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25
I grippedthe steering wheel of my car hard. The whites of my knuckles showed, but I wasn’t sure Nora could tell since pale on pale wasn’t that noticeable.
As I pulled my car into the grocery store parking lot, a small prickle itched under my arms, and my cheeks grew warm. What if Nora didn’t want to contact Drake’s dad either? Surely she would.
“…an animalistic need to protect your children takes over…”
My mom’s words echoed in my mind as I sat behind the wheel, unmoving, even though Nora opened her car door.
She noticed I hadn’t moved a muscle. “You coming?” She did a double take. “Are you okay?”
“Nora, I didn’t really bring you here to give you a tour. I wanted to talk to you without Drake around.”
“Oh.” She closed the door and folded her hands on her lap.
“Drake might know where his dad is.” I gazed into her eyes that had already grown two sizes bigger. “Your mom left the information in a letter.”
She turned her gaze out the window, and when it met mine again, her forehead was scrunched together. “How? And why? I’m lost to the point I’m about to pinch myself to see if I’m awake, Maeve. That doesn’t make sense.”
“So you don’t know about the letter?” Part of me hadn’t believed that Nora hadn’t read the letter her mom had left for Drake. Most moms would be curious. I was pretty sure mine was a snooper. “In the letter your mom left Drake, before she passed away, she wrote Drake’s dad’s address in the PS but with no reason why. Just left the address.”
“But how? How would she know where he was?”
The plot thickened. How would Drake’s grandma have known where his dad was but not his mom? “So you don’t know?”
“No! I don’t. I’m floored really.” She palmed her forehead. “This is crazy.”
“It is. And I know it’s a lot for you think about, but what if he still lives there? And what if we could convince him to see if he’s a match for…?”
Her eyes met mine again. They had the wild desperation of someone waving down help from a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. “Do you think? I don’t know… I… He probably doesn’t live there anymore. My mom has been gone for years. And he’d never been the most stable man. That’s why we couldn’t be together.”
I had so many questions. So many things I wanted to know. Why did she still love his dad even though he’d left? Why did Drake’s dad leave? Did Nora’s mom like Drake’s dad?
But none of those questions compared with one. “Would you be willing to get the letter somehow? If it’s there? I think it has to be in those boxes Drake keeps at your house. They were full of his most important documents, and he told me he hadn’t wanted to move them around. I wished I’d thought of it before you came down, but it’s all been a whirlwind, and I hadn’t even thought about bone marrow donation and how it worked and the biracial thing and… I just thought one of us, between all of Drake’s friends and family, that one of us would be able to donate.”
She nodded. Her lips pulled into a tight line, and her eyes glassed over. “I know. It’s beyond comprehension really.”
I gave her a knowing look. It was. It was impossible to believe any of this was happening. I wondered if everyone going through terminal illness and disease felt this way at first. Disbelief. “Will you do it? Can you or will you have to go to Seattle because, I already asked Drake about it, and he…” I bit my lip. “He doesn’t want to contact him.”
“He wouldn’t. He doesn’t know what happened. And maybe I should have told him, but…” She shook her head quickly. “It doesn’t matter right now. We don’t even have time for this nonsense talk. We just need to get that letter. I could probably get it…”
Nora looked up, her eyes shifted from side to side; she searched her mind for answers. “Right. Give me a sec.”
She reached into her purse, pulled out her cell, tapped, and put it to her ear. Someone answered. “Hey. Hi, Kelly. Yeah… yeah… he’s… hold on, hon. I called because I need help. Are you busy right now?”
“Kelly” spoke, but I heard nothing.
“Well, this is going to sound strange, but can you go into my house and ransack the place? Drake has some belongings in my guest room under the bed. I need you to go through them and find a letter from my mom to him. If I recall it was in a lavender envelope and it had ‘To Drake, My Dearest Grandson’ on the front. I need you to find that and take a photo of the letter for me. It’s really important, Kelly. I wouldn’t ask if…”
Kelly took her turn to speak again.
“Yes, it’s time critical.” Nora took a deep breath. “I think Myles’ contact information might be in it, and we need it. For the bone marrow…”
Kelly shouted loudly enough for me to hear this time as Nora pulled the cell a couple inches from her ear. “What! Are you kidding me? How will this help? Open a can of worms…”
“Kelly, Kelly… listen to me…” Nora quietened her friend, “I’ll explain everything later and give you a buzz, but the letter is kind of time dependent. Can you go over now? Just take a clear picture, and wear your readers, please, because I need a clear photo of Myles’ information. I’ll call you around maybe six tonight. Does that work?”
Kelly must have agreed.
