Grace Lark had red-rimmed blue eyes behind pale eyeglasses, a sharp nose, a tiny, lipless bow of a mouth. Her hair was typical for a woman of seventy-seven—tightly permed, gray-white. She wore stained dentures, big earrings made of cultured pearls, a pale blue pants suit, and square-toed lace-up therapy shoes.
There wasn’t anything about her that called to me. She was just any other little old lady you wouldn’t want to approach. I’ve noticed people on the reservation don’t go toward women of her sort—I can’t say why. A mutual instinct for avoidance, I guess.
Would you like to order? Grace Lark asked, touching the menu. Have anything you like, it’s all on me.
No, thank you, we will split the check, I answered.
I had thought about this in advance and concluded that if my birth mother wanted to assuage her guilt in some way, taking me out to dinner was far too cheap. So we ordered, and drank our glasses of sour white wine.
We got through the dinner of walleye and pilaf. Tears came into Grace Lark’s eyes over a bowl of maple ice cream.
I wish I’d known you were going to be so normal. I wish I hadn’t ever given you up, she wept.
I was alarmed at the effect that these words had on her, and quickly asked, How’s Linden?
Her tears dried up.
He’s very sick, she said. Her face became sharp and direct. He’s got kidney failure and is on dialysis. He’s waiting for a kidney. I’d give him one of mine but I’m a bad match and my kidney is old. George is dead. You are your brother’s only hope.
I put my napkin to my lips and felt myself floating up, off the chair, almost into space. Someone floated with me, just barely perceptible, and I could feel its anxious breathing.
Now is the time to call Sheryl, I thought. I should have called her before. I had a twenty-dollar bill with me and when I landed I put that money on the table and walked out the door. I got to my car but before I could get in, I had to run to the scarp of grass and weed that surrounded the parking lot. I was throwing up, heaving and crying, when I felt Grace Lark’s hand stroking my back.
It was the first time my birth mother had ever touched me, and although I quieted beneath her hand, I could detect a stupid triumph in her murmuring voice. She’d known where I lived all along, of course. I pushed her away, repelled with hate like an animal sprung from a trap.
Sheryl was all business.
I’m calling Cedric down in South Dakota. Listen here, Tuffy. I’ll get Cedric to pull the plug on this Linden and you can forget this crap.
That’s Sheryl. Who else could make me laugh under the circumstances? I was still in bed the next morning. I’d called in sick for the first time in two years.
You’re not seriously even considering it, Sheryl said. Then, after I didn’t answer, Are you?
I don’t know.
Then I really am calling Cedric up. Those people ditched you, they turned their backs on you, they would have left you in the street to die. You’re my sister. I don’t want you to share your kidneys. Hey, what if I need one of your kidneys some day? Did you ever think of that? Save your damn kidney for me!
I love you, Sheryl said, and I said it back.
Tuffy, don’t you do it, Sheryl warned, but her voice was worried.
After we hung up, I called the numbers on the card Grace Lark had put in my pocket, and made hospital appointments for all the tests.
While down in South Dakota, I stayed with Cedric, who was a veteran, and his wife, whose name is Cheryl with a C. She put out little towels for me that she had appliquéd with the figures of cute animals. And tiny motel soaps she’d swiped. She made my bed. She tried to show me that she approved of what I was doing, although the others in the family did not. Cheryl was very Christian, so it made sense.
But this was not a do-unto-others sort of thing with me. I already said that I do not seek pain and I would not have contemplated going through with it unless I couldn’t bear the alternative.
All my life, knowing without knowing, I had waited for this thing to happen. My twin was the one just out of