I did. Two weeks ago. I drove to my mother's house. I sat her down on her couch, the couch I had been sitting on since I was four years old, and I said: "Mom. I am not going to give Harper my kidney." My mother cried. She asked me why. I told her. I told her the thirtieth birthday. I told her the eleven months of silence. I told her the cousin's wedding. I told her about Harper's card when my son was born. And my mother listened to all of it and then she said — in a voice I had never heard from her, a voice that was both sad and, I realized, familiar, because it was the voice women use when they have been apologizing for someone else for thirty years and are tired of it — "I know. I know all of that. And I'm still asking you. Because I love her, and she is my stepdaughter, and your father made me promise to take care of her, and I am asking my daughter to do something monstrously unfair because I don't know how else to save her." I sat with my mother. I held her hand. I said I would think about it for one more week. She said thank you. I left.