Reclaiming Lily (34 page)

What little doubt had tried to wedge into Gloria’s spirit evaporated. “Yes,” she whispered. “That is prayer. A true miracle.”

“That leads to my other question.” Kai lined up her sandwich, milk carton, and chips with the table edge as if organizing her thoughts. “What are the things called miracles?”

Lovely mind-treasures unfolded. The Smythe preemie, now eight. A hardened lifer, convicted and saved. Andrew’s stories, church praise reports, and college huddle group announcements all streamed through her brain with such speed, Gloria struggled to keep up. Would a doctor trained in science grasp things that were folly to the world? Something only God totally understood? “It is hard to explain.”

The beginning of a smirk twisted Kai’s lips, or perhaps frustration. Understandable. Gloria fidgeted in her chair. If only Andrew were here!

He isn’t. But you are.

Gloria toyed with her sandwich wrapper. “The best way I can explain it is a supernatural intervention of God in our lives. Like a healing. Like salvation.”

“Like the mastering of a tornado?”

“Yes!” The table wobbled with a kick of Gloria’s foot. She tried to rein in excitement that spurted adrenaline into her limbs. “God controls the weather.”

“Our destiny?”

“Truly all things.”

Kai unwrapped a straw and stuck it in her milk. “Is there a rhyme or reason to these miracles?” Though she spoke softly, her voice trembled. Gloria didn’t blame her. How could she explain miracles beyond “He acts in accordance with His perfect will”? Her heart hammered as she again prayed for guidance. “Because He is a good God, a just God, we trust Him to perform miracles and pray that His will be done.”

Kai’s countenance darkened. “Is it His will for one the age of Joy to waste away in a hospital bed?”

Gloria fisted her napkin into a wad, knowing she needed to let God speak to Kai about His will in His time, His way. “Is that happening to a patient of yours? I’m so, so sorry.”

Kai finished unwrapping her sandwich, as if done with conversation, but the Spirit again filled Gloria with the confidence to speak out. “I know we already prayed, but would you mind if I prayed for . . . what is your patient’s name?”

The almond eyes resumed their relentless scrutiny. Then Kai nodded. “Johnny. Johnny is his name,” she repeated, with such force, Gloria had an inkling of Kai’s passion for healing.
Lord, that you would call her! Use her!

Gloria prayed. Then they ate—or, rather, Gloria ate and Kai picked at her sandwich. Conversation lagged, but not in an unnatural way. After rewrapping her sandwich and stashing it in her bag, Kai checked her watch. “Thank you for lunch. I enjoyed our time.” She pulled a file from her bag. “Earlier I called Andrew and told him I’d give you this, as we mentioned last night.” Kai shook her head, as if surprised. “I am not myself, to almost forget the papers they will need at L&A.”

Gloria took the file from Kai, though she longed to jump up and bear-hug her. When had she last wanted to bear-hug anyone . . . except Andrew and Joy?

“The receptionist clipped Joy’s referral on there.” Kai shouldered her bag. “I don’t have a name, because they’re working her in, but I assure you, Lockhart & Associates hires only the best physicians.”

“Oh, Kai.” Gloria abandoned her reserve and gave Kai a hug. She was pulled into a delicate, flowery scent. Feeling Kai’s collarbones through the lab coat, she thought of vulnerability, fragility.
Lord, she needs you. Please take her in your arms.

Dr. Duncan, standing in my office?
Somehow Kai murmured, “Good afternoon,” before veering around her boss and sitting in her chair. It might be better to put solid oak between them
.

The senior partner at MRA was a study in lines, from the ridges across his forehead to the way his arms had flattened against his torso. Her first thought ran to work quality, an error in the incessant, infuriating paper trail. Then she spotted the name on the file slapping his thigh. Of course. This was about her . . . and what she had neglected to do.

“I had asked that you stop by after your rounds.” Dr. Duncan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Though he spoke with his usual calm, there was no trace of his customary self-deprecating humor. Kai swallowed. He meant business.

“Please.” Kai hurried to the chair in front of her desk that she’d filled with file folders and moved the folders to a cabinet. “Won’t you sit down?”

