For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood him.

“A specific patient?” I repeated.

“Are you telling me Hannah knew someone who needed an organ?”

Dr.

Bradley looked toward the double doors through which my daughter had just disappeared.

He had always seemed unshakable, even on the nights when Hannah’s condition changed without warning.

Now he was choosing his words as though one wrong sentence might break what little remained of my world.

“She asked about the possibility,” he said.

“She wanted to understand how a person on a transplant waiting list is matched with a donor.

She also asked whether being friends with someone made any difference.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“That a deceased donor’s organs are offered through a medical allocation process.

A wish cannot override medical compatibility or the waiting-list rules.

I told her we could help her understand the process, but we could not promise a particular outcome.”

I held the purple ribbon pinned to my coat between two fingers.

Its fabric had begun to fray where I had twisted it during the honor walk.

“Why would she ask that?”

His silence frightened me more than his answer.