I make this distinction — between the gift and what I thought it would buy — because it is the crack the whole marriage fell through, and not just mine.

I did not give Gregor a kidney the way you give a gift, free and complete, wanting nothing back.

I told myself I did, but I know now that I gave it the way the disappearing woman gives everything, which is as payment — payment toward a debt that was never named and never collectible, the debt I imagined would finally, if I gave enough, buy me the thing I had wanted for twenty-two years and never once asked for out loud, which was to be seen.

To be chosen.

To have him look at me one day and know what I was worth.

That was the transaction running underneath the gift, invisible even to me, and behind that green curtain I heard it fail.