Chapter 18 - The Call From the Transplant Center
The call came at 2:17 a.m.
Maeve almost ignored it.
Unknown number.
Then she remembered every late-night medical call of the last three years.
She answered.
“Maeve Donnelly?”
“Yes.”
“This is the transplant center. We are calling regarding Erin.”
Maeve sat up.
Roman, asleep in a chair outside Erin’s room after a long Sunday dinner, woke immediately.
Maeve held up one hand.
A potential donor kidney was available.
Potential.
Not guaranteed.
They needed Erin at the hospital.
Now.
Maeve’s hands shook.
Roman stood.
“Car?”
She nodded.
No argument.
No decisions.
Just action she wanted.
The drive took forty minutes.
Erin was terrified.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Maeve held her hand.
“Then we keep going.”
“What if I die?”
“You’re not allowed.”
“That is not medicine.”
“It is sister law.”
Erin laughed and cried at the same time.
At the hospital, testing began.
Hours.
Blood work.
Imaging.
Crossmatch.
Waiting.
Roman stayed in the family lounge.
He did not enter clinical discussions unless invited.
Maeve noticed.
At noon, the surgeon confirmed they would proceed.
Maeve sat down and cried so hard she could not speak.
Roman knelt beside her.
Not touching.
“Can I?”
She reached for him.
He held her.
No one called it romance.
It was.
Erin’s surgery lasted several hours.
Successful.
Not magically perfect.
There would be rejection monitoring.
Medication for life.
Recovery.
Risk.
But the kidney began functioning.
Maeve stood at the bedside the next morning.
Erin opened one eye.
“Did I miss breakfast?”
Maeve laughed through tears.
“You are unbelievable.”
“Biscuits?”
“When the doctor allows.”
Roman appeared at the door.
Erin looked at him.
“Did you cry?”
“No.”
Maeve said, “Yes.”
Roman glared.
Erin smiled.
“Good.”
The transplant bill would have frightened Maeve senseless a year earlier.
Now insurance and the restored trust handled the covered portions.
Maeve still reviewed every statement.
Roman laughed when he saw her spreadsheet.
“You think someone will steal again?”
“Yes.”
He stopped laughing.
“Fair.”
Weeks passed.
Erin recovered at a small apartment near the hospital.
Maeve split time between her sister and the manor.
Roman never asked when she would come back.
That mattered.
One evening, Maeve returned to find the kitchen quiet.
Roman was cooking.
Badly.
She stared.
“What is that?”
“Potatoes.”
“They are black.”
“Caramelized.”
“They are coal.”
He looked offended.
“I followed your recipe.”
“You used high heat.”
“The recipe says hot skillet.”
“Not surface of the sun.”
He laughed.
Maeve took the spoon.
Their hands touched.
Neither moved.
Roman looked at her.
“Maeve.”
“What?”
“Would it be inappropriate if I asked you to dinner?”
She glanced around.
“We are in a kitchen.”
“Not here.”
“Are you firing me first?”
His face changed.
“No.”
“Then yes, it is complicated.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
She smiled.
“But not impossible.”
Roman stared.
“That sounded almost hopeful.”
“Do not ruin it.”
He did not.
The transplant process taught Maeve something she had never learned during years of crisis: waiting could be work too.
She wanted numbers every hour.
Urine output.
Creatinine.
Medication levels.
The nurse finally said, “You can sleep.”
Maeve laughed.
“No.”
Roman, sitting beside her, said, “I’ve tried telling her.”
Maeve looked at him.
“You are not helping.”
The nurse smiled and left.
Roman handed Maeve a paper cup of coffee.
“Decaf.”
She stared.
“This is cruelty.”
“It is 3:00 a.m.”
“That is when caffeine matters most.”
He smiled.
For hours they talked quietly about nothing important.
Roman’s first car.
Maeve’s worst job.
Erin’s obsession with terrible reality television.
The fact that Gabriel could play piano and denied it.
Ordinary facts.
Maeve realized she knew almost everything about Roman’s family crimes and very little about which movies he hated.
That felt backward.
When Erin’s doctor finally said the kidney was functioning well, Roman did not make a speech.
He closed his eyes and whispered, “Good.”
Maeve reached for his hand first.
This time nobody needed to ask.
Erin’s first week home after transplant was harder than the hopeful phone call had suggested.
She was sore.
She hated the medication schedule.
She cried because food tasted wrong.
Maeve panicked over every temperature reading.
The transplant team reminded them that recovery was measured in weeks and months, not one dramatic morning.
Roman learned the medication chart before Maeve did, then wisely pretended he had not.
Declan brought flowers and was told flowers were temporarily restricted because of infection risk.
He looked personally betrayed by botany.
Gabriel brought a tablet loaded with movies and no passwords.
Erin approved.
The brothers did not crowd her.
They visited when invited.
Maeve noticed the pattern.
The men who once treated every boundary as a challenge were learning that love could knock first.
Erin noticed too.
One night she whispered, “They’re not as horrible as you said.”
Maeve looked toward Roman washing a coffee mug in the kitchenette.
“No.”
She smiled.
“Not anymore.”
Before Erin’s transplant call, Maeve had imagined relief would feel like certainty.
It did not.
It felt like a new list of medications taped to a refrigerator, hand sanitizer in every room, and learning which warning signs meant call the clinic immediately.
Roman never called the transplant a miracle.
Maeve appreciated that.
He called it a chance.
Erin called it “a very expensive organ with terrible timing.”
Maeve laughed.
May you like
For the first time in years, the sisters could joke about a future that contained semesters, birthdays, and arguments about laundry instead of only the next dialysis session.
That ordinary future felt more luxurious than Falcone Manor ever had.
