"Lila? Hey, I have some news."

            She excused herself from the conversation, a debate about which era of literature was the greatest, but Fayez simply waved her apology away, closing his eyes for another nap on a chair by a random gate. Not wanting to go too far, Lila ducked into the nearest restroom, heaving a sigh of relief when she found it a ghost town.

            "Sorry, what were you saying?" She stood in front of the mirror, finally getting a good look at her hollow hazel eyes and slightly sunburned nose. She'd thought of how carefree she'd been just a couple days ago, celebrating a post-finals victory at her friend's Malibu beach house. "Wyatt?"

            "Sorry, the reception is pretty bad in this part of the hospital." Lila heard a whoosh of some doors and then a couple car horns, signs of the earliest-morning traffic. "We spent some time working through Tom's treatment options, and it looks like a kidney transplant is the best choice at this point. Neither I nor Mom want a life on dialysis for him, and I can't imagine you feel any different."

            Her hunch had been right. "Does Dad agree?"

            "He's willing to do anything that will improve his quality of life," he said, pausing for a moment. "The only question is...are we?"

            "What do you mean?"

            When another pause ensued, she imagined he was dragging a hand through his thick blond hair, the other making shapes into the air, like he was trying to grasp a football. She'd had every one of his little mannerisms memorized, which ironically, resembled her father's more than their mother's.

            "Look, Lila. Tom asked me to...hide how bad his health had gotten every time you called this year. He said he wanted you to relax and do well in school, even though I tried to tell him so many times that you'd always worry about him anyway."

            A couple more fissures appeared in her already aching heart. Had he really been suffering for the last five months, while she studied and traveled and partied away, like nothing was wrong at all? Trying to find her voice, she asked in a scratchy whisper, "What are you getting at?"

            "Mom and I got tested last month to see if either of us is a kidney match. Turns out, I'm not...but she is. If all things work out... He'll have a new kidney by this Friday, Lila."

            Lila swallowed a lump in her throat. Not only had she been denied the chance to give the gift of health to her father, her mother had stolen that from her simply by way of science.

            "That's amazing," she croaked, her cheeks dampening. "We're so lucky we didn't have to wait for a stranger to donate the organ instead."

            "Incredible, right?" Wyatt breathed. "Mom says this is the greatest Mother's Day gift she's ever received. It's always been a dark day for her, as I'm sure you know."

            What should she have known? "Oh, it is, right?"

            "Yeah," he murmured. "To think my sister would have turned thirty-two this week. Don't even know how my parents had me after a stillbirth..."

            "A s-stillbirth?" Lila stammered, before biting her tongue. Wyatt thought she knew, and she had to play along. "Oh, I mean that pain must have been unimaginable. I feel so horrible for her every year."

            Suddenly, her legs couldn't hold her up anymore. She lurched forward and braced herself on her forearms on the sink counter, her face falling to her hands.

            "Lila? You still there?"

            "Yes, I am," she breathed, squeezing her eyes shut. A couple droplets hit the countertop. "Just trying to process everything."

            "You should be at Boston Logan by now, right? Where should I pick you up?"

            "No, there's been a bit of a delay. I won't be there until the morning."

            "Okay, just keep me in the loop then. And Lila?"

            "Yes?"

            "Mom says she misses you."

            Lila sobbed some more.

***

If empathy was a sixth sense, then Lila needed to channel it.

            When she returned to the gate they'd occupied, Fayez had morphed back into the defeated stranger she'd seen on the ground at LAX. Only this time, he paced the tiles between two rows of chairs, mumbling things to himself—or to whoever was listening.

            "Fayez, what's wrong?" She stepped in front of him. "Are you okay?"

            He stopped in his tracks, his hands slapping his sides. "If this was your last day as a free person, is this how you would spend it?"

            "What?"

            He marched a few steps ahead, leaving less than a foot between their two bodies. "If you knew your freedom had an expiration date, would you wait for it in an airport at four a.m. at the whims of whatever airline wants to ruin your life next?"

            "No. But we don't really have a choice right now, do we?"

            "A choice," he scoffed, shaking his head. "What a stupid word."

            She wanted to offer a few pleasantries, but she supposed he had whoever was calling for that. Grumbling a few curses, he fetched his broken phone from the empty seat and ducked into the portion of wall jutting out from the restrooms. Although she was too far away to eavesdrop, she could still sense the change in his demeanor, from his uncurling fist, the flattening lines in his face, and his wobbly knees, barely holding him up.

            "Sorry," he said, returning like that slip in his personality had never happened. He slowly dropped to the seat next to her, careful not to accidentally brush her body. "Eight-year-old twin siblings were on the phone."

            With that kind of an age gap, she could only imagine how much they looked up to their older brother. Her own was a lifesaver. "Did they need something?"

            "Yeah," he breathed, nodding slowly. "They were asking if I'll be there before our dad dies. And I had to tell them I don't know." He dropped his head into his hands, his voice cracking as he finished, "I don't know...because I'm still stuck in Denver."