THE MIDNIGHT CONTRACT

CHAPTER 2 -THE DIAGNOSIS

Tessy POV

My mother met me in the hospital lobby, coat over her nightgown, hair not brushed. She didn't ask me anything. She just grabbed my hand, and we walked to the elevator together as we'd rehearsed it.

Her fingers were cold. I noticed, before I noticed anything else, how cold her hand was in the middle of summer, like her body had already started bracing for something her mind hadn't caught up to yet.

Dr. Reyes was waiting in the small consult room, the one with the box of tissues already on the table, which told me everything before he opened his mouth.

"Thank you for coming so fast," he said.

"Just tell us," my mother said.

He sat down across from us and folded his hands. It was a small gesture, hands folded on a desk, but I'd remember his knuckles for the rest of my life, the last seconds before everything changed.

"Nathan's kidney function dropped again overnight. Faster than we projected. We're looking at the end-stage now, not approaching it."

My mother made a sound I'd never heard her make before, something caught between her throat and her chest.

"How long," I said.

"Without intervention, months. Maybe less."

I felt my mother's hand tighten around mine hard enough to hurt. I let her. It seemed like the least I could do, give her something solid to hold onto even if it was just my own hand going white in her grip.

"But," Dr. Reyes said," I hated him a little because of the pause, "a donor match came through the registry two hours ago. A rare match. The kind we don't see twice.

"A kidney?" my mother said. "For Nathan?"

"Yes, For Nathan. If we move fast."

"So we move fast," I said. "What do you need from us?"

Dr. Reyes glanced down at a folder like it was heavier than paper should be.

"The transplant itself, the surgical team, the post-op immunosuppressant protocol, some of it is experimental given his specific antibody profile. Insurance will cover the standard portion. Not the experimental care.

"How much," my mother said.

He told us the number.

"Say that again," I said.

He said it again.

"That's not a number," I said. "That's a house. That's ten years of my salary."

"I understand this is difficult."

"How long do we have," my mother cut in, "to find it?"

Dr Reyes hesitated in a way that scared me more than the number did.

"The organ can only be held through a fixed window. After that, it goes to the next name on the match list. I need you to understand that the window is hours, not days."

"How many hours," I said.

He looked at his watch like it hurt him to answer.

"I'll have an exact time for you by morning."

My mother didn't cry until we got to the car. She sat in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap and shook without making a sound, and I didn't know how to fix that, so I just gripped the steering wheel and stared through the windshield at nothing. My own hands weren't steady either. I just had somewhere to hide them.

"We'll find it," I said.

"Tessy."

"We'll find it, Mom."

She pulled a receipt out of her purse, flipped it over, and started writing numbers on the back with a pen from the glovebox. I watched her do the math out loud under her breath savings, the house, my ring from Dad, anything that could turn into cash by morning. Her handwriting got smaller with every line, like she was trying to make the numbers fit a shape they'd never fit, and I sat there and let her do it because taking the pen away would have meant taking away the last thing she had left to do with her hands.

The number at the bottom of the receipt wasn't close. It wasn't even in the same country, let alone close.

"I'll call your aunt," she said. "I'll call the church. I'll call anyone."

"Okay."

"Someone has to have something."

"Okay, Mom."

I drove her home in silence because there wasn't anything true left to say that wouldn't sound like a lie.

That night, I sat at the kitchen table with a fresh sheet of paper and made my own list. Every name I could think of who might have money, who might know money or might owe me a favor big enough to matter. The pen felt heavier than it should have, like the paper already knew how this was going to go before I'd written a single line on it.

Aunt Rosa. Crossed out, she'd already given what she had two years ago when the roof caved in.

My old college roommate whose husband worked in finance. We hadn't spoken in three years, and I wasn't about to start with a number like that.

The bank. Crossed out before I even finished writing it, because I already knew what a loan officer would say to someone with my credit and no collateral.

I got to the bottom of the page with nothing left standing. I sat there for a long moment just looking at all the crossed-out names, at how fast a life could run out of people to ask.

I wrote one more line, almost as a joke. The way you write something you know is impossible just to see it on paper.

Northstar Global.

I sat there staring at the name.

It was the only line on the page that wasn't crossed out.

My pen hovered over it, not quite believing I was considering it.

The screen of my phone lit up with a new message. Hospital billing office. I opened it without wanting to.

Please be advised that the donor organ allocated to patient Nathan Moretti will be reassigned if payment is confirmed.

Before 11:00 PM tomorrow.

Twenty-six hours.

Maybe less.