‘Yes. Probably more so. It’s useful knowing when the surgery will take place so the recipient can be as best prepared as possible, and the donor and the recipient are in the same place so the donated liver portion is transported within minutes. The liver regenerates so quickly, within eight weeks generally it returns to its original size.’

‘So why don’t we use this method all the time?’ But as Aidan asked he knew the answer. ‘Who are the donors?’

‘That’s the thing. Would you donate a piece of your liver to a stranger? Most donors are family members or friends. Unlike heart and kidney transplants, livers don’t need to be tissue matched, although both blood groups need to be compatible.’

‘I’ll do it!’ At last, something positive Aidan could do, but Lucy shook her head.

‘You wouldn’t be able to. Not only do livers need to be roughly the same size – an adult’s liver would never be used in a child – but you have a family history of diabetes.’

‘And your liver is too big as well?’ Aidan guessed it would be.

‘Yes, but anyway, I’m a blood group B which isn’t compatible with Kieron’s O.’

Aidan fought to keep his next question contained, but it sprung from his lips anyway. ‘But Connor’s blood group is O. He could do it?’

‘In theory, he’s fit and healthy, but you can’t donate in this country unless you’re over eighteen.’

‘Even if—’

‘No exceptions.’

They hadn’t discussed it anymore. They hadn’t needed to. Kieron didn’t require a liver then, unlike now.

This is why, when he saw the parcel of anti-rejection drugs, he had thought she’d snapped and brought both his sons here, to St Mary’s, the operating theatre where she’d been based until Wheatfield General opened. To take a piece of Connor’s liver for Kieron.

He knows he’s got the right scenario.

Right scenario. Wrong donor.

Chapter Eighty

Lucy

All my emotions brew and churn but I can’t afford to fall apart. I need the steely calm of my surgeon persona. To explain the facts to Aidan as I would to any relative of a patient.

‘I knew Kieron should have gone on the transplant list weeks ago.’ Dr Peters wouldn’t agree. Yes, I know that statistically Kieron shouldn’t have needed a transplant for years, but I had an inkling. A knowing. Mr Peters should have listened to me but he dismissed my career as a transplant surgeon as too brief. Too long ago. He knows the circumstances I left under and he doesn’t trust me to make a detached, unbiased decision, but I was right. ‘It’s taken until now for Kieron to go on the waiting list.’ The space in my throat grows smaller as I think of how large that list is.

The amount of people that die waiting.