I blink, the words taking a moment to register. “Give me one of… what?”
“A kidney, darling! I’ll donate a kidney to you. I’m a match, I’m sure of it. It’s the least I can do, after saddling you with this. We’ll find the best surgeon, spare no expense.”
The sheer, breathtaking narcissism of the offer leaves me speechless. She’s leapfrogged over diagnosis, over treatment, over months or years of medical monitoring, and landed squarely on the most dramatic, self-aggrandizing gesture possible: martyrdom through organ donation. She hasn’t asked what the doctor said, what the prognosis is, what I need. She has simply centered herself in the narrative as the hero, the savior.
“Mom,” I say, my voice dangerously tight. “I don’t need a kidney transplant. My kidneys are not failing. We are trying topreventdamage. It’s a precautionary measure.”
“Well, the offer stands,” she says, as if graciously leaving a multi-million-dollar tip. And then, as if a switch has been flipped, her tone brightens again. “Anyway! Enough of that dreary business. Tell me, how is school going? Are you surviving?”
The whiplash is nauseating. I feel like I’ve been spun around a dozen times and then asked to walk a straight line. I don’t have the energy to tell her about Trevor, about the parent complaints, about the glitter glue sabotage, about the constant, gnawing feeling of being under a microscope. She wouldn’t offer solutions; she would just turn it into more evidence for her long-standing thesis.
“It’s hard,” I manage to say, the understatement of the century.
“Of course it’s hard, darling,” she says, and here it comes. “Because you’re a real artist trapped in a babysitter’s job. You have so much talent, Maya. I saw that sketch you left last time you were home, the one of the ferry in the fog. It was masterful. You capture light in a way most people spend their entire lives chasing. Isn’t it time you stopped wasting that gift on macaroni necklaces and finger-painting? It’s time you pursued your passion. You could be preparing for a gallery show right now.”
She always forgets. Or, more likely, she chooses to ignore the parts of my life that don’t fit her vision. She forgets that I hate the attention, the pretentious gallery openings, the need to explain my work to strangers. She forgets I actuallyloveteaching, that seeing a child discover they can create something beautiful from nothing is a magic she’ll never understand. And most conveniently of all, she forgets about the health insurance. The robust, essential, government-employee health insurance that pays for the appointments and the blood tests and the ridiculously expensive medications that keep me functional.
“Mom, I have to go. My planning period is almost over.” It’s a lie, I have another twenty minutes, but I can’t take another second of this conversation.
“Alright, darling. Think about what I said. Both things. My kidney is waiting for you,” she chirps, before finally hanging up.
The silence that fills the car is deafening. All the air has been sucked out of my lungs, replaced with a heavy, leaden exhaustion. My fragile calm is shattered, replaced by the familiar, bitter cocktail of anger and hurt. I drop my phone onto the passenger seat and let my head fall forward, resting my forehead against the cool, smooth plastic of the steering wheel. I just want to stay here, in this quiet, insulated bubble, until the final bell rings.
A sharp rap on the driver’s side window makes me jump so violently I nearly crack my head on the sun visor I’d flipped down earlier. I whip my head up, my heart hammering against my ribs.
It’s Trevor. He’s standing there with a clipboard under his arm, a frown creasing his forehead. I roll down the window, a hot blush creeping up my neck.
“Everything alright, Maya?” he asks, his voice a little too loud in the quiet lot. “Just making sure. The parking lot isn’t a designated napping area, you know.” He tries for a joke, a small, awkward smile playing on his lips.
A nap. God, I would kill for a nap right now. A real one, not just a five-minute head-on-the-desk doze. I used to be able to steal ten, sometimes fifteen minutes of blessed unconsciousness in my art room, curled up in the battered armchair by the window. But I’ve been too paranoid to even try since Zachary found me that afternoon, fast asleep at my desk. The memory of my startled jump, of his wide, concerned eyes, is still too fresh.
“Just making a phone call,” I say, forcing a brightness into my voice that I don’t feel. “All good.”
“Okay, then.” He doesn’t look convinced, but he nods and walks away, his shoes crunching on the loose gravel.
Defeated, I get out of the car. The short walk back to the trailer feels like a marathon. The air is thick with the scent of cut grass and the high-pitched squeal of kids at recess. When I pull open the trailer door, a wave of noise and energy hits me. It’s Zachary’s class, and he’s in his element.
He has a large, hand-drawn diagram of the water cycle taped to the whiteboard, and he’s pacing in front of it, his movements full of a boundless energy that I can’t even fathom possessing right now.
“...and when the water vapor gets cold, it changes back into liquid, forming clouds! That’s called condensation.” he’s saying,his voice ringing with genuine excitement. A dozen small faces are turned up to him, utterly captivated. “It’s like when you have a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day, and the outside of the glass gets all wet. That’s condensation happening right there!”
He gestures with his whole body, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms. The afternoon light catches the warmth in his hair, and a lock of it has fallen across his forehead. He pushes it back with a quick, unthinking motion, and my stomach does a stupid little flip. I hate it. I hate that after the phone call I just had, after the news I’m still processing, after the bone-deep weariness that is threatening to pull me under, my body can still betray me with a jolt of attraction. I hate how hot he looks, standing there, passionately explaining evaporation to a room full of nine-year-olds, completely oblivious to the storm raging inside of me.
Chapter Nineteen
Zachary
The last of the fourth graders files out of the trailer, a whirlwind of chatter and crumpled paper, leaving a sudden, ringing silence in their wake. A lone piece of painted paper, a swirling representation of a high-frequency sound wave, flutters from a desk to the floor. I bend to pick it up, smoothing its corners. We did it. Our first joint lesson is over, and it wasn’t just good, it was great. The kids were electric, buzzing with the energy of creating something tangible from an invisible concept.
I glance over at Maya, who is meticulously wiping down a paint-splattered table. A small, genuine smile plays on her lips, the kind I haven't seen nearly enough. The tension that has been a constant presence in this trailer all week seems to have finally dissipated, replaced by the warm, satisfied glow of a lesson well-taught.
“That was…” I start, not sure how to finish.
“Unexpectedly smooth,” she finishes for me, her eyes meeting mine. They’re bright, engaged, the shadows I’ve grown used to seeing in them momentarily chased away.
“I was going to say brilliant,” I admit. “The way you had them translate the tempo of the music into the brushstrokes? That was genius.”
She ducks her head, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “They seemed to like it.”
