Kidney Transplant

After Anna's tragic death, under her skin they stripped her of organs. Her kidney was donated to me. There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rule book that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. For a long time, afterword, my father claimed to see Anna in the night sky. My mother believed that Anna would come back to her in signs: plants that bloomed too early, eggs with double yolks, salt that spilled in the shape of letters. And me, well, I began to hate myself. It was, of course, my entire fault. If Anna never filled the lawsuit, if she hadn't been at the courthouse signing papers with her attorney, she never would have been at that particular intersection at the particular moment. She would be here, and I would be that one coming back to haunt her. For a long time, I was sick. The transplant nearly failed, and then, I began the long step climb upward. As much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. When I start to feel this way I go into the bathroom and I lift up my shirt and touch the white lines of my scar. I remember how, at first, I thought the stitches seemed to spell out her name. I think about her kidney working inside me and her blood running through my veins. I take her with me, wherever I go.