The End of Forever by Lurlene McDaniel Page B

and now you want to ‘retrieve’ her organs. Why can’t you just keep her alive until the great world of technology finds some way of making her better?”
    “It doesn’t work that way,” Dr. DuPree told her. “Once brain death occurs, the body begins to deteriorate in spite of the machines. We have only a few days at the outside if her organs are going to be viable for transplantation.”
    “That’s why I’m here, Erin,” Mr. Fogerty explained.“I want to answer any questions you might have about organ donation.”
    She glared at him, suddenly furious at this stranger. “Well, I don’t have any questions. You aren’t going to cut up Amy.”
    “Theres no disfigurement, Erin,” Mr. Fogerty said. “Shell look the same as she does now.”
    “Is that why you were in ICU the night they brought Amy up? What do you do, Mr. Fogerty, hang around the halls waiting for someone to be declared brain dead so you can move in and take their organs?”
    “Erin! Stop it!” Mrs. Bennett cried, rising to her feet. “They’re just trying to help.”
    “I won’t stop it,” Erin yelled. “I won’t, because I’m the only one who can keep them from taking Amy into surgery for dismantling.” Her anger kept boiling, and all she wanted to do was hurt all of them.
    Dr. DuPree and Mr. Fogerty didn’t flinch. She hated them most of all. “I don’t agree to ‘organ retrieval,” she said hotly, spitting the words like venom. “You’ll have to find somebody else to give away.”
    Mr. Bennett sat back down heavily, reminding Erin of a balloon that had lost all of its air. “You’re just upset. You don’t know what you’re saying.” He looked to Dr. DuPree. “Give us some time together.”
    The men left, and Erin faced her parents. “Don’t try to talk me out of it,” she warned. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
    Her mother was crying openly. “Do you think we
want
to do this? For the love of heaven, Erin, just
think!
Amy’s dead, and nothing’s going to change that.But we have the chance to make something good come from it.” She fumbled in her purse for either a tissue or a cigarette.
    “Leave her alone, Marian,” her father interrupted on Erin’s behalf. “Its too much for her right now. Just let her think about it.”
    Erin bit her lip until it bled. There was nothing to think about. She wouldn’t change her mind. Her mother sagged down into the chair and buried her face in her hands, and her father put his arm around her shoulders. Erin felt left out and utterly alone. “I’m going home,” she said. “And I’m going to bed. I’ll come back up in the morning and check on my sister. Maybe something will have changed by then.”
    Erin left them. All the way home she silently warred with herself, her parents, the doctors. She couldn’t believe that they were giving up. That they were turning Amy over to some faceless program that would take her apart and send her away to be placed inside somebody else. In spite of knowing Beth and how much it meant to her family to receive a new kidney, this was different. This involved her sister, and Erin didn’t want to donate her organs like money to a charity. And deep down she clung to the hope that as long as she said no, some miracle might happen, and Amy would begin to rally—that all the tests would be wrong, and that Amy really was alive.
    Inside her house she flipped on all the lights because the place seemed so empty, but even the blaze of lamps couldn’t disperse the gloom.
    Her mind felt numb. She thought about calling Shara but realized she couldn’t talk about it. There was no one for her to turn to about this. Erin headed for her bedroom, got as far as Amy’s door, and stopped. She reached out and grasped the knob, turned it, and stepped inside.
    It didn’t look like Amy’s room. It was too neat and orderly, everything stacked and in its place. Slowly Erin walked around, visualizing it as it would be if Amy were home. “The bed would