“Why did I come here? Why do I want to help yet never want to see her again at the same time? It’s like I’m programmed,” he says, eyes lost in the glimmer of dust lit up by the sun just now streaming through the window.

  My eyes are heavy. My heart is weak. I’m out of things to say.

  She broke him. And now she’s going to die and leave him this way.

  “It’s like you’re human,” I say.

  Henry doesn’t even nod.

  I try again, crawling on my hands and knees on the floor to where Henry sits with his back against the wall and knees up. My hands grip his knees as I settle in front of him, then place my palm on his chest. He’s unresponsive. I don’t quit, though. I move on to his face, stroking his cheek and brushing away his hair. It’s grown over the summer, long for him even. It’s beautiful and sad.

  Henry didn’t even bring anything with him. He got on a flight Phillip helped arrange and came here, not even letting the school in Germany know he would be gone. When he landed, he came right to me. He’s still wearing the gray pants and white button-down shirt he was wearing yesterday in an entirely different country. It’s untucked, and wrinkled, and the tie is stuffed in his pants pocket. I grab the end that’s sticking out and pull it, flattening it on the floor beside us to smooth out the wrinkles. Henry’s head falls to his shoulder and he watches my hand stroke the silk.

  “I should probably shower.” His mouth forms a wry smile that only lasts a beat.

  “Probably,” I echo.

  I abandon the tie and turn my focus back to him, holding his chin between both of my palms and righting his head so he’s facing me.

  “Or not. Maybe you don’t have to go to the hospital. Maybe we just stay here, we sit right here, for as long as it takes for you to be able to move on.”

  My eyes work his, waiting for them to accept or to flinch. His gaze flits from my right eye to my left before falling away again.

  “She’s still my mother.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush, then glances up to me again. “If I don’t go, I’ll regret it. Even if I hate her.”

  I suck in my top lip then nod.

  “Okay, then.”

  I back onto my heels and stand, reaching down to take his hands in mine, helping him to his feet.

  “I’ll wait right here,” I say, seeing him out into the hallway and watching until he disappears up the stairs.

  I move to the window seat and pull back the heavy drapes, sneezing from the flyaway dust that shakes loose. Elena has been living in a frozen moment, no more Alice around to keep things at her house in order, and no care to the cold lifelessness that’s consumed the walls of this place. She’s been slowly dying here, not telling anyone until it was too late.

  I rest my head against the nook and bring my legs up to the seat, my knees bent and arms hugging them. I drift away in seconds, only coming to when I feel the cool touch of Henry’s hand against my arm.

  “Huh?” I startle, glancing up to see his freshly dressed body standing right next to me. White T-shirt, gray shorts, and wet hair combed back out of his face, minus the one curl that falls on his forehead. I may be dreaming him. I almost see a smile on his lips.

  “You’re tired. Why don’t you stay here, and I’ll be back soon? I just need to put this behind me. Then I’d like to maybe actually spend time with you. Maybe go apologize to Caleb about six more times.”

  I take his hand, and his fingers curl just a little. He’s thawing, but he’s still frozen.

  I shake my head and yawn, swinging my legs around and standing so our bodies are touching, just barely.

  “I’m coming with you,” I say, fully embracing him, my arms squeezing around his form tightly, hands firm on the muscles of his back. I hold him for long seconds, until I feel his chin fall onto my shoulder and the tension begin to ease in his body.

  Then I feel him start to cry.

  I hold Henry to me while he sobs, and I know this is the first time I’ve heard him do this since I delivered the awful news to him over the phone. I doubt he ever cried when he was alone. He held everything in, stored it in a box just outside his heart, swallowed his existence and walked through life like a ghost.

  “I hate her, Lily,” he says, mouth against the skin of my neck.

  “I know you do, Henry. And it’s okay,” I say. She made sure he hated her. She wanted him to hate everything. But Henry’s heart beats, even when it’s nearly dead. It beats, and he isn’t her. He somehow grew despite the barren, loveless world she raised him in.

