Our Year of Maybe

Immediately I feel bad. It was sweet of her to offer to help. And it could have been fun, but weekends are for Peter and me. That’s how it’s always been.

“I’ll definitely be at that party, though,” I call as she slings her bag over her shoulder and heads out of the gym. A consolation. She waves good-bye and smiles, like she doesn’t fully believe me.

CHAPTER 8

PETER

OUR FAMILIES USED TO HAVE dinner together at least once a month. We’d rotate houses and cuisines, our dads would swap terrible jokes, and Sophie and I would roll our eyes. But I loved that our families were close. My own family feels microscopic sometimes. My mom’s sister, Kerri, lives in Maryland with her wife, but my dad’s an only child. The three of us have stared at each other through so many lonely holidays.

Tonight Sophie’s entire family is packed into my dining room, and my dad had to hunt down a leaf for the table we hadn’t used in years.

I’ve missed them.

“Another dumpling?” my mom asks Sophie’s mom.

“Yes, please, Holly,” Becki replies. “This is absolutely decadent.”

What I can’t help wondering, though, is whether my parents offered to host and to cook as some way to balance out what Sophie did for me. As though it’s a debt that can be repaid in dumplings and chocolate lava cake, which my mother made for dessert. They went all out: nice plates, cloth napkins, candles. Soft jazz music plays from the speakers. I’ve never been able to tolerate music that’s so unsure of itself, but I don’t say anything.

“It’s a shame we don’t do this more often,” Sophie’s dad, Phil, says.

Sophie rolls her eyes at me. They say this every time they do manage to get together. If they really wanted to see each other, they’d find a way to make it happen.

“Life gets in the way,” Sophie says.

My dad points at her like bingo. “Exactly. It’s a real shame, though. A real shame . . .”

At one end of the table, Tabby and Josh are trying to get Luna, installed in a high chair they brought over, to eat some rice.

“How are you feeling, Peter?” Sophie’s mom asks.

“Really good today,” I answer truthfully. My doctor warned about side effects from the immunosuppressants, but my body seems to have fully adjusted at this point.

Overall, I’ve managed to get into a new rhythm. School, homework, checkups, piano, though I haven’t started lessons back up and am not yet sure I will. Classes are mostly interesting, though in band I’m just the substitute pianist. I sit behind Eleanor Kang, who is never absent. The major post-transplant difference is my energy level. I’m still on a diet, one that is low salt and low fat and low carb and devoid of a handful of odd foods like grapefruit and alfalfa sprouts and raw eggs. And, of course, I’ll be taking the anti-rejection meds as long as I have Sophie’s kidney.

“How’s your book going?” Josh asks my mom.

Her eyebrows pinch together, and she groans. “Agonizingly slow, but it’s going.”

Sophie’s mom shakes her head. “If it brings you so much agony, Holly, why don’t you put it aside for a while? Work on something else?”

“I have to finish it first. Besides, it’s more agony not to be working on it.”

“Have you read any of it?” Sophie’s dad asks mine.

“Not a word,” he says.

My mom asks Josh about his classes, and he brightens. “I’m taking a film analysis class, which should be fun.”

“His homework is watching movies,” Tabby says as she spoons rice into Luna’s mouth.

“And I’m very good at it.”

“What about you, Tabby?” my dad asks her. “Classes and work going well?”

“Busy, but good! Can’t really complain about free diner fries.”

“Good,” my dad says.