Page 111 of Don't Go
Dylan's mother Marta opened the door. "Mr. Cross."
"Marta. Hello. It's Beau."
"Mr. Cross. Please come in."
Dylan was in the living room.
He was on the couch. He had a tablet on his lap and the stuffed dinosaur — the one-eyed dinosaur from the photograph— beside him. He was small and pale. His eyes came up when I came in.
"Hi, Dylan."
"Hi."
"I'm Beau."
"Nice to meet you, Beau."
"That is a good dinosaur."
"His name is Earl."
"Earl is a good name for a dinosaur."
"Thank you." He looked back at the tablet.
I sat in the kitchen with Simon and Marta and explained the evaluation, the donor lead I hadn't yet secured but was going to handle personally, the paperwork, and the flight I had booked for them, three business class seats. I told them I would drive them to the airport.
Marta put her hand over Simon's. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything yet."
I left and drove to Langone Health alone to visit Lily's parents.
I had called ahead.
The hospital social worker had cleared the visit. She told me, on the phone, that the family had agreed to meet me only because Simon had asked.
I met Lily's parents in a family room near the ICU.
The mother was already in the room.
The father came in some minutes after I did. He had a takeout coffee in his hand. He had been to the cafeteria. He sat down beside his wife. He put his hand on her knee. They looked at me.
I didn't pitch.
"My name is Beau Cross. I'm here because Simon Kessler asked me to come. I'm the chairman of the Cross Foundation. I'm also a man who lost his father. I'm not here to ask you foranything. I'm here to sit with you for a little while and to tell you that I see you."
The mother started to cry.
I sat with them for three hours and told them about my father and what it was to be the person in the room who couldn't save somebody they loved.
The mother held my hand for the second and third hours.
The father didn't cry. He looked at me and listened. He had been a man who hadn't allowed himself, in some weeks of holding his daughter, to be told he could put her down.
I went back the next day, sat with them, and listened.
The father told me about Lily. He told me what she had been like before she had been the girl in the bed. The mother showed me photographs.
