Chapter 9 - I DIDN’T REGRET THE KIDNEY
People kept asking whether I regretted donating.
Emily.
Friends.
Even my therapist.
The answer was complicated.
I regretted trusting Victor with paperwork.
I regretted ignoring how lonely our marriage had become.
I regretted believing sacrifice could repair something neither of us had honestly discussed.
But the kidney?
No.
That answer confused people.
Victor had betrayed me terribly.
He still had kidney disease.
Both things were true.
I had made my decision to donate before I knew about Rita.
I had made it because another human being I loved was dying slowly.
His betrayal afterward did not travel backward through time and turn my compassion into stupidity.
I refused to give him that power.
The transplant worked.
Victor’s new kidney function improved.
Mine stabilized well with one kidney.
Then I underwent treatment for the breast cancer.
Surgery first.
Radiation afterward.
No dramatic collapse.
No miracle.
Just appointments.
Fatigue.
Good days.
Bad days.
And increasingly good news.
Victor sent flowers after my surgery.
I sent them to the nurses’ station.
He wrote letters.
I read the first two.
Then stopped.
The divorce proceeded.
The house remained my separate property.
The attempted transfer became part of the broader dispute, as did Victor’s hidden financial arrangements and the money spent during his relationship with Rita.
The matter ended mostly through negotiated settlement rather than a courtroom spectacle.
Victor kept what was legitimately his.
I kept what was mine.
Rita did not get the house.
She and Victor separated before our divorce was even final.
Emily told me that.
May you like
I did not ask why.
A relationship built around somebody else’s property becomes less romantic once the property disappears.
