Chapter 4

Sophie refilled my coffee mug for the third time that morning, her movements careful and deliberate. She'd been watching me since we went through the photos yesterday, like I was a bomb that might detonate at any moment.

Maybe I was.

"You know what's funny?" I said, staring out at the endless white landscape. "I used to love Thanksgiving."

Sophie settled into the chair across from me, pulling her wool sweater tighter. "Tell me."

The words came easier in this place, where the silence didn't judge and the cold didn't demand anything from me.

"Last November. Six months ago." I took a sip of coffee, letting the memory surface. "Richard decided we needed to have 'a family discussion' over dinner."

I could still see that dining room.

"The whole table was covered in seafood," I continued. "Lobster. Scallops. Crab cakes. Everything I'm allergic to."

Sophie's eyebrows raised. "They forgot?"

"They never forget things that matter to them." The coffee tasted bitter, but I drank it anyway. "Mom claimed it was Sienna's 'last request before surgery.' Like she was on death row instead of the transplant list."

I closed my eyes and I was back there, standing in the doorway of that dining room, watching my family arrange themselves around a table that might as well have been my execution platform.

Sienna looked perfect, of course. Pale and ethereal in a white cashmere sweater that made her look like a dying angel. She'd lost weight—strategically, I realized now—just enough to make her cheekbones sharp and her eyes enormous.

"Emma!" she'd called out when she saw me, her voice breathy and weak. "Come sit next to me. I need my sister close tonight."

The chair next to her was the only empty seat. Right in front of the largest platter of shellfish.

I'd known it was a trap. But I sat down anyway, because that's what I always did.

"Richard gave this whole speech," I told Sophie, watching a hawk circle overhead through the window. "About family. About sacrifice. About how blessed we were to have medical options."

But what I remembered most clearly wasn't Richard's words. It was the way everyone's eyes kept sliding to me. Expectant. Hungry.

Like I was the main course.

"Then Sienna took my hand." I could still feel her fingers, cold and trembling. "She looked right into my eyes and said, 'Sister, you're my only hope. Please don't let me die.'"

Sophie made a soft sound of sympathy, but I shook my head.

"The thing is, she was good. Really good. Tears at exactly the right moment. Voice breaking in all the right places." I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Oscar-worthy performance."

I remembered how Sienna's grip tightened on my hand when I didn't immediately respond. How her nails dug into my skin just enough to hurt.

"I'm scared, Emma," she'd whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. "What if my body rejects it? What if I die on the table?"

Mom had started crying then. Real tears, streaming down her cheeks as she reached for Sienna's other hand.

"Don't talk like that, sweetheart," Mom had sobbed. "Emma would never let anything happen to you. Would you, Emma?"

All eyes on me. Waiting.

I'd opened my mouth to speak, but that's when it started. The tingling in my throat. The familiar tightness in my chest.

"I was having an allergic reaction," I told Sophie. "Right there at the table. My throat was closing up."

I'd tried to stand, to get away from the shellfish, but Sienna's hand clamped down on my wrist.

"Don't be dramatic," Mom had snapped when I started coughing. "This is about Sienna right now."

"But I couldn't breathe—"

"You're fine," Mom had interrupted. "You're always fine. It's Sienna we need to worry about."

Sophie's face had gone pale. "What did you do?"

"I asked for one thing." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Just one thing in exchange for my kidney."

I remembered how my words came out in gasps between coughing fits. How the room went silent except for the sound of my struggling lungs.

"After this," I'd managed to say, "can I just... be enough?"

The silence stretched so long I thought maybe they'd finally heard me. Maybe they'd finally understood what they were asking for.

Then Richard cleared his throat.

"Of course, Emma," he'd said in that patronizing tone he used when he thought I was being silly. "You've always been enough."

But I could see it in their faces. The calculation. They were already planning how to use my sacrifice. Already figuring out how to make it about Sienna's bravery instead of my generosity.

"I signed the consent forms that night," I told Sophie. "My hand was shaking so badly I could barely hold the pen."

I remembered sitting in Richard's study afterward, the papers spread across his desk like a contract with the devil. The pen felt impossibly heavy in my trembling fingers.

"What happens after?" I'd asked.

"After what?" Richard hadn't even looked up from his phone.

"After I give her my kidney. What happens to me?"

"You heal," he'd said simply. "You go back to your life. And Sienna gets to live hers."

But that wasn't what happened.

"The surgery was supposed to be routine," I continued. "Two days in the hospital, maybe three. But my recovery was... complicated."

I'd woken up in more pain than they'd prepared me for. Infection at the surgical site. Complications with anesthesia. What should have been a two-day stay turned into a week.

Sienna recovered beautifully, of course. Her room filled with flowers and balloons and visitors. A constant parade of well-wishers coming to marvel at her bravery, her strength, her miraculous recovery.

I spent that week alone in the corner room at the end of the hall. No flowers. No visitors except for mandatory medical checks.

"Mom came to see me once," I told Sophie. "To ask if I could keep my voice down. Apparently, my coughing was disturbing Sienna's rest."

But the worst part wasn't the isolation. It wasn't even the pain.

It was watching Sienna with Ethan.

"She started visiting him," I said, the words sticking in my throat like broken glass. "While I was bedridden. Said she wanted to thank him for 'being so supportive during her crisis.'"

I remembered seeing them together through my partially open door. Sienna in a flowing white nightgown, looking ethereal and tragic. Ethan sitting beside her bed, holding her hand, listening intently as she told him about her fears, her dreams, her gratitude for having such a wonderful sister.

"She was recruiting him," I realized now. "Even then. Showing him how much more interesting a fragile, grateful girl could be than a strong, reliable one."

Sophie reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "Emma..."

"The funny thing is, I actually thought it would be different after." I laughed, but it sounded like crying. "I thought maybe they'd see what I'd given up. Maybe they'd appreciate me more."

Instead, they'd expected more.

Because if I could give up a kidney, what else might I sacrifice? My wedding date? My happiness? My life?

"That's when you knew," Sophie said quietly. "That it would never be enough."

I nodded, looking out at the vast Alaskan wilderness. "That's when I knew I was just spare parts to them."

The hawk circled lower, hunting for something small and vulnerable.

Just like my family always did.

"But not anymore," I whispered.

Not anymore.