I can’t believe my ears. “You have…”
“Yes, sir. Today’s the day.”
Thoughts swim through my head. My first transplant was from a living donor. A friend of my sister’s. A woman who gave me an extra decade of life. Unfortunately,five years ago, the kidney started failing. The failure was attributed to the BK virus.
I roll the name around in my head like it might make more sense if I say it enough times. Something most people get as kids, something that goes quiet and behaves as long as your body knows how to fight back. It just sits there—harmless, dormant—inside healthy kidneys, waiting. But I take immunosuppressants for life, so my body won’t reject the foreign kidney.
One thing I’m grateful for is that I have chronic kidney failure, the agonizingly slow kind. But at least it gave me time to meet the woman who has changed my life. My Butterfly.
Everything accelerates. Noelle is already sitting up, eyes wide, hair a mess, joy and terror colliding across her face. “Is it?—?”
“Yes,” I say, already swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “It’s time.”
The next ten minutes are chaotic. Drawers open and slam. Zippers scream. Shoes get kicked under the bed. I shove things into a bag without knowing what I’m packing—shirts, socks, chargers, probably something useless like a playbook.
“Greyson will pick up anything you forget,” Noelle says, breathless, tugging on a hoodie. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”
I catch her wrists, grounding us both. “Hey. Breathe. We’ve got this.”
She laughs, tears shining. “I know. I’m just happy. So freaking happy.”
“Me too.” I wrap my arms around her, knowing this is our last squeeze for a long time. I’ll have another incision, and I wonder if it will be in the same scar tissue or a brandnew one. “Are you ready? If you or the baby needs anything, please take care of yourself first. Promise me?”
She promises, but I can’t say I believe her. I call my sister as we pull onto the road and put her on speaker.
She answers groggily, a kid crying faintly in the background. “Matt?”
“I’m getting a new kidney today.”
“What?” She’s fully awake now. I can see her expression in my mind. Eyes wide open, mouth hanging. “Where are you? Give me the address—I’m on my way.”
“No,” I say quickly. “Stay. Noelle will keep you updated. It’ll take all day to get here.”
“No,” she insists. “I’m coming.”
Noelle cuts in without missing a beat. “Get to the private airport. Greyson will take care of it. J.D. will pick you up.”
I open my mouth to argue. To shut it down. To protect everyone from this moment getting too big.
Then I stop.
I need to give Noelle this win. She needs to feel like she’s in control, even though nothing about my surgery is in her control.
I lean back in my seat, staring at the road as memory floods in—my sister and me, years apart in age but somehow always orbiting the same world. Poker nights at the kitchen table, playing with nickels because quarters felt like real money. Her trash talk, just as brutal as mine. She loved sports as much as I did—knew stats, called plays, refused to be sidelined just because she was younger. She played football and baseball with all of us guys in the neighborhood.
She was stubborn. Loyal. Always showed up.
If something happened to me… I want her here. I want Noelle to have her. It hits me that Noelle is similar to my sister. Grew up a tomboy in a family of boys. Loves to feel pretty in dresses and skirts. Insanely honest and vulnerable.
The hospital is quiet in that eerie pre-dawn way—polished floors reflecting fluorescent lights, voices hushed like the building itself is holding its breath. They lead me into a room with pale walls and a single window just beginning to glow gray.
Noelle stands beside the bed, wearing a knit dress that hugs her baby bump, her hair in a messy nest on top of her head, her sneakers hastily tied. She looks radiant. Terrified. Alive. We wait. Several nurses come in to take my vitals or insert my ports for the IV bags.
My surgeon enters the room an hour or two later and explains what I mostly already know, since I’ve been through it before. But I let him go through his spiel, knowing Noelle needs information, direct from the doc.
We have a few minutes just us after the doc goes to scrub in and make sure his team is assembled in the operating room, and I can’t stop talking, filling the space like noise might keep fear from sneaking in. Happiness pours from my tone. I have a chance, a good chance at being a husband and father. Of a life still driven by medication and doctor’s appointments but not one where that is the focus. The focus will be my family.
The nurse comes in smiling, puts in a port, starts an IV, and gives me some medication. Noelle puts notes in her phone so she can tell everyone who is already gathering in the waiting room.
