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sorry, by the way.”
    â€œThanks.” I can feel him looking at me, but I just can’t look back. I might start crying, and that would definitely put a damper on this Second Unofficial Date. Instead, I focus on not stepping on the lines in the sidewalk, just like I did when I was a kid.
    â€œI didn’t know it was a kidney thing, though.”
    â€œWell, that was part of it. She had been diabetic and had all kinds of heart trouble, which messed with her kidneys. It’s what led to the end. She actually got an infection in her catheter site that spread through the rest of her body and finally to her brain.”
    I haven’t talked about this with anyone. I mean, I would e-mail Liss in spurts when it was happening, but I haven’t actually articulated the history of how my mom died to anyone else. It’s like it just happened yesterday, and yet it’s an entirely foreign dimension of existence, me being her daughter, her being alive.
    Daniel’s looking ahead now, and I’m still avoiding the sidewalk cracks, and we’re both walking silently in a strange kind of rhythm, and I think that I’ve said too much. I’m a downer. I’ve committed the mortal sin of TMI. I bet he wants to split.
    Instead, he says this: “I have a fifty percent chance of getting polycystic disease, too.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œSo, part of my desire to go into research is purely selfish. I want to save my own life. I want to build myself a kidney.”
    I want to tell him that he’s not selfish at all. I want to tell him about the list and how I’m trying to save my own life, too, and how I’m also doing it for my mom, just like he could save his dad’s life while he’s saving his own. But then I’d have to pull the list out of my pocket and show it to him, and I can’t do that because he comprises three of the items.
    Instead, I say this: “I know you’ll do it.”
    â€œThanks.” He nods. “It’s hard.”
    We walk a little bit more, saying nothing. I focus on the cracks in the sidewalk. I don’t know what else to say, but I feel like he wants to talk about this. Finally, I ask, “Is he on dialysis?”
    â€œYeah,” he says. “Only for about four months. Was your mom on dialysis, too?”
    â€œYes. For years. She did it at home while she slept.”
    He nods. “My dad goes to the center three times a week.”
    â€œDo you go with him?”
    â€œI wish I could. He’s out in Oregon with my stepmom. Even though he’s supposed to watch his blood pressure, I know he doesn’t, and my stepmom tries to get him to eat right, but he doesn’t listen. She’ll serve grilled chicken and kale salad for dinner, and he’ll sneak Doritos and beef jerky at night when she’s not looking.”
    â€œMy mom used to sneak ice cream.”
    â€œThey told him if he doesn’t take care of himself, he could die. I mean, they used the big D word. But it’s like he doesn’t hear them.”
    â€œAnd there’s nothing you can say, right?”
    â€œRight,” he says. “And I just—I don’t want him to die, you know?”
    How well I know.
    He stops at a corner and turns to me. “How did you handle it—when she died?”
    I look at him. How did we get here, from pumpkin pi to dialysis? From colleges to death? What happened to our romantic date?
    â€œI’m sorry. Is that too personal?”
    â€œNo,” I say. “Not at all. I just have to think about it.”
    I think about the very end, the letter, her deterioration, everything that we had to decide—everything that I had to decide. I’m struggling for the words. I want to tell him, but I don’t want to start crying, either.
    â€œLiss told me you and your mom were close.”
    I nod.
    â€œYou don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry.”
    â€œNo,” I say.