“I owe you an apology,” David said, and this proud, distant man’s voice was not steady. “Years of them. I’ll be honest with you, because you deserve honesty from me now of all times. My wife and I never understood your son. He was always at our house, always underfoot, this scruffy kid who wouldn’t leave Lily alone. We thought — God forgive us — we thought he was a nuisance. We kept him at arm’s length. We kept you at arm’s length.”
He put his hand flat on the hospital letter.
“And then our daughter got sick, and we could not find a donor, and we told almost no one how bad it had gotten, because we are private people and private people suffer quietly and stupidly. And a boy we barely tolerated found out anyway — Lily must have told him — and without a word to anyone, he went and got himself typed at a swab drive, and he is the match. The match, when the entire national registry had none. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Your son is the reason my daughter has a chance to live. And I have spent four years being cold to him.”
