Chapter 1

I ran up to the payment window with the three hundred thousand I'd finally scraped together, sure that at last I could get my mother her kidney transplant.

The clerk pushed the bank card back across the counter. "There's no money on this card."

Right on cue, Martin Gilbert called, his tone as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I moved that money already."

I was shaking all over. "What?"

"Put it toward the down payment on a house for Serena, in a good school district."

Martin sounded tired. "She just got divorced, raising a kid on her own, it's too hard for her. I had to give her some security."

"Security?"

I gripped the phone so hard my hand trembled, my voice cracking. "That was my mother's life-saving money. We sold everything we had for it! A donor kidney doesn't wait. You take the money and just watch her die?"

On the other end, Martin let out a cold snort.

"Quit making such a scene. Your mom's been on dialysis five years, she's used to it. Half a year more won't kill her."

"But Serena's kid starts school next month. She can't wait a single day!"

"Over your mother's little chronic condition, you'd force a widowed mother and her child to their deaths? How can your heart be so poisonous?"

"..."

The clerk rapped on the glass, two sharp knocks.

"Ma'am, is there money on this card or not?"

"If there's no money, step aside. There's a line behind you."

My hand jerked and the card fell to the floor.

The card was Martin's.

He'd said he knew someone at the bank, that the interest was better if I kept the money in his account, that it would help later when we bought supplements for my mother.

I believed him.

I'd borrowed from every relative and friend I had, thrown in my mother's burial savings, mortgaged the old house, and only then scraped together three hundred thousand.

Now all of it had become the down payment on a house in Serena's name.

I bent down and picked up the card, my fingers shaking too badly to hold it steady.

Dr. Lawrence came by on his rounds with a chart in hand, saw my red, swollen eyes, frowned, and lifted his wrist to check his watch.

"Frieda Maddox, the payment still hasn't gone through?"

"This donor kidney took five years to find a match. The margin for error is almost nothing. A lot of patients die still waiting for a chance like this."

"If the payment isn't in before midnight tonight, the system automatically passes it to the next patient in line."

"After that, no one can help you."

I bit down on my lip until my mouth filled with the taste of blood.

"Dr. Lawrence, can you schedule the surgery first? I swear I'll have the rest of the money tomorrow. I'll write an IOU, I'll pay with my life if I have to!"

Dr. Lawrence shook his head.

"For an organ transplant, the surgery order won't release until the full payment clears. The system locks it. There's nothing I can do."

"Go figure something out, quickly. Don't waste time standing here."

I turned and dragged my legs back toward the ward.

On the bed lay my mother, gaunt and shrunken, her face a waxy yellow.

Her limbs were swollen and shiny from years of dialysis, the skin stretched frighteningly tight.

Every breath came with the sound of a wheezing bellows.

Five years.

All the humiliation of going around with my head down, begging for money and swallowing every dirty look, and to Martin it was one line: she's used to it.

The door pushed open.

Martin stood in the doorway in a bespoke suit, unhurriedly adjusting a cufflink, glancing at my mother on the bed, then back at me.

His brow tightened slightly, worn out, like a man someone had latched onto and wouldn't let go.

"Enough. Stop wearing that martyred look, like I owe you some enormous debt."

He walked over and reached out to touch my face.

"Serena just got divorced and walked away with nothing. If I don't help her, who will?"

"You're a sensible girl. Don't hold it against a single mother."

"Your mom's illness can be treated slowly. Serena's the one with a fire under her."

I looked at the hand reaching for me.

That hand had just signed the purchase contract for Serena's school-district house.

I didn't pull away.

I raised my own hand and put every ounce of strength I had into it.

Crack!