Our Year of Maybe

It felt like fate that I was a match when even his parents weren’t. When I reminded my parents it could take years for him to find a match on the transplant list—years he might not have—they didn’t know how to respond. I am eighteen and my body is mine, and I will make any and all choices for it as long as I can.

“You know, I was thinking,” Mom says as she closes the fridge. This is how she’s begun all conversations about the transplant ever since my test results came back and a slim possibility became a reality.

“Mom. I’m doing it. A day and a half from now, in fact.”

She sighs. “I know you are,” she says quietly, gently touching my arm. “All I was going to say is that it’s a very noble thing you’re doing. I hope you know that.”

I give her slight nod, though “noble” doesn’t seem like the right word.

She fixes sad eyes on me, looking like she wants to add something but isn’t sure if she should. I head back outside before she can.

We stick a single candle onto Luna’s piece of cake and sing “Happy Birthday,” which seems to both amaze and confound her. When it’s over, Tabby blows out the candle, and Luna destroys the cake.

It’s not long before the sky deepens to a dusky blue and Luna gets cranky. Tabby and Josh put her to bed, their friends leave, and I linger outside to help them clean up the backyard so my parents can relax with a bottle of wine and a show about British royalty on Netflix.

“They grow up so fast,” Josh says as he and Tabby collect Luna’s toys.

Tabby flicks short auburn bangs out of her eyes. “Don’t even joke about that. I want her to be this small and sweet forever! Though I wouldn’t mind getting more sleep.”

“Me too,” I mumble. One of the hazards of living with a baby. I tip food scraps and paper plates into our compost bin.

“I can’t believe she’s one,” Tabby says. “This whole thing is still unbelievable to me. Amazing in a lot of ways, terrifying in plenty of others.”

It’s strange, my younger sister growing this family of her own. While Tabby and Josh have been together since they were fourteen, I didn’t know they were having sex until Tabby told us she was pregnant. She’d advanced to level forty, and I was still trying to beat level one. Most of the time I try not to think about how at eighteen and with an actual baby in the house, I feel like the baby of my family.

“Working on any new dances?” Josh asks.

“Starting one,” I say. “Not sure how much time I’ll have this summer, though.”

“You’ll bounce back fast. I’m sure of it.” He checks the time on his phone. “Yikes, I should head home.”

“You don’t want to spend the night?” After Tabby got pregnant, my parents decided it didn’t matter if Josh stayed over. The thing that wasn’t supposed to happen had already happened.

“My parents miss me, weirdos that they are,” he says. He hugs her, a hand sliding effortlessly through her short hair as he pulls her to his chest. Until recently I didn’t know watching two people hug could make me ache. That clear fondness they have for each other: It’s impossible not to see. “I’ll be back tomorrow for Sophie’s Last Meal.”

I groan. “Don’t call it that!” I have to fast for eight hours before the surgery, which isn’t a big deal since I’ll be asleep for most of them. But no breakfast Friday before I go to the hospital, where they’ll do final tests before the surgery.

We say our good-byes, and then my sister and I are alone in the backyard.

“I should take this compost out to the curb,” I say before the silence between us gets awkward.

“And I should check on Luna.”

Sometimes Josh feels like a buffer between us, helping us forget we aren’t actually that close. We’ve never been enemies or had fights that ended in tears or slammed doors. But we’ve never bonded the way some sisters do.

“Wait,” I say when she’s halfway to the door. “Do you . . . want to hang out tonight? Watch a movie or grab food somewhere or . . . something?”

A pause. Then: “You know, I am exhausted, Soph.”

I’m almost relieved by her non-excuse because—what would my sister and I even talk about?

“Right. Right. Another time.”

“I’m sure I’ll see you around,” she jokes, and I press my mouth into a firm line, hoping it resembles a smile.

The next time I see Peter, it’s officially summer vacation and the doctors have finished their final tests and we are both in hospital gowns. This is really happening.