Page 52 of Love Her

“Well—what about me?”

One of his eyebrows rose high on his head. “What about you?”

“I’m his daughter. We don’t have to go through red tape. I could just give him one of mine.”

“That’s not how it works,” he said gently.

“If you’re worried about him being too stubborn to take it—I can handle that—I can make him.”

Dr. Genziani gave me a sympathetic look. “It’s not about his stubbornness, Lia—it’s about compatibility. You’d need to be a match. Blood type. Tissue typing. And even if you were, we’d still be talking about a risky surgery. You’d be losing a kidney—at best to prolong a little time.”

“I don’t care. If there’s a chance, even a sliver—I want to know. Just test me. Please,” I said, and started rolling up a sleeve at once. He reached out to stop me—and then he saw my moth tattoo and scars and slightly frowned. “I figured he told you?”

“No. But—these look old?”

“They are.” There was no point rolling down this sleeve for the other arm—I had a matching set. “I was a stupid kid,” I explained. “And I missed out on a lot of time with him. I want to get some back.”

He resigned himself and nodded. “All right. Wait here. I’ll send a tech in,” he said, before standing, and leaving me alone.

A woman my age came in next, with a labcart, and when she saw who I was her eyes widened slightly. “Sorry—I—just saw you on TV!”

I winced with a grin. “Did I look okay?”

“Yeah! Poor Katerina though,” she said, expertly tying my arm off and feeling for a vein with a gloved finger. She drew up three tubes of blood with different colored tops, and then unleashed me, after putting a cotton ball and a bandaid where she’d poked.

“I’ll send the doctor back!” she chirped, before exiting, and Genziani came back in at once.

“We’ll know in a few days?—”

“Don’t stall me. He doesn’t have long.”

“I promise I won’t. But also—these are for you,” he said, handing over twenty small pills in an orange bottle. “Ativan. In case you have some sleepless nights. Don’t go crazy, just take one if you need it. Grief is stressful.”

“But won’t I need to be drug-free to donate?”

“It’s got a short half-life.”

“And—you’re not expecting him to agree,” I said, tossing the pills into my purse.

“I’ve known your father longer than you’ve been alive, Lia.”

“Yeah, well—we’rebothstubborn,” I said. “So get back to me. Quickly.”

I left his offices feeling downtrodden, but at least this time it was for a different reason. I stood on the sidewalk outside and pulled out my phone to text my driver—at the same timeas I registered someone else across the street pulling outtheirphone…to point at me.

Maybe? I wasn’t sure—I didn’t want to look like I was staring—then my driver arrived. We were almost to my apartment, and I was resisting the urge to Google myself when a message came through on Rhaim’s phone.

Heads up—you won’t be alone at your place.

I don’t know who it is, but I’m on my way over.

Wait in the lobby for me.

27

RHAIM

Ididn’t actually have time to shower after watching Lia on TV, but luckily everything I needed to do for the day was either with a spreadsheet, or online—which was why I was in the middle of a meeting by zoom, hoping the man leading it would spontaneously combust, or start bleeding out—when the motion sensor over Lia’s apartment door buzzed me.

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