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Neil’s eyebrows rose. “Please, no comparisons there. That man is insufferable.”
“Mostly, Neil stays home with his granddaughter. We take care of her, since Neil’s daughter passed away.” I wondered if Sasha had read my book, the way Susan had. I wondered how much they all knew about me, already.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Sasha said, her forehead creasing in concern.
“Thank you,” Neil said. Then, after a sudden deep breath, he picked up the menu on the table and changed the subject. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m absolutely starving.”
“They have sushi!” Molly said, flapping her hands excitedly. “I have never had sushi before.”
“You’ll have to try some, then,” I told her. Unbidden, images of taking Molly to the best sushi restaurants in New York flooded my mind. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to impress her with the stuff I could give her—besides a kidney—and win her over the way I couldn’t win over Susan. My gaze dropped to the Hamilton T-shirt Molly wore. “Susan said you like Broadway?”
“Oh, my god, yes!” Molly drew the word out, long and impassioned. “My school got to go see Guys and Dolls in Toronto last year. But I’ve never been to New York. Maybe after the surgery, I could come visit you!”
“Don’t invite yourself,” Susan said, a little too sharp.
“She’s always welcome,” Neil said smoothly. “Even if you end up not liking the sushi.”
Maybe I should have been upset that he’d contradicted Susan’s admonishment, but I wasn’t. Susan probably didn’t want Molly to become too attached, and that was fine. But if there was one sister who wanted to know me, even if it was just because I was a living link to theater tickets, I would take it.
We placed our orders, and Molly did order one of the two sushi rolls on the limited menu. While we waited for our food, we chatted more with Sasha and Molly. Like my mom, Sasha worked at a hospital, but she was a nurse, not a monitor tech. Her other daughter, Renee, worked for Habitat for Humanity and lived in Oregon. We probably wouldn’t meet her, Molly had told us with a little bit of a bitter sigh, because she never came back for visits.
“Renee is kind of a snob,” Susan said stiffly.
Sasha gave her daughter a look. “She doesn’t mean to be a snob. She’s just got a different life than we do.”
If Renee was a snob because she had a different life, what did that make us to Susan? We already knew what her husband thought of us. Did whatever feelings she had toward Renee bleed over onto us, as well?
“Sophie has a different life than we do,” Molly observed, taking a sip from her Coke. “And she’s not a snob.”
“I can be, sometimes,” I admitted. “But I was like that way, way before my life was different.”
“Sophie was a snob out of the womb, to hear her mother tell it,” Neil said with an uncomfortable laugh.
Conversation lapsed for a moment, and Sasha broke the silence with, “I suppose we should talk about the transplant.”
“Mom, the food isn’t even here, yet,” Susan said quietly. “We didn’t even get past soup the last time.”
“Well, nobody ordered soup. So, that’s solved,” Sasha said brightly.
“And Travis isn’t here,” Molly added. Her mother and sister gave her such quick looks, she meekly added, “What? He isn’t.”
“I know I said it before,” Sasha began, with a warning side-eye to her youngest. “But I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am that you would help us out. Even if the kidney falls through—”
“God forbid,” Neil put in.
She nodded. “But even so…we got your check. It’s too generous, really.”
“It will barely cover the costs you’ll incur in the first year,” Susan said, and I wondered if they’d fought about keeping the money. She quickly added, “Not that it wasn’t generous, or I think you should do more. I just want my mother to understand how much you’re helping her out, and that she doesn’t need to turn down that help.”
“Please, think nothing of it,” Neil said. “Medicine, surgery, all of that is so expensive here. There’s no reason it should be a hardship for you when we can help.”
Sasha looked doubtful. “I don’t want you to think that we can’t make it on our own. I have very good benefits. And Joey had life insurance—”
My heart clenched at the mention of his name. I thought back to her earlier comment, about how much I looked like him, and I felt sick. I didn’t want to talk about him in the past tense. I didn’t want to talk about him at all, and definitely not with the people he’d chosen over me.
My internal reaction must have shown on my face, because Sasha stopped herself. “Sophie…I know this must be very hard for you. Because of the circumstances.”
