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“You know that old saying?” Ann asks. “You sweat in practice so that you don’t bleed in the game? Well, it carries a lot of truth.”
A kidney is good for my first assist, Paul says.
It’s not as bad as the corneas, Ann says.
Or bone, Paul agrees. Bone is almost as bad as taking a person’s eye, he says. Skin is particularly messy. It takes forever.
Lungs are arduous.
Hearts are tricky.
CHAPTER FORTY
SADIE
Ann is just standing there, dropping bombs. Telling me how it all started, telling me how much she is helping people, telling me how much money there is to be made selling organs to those in need. But mostly, she’s saying it isn’t about that at all.
It’s a slow morning for the hotline, something that I now know to be grateful for. Gratitude expands, Ann says, the more you practice it.
Except, I’m kind of not grateful all of a sudden, because Ann keeps talking, and it goes on forever and it never ends.
She’s telling me what a relief it is to have everything out in the open. She’s saying she’s been on the hunt for someone like me, for a partner, for too long. Penny Lane seemed like as good a place as any to find what she was looking for. She’s telling me that when we met, she just knew. Right from the start, all of her prayers had been answered.
I was it.
Forever and always.
Her twin flame.
I don’t even know what that means. Ethan is my soul mate, and I was under the impression we were only allowed one of those. But maybe I’ve gotten it wrong. I’d ask—but I know how she gets whenever I bring him up, so, I might as well save it.
Not that I could get a word in, even if I wanted to. Ann is pacing. She’s rummaging through drawers. She’s flinging things around the room. All the while, her mouth is moving a mile a minute.
It feels a bit strange to see her flying off the handle. Maybe this is her undoing, her unraveling. Maybe I should be concerned. After all, she’s entrusting me with so much. Little does she know if she’d just shut up for a second, I have a plot twist of my own.
There’s time for that. For now, I’ll let her have it. She has come alive under the weight of her words: she’s dramatic and wild. She’s beautiful and scary; she’s unpredictable and precious. As always, everything is about her. And, this moment, this morning, is no different.
She does this sometimes, I’ve come to realize. Overcompensates. It’s the reason for her parties, her over-parenting, and her strange obsession with making sure Paul is incessantly happy. I tell her she needs to slow down, take it easy, and let me help. She says it’s nothing—she swears everything is fine—especially now. She assures me that I am helping. But she can’t know what I know.
She says it’s probably just a touch of resistance over her writing that has her so worked up. It’s the new book. There’s so much pressure. I can’t imagine. “Oh God,” she cries. It could be writer’s block coming on. Apparently, there are no atheists when it comes to book deadlines.
But I know better.
It’s not about the book.
It’s not about the organs.
It’s not about the pressure.
It’s none of those things.
Ann is avoiding the truth. She has elaborate ways of going about it, not unlike the rest of us. Her fans, all the people she is trying to help…she’s no different. It’s far easier to pick apart other people’s inadequacies rather than face your own.
“Look at this place,” she says, and believe me, I am looking. Her office is a wreck, not entirely unlike the rest of her life is about to be. Copies of her manuscript, marked up in red ink, are spread out everywhere. There’s a method to her madness, she swears. “Oh, Sadie,” she cries. “I’ve got to get myself together. Paul is due home this evening.”
“Sit down,” I say. “Let me help.”
She doesn’t budge, and I make a move to start tidying up. But I know better than to touch her work. That, I steer clear of. She’s more sensitive about it than most things. Well, most everything aside from what I’m about to bring up.
