Part 2: His Final Choice
A few weeks later, we were back on the porch.
Cecelia was kicking hard enough to make the fabric of my shirt jump.
Mark watched silently.
Then he laid his hand over the movement.
“If they can use anything after I’m gone,” he said quietly, “I want to be a donor.”
I turned toward him sharply.
“Please don’t talk about dying while she’s kicking.”
“That’s exactly why I have to talk about it.”
“Mark.”
His thumb moved slowly across my stomach.
“If I’m not going to get the time I wanted with her, maybe someone else can get more time with their family.”
I looked away.
“Don’t make this sound beautiful.”
He said nothing.
“I’m already angry enough,” I whispered.
His eyes found mine.
“I’m scared too, Sal.”
That nearly broke me.
Mark had always been the one who made impossible things sound manageable.
There was always a joke. A plan. A hand on my back.
Hearing him admit he was afraid made the truth feel more real than any diagnosis had.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this without you.”
“You don’t have to know yet.”
“And what if I never figure it out?”
He thought for a moment.
“Then you’ll make it up as you go.”
I gave him a miserable look.
“That might be the worst advice you’ve ever given me.”
“It’s the most truthful advice I’ve got.”
I hated him a little for saying it.
Mostly because I knew he was right.
By the time I entered my eighth month of pregnancy, Mark was becoming weaker much faster than we had expected.
One morning, I found him standing in front of the bedroom mirror trying to button his shirt.
His fingers were trembling.
“Give me that,” I said.
“I can do it.”
“You put the third button into the fourth hole.”
He looked down at himself.
“New fashion.”
“You look like an accordion that gave up halfway.”
He laughed softly.
I stepped in front of him and redid the buttons.
His hands had begun shaking more often. I tried not to notice.
I failed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to memorize me.”
My hands stopped.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
I finished the last button, then smoothed his collar.
“I want to remember enough to tell Cecelia who you really were.”
Something changed in his face.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then he reached out and closed his hand gently around my wrist.
“My mom brought up the donation again.”
I frowned.
Violet had always been good to me.
During the worst weeks of morning sickness, she had appeared at our door carrying groceries, crackers, ginger tea, and several pairs of tiny yellow baby socks.
“That child is not going to drown in pink,” she had announced.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want me to donate.”
“She told you that?”
“More than once.”
“Why?”
He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed.
“She can’t stand the idea that parts of me might go to people she doesn’t know.”
I sat beside him.
“She’s losing her son. I don’t think grief has rules.”
“I know.”
“Then maybe she just needs time.”
Mark looked down at his trembling hands.
“She needs someone to be angry at.”
Then he looked at me.
“And I don’t want that person to become you.”
I squeezed his hand.
“You’re asking me to stay out of it.”
“I’m asking you not to make my mother’s grief your responsibility.”
At the time, I thought he was only trying to protect me.
I didn’t realize how much he already understood.
