"I think so."

"We in the medical community must do all we can to encourage people to join the bone marrow registry. Education, of course, is important. So, too, is confidentiality. It has to be honored. The donors have to trust us."

She stopped, crossed her legs, leaned back on her hands. "But in this case, something of a quandary has developed. The importance of confidentiality is bumping up against the welfare of my patient. For me, the quandary is easy to resolve. The Hippocratic oath trumps all. I'm not a lawyer or a priest. My priority must be to save the life, not protect confidences. My guess is that I'm not the only doctor that feels that way.

Perhaps that's why we have no contact with the donors. The blood center--in your case, the one in East Orange--does everything. They harvest the marrow and ship it to us."

"Are you saying that you don't know who the donor is?"

"That's right."

"Or if it's a he or she or where they live or anything?"

Karen Singh nodded. "I can only tell you that the national registry found a match. They called and told me so. I later received a call telling me that the donor was no longer available."

"What does that mean?"

"My question exactly."

"Did they give you an answer?"

"No," she said. "And while I see things on the micro level, the national registry has to remain macro. I respect that."

"You just gave up?"

She stiffened at his words. Her eyes went small and black. "No, Mr. Bolitar, I did not give up. I raged against the machine. But the people at the national registry are not ogres. They understand that this is a life-or-death situation. If a donor backs out, they try their best to bring them back into the fold. They do everything I would do to convince the donor to go through with it."

"But nothing worked here?"

"That seems to be the case."

"The donor would be told that he's sentencing a thirteen-year-old boy to death?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Myron threw up his hands. "So what do we conclude here, Doctor? That the donor is a selfish monster?"

Karen Singh chewed on that one for a moment. "Perhaps," she said. "Or perhaps the answer is simpler."

"For example?"

"For example," she said, "maybe the center can't find the donor."

Hello. Myron sat up a bit. "What do you mean, 'can't find'?"

"I don't know what happened here. The center won't tell me, and that's probably how it should be. I'm the patient's advocate. It's their job to deal with the donors. But I believe they were"--she stopped, searching for the right word--"perplexed."

"What makes you say that?"

"Nothing concrete. Just a feeling that this might be more than a donor with cold feet."

"How do we find out?"

"I don't know."

"How do we find the donor's name?"

"We can't."

"There has to be a way," Myron said. "Play pretend with me. How could I do it?"