“Yeah,” she says, sniffling. With a hand on his shoulder, she forces a fake, tight-lipped smile and squeezes her hand around him a little more. “Just a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go talk to AJ for another minute? I promise I’ll be right out.”
Without much concern on his part, he places a quick kiss on the top of her head and grabs a beer from the counter before heading back into the living room.
“You have some nerve accusing me of all that,” Charlotte says under her breath. “You also have the audacity to upset Ari after she’s only been in this house for five minutes. She didn’t ask for any of this.”
I glance at Ari, who is leaning awkwardly against the wall, hugging her arms around her body with her sleeves curled over her hands. Her teeth are pinched over her bottom lip and her focus is glued to the tiled floor.
I cup my hand around Ari’s elbow and tug her into me. “I’m sorry.”
She begrudgingly complies with my effort to make her less uncomfortable but she doesn’t look at me or say anything.
“I did not know Ellie’s history and to be quite honest, I didn’t know much about her death. What I do know is that Don lost his job after a hospital-wide malpractice suit following Ariella’s transplant. You must have heard about his case; everyone in this state heard about it. It was all over the news, as was Ari.”That’s why she looked familiar to Dad. Unbelievable.
I feel lost at the other end of her story. I don’t remember hearing anything about this doctor. “I wasn’t exactly watching the news after Ellie died. I was managing a newborn while mourning.”
A sheen of sweat covers Charlotte’s forehead as she rakes her fingers through her hair. “Things were kept under very tight wraps when it came down to the details but what the public knew was that Don mishandled the paperwork for the transplant. And I don’t know more than that because days after the surgery, he was let go from the hospital. At the same time, he told me he wanted a divorce. I asked him over and over again what had truly happened and he would only tell me there was a misunderstanding and he was wrongfully terminated. That’s how our marriage was—need to know basis only.”
“Mishandled paperwork? What the hell does that mean?” I bark at her, as I pace back and forth with my hands on my hips. Did he do something to Ellie? I know that sounds absurd but what can be mishandled with organ transplant papers?
She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. Regardless, he now sells scripts underground to international sources, making more money than he did as a surgeon. Except, he doesn’t have to file taxes or let anyone know he’s making a dime. That is why I’m here, living with you, in case you forgot.”
Stunned, at a loss, and trying to piece together this garbled information, Charlotte sweeps by me, grabs the platter of sliced turkey and takes it out into the dining room.
“I know what she’s talking about,” Ari speaks up after Charlotte is out of hearing distance.
I huff a soft laugh. “What?”
“I didn’t know he got fired because of me.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask again.
“I shouldn’t have gotten Ellie’s heart, Hunter.”
“Didn’t you say she wanted you to have it?” The oxygen left in my lungs feels like it’s being sucked out through a tiny straw. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“She did but I guess a living donor can’t promise a heart to a particular person. It’s against medical ethics or something.”
I’m trying to think my words through before they spew off the tip of my tongue, ultimately putting Ari in a corner and emotionally beating her senseless. “Then how did you end up receiving her heart?” The question I form is much better than many of the other thoughts I had to choose from.
“Dr. Drake sort of had a thing for me…”
I can feel my face burning from the inside. I know I’m red. I know I look like steam should be coming from my ears. And I’m not sure I can handle whatever is about to come out of her mouth next. “You can’t be serious…”
“I never gave in, Hunter, but he made his feelings pretty clear,” she says, breaking her gaze from my face.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” I ask, trying to keep calm regardless of how flaming angry I am right now.
“He wanted to save me more than any other doctor. I—”
“I get it,” I cut her off.
“When Ellie and I figured out we had the same blood-type, she came with me to meet with him and told him she would only donate her heart if it went to me. She played him, knowing she could easily blackmail him with what I told her about Dr. Drake—the things he had said to me, the moments he tried to…” She sighs and swallows hard. “In any case, it worked. There was no paperwork. Everything was a verbal agreement.”
I squeeze my hand around my chin, feeling my head begin to pound. It feels like someone just slapped me upside the head with a frying pan. “Jesus.”
“There would have been no other donors—my chances were less than two percent. He didn’t even put up a fight. I can only imagine what you’re thinking right now, but if you were me, wouldn’t you have done questionable things to save your own life?”
Guilt. That is what Ari is surviving with. Owning the heart from my dead wife, being the reason the chief of heart surgery conducted malpractice and subsequently lost his medical license. He should have lost it, regardless.Piece of shit.I wonder if the answer to her last question would be different if she asked herself that right this second. To live or die? I think most people would choose to live, regardless of what the repercussions might be.
