Chapter 3 The Color of Daddy

One day, while cleaning under Piper's bed, I found a stuffed bear with one ear missing.

Sawyer had brought it home from a business trip when Piper was two. She had slept holding it every night for three years.

Then, Tatum wanted the bear too, so Sawyer simply took it out of her arms and gave it to him.

Piper cried all night.

The next day, Tatum said the bear was old and ugly, then tore off its ear and threw it in the trash.

Piper went back for it and hid it under her bed.

When I washed the bear and gave it back to her, she said something I would never forget. "Mommy, I'm not going to tell anyone what I like anymore. If I do, they'll just take it away."

She was only five years old.

It hurt to hear her say that, and the pain stayed with me for a long time.

Now, Juliet was sitting in the living room, crying, with Sawyer beside her, trying to comfort her.

It was no different from any other day over the past seven years. Except this time, what she wanted to take was not a toy. It was my daughter's bone marrow.

…

Piper was hiding in her room.

I brought her a bowl of noodles. She was sitting on the floor with a drawing in front of her.

There were three people in it. One tall, one short, and one even shorter. The tallest figure was covered in different colors. Red, blue, all mixed together.

"Who's this?"

"Daddy."

She picked up a black crayon. "I don't know what color to make him. Sometimes, he wears blue when he picks me up. Other times, he wears gray when he leaves."

She paused. "I don't know which one is the real him."

I crouched beside her. "What color do you want Daddy to be?"

She tilted her head and thought for a long time. "Yellow. Because the sun is yellow. It's warm. But Daddy isn't warm."

She put down the black crayon. "He's been warm lately, but it's not real."

My throat tightened. I could not find the words to respond.

…

That night, after Piper fell asleep, I went through her backpack.

On her extracurricular activity form, she had written my name under emergency contact in her uneven handwriting.

The space for her father's name was blank.

It had not been left empty. His name had been erased.

I picked up my phone and messaged the lawyer a college friend had recommended. "Can we meet tomorrow?"

She replied almost immediately, "Sure. Also, medical procedures involving minors require informed consent from a legal guardian. If you didn't sign, the consent he obtained on his own may be legally questionable. Do you have a copy of the form?"

I did not—because I had not even known such a form existed. However, I replied, "I'll get the records from the hospital tomorrow."

When I put my phone down, the living room was empty.

Juliet had left. I did not know when Sawyer had gone.

The strawberry cake was still sitting on the coffee table. The frosting had started to slump.

It looked just like the birthday cake from Piper's third birthday, the one she had waited by until the candles burned out.

…

Early the next morning, I went to the hospital.

The nurse at the registration desk spent some time looking through the records.

"This little girl has been here three times in the past month. The first visit was for a complete blood count and preliminary HLA screening. The second was for high-resolution HLA typing, and the third was for additional sample collection."

"Who signed the consent forms for all three visits?"

The nurse pulled up the electronic records. Sawyer's name was on all three forms. Not one had my signature.

"Do both legal guardians need to consent before you can perform HLA testing on a minor?"

The nurse hesitated. "Generally, one legal guardian's signature is enough for testing. But collecting stem cells requires a much stricter consent process."

"Have they scheduled the stem cell collection yet?"

She checked again. "There's a stem cell collection appointment in the file. It's set for next Tuesday."

My hands went cold. "Whose signature is on it?"

"Sawyer Sterling."