Chapter 5 - The Glass Wall
The operating theater on the seventh floor of Lakefront Medical Center was cold, sterile, and flooded with the harsh, shadowless glare of overhead surgical lights.
I lay on the wheeled gurney, my hospital gown tied securely at the back, an IV line taped smoothly into the crook of my right arm. My head was still wrapped in a light mesh bandage where the stitches from Evelyn’s assault were healing, but the crushing, toxic fog that had poisoned my brain for months was completely gone.
Through the massive, soundproof glass observation window separating Operating Room A from Operating Room B, I saw her.
Evelyn Whitaker.
She wore a blue patient gown, her graying hair tucked tightly into a sterile green surgical cap. Her face was pale, hollowed out, stripped of every ounce of the arrogant majesty she had worn like armor for thirty years. Two armed corrections deputies stood on either side of her gurney, their hands resting near their sidearms, ensuring that Chicago’s most disgraced mother didn't try to back out of her final, involuntary contribution to my survival.
She didn't look at the guards. She didn't look at the surgical team bustling around her with scalpels, basins, and heart monitors.
Her eyes were fixed entirely on the glass wall.
Directly on me.
Through the intercom speaker built into the wall, Dr. Sarah Vance’s voice crackled calmly across both rooms.
“Patient Maya Whitaker is prepped and stable. Donor Evelyn Whitaker is prepped and stable. Anesthesia team, please initiate general sedation sequence.”
I watched through the glass as the anesthesiologist placed a clear oxygen mask over my mother’s face. For a fraction of a second, her eyes widened behind the plastic, filled with a primal, animal terror.
She wasn't looking at a bank account anymore.
She was looking at the daughter she had tried to destroy, about to receive the very piece of life she had tried to deny me.
The sedative took hold instantly. Her eyelids fluttered, rolled back, and she went completely still against the white surgical table.
Across the room, the nurse placed the mask over my face.
The sweet, medicinal scent of oxygen filled my lungs. The steady, frantic beep of the heart monitor began to slow, stretching out into a long, peaceful, rhythmic cadence.
As my eyes drifted shut beneath the blinding hospital lights, I didn't feel fear.
I felt clean.
May you like
I felt free.
And for the first time in thirty-three years, I knew I was going to live.
