body was getting old, telling me that surviving on black coffee and hospital cafeteria food while sleeping in hospital chairs was wreaking havoc on my body.
I could handle the pain if it served as evidence of what was behind us. The next hospital bed I planned on seeing was the one I died in. With my adult daughter holding my hand. Because that was how it was supposed to be. We watched our children enter this world, they were there when we left it. We were not supposed to survive on a planet where our children drew their last breath.
“Let me open it!” Clara ran to the door.
I let her reach up, fumble, and open the door. Because you let your daughter with leukemia do pretty much fucking anything that gave them even an ounce of joy.
My daughter, my sweet, wonderful daughter, found joy in most things. How that happened when I was a self-confessed miserable bastard, and her mother was an angry bitch was anyone’s guess. Regardless, I treasured that joy, wished I could hold it in my hands if only to make sure nothing in this world touched it, took it away.
“Hi!” Clara greeted, slightly breathless as she opened the door.
My eyes darted down to my daughter, my body tense, on alert as I looked for any signs that she wasn’t feeling good, that she might collapse, might die right in front of me.
Her cheeks were pink, flushed. Her lips formed a wide smile, and she was visibly breathing hard. Although it could’ve just been normal childhood excitement, my mouth went dry.
I didn’t know whatnormalwas anymore. Every change in her demeanor, every sniffle or sigh was a harbinger of doom.
I wondered if that would ever fade away. I doubted it. Not that I gave a shit. I’d deal with that for a lifetime if I got to watch Clara grow through it all.
“Well, hello.” I could feel the smile in the feminine voice. Not something I would’ve noticed or cared about, but it was so fucking warm, so fucking genuine it shot through my thickened skin.
After another probing glance to my daughter, I looked up at the last candidate.
Hannah Morgan. Twenty-four years old.
The youngest of the lot. I’d hesitated to even give her the interview because of her age, doubting I could trust someone so young with my daughter. But she was almost done with nursing school, had excellent references, and was the only one who was okay with the live-in option.
I didn’t love the thought of a stranger living in my house. In fact, I abhorred it. But it was the only thing that made real sense with Clara’s upcoming transplant. She would need to quarantine at home for sixty days. In an ideal world, I’d be with her every moment. But this was not an ideal world. Despite all the help we’d gotten from the community and having good insurance, her medical bills were piling up. As much as I hated it, I’d eventually have to get back to work. And though my family would jump at it, I couldn’t lean on them to take care of Clara during her quarantine; they’d essentially have to give up their whole life, isolate themselves. So hiring someone, giving them the information up front, was the only option.
Hannah’s medical knowledge was a huge mark in her favor. I needed someone who would know what to look out for, who could properly take care of Clara.
Meeting eyes with Hannah Morgan, there was no way this woman—this fuckinggirl—was living at my house.
Because my cock jumped to attention at her sparkling evergreen gaze. My ice-cold insides turned lukewarm in response to her smile, the tendrils of chocolate-brown hair escaping what I guessed was supposed to be a sensible bun. She cracked something in me, just standing on my front porch, smiling.
