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hospital bed, the only sound the whir and beep of the machines that kept his heart beating. The Donor Alliance coordinator with a sheaf of paperwork, explaining the donation procedure. The doctors think they have a match for your son’s heart. A little girl.
    “Darcy, are you all right?”
    She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up into Mike’s eyes. “Do you feel faint?” he asked. “You’re white as a sheet.”
    Darcy shook her head and studied Taylor, who stood apart, eyes wide. “The boy who donated your heart—you don’t know his name?”
    Taylor looked at her dad. “I don’t think they ever told us.”
    “No,” Mike said. “That information is kept confidential unless both families agree for it to be released.”
    Darcy stood, a little shakily. “Maybe you’d better sit back down,” Mike said. “You still seem very pale.”
    She shook her head and crossed to the basket beneath the telephone where she kept the mail. She sorted through the stack of bills and flyers and unearthed the cream-colored envelope from the Donor Alliance. “Read that,” she said, handing it to Mike.
    He pulled out the letter and stared at it. Darcy kept her eyes on the floral pattern of the tiles on her kitchen floor. She focused on breathing slowly through her nose, inhaling the aroma of basil and oregano from last night’s spaghetti dinner, and the faint strawberry-shampoo scent of Taylor. Taylor, who was standing here today because a boy had died, a boy like Riley.
    Mike folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. “When did your son die?” he asked.
    “January twenty-first, two thousand and eight.”
    “The same day as my transplant,” Taylor said. She took a step closer to Darcy. “Do you think I have his heart?”
    “Except that I never contacted the donor registry,” Mike said. “It’s possible there were two transplants performed that day.”
    “Oh.” Darcy hadn’t thought of that. She was surprised at how disappointed she felt.
    “Dad?”
    Both adults turned to the girl, who looked as if she’d just been caught cheating on a math test. “I…I wrote a letter to the Donor Alliance.”
    “You did?” Mike frowned. “When?”
    “A few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking a lot about the boy who gave me his heart and…and I just wanted to know.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Mike said, clearly stricken.
    “I didn’t want to upset you,” Taylor said. “You always said it would be better not to know my donor’s identity, that the family deserved their privacy. But I really wanted to know.” She bit her lower lip. “I took some stationery from your desk and pretended to be you. I thought if the donor family wrote back and said they wanted to meet me, then I’d tell you and it would be all right.”
    “You lied, Taylor,” Mike said. “That’s wrong.”
    “But I thought it didn’t really matter, since the donor family never answered.”
    “It’s not that I didn’t want to know about the child who got Riley’s heart,” Darcy said. “I just…I guess I was afraid. That it might be too hard.”
    Mike put his hand on her shoulder. She wanted to lean into that comforting weight, to draw strength from him. “I’m sorry this has upset you,” he said.
    “It’s all right.” Taylor still looked guilty, and a little scared. “Really, it’s fine,” Darcy said. “I’ll admit it was a shock, but if you do have Riley’s heart, I’m glad. Truly, I am.”
    “We don’t know for sure your son was Taylor’s donor,” Mike said.
    “That’s true,” Darcy said. The transplant had been performed at Denver Children’s Hospital. The recipient of Riley’s heart could have come from anywhere in the area, even from Wyoming. But the timing couldn’t be a coincidence. How likely was it that two heart transplants had been performed that fateful day?
    “What did you say your son’s name was?” Taylor asked.
    “Riley. He was big for his age. Maybe his heart was a little bigger too,