“Wendell was devastated,” Sidra said, “and not just because he would be losing his legs. Until the gangrene set in, the doctors had been seriously considering letting him have a transplant. Now, all hopes of that had gone out of the window as well.”

“A transplant?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “You mean a donor kidney?”

“Derek was going to give his father one of his kidneys,” she said. “His antigen match was 4, which is excellent.”

“Oh.”

“But on Sunday, the doctors finally nixed the whole thing. Wendell’s heart just wasn’t strong enough for two such serious operations.”

I thought about that, about a man who would’ve had both his legs and his new kidney essentially taken away from him in the same day.

“But I saw Wendell on Monday morning,” I said. “He was bright and cheerful and very charismatic. Certainly not like someone who was in the middle of such a crisis.”

“That was his way,” Sidra said, shrugging. “Believe me, I was his nurse. I know. He could always put his adversity out of his mind, could always make you feel like whatever was happening with you was so much more important than any old thing that was happening with him.”

“Amazing.”

“He may have put on a smile for you Monday morning,” Sidra said, “but I spoke with him at length on Sunday afternoon, and he was incredibly depressed—more than I’ve ever seen him.”

“I can imagine.”

“See, Callie, Wendell’s mother had diabetes, too. Thirty years ago, she died of infection from an amputation. Poor Wendell saw all that pain and misery that his mother went through. He would’ve done anything to keep from going through that himself. That’s why he was hiding his feet for so long.”

“How sad.”

I thought of my own Grandma Bessie’s death from cancer. It had been long and painful and I, too, had spent much of my time there at the end thinking selfishly about myself, praying that I would never suffer the same fate. I knew how Wendell felt.

“The saddest thing to me,” Sidra continued, “was that his murder was so pointless. He was such an ill man. There was a possibility that he wouldn’t have survived the amputation anyway, what with his heart and his general condition and everything. Unless the murderer was a complete stranger, it makes no sense. Everyone knew there was a chance he would’ve been dead within a day or two regardless.”

“How about Wendell himself? Do you think he knew he was dying? That he might not survive the operation?”

“I’m sure he suspected it. He had a pretty good handle on his condition.”