“They faxed your results.” Ignoring her request, he continued to slap the file against his leg.

Kai pretended to ignore
him
by straightening things on her desk.

“Did you see them, Kai? I had Pamela run you a copy.” He pointed to her desk. “It should be right there.”

Kai dug through a stack of papers. Nothing with her name on it . . . as a patient. So where was her file? Pamela had last made a mistake . . .
before my tenure here.

“Maybe she put them in your box.” Dr. Duncan turned toward the door.

Her renal function panel made an encore appearance . . . in her mind. “Do not bother checking my box. I got a copy at the hospital.”
Which I tossed in the trash
. She lifted her chin. Met his gaze. “Same story with the sonogram?”

Nodding, Dr. Duncan raked tapered fingers through wisps of blond hair. “It’s clear, blast it. Crystal clear.”

Numbly Kai nodded. She had pored through enough RFs to confirm the intuitive dread she’d felt when Deanne took her pressure, when she’d spotted the swelling in her ankles. The tests confirmed what her body had shown. Just as it had been for Mother . . .

There is something I must tell you, dear sister Kai
.

To this day, Kai remembered the opening sentence of that tissue-thin stationery. Heaven and earth had moved, not only for Kai to receive correspondence from China, but for First Daughter to get Mother to a Beijing clinic, where a diagnosis of kidney disease was given. The letter told of Mother’s swollen limbs, skyrocketing blood pressure. Dozens of times, patients had presented with those symptoms.
It is the same with me
.

“I’ve been thinking about your options.”

“Is it not a bit early for all of this?”

“It’s late. Best guess is you’re at thirty, forty percent functionality.”

“They won’t start the transplant procedure till it’s below twenty.”

“As you well know, that can happen in a week, a year, a decade, though my best guess is, with this rapid onset and few symptoms . . .” He gave her an exasperated look. “You just noticed the swelling, correct?”

Her jaw tightened. She would not ignore such a thing. “Of course.”

“I suspect you are on a fast track.” As Dr. Duncan wore out her carpet, sweat beaded his forehead. He bore the pained expression of joggers who had shuffled by her in the Common. Kai battled an insane desire to smile. Her boss was the one who looked ill. Who could imagine that Dr. Kidney himself would care so much for her?

“Please, Dr. Duncan. Sit down. You are making me nervous.”

He fixed her with a stare but complied. The file became a drum for his knuckles. “This is a disturbing turn of events, Kai.”

“But not unexpected.”
Though I for one never envisioned it. How silly of me
.

“Have you considered your options? There’s SRN out of Cleveland, RAD in St. Paul—my college buddy works there. Some swear by a clinic in Switzerland—”

Kai shook her head. “I do not plan to seek treatment elsewhere.”

Though Dr. Duncan grunted, he slumped in the chair and crossed his legs as if he’d expected her decision. “It might be awkward to be treated in-house, here at MRA.”

“Why?” Conviction straightened Kai’s spine. This was her clinic. In health . . . and in sickness. “MRA has offered me, a simple Chinese woman, only kindness.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I have trusted MRA with my career. Since you run the practice, Dr. Duncan, I trust it.” Kai realized that her voice was shrill but she did not suppress it. “Why should I not trust both MRA—and you—with my illness?”

Dr. Duncan seemed to study her from head to toe. Was he looking past her disease? Seeing her in a new way? In any event, it made her nervous. “If you are absolutely sure,” he finally said, “I would like to take your case.”

“I cannot allow you to waste your valuable time on me.” She said what her parents had taught her to say, but it was a lie. To have an internationally acclaimed doctor ally with her . . . Kai blinked back tears.

“Ridiculous.” Dr. Duncan waved off her comment. “PKD can’t take one of my best out of commission.”

“Money from your pocket.” She chuckled, wanting to keep it light, but the euphoria she felt knowing that he would be her doctor was evaporating, leaving a numbness that was giving way to a bone-chilling cold. The awful reality of PKD, day after day after day.

“You’re set to be seen over at TU.” Dr. Duncan’s eyes gleamed, as if he were advancing on the enemy. Then his shoulders slumped. “But that was for today.”

