My Sister's Keeper: List 2

We are all, I suppose, beholden to our parents—the question is, how much?

Rosie’s is what Starbucks wishes it was: eclectic and funky, crammed with patrons who at any time might be reading Russian lit in its original tongue or balancing a company’s budget on a laptop or writing a screenplay while mainlining caffeine.

“Call Osterlitz and ask him whether he’s available to testify during the Weiland trial; get a list of other complainants who’ve gone up against New England Power in the past five years; make me a copy of the Melbourne deposition; and phone Jerry at the court and ask who the judge is going to be for the Fitzgerald kid’s hearing.”

"...Because I’m not a family therapist or your best buddy; I’m your attorney. And for me to be your attorney there actually has to be a case. So I will ask you one more time: have you changed your mind about this lawsuit?”
I expect this tirade to put an end to the litigation, to reduce Anna to a wavering puddle of indecision.

I did my best to be a step ahead of where my father needed me to be—guiding the rudder before he even gave the order, jibing and tacking until my muscles burned with effort.

I was told to clean up my mess and take the taxi in, while my father sailed the dory to the yacht club to celebrate.

Unlike the other victims, this was one I knew marginally. She was the twelve-year-old daughter of a judge, who reportedly broke down during a custody trial held shortly after the funeral and took a three-month leave of absence to deal with his grief. The same judge, incidentally, who has been assigned to Anna Fitzgerald’s case.

As I make my way into the Garrahy Complex, where the family court is housed, I wonder if a man carrying around so much baggage will be able to try a case where a winning outcome for my client will precipitate the death of her teenage sister.

There is a new bailiff at the entrance, a man with a neck as thick as a redwood and most likely the brainpower to match.

“Your Honor,” I say, “this is precisely my point, and the reason Anna Fitzgerald’s petition has merit. Her own mother isn’t aware of where she is on any given morning; medical decisions regarding Anna are made with the same haphazard—”

"As you're well aware, due to the strange circumstances of this case, my client is living with opposing counsel. That's a flagrant breach of justice."

The perchloric acid filched from the chemistry lab at the high school is intact; in another barrel is the sawdust.

Dr. Chance, the oncologist I know, and Dr. Nguyen, some expert I don’t, tell us what we’ve already figured out: these are the death throes of end-stage kidney disease.

“Kate’s in a pretty grave clinical state,” Dr. Chance tells her. “I told you before I didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive that level of surgery: the odds are even slighter now.”

I take a right and drive past a cemetery, headstones canted forward and back like a set of yellowed teeth.

We sit down on the set at the TV studio. We've been invited here because of our baby's unorthodox conception. Somehow, in an effort to keep Kate healthy, we've unwittingly become the poster children for scientific debate.

"What made you turn to a geneticist?"
"Time constraints," I say bluntly. "We couldn't keep having babies year after year until one was a match for Kate. The doctor was able to screen several embryos to see which one, if any, would be the ideal donor for Kate..."

Day Zero of Kate's pre-transplant regimen starts the morning after Anna is born.

There is a Murphy's Law to oncology, one which is not written anywhere but held in widespread belief: if you don't get sick, you won't get well. Therefore, if your chemo makes you violently ill, if radiation sears your skin—it's all good. On the other hand, if you sail through therapy quickly with only negligible nausea or pain, chances are the drugs have somehow been excreted by your body and aren't doing their job.

The drug I will be giving is subcutaneous, injected just under the skin.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to be trained as a GAL, but you do have to have a moral compass and a heart. Which, actually, probably renders most lawyers unqualified for the job.

We are trained, as guardians ad litem, to see the signs of depression. We know how to read body language, and flat affect, and mood swings.

Now a dilapidated Jeep is parked in the driveway, and the front door of the house is open.

I glance at Anna, who catches my eye and shakes her head almost imperceptibly, a plea to just let this go for now.

For that matter, you may want to consider a class action against humanity in general, since surely you’d also like to stifle the inherent racism implicit in the White House, the White Mountains, and the White Pages.

For that matter, you may want to consider a class action against humanity in general, since surely you’d also like to stifle the inherent racism implicit in the White House, the White Mountains, and the White Pages.

One day Julia Romano arrived at school with short pink hair. We all assumed she’d be suspended, but it turned out that in the litany of rules about what one had to wear at Wheeler, coiffure was conspicuously absent.

One day Julia Romano arrived at school with short pink hair. We all assumed she’d be suspended, but it turned out that in the litany of rules about what one had to wear at Wheeler, coiffure was conspicuously absent.

One afternoon, I went AWOL from the sailing team where I was captain, and followed her.

I grabbed a paper on top of her binder and read aloud: You come across a horrible four-car accident. There are people moaning in pain, and bodies strewn all over the place. Do you have an obligation to stop?

“I don’t think about any of you, period. You’re a bunch of superficial idiots who wouldn’t be caught dead with someone who’s different from you.”

“Hey, I’m just saving you the trouble. It must’ve been hard training a dog to drag you out of a room when you need rescuing from some emotionally volatile situation, like an old girlfriend who’s telling the truth. How does it work, Campbell? Hand signals? Word commands? A high-pitched whistle?”

I look wistfully down the empty hallway. “Can I have Izzy back instead?”

My eyes canvass the apartment, looking for a hockey stick, a Sports Illustrated magazine, a La-Z-Boy chair, anything telltale and male.

“I still have moments where I fantasize about standing on a soapbox in Boston Common, railing against a patriarchal society. Unfortunately, you can’t pay a landlord in dogma.”

There is a thick, viscous silence.

I hold it the way I think a drama queen ought to, between the vise of my second and middle fingers.

"If you'd like a checklist of depravity, I can make one up for you." When I don't reply, he glances over at me. "Anna," he says, "you're not doing the wrong thing."

"Maybe an airplane crash," Kate mused.

The nurses swarm out from their hive of a desk, trying to subdue a boy half their age and three times as strong, who at that very moment grabs the uppermost tier of a linen rack and pulls it forward, making a crash so loud it rings in my ears.