  The sobs taper off after several minutes, and Henry packs his pain away again, but this time without so much armor. It’s still there, and I think it’s going to take a while for him to remove all of the pieces, but I believe he will. I believe he wants to.

  We leave the house and make our way to the car waiting at the curb. Phillip has been outside all night, loyal to both Elena and Henry. I don’t know how he can be, but I resolve to believe that he just doesn’t want to see Henry left with any loose ends.

  The ride to University Hospital is short, and the floor that Elena’s room is on is buzzing with activity from the new morning shift. This is what I always pictured the scene to be like in the emergency room where my parents died—lots of beeping devices and nurses in scrubs rushing around. People here are smiling though, and their rush is only to get caught up or to clock out for the day. The people in their care aren’t dying soon, but many of them are dying.

  Her room looms in the very back, the door slightly ajar. It’s symbolic of the woman resting inside; it lures one in, but doesn’t make them feel welcome. Henry’s fingers thread through mine, and his grip tightens. I look up to him, his focus on the room about sixty feet away. His jaw flexes with indecision.

  “We’ve come this far,” I say.

  He nods with tight lips.

  “Yeah,” he hums. “I just can’t seem to do it. Give me a minute.”

  I rap our tethered hands against my body and his gaze drops down to meet mine. I give him a reassuring smile.

  “As long as you need,” I say.

  His nod is fast and jerky. He’s scared. I’m scared too. I’ll go inside that room with him, and when I see her, I’m going to want to choke her. I’m going to want to say horrible things, all things she’ll deserve to hear. I’m going to want to gloat that her plan didn’t fully work, that her son is still whole, even if he’s stalled because of what she’s done.

  I’ll keep it all to myself though, and just hope that Henry says it all to her face.

  When her door opens, both of us jerk. My heartbeat spikes with adrenaline, fear that I’m about to come face to face with her, though I know she’s too sick to leave her bed. The face that greets us is familiar, but not Elena. It takes me a few seconds to right my mind with it, and I can tell by the way Henry’s body has stiffened that he’s feeling the exact same.

  “Hi,” Ms. Manning says in a hoarse whisper.

  I look to Henry and his brow furrows.

  “Lily,” she says, glancing to me.

  I nod my hello.

  The three of us stand silently by the nurses’ station while a flurry of activity happens around us. I wait for Henry to speak, but after several seconds of quiet, Ms. Manning reaches for his arm and gently places her hand on his elbow.

  “Why don’t we move to the waiting room.” She tips her head to the right, and we follow her lead down the side hallway into a small room with a flat screen playing the latest headlines on CNN. She reaches down for the remote on the coffee table and mutes the sound, then encourages us to take a seat on the sofa opposite the chair she sits in.

  “I know why I’m here, but why are you here?” She leans forward and clasps her hands together, arms resting on her knees. She’s dressed so informally, it’s strange to see—an oversized sweatshirt, leggings, and running shoes. She’s already lost most of the baby weight. I wonder where she’s living now, and how her baby is.

  “I had to come,” Henry answers.

  Ms. Manning dips her head, her hair spilling over one shoulder. She nods.

  “You think you did, but I promise Henry, you didn’t.”

  “Is she…not really sick?” I question because staging something like this is perfectly in her character, though I think the presentation would be more egotistical and dramatic. Elena likes the villain drama.

  “She is,” Ms. Manning confirms. “But it doesn’t matter. She needs a kidney, so I’m giving her mine.”

  “But you’ve just had a baby.” I question fast.

  Ms. Manning nods.

  “And I truly do not plan to ever be pregnant again,” she says, a cynical chuckle. “They’ve tested. I’m a match, and my health checks out.”

  “Why would you give something so big to her?” Henry’s question surprises us both, but only because he asked it.

  She sits back in her chair and draws her hands to her belly, looking down in thought.

