“If she contacts any of you, don’t say I didn’t warn you. If something happens, it’s not
on our family.”
After that, those who had
been defending me shut up.
Nobody wanted to get dragged into it.
Sarah then changed the
subject and spoke to
everyone in a friendly,
easygoing manner.
“Being scared of risks is
totally normal. It’s not shameful if you don’t want
to donate. You all have
families of your own to take care of. If I’m being honest,
if I was the one with
leukemia, I wouldn’t ask
anyone in my family to help.”
824
Some of the family members tried to stay out of trouble by agreeing with Sarah.
And that was that. I was
written out of the Johnson family.
I leaned back against the bench, laughing and crying at the same time. As I was doing that I screenshotted the conversation and then called Ben.
“Honey, I’m keeping the baby. Come pick me up.”
4
I guess nobody had bothered looking at the test results
that I left behind.
Sarah’s social media was still full of idyllic posts.
For Mother’s Day she posted a photo of her going to church with her mom.
“We are all made in the
image of our parents, and
Mom says the best gift I can give her is to take care of myself.”
11:08
fter that, my mom had omeone send me a lucky
harm.
That was it though, just a ucky charm.
Three days before her
European tour.
She posted a photo of her
amily seeing her off.
“Real families want to see each other thrive, not hold each other back”
Underneath, Matt liked it and commented “Exactly.”
Two days before she was due to leave for Europe.
She posted a free–spirited
message:
“Goodbye to all the
negativity and all the awful
people. I’m leaving
tomorrow!”
Below was a slew of posts
from her family, showing how they were supporting and were sorry to see her
- go.
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<
11:09
The day before her tour started, her social media was uncharacteristically
quiet.
But I wasn’t surprised at all.
That was probably the day
she received her own test
results.
5
Sarah’s dance group had come to our hospital for a check–up before they left
for their tour.
Because of my advisor, I’d
heard about her results
early.
My advisor was a leukemia specialist, and we had just signed up for the bone marrow registry.
So, by chance, I was the first
to know about the match…
Sarah and Matt cornered me after work, outside of my
advisor’s office.
“Doctor, there has to be a
mistake with this test.”
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<
Sarah said.
Her voice was anxious but
somehow calm.
“You should know that I
have been having some family issues with my sister,
Ava, she works in your department.”
“She was probably just mad because I didn’t agree to
donate bone marrow, and
changed my test results.”
Her words took the entire
office by surprise.
That just proved her point.
“So, Doctor, can you please change the results back?
Our dance group needs this health certificate, and my flight is tonight.”
My advisor pushed his
glasses up on his nose.
“Uh…” He hesitated,
choosing his words carefully,
“These tests results are so important, the hospital would
never make a mistake with
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<
them…”
Matt cut him off, yelling in his face.
“If you’re so sure, then why did you allow Ava to change the results?! You better give us a good explanation, or I am gonna sue all of you!”
That was the scene I walked into.
Matt rushed me, my advisor ripped off his glasses and jumped out of his chair,
pushing Matt to the side.
“Security!” he yelled. His
face was cold.
Sarah tried to put on a
friendly smile.
“Doctor, my brother is just upset. Please just fix these
test results, I will even take responsibility for what Ava did. I have to catch my flight at 11 o’clock tonight.”
