Page 13 of Not Quite Dead Yet

No one answered.

Dad couldn’t hold it any longer, burying his face in the crook of his elbow as he sobbed.

‘Dad, it’s OK,’ Jet said, shifting in her bed. She’d only seen him cry once before like this. A guttural, primal sound. She hoped she’d never have to hear that sound again; seventeen years wasn’t long enough.

‘It’s my fault,’ he cried.

‘Dad, it’s not your fault. It’s hereditary. There was a fifty percent chance that me or Luke or Emily could have inherited PKD.’ That made Jet the unlucky one. She already knew that, because the other two had normal names and she was the one who got stuck with Margaret. ‘So, the surgery, then. Right?’ Jet looked from Dr Lee to her family.

Mom nodded, wiped her swollen eyes. None of them looked like they’d slept much, in the time Jet had slept too much. ‘It’s the only choice, Jet.’

‘Please, Mrs Mason,’ Dr Lee’s voice hardened. ‘I need to make something clear to you, Jet, before you make any decision. Like I said, under other circumstances, this surgery wouldn’t even be considered. The risk of mortality is high. I have to be honest with you: it was my colleague, Dr Fuller, who performed the initial surgery on you. After the second CT scan, once the situation became clear, Dr Fuller refused to even consider performing surgery to attempt to remove the bone fragment. I said that I would only do it if you had all the information – if you chose this, understanding the risk.’

The drumming in her head quickened, unnatural, like it was counting down to something, racing her heart.

‘What is the risk?’ Jet asked. ‘Can you give me a percentage or something?’

Dr Lee hesitated, her tongue moving around inside her mouth, bulging through her cheek. ‘Less than ten percent chance of survival.’

The drumming stopped.

‘So, more than a ninety percent chance that I’d die on the table?’ Numb, detached, like she wasn’t here in this body, in this bed. Sometimes minds did that, didn’t they, to save you from the pain? Or was this a result of the brain trauma, the kind of broken that didn’t show up on CT scans? ‘I’m not a betting girl, but those don’t sound like good odds.’

Jet wasn’t good with chance. She’d already lost that game with polycystic kidney disease. And that was with fifty percent. Not ten. Less than ten.

‘There’s nothing else you can do?’

‘I’m sorry, Jet,’ Dr Lee said, a tremble in her voice that she coughed to cover. How many times had she had to tell someone they were going to die? Could you get used to a thing like that?

Jet looked at her family. Luke, gray and silent, a muscle ticcing in his jaw. Dad crying, a quieter, more unsettling kind of cry. Mom leaning forward in her chair, taking Jet’s hand in her own, giving it a squeeze.

‘So.’ Jet hesitated, trying to stick her mind back together, to fix what the doctor couldn’t. ‘My choice is I can die now, or I can die in seven days?’

3

The room was silent, but the world was not. It carried on; a high-pitched beep from a machine, a low-pitched scream down the corridor, the fall sun beaming through the window because it didn’t care about her and her little problems.

What kind of choice was that? Jet couldn’t even decide what to have for breakfast most days. Die now, or die in a week? Toast or cereal? Both?

There was a humming too, but that wasn’t down the corridor; it was in Jet’s head, behind her eyes, playing with her heart. A symphony of the damned. Her throat constricted; she wouldn’t let the others hear it.

‘Damn,’ Jet said. ‘You sure there isn’t a door number three?’

Her mom replied before the doctor could.

‘Everything’s going to be OK, sweetie. It’s obvious which choice to make,’ she sniffed, her grip tightening until it hurt. ‘One of them has a chance, the other doesn’t. I can’t lose you. You have to choose the surgery, Jet. Quickly. The doctor said every minute counts.’

‘Mrs Mason –’

‘– Not much of a chance.’ Jet looked at her. ‘Less than ten percent chance of survival. I know it’s been a while since high school for you, but that’s not great math, Mom.’

‘Don’t make this a competition, Jet.’

‘How was I making it a –’

‘– You have to have the surgery.’ Mom’s eyes filled but they didn’t spill. ‘I can’t lose another daughter. You can’t do that to me.’

The humming became a roar of thunder. Jet could normally leash it, back down and walk away, but maybe that had gotten broken too.

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