  “Because if she dies, Henry, then everything she is becomes yours,” Ms. Manning says. Her gaze shifts to me briefly, then moves back to Henry. “And you don’t want it.”

  He blinks, digesting what she just said.

  It seems ludicrous, not to want to take over a major company in the Midwest, to inherit her power and name. But Ms. Manning is right, and Henry knows it.

  “I don’t,” he agrees. “But I don’t have to take it on. It doesn’t mean you have to do this, donate life to the woman who ruined yours…mine…your baby’s.”

  “Henry, I don’t do this without malice. I assure you.” Despite her tired eyes and dull hair—from likely days she’s spent here in this building, near that room—something in her brightens as she stands. We follow her lead, standing too.

  “You’re saving her life. I don’t get how that’s a very big fuck you, pardon my bluntness,” Henry says.

  Ms. Manning bites her bottom lip mid smile, a short laugh escaping through her breath as she slowly starts to nod.

  “Elena gets to live, and she gets to see you become whatever you want—without any ties to her other than the legal ones on paper. And she will live every day of her life knowing that it’s my kidney inside that’s keeping her alive. She’s too weak to refuse my offer. She’s already accepted it. But I will hold this over her, in my own subtle way. I will raise my daughter, Rose, to be the opposite of everything she is. And I will make sure she lets you live your life, your way, Henry. If she ever threatens that, I’ll launch a PR stunt about the ungrateful matriarch who went against her sister’s wishes even after she gave her a kidney. Her social status will be ruined, and for Elena…that is real death.”

  I can almost hear the internal, evil laughter echoing in Ms. Manning’s mind when she finishes speaking. Elena has made her cold and calculated, but somehow it feels justified this way, like she’s still doing good though it’s manipulative in nature.

  “Go home, Henry. Let me be that family member you never had. You can repay me by becoming someone good. And my Rose will look up to you,” she says.

  “And continue to play, Lily. Elena had zero to do with where you are right now. You got into Satis House. She had no idea you were accepted until you told her. Everything you have achieved, your talent—that’s yours. She’s not the one who makes that music. You are.”

  Her words sink into my chest and squeeze my bones. My breath falls away, but my mouth aches to smile. I nod to her, and Henry reaches out his hand. She takes it with both of hers, and I can tell that she would prefer it to be a hug. I think maybe soon, it will be—when it’s no longer a hospital and Henry’s had a chance to really cope with his feelings and what was done to him.

  I don’t question him when he takes my hand and leaves the waiting room, turning left and out toward the elevators rather than back into the area just outside Elena’s door. His stride accelerates when we leave the hospital completely, and he doesn’t wave for Phillip to give us a ride, instead flagging a cab and tugging me inside with him quickly before anyone notices.

  The color begins to return to his cheeks with every block we pass on our way back to Elena’s home, and he’s almost laughing when the car slows up to the curb outside the giant iron gate.

  “Come on,” he calls after me, slamming the car door and pushing through the gate as he practically leaps up the stone path. He opens the heavy door and kicks away his shoes in one, fluid movement.

  Arms pumping, he rushes down the dark, cavernous hallway, his palms slapping at the light switches along the way until the runway is aglow and then his feet stop, and he slides another ten or fifteen feet until his balance fails and he crashes into the glass-paned doors of Elena’s home office. They fly open and he rolls on his knees, laughing wildly as he falls onto his back.

  “Are you okay?” I shout.

  More laughter booms from his chest and his arms and legs fall out to the sides with a heavy flop.

  “I’m free, Lily!” he shouts up to Elena’s vaulted ceiling.

  My brow wrinkles. I think he’s gone mad.

  He sits up quickly and flattens his palms on either side as he leans back and stares down the long hallway to me.

  “Slide with me, Lily! Run with me, and let’s just laugh. Let’s fill this house with the sound of pure happiness.” He draws in his knees and pushes himself up to a stand, holding out one hand and curling his fingers to me to come.

