Chương 8
Our father.
"I should have said something," Alyssa whispered.
I looked at her.
"When?"
"Before."
"Before what?"
She looked down.
"Before the surgery."
I waited.
She rubbed her hands together.
"I knew Dad was acting strange."
"How?"
"He kept asking if you had signed everything."
My stomach tightened.
"What did you think that meant?"
She looked ashamed.
"I thought it was because he was stressed."
"And you didn't ask?"
Her eyes filled slightly.
"No."
The honesty hurt.
But it also mattered.
Because for once, she was not giving me an excuse.
"I was scared," she said.
"Of what?"
Alyssa looked at the floor.
"Of losing the life I had."
The answer was so simple that it almost made me angry.
But then I remembered something.
Alyssa had spent her entire life being protected by the same system that hurt me.
She had benefited from it.
That did not make her innocent.
But it explained why she stayed quiet.
"I thought if I didn't get involved, everything would stay normal."
I looked at her.
"Normal for who?"
She started crying quietly.
Not dramatically.
Not like someone trying to get forgiveness.
Like someone finally admitting something to herself.
"I don't know."
The answer sat between us.
And somehow, it was the first honest thing she had ever given me.
I looked back at the document.
The pages that had changed the way I saw my father.
Then I looked at my sister.
The person who had received everything I wanted.
Love.
Attention.
Protection.
And I realized something uncomfortable.
She had also been trapped.
Just in a different way.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Charles.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw the preview.
"We need to talk before you make this worse."
I stared at the words.
Before you make this worse.
Not before I hurt you.
Not before I explain.
Not before I apologize.
Before you make this worse.
Even now, he was still trying to control the story.
I showed the message to Karen.
She looked at it.
Then she looked at me.
"What do you want to do?"
For years, I would have answered that question based on what kept everyone else comfortable.
This time, I looked at the phone.
I looked at the documents.
I looked at Alyssa sitting quietly beside me.
Then I pressed the screen.
I opened the reply box.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
And for the first time in my life, I did not search for the words my father wanted to hear.
I searched for my own.
I typed one sentence.
Then stopped.
Not because I did not know what to say.
Because I finally understood that every conversation with my father had always followed the same pattern.
I entered trying to be understood.
He entered trying to win.
Those were not the same thing.
My fingers moved across the screen.
"I am not making this worse."
I stared at the sentence.
It was true.
But it felt incomplete.
I deleted it.
I tried again.
"I am asking questions because I should have been allowed to ask them before."
I kept that.
Then I added another sentence.
My thumb hovered over the send button.
That small action felt ridiculous.
It was only a text message.
But my entire life had been built around avoiding that moment.
The moment where I stopped protecting someone else's comfort.
I pressed send.
The message showed delivered almost instantly.
The response came less than thirty seconds later.
"Who is advising you?"
I stared at the screen.
Not what happened.
Not are you okay.
Not I am sorry.
Who is advising you?
I showed Karen.
She read it and handed the phone back.
"That tells you something."
I nodded.
It did.
My father did not ask what I felt.
He wanted to know who had changed my behavior.
Because in his mind, I had not reached a conclusion.
Someone had influenced me.
I did not respond.
A minute later, another message appeared.
"You need to be careful about people who do not understand our family."
I laughed quietly.
It surprised me.
A real laugh.
Not because anything was funny.
Because suddenly the sentence was so familiar.
There was always an outsider.
A doctor.
A teacher.
A friend.
A boyfriend.
Anyone who suggested I deserved more was someone who did not understand my family.
I looked at Alyssa.
She was watching me.
"What?"
She shook her head.
"Nothing."
"No."
She hesitated.
"I was just thinking that he does that to everyone."
The room became still.
"What do you mean?"
She looked uncomfortable.
"He makes people feel like they are the problem for noticing the problem."
I looked at her carefully.
It was the first time she had described him without defending him.
"When did you realize that?"
Alyssa looked toward the window.
"Probably when I started disappointing him."
The answer surprised me.
"You?"
She gave a small, sad smile.
"Yeah."
I almost asked how.
Because from where I stood, Alyssa had always been the child who could do no wrong.
But maybe I had only seen the parts of the story that affected me.
"He wanted me to go to medical school," she said.
I frowned.
"You never wanted that."
"No."
She looked down.
"I wanted to study art."
I blinked.
"You hate drawing."
A tiny smile appeared.
"I know."
For a moment, we were just sisters again.
Not donor and recipient.
Not favorite child and forgotten child.
Just two people sitting in a hospital room realizing we had both spent years pretending.
"I thought you knew everything about me," she said.
The words were quiet.
I looked at her.
"I thought I did too."
That was the strange thing about families.
You could share a house with someone.
Eat dinner beside them.
Celebrate holidays together.
And still have no idea what was happening inside their head.
Alyssa took a breath.
"I need to tell you something."
My body immediately tensed.
May you like
Old habits.
A confession from Alyssa usually meant I was about to be asked to understand something painful.
