Page 27 of Caging Darling

“But does it work?” He’s asking Peter now, like he knows it’s the type of thing Peter would keep from me.

I turn to Peter, who’s examining the man without pity. He smirks. “It’s not up to me to say.”

“Does what work?” I ask.

Neither answers, but they don’t have to. From the side-stage sounds padding feet. A little girl with red hair a shade lighter than Renslow’s, tied into an unruly braid, shuffles onto the stage.

“Papa,” she exclaims, arms outstretched. She can’t be older than three, and she doesn’t at all seem frightened of Peter, even with his shadows swirling around him.

My stomach twists. We’re going to make this girl fatherless. No, I remind myself. Renslow’s going to make his daughter fatherless if he doesn’t choose a different path. And he can still choose a different path. I have to believe it. Have to believe that no matter how many fates the Sister tried to weave for him that turned out tragically, there must be one that she missed.

I have to believe it exists.

“Renslow, don’t hurt those children,” I say. “Whatever pride you have, whatever you want to prove. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth having your daughter know that her father was hanged for murder.”

Renslow stares at me over his daughter’s shoulder, his eyes full of sorrow. “You don’t understand nearly as much as you think you do, child. I take it you’re not the one who saw my future. That he is.” He nods toward Peter, who shifts ever so slightly. “You didn’t tell your lady why I do what I do, did you?” There’s no accusation in his tone. Only relief.

I narrow my brow, confused and annoyed at Peter for hiding Renslow’s motive from me. But then Renslow’s daughter shifts in his arms and turns her bright eyes upon me.

They’re blue like her father’s, but her skin is swollen underneath them, at her neck. I glance at her hands, to find her fingers swollen too. “Daddy.” She whispers in his ear, but like children so often do, it’s louder than one would speak normally. “There’s blood in my drawers again.”

Renslow swallows. Brushes the back of his daughter’s head with his palm. “Your mother can get you a fresh pair.” The next time he speaks, he’s addressing me. “Given how quickly you managed to diagnose Mildred’s nephritis, I imagine you see what’s going on here.”

My stomach hollows out. The girl blinks at me, thumb in her mouth.

“Will she…”

“Yes,” says Renslow. “From what I’ve noted in the journals of other physicians, it seems we have a few months at best.”

I swallow. “That’s why you want permission to transplant organs. To see bodies before they go through the burial rites, while they’re fresh. You’re looking for a kidney for your daughter.”

“I’ve tried to do it ethically,” he says. “You saw how the crowd reacted. Those who have the power to change the law care nothing for curing the diseases they see themselves immune to. Care nothing for treating that which they perceive as a by-product of indiscretion. But my daughter…what indiscretions has she committed to deserve such a fate?”

Pity swells within me as I gaze at the father, already mourning his daughter’s death before it’s even occurred.

“I know why I do it,” Renslow says. “It pains me, to think of harming Millie like that. I do care for that girl. Are you sure?” he says, looking up at Peter this time. “That there’s not a way to save them both? That there’s no way for me to be successful in the surgery?”

And then it hits me, what Renslow will do tomorrow if we allow it.

“Millie’s appendix is inflamed. That’s why she’ll need emergency care tomorrow,” I say, tears burning at my eyes. “But you don’t just remove her appendix, do you?”

“The body only needs one kidney,” says Renslow, as if he’s already committed the crime. As if the justification for it is so evident, he needn’t stretch to find it. “Millie shouldn’t need both of them.”

I clutch Renslow’s arm tighter, though my hands are now trembling. “Her parents bring her to you to remove her appendix, and you take her kidney, too. For your daughter.”

I can see it now, unfolding. From the look in Renslow’s eyes, he’s seeing it too. Millie doesn’t survive the operation. Taking both organs proves too much for her already feeble body to handle.

I see it when that conclusion draws out further in his mind. Renslow will end up killing eleven more after Millie. Meaning her kidney must not have been good enough. Perhaps he doesn’t find a way to preserve it before he transfers it into his daughter’s body. Perhaps the kidney itself isn’t viable. Perhaps…

It doesn’t really matter, though, why it takes Renslow so many attempts to find a kidney for his daughter—if he ever finds one at all.

The attempt and its execution are all that matters.

“Millie’s parents brought their daughter to you for you to save her life, and you killed her instead,” I say, my voice trembling. Renslow’s daughter begins to cry. He doesn’t try to dispute how I speak in the past tense, as if it’s already happened.

“My little Daisy,” he says, brushing his palm over his crying daughter’s hair as snot runs down her nose and onto her thumb. “I’d do anything for her, you have to understand.”

And I do.

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