Their Twin Christmas Surprise. Laura Iding

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      ‘Unfortunately, the news isn’t good enough for us to be able to give you that sort of information,’ he said quietly. ‘Her liver function tests are giving us more cause for concern and it looks as if there may be more necrosis than we’d expected.’

      ‘Necrosis?’ Audrey pounced on the word. ‘What’s necrosis?’

      ‘It means that sections of her liver have been damaged and are dying, so they are no longer able to perform their proper function.’

      ‘So it’s the same as what you found on the last tests,’ she summarised for herself.

      ‘Yes and no,’ he prevaricated. ‘Yes, it’s the same condition but, no, it’s not the same as before because the condition has worsened.’

      ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ Frank asked, and Sara wasn’t surprised to see how pale he was looking at the thought that his precious daughter’s health wasn’t improving the way they’d hoped.

      ‘I’m afraid we can’t do much more than we’re already doing as far as infusing the antidote into her system and supporting her and keeping an eye on the concentration of various components in her blood. It’s still very much a case of wait and see, but I thought you would want to be informed of the results so that you would know to prepare yourselves in case—’

      ‘Would a transplant cure it?’ Audrey interrupted, clearly unwilling to hear that particular eventuality even as a theory.

      ‘Well, yes, we can do liver transplants in some conditions—for example, in people with cirrhosis or hepatitis and also in some cases where the patient has had medication toxic to the liver—but the success rate is not as good as for kidney transplantation and there’s still the problem of finding a compatible liver donor while there’s still time to do the operation.’

      ‘Well, that’s not a problem, then … not for Zara,’ her mother announced with a beaming smile. ‘Sara will give her one of hers. I’ve seen it on television and they said that identical twins are a perfect match. Once you operate, Zara will be as good as new.’

      ‘No,’ Sara said sharply, and her mother turned on her with a look of utter disbelief on her face.

      ‘What do you mean, no? Sara, you can’t refuse to help your sister if she needs one of yours.’

      ‘Mother, I’ve only got one liver, so I can’t give it to her. The operation would mean chopping a chunk of mine away and that’s major surgery. Anyway, I doubt if you’d find a surgeon willing to do it because I’m pregnant and it wouldn’t be good for the babies.’

      ‘Well, then, you’ll have to get rid of the babies,’ her mother announced with a breathtaking lack of feeling for the unborn lives nestling inside her. ‘You can’t refuse to help save your sister’s life. She could die.’

      ‘But you would be quite happy for me to murder my babies to save your baby?’ Sara couldn’t believe the pain that thought caused, her heart clenching inside her chest as though every drop of blood had been wrung out of it.

      Ever since she’d seen those two hearts on the ultrasound screen, beating so valiantly in spite of the recent trauma, it had brought the reality of her pregnancy home to her the way no amount of reading pregnancy books had done. She felt so connected to those tiny beings, so protective, that the thought of deliberately scouring them out of her womb and flushing them away was anathema.

      ‘So.’ She lifted her chin and stared her mother right in the eye. ‘What if I refuse to do it?’

      ‘You can’t refuse because they’re not your babies, they’re Zara’s, and if she needs them to die so that she can live—’

      It was Sara’s turn to interrupt and she did so without a qualm.

      ‘They might be babies I’m carrying for Zara, but they’re growing in my body and from my eggs … and what’s more, it’s my liver you’re talking about and no one can have it if I don’t want to give it.’

      Her mother broke into noisy sobs and no matter what her father said she wouldn’t be consoled.

      Sara felt dreadful.

      She now knew firsthand just how fiercely a mother would defend her child and couldn’t really blame her own mother for wanting to do everything she could to give her daughter a chance of being well again.

      But she was a mother, too—at least while those two helpless innocents were still inside her—and she was going to fight every bit as hard for their survival.

      Poor Mr Shah didn’t seem to know what to do for the best. Her parents were clearly beyond listening to anything he said, even though he repeatedly tried to reassure them that Zara’s condition hadn’t yet reached the point of no return.

      While Dan …

      Suddenly, Sara realised that the one person with the most to lose in this whole disastrous situation was the only one who hadn’t said a single word.

      A single glance in his direction was enough to tell her that he’d retreated behind what she’d privately dubbed his ‘stone’ face. There wasn’t a single emotion visible, until she happened to see the way his hands were clenched into tight fists inside his trouser pockets.

      As if her mother had sensed that her attention had wandered she turned a tear-ravaged face to her son-in-law. ‘Danny, do something,’ she pleaded. ‘You have to tell Sara to save my precious girl … You must make her give Zara a new liver!’

      ‘No,’ he said quietly with a reinforcing shake of his head. ‘It’s not time for that discussion, Audrey. Listen to what Mr Shah’s been trying to tell you. Eighty per cent of patients with even severe liver damage eventually recover on their own, so it’s just a case of waiting to see if Zara’s liver is going to do the same.’

      ‘But the transplant,’ she persisted. ‘Because they’re identical twins it would be a perfect match and—’

      ‘And it might only give her another year of life,’ Dan finished brutally, and literally robbed her of the breath to argue any further, her mouth and eyes open like a gasping fish. ‘That’s the average survival rate for liver transplants at the moment,’ he told her with an air of finality.

      Sara knew from reading medical journals that some patients had survived considerably longer. It was probably the poor survival rate of liver cancer transplant patients that brought the overall rate down, but it wasn’t accurate statistics that she cared about, it was the fact that he had managed to take her completely out of the firing line … for the moment at least.

      ‘Now,’ said Mr Shah, looking unusually flustered by the open warfare he’d just had to witness, ‘I think it would be best if you were all to go home and have some rest.’

      ‘Oh, but we haven’t seen—’ Audrey began, but was totally ignored as he continued inexorably, drawing a line in the sand.

      ‘You may come back at visiting time this evening, but no more than two of you may visit at a time. That will ensure that my patient will have what remains of the day to rest and hopefully give her body a chance to start to recover.’

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