“Yes. It was canceled.”

“Make another one.”

Kai’s mouth went slack. It was clear where Dr. Duncan was going with this. She began to shake her head, and opened her mouth to protest, just as she had when Gloria and Andrew had spirited Lily away in that dusty van. Again, words failed her.

“You have other sisters, but they are in China, right?”

Kai nodded, though her mind silently screamed,
No! Not Joy!

“They have no travel papers. No access to testing, right?” Dr. Duncan leapt to his feet. “Joy’s your best chance. You know that as well as I do.”

“They . . . the Powells are leaving tomorrow,” spluttered from her mouth.

“The Powells can come back.”

Trembling, Kai shook her head. Joy would not be involved!

Dr. Duncan slammed his fist on her desk. “Why? Tell me that. Why would you miss the chance for a perfect match?”

Kai envisioned Joy’s face. “I have spent much of my life trying to reclaim what was taken from the Changs, the most precious of which is my sister Joy.”

“And?” It was the casual shrug of his shoulders that propelled Kai from her chair. She leaned across the desk, her face a mere foot from his.

“I would have donated both my kidneys if Joy needed them.”

“But she doesn’t.”

“She is at risk. I cannot allow—”

“You cannot allow?” Dr. Duncan’s screech matched hers. “When did you start playing God?”

“Are you not playing God by deciding that a young girl—”

“Young girl? She is nearly an adult.”

“She is seventeen years old. It is not legal.”

“Seventeen soon becomes eighteen. Legal.”

“No. I cannot allow it.”

“Don’t you think Joy should make that decision, with her parents’ help?”

“Two weeks ago she was arrested.” Kai’s words hissed like steam. “Do you think she has the mental or the emotional acuity to decide such a thing?”

Dr. Duncan yanked a tissue from the box on her desk and mopped a sweaty red face. He wadded up the tissue, tossed it into the trash. When he missed, two long strides carried him to the tissue, which he slammed home.

She had never seen him agitated, had never even heard him raise his voice. He was her boss, could technically ask that she leave the practice. She studied her hands instead of his face. What on earth had gotten into her? Into him?

“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” He picked up the file from her desk.

Kai sensed his gaze upon her, but she did not meet his eyes. “If ‘anywhere’ means changing my stance on Joy, you are correct.”

Dr. Duncan gave an exasperated sigh. “Promise me you’ll think about it. She’s here. In Boston.”

“She must return to Texas. She has schooling issues, police issues—”

“And you have life-and-death issues.”

Kai’s blood boiled.
Yes, my issues. Not yours, kidney doctor of Massachusetts.

Dr. Duncan massaged his forehead, apparently as frustrated with her as she was with him. “It’s only fair that you give Joy a say. How would you feel if she played God, like you are?”

More
talk of God.
Yet it is all a mystery.
“You have understanding of God?”

Another sigh came from Dr. Duncan, this one tinged with regret. “God and I are at a stalemate, but I’ve seen enough in the OR to have a healthy fear of Him.”

Healthy fear. An interesting concept. Kai lifted her chin. “So you neither believe nor disbelieve.”

“I would like to believe.”

A cold chill ran along Kai’s spine. Her colleague, now her doctor, had repeated the thing said by her and Joy . . . yesterday.
Perhaps Dr. Duncan knows of these miracles that Gloria discussed. That I, too, have experienced
 . . .

“Promise me this.” He rapped on her desk. “While we reschedule TU, keep your options open where Joy’s concerned. How would
you
feel if the roles were reversed?”

Kai pursed her lips and pretended not to listen, yet Dr. Duncan’s words rang true. To hide such an opportunity from Joy might crush her hope. Her . . . joy.

Dr. Duncan nodded curtly, picked up the file—her file—and left, closing the door behind him. It was only then that Kai laid down her head and began to cry. For the decision she must make, for the China Chang sisters, whose chances for developing PKD had risen; finally, for herself. Though she hated each selfish tear, a fear that she couldn’t shake settled into her soul. She had no medical expertise, no experience, to eradicate it.