  “Just run.” The first true and honest smile to reach his lips in months speaks to me, and I follow suit, smiling back while my pulse races with hope.

  “Catch me,” I shout, kicking my shoes free and pounding my feet along the floor while they slide wildly as I make my way down the corridor. I break when I’m a dozen feet away from Henry, and I glide to him along the dust-covered floors that ruin my socks and push laughter from my chest.

  Henry’s arms wrap around me and he spins me in circles until finally pressing his lips on mine. Our kiss is desperate, two mouths holding onto one another without breath for almost a full minute. We hardly move our lips, but our hands grasp at the side of one another’s faces until finally we both need air. Henry’s head tilts so his forehead is resting on mine, and happiness radiates from him as his smile stretches wider.

  He pulls back eventually, but takes both of my hands in his and begins to rush back toward the main door, towing me behind him as both of our bodies spin and slide into walls along the way.

  “I’m free, Lily!” His gaze locks on mine as he says the words again.

  “You’re free, Henry!” I smile back at him.

  We’re both free. Such a tragic route to get here.

  Such a gift not to be wasted.

  EPILOGUE

  SENIOR YEAR

  Performing here is an honor. My mother’s best friend sang on this very stage. It was the last beautiful thing my mother saw before her life ended. I’ve never been very spiritual—despite taking a theology class…twice—but I swear I can feel my parents looking down on me now.

  Senior year. The first two days at Satis House. The freshmen and sophomores are moving in and planning parties and routes to escape after curfew. The juniors have lost interest and are hiding in the city. My class is focused on our futures, at least most of us are.

  Caleb is sitting in the front row. Henry’s open seat is next to him, and Anya, Ava, and Nicki are all in the row behind. Even if I blow this performance, I know that five people will be clapping for me, shamelessly. This is assuming Henry isn’t late, of course.

  His flight got in an hour ago. When he gets here, it will be the first time we’ve seen each other since he left to go back to Germany after Elena’s surgery. Neither of us have spoken to her, not even when she was in recovery. Henry uses her financial support, but nothing else. Kidney guilt—and the looming threats from Ms. Manning—keep his accounts full. I have been by the house. I walk on the other side of the street, and sometimes I sit on the curb and just stare at its dark, dirty windows and dull-gray brick. The only proof I have that Elena is inside and doing well is the fact that smoke billows from the chimney and Phillip still sits in a car parked outside on most days.

  She’s left with a driver who is beholden to her for his overpaid job. She pays him so much so he’ll stay around, remain loyal. I don’t know that for sure, but my gut tells me it’s so. She can’t even hire Alice back. My cousin-aunt remarried and moved to Brooklyn, to a man three times her age with grown children and a yacht. Elena has nothing more to offer her. Alice is living her best life.

  I asked Henry once, just after he found out the truth, how he felt about Mischa—his father. His only response was “what father?” I haven’t asked since. The man lost out on knowing a great son, and he lost a great family. The marquee at the Chicago Symphony Center still dons his name, and his portrait still hangs in the window, though, so perhaps that’s enough of a life for him. Seems hollow to me.

  I pull the curtain at the side of the stage back just enough to gaze out at the next few rows in the audience. The room is only half full, which is still not bad for a regional high school musical showcase. The best in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa are here for two hours of music. My performance is first, thank God! I’ll be able to enjoy everyone else once I’m done.

  My eyes trace along the rows looking for Ms. Manning’s familiar face. I finally catch her waving to me, and she holds up her phone, waggling it and encouraging me to read mine. I pull it from the pocket of my skirt—a new dress made of tufted black satin and lace. Nicki picked it out with me, and it is somehow perfectly both of us.

  My phone buzzes with her message, and I smile at the gif of some cartoon bunny breaking its leg. I send her one back of two bunnies high-fiving, and I watch her face until I see it smile. Our eyes meet, and she holds her hand to her chest, patting a few times to show me her love and support.