My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Read online

  “I know it’s got alcohol in it, and I know we’re celebrating.” He lifts his glass after the sommelier pours it. “To our family,” he toasts.

  We click glasses and take sips. “What are you getting?” I ask.

  “What do you want me to get?”

  “The filet. That way I can taste it if I get the sole.” I fold my menu. “Did you hear the results of the last CBC?”

  Brian looks down at the table. “I was sort of hoping that we could come here to get away from all that. You know. Just talk.”

  “I’d like to talk,” I admit. But when I look at Brian, the information that leaps to my lips is about Kate, not us. I have no call to ask him about his day—he has taken three weeks off from the station. We are connected by and through sickness.

  We fall back into silence. I look around XO Café and notice that chatter happens mostly at tables where the diners are young and hip. The older couples, the ones sporting wedding bands that wink with their silverware, eat without the pepper of conversation. Is it because they are so comfortable, they already know what the other is thinking? Or is it because after a certain point, there is simply nothing left to say?

  When the waiter arrives to take our order, we both turn eagerly, grateful for someone who keeps us from having to recognize the strangers we have become.

  • • •

  We leave the hospital with a child who is different from the one we brought in. Kate moves cautiously, checking the drawers of the nightstand for anything she might have left behind. She has lost so much weight that the jeans I brought do not fit; we have to use two bandannas knotted together as a makeshift belt.

  Brian has gone down ahead of us to bring the car around. I zip the last Tiger Beat and CD into Kate’s duffel bag. She pulls a fleece cap on over her smooth, bare scalp and winds a scarf tight around her neck. She puts on a mask and gloves; now that we are venturing out of the hospital, she is the one who will need protection.

  We walk out the door to the applause of the nurses we have come to know so well. “Whatever you do, don’t come back and see us, all right?” Willie jokes.

  One by one, they walk up to say their good-byes. When they have all dispersed, I smile at Kate. “Ready?”

  Kate nods, but she doesn’t step forward. She stands rigid, fully aware that once she sets foot outside this doorway, everything changes. “Mom?”

  I fold her hand into mine. “We’ll do it together,” I promise, and side by side, we take the first step.

  • • •

  The mail is full of hospital bills. We have learned that the insurance company will not talk to the hospital billing department, and vice versa, but neither one thinks that the charges are accurate—which leads them to charge us for procedures we shouldn’t have to cover, in the hopes that we are stupid enough to pay them. Managing the monetary aspect of Kate’s care is a full-time job that neither Brian nor I can do.

  I leaf through a grocery store flyer, an AAA magazine, and a long-distance rate announcement before I open the letter from the mutual fund. It’s not something I really pay attention to; Brian usually manages finances that require more than basic checkbook balancing. Besides, the three funds we have are all earmarked for the kids’ education. We are not the sort of family that has enough spare change to play the stock market.

  Dear Mr. Fitzgerald:

  This is to confirm your recent redemption from fund #323456, Brian D. Fitzgerald Custodian for Katherine S. Fitzgerald, in the amount of $8,369.56. This disbursement effectively closes the account.

  As banking errors go, this is a pretty major one. We’ve been off by pennies in our checking account, but at least I’ve never lost eight thousand dollars. I walk out of the kitchen and into the yard, where Brian is rolling an extra garden hose. “Well, either someone at the mutual fund screwed up,” I say, handing the letter to him, “or the second wife you’re supporting is no longer a secret.”

  It takes him one moment too long to read it, the same moment that I realize that this is not a mistake after all. Brian wipes his forehead with the back of one wrist. “I took that money out,” he says.

  “Without telling me?” I cannot imagine Brian doing such a thing. There have been times, in the past, where we dipped into the children’s accounts, but only because we were having a month too tight to swing the cost of groceries and the mortgage, or because we needed the down payment for a new car when our old one had finally been put to rest. We’d lie awake in bed feeling guilt press down like an extra quilt, promising each other that we would put that money right back where it belonged as soon as humanly possible.

  “The guys at the station, they tried to raise some money, like I told you. They got ten thousand dollars. With this added to it, the hospital’s willing to work out some kind of payment plan for us.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know what I said, Sara.”

  I shake my head, stunned. “You lied to me?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Zanne offered—”

  “I won’t let your sister take care of Kate,” Brian says. “I’m supposed to take care of Kate.” The hose falls to the ground, dribbles and spits at our feet. “Sara, she’s not going to live long enough to use that money for college.”

  The sun is bright; the sprinkler twitches on the grass, spraying rainbows. It is far too beautiful a day for words like these. I turn and run into the house. I lock myself in the bathroom.

  A moment later, Brian bangs on the door. “Sara? Sara, I’m sorry.”

  I pretend I can’t hear him. I pretend I haven’t heard anything he’s said.

  • • •

  At home, we all wear masks so that Kate doesn’t have to. I find myself checking her fingernails while she brushes her teeth or pours cereal, to see if the dark ridges made by the chemo have disappeared—a sure sign of the bone marrow transplant’s success. Twice a day I give Kate growth factor shots in the thigh, a necessity until her neutrophil count tops one thousand. At that point, the marrow will be reseeding itself.

  She can’t go back to school yet, so we get her lessons sent home. Once or twice she has come with me to pick Anna up from kindergarten, but refuses to get out of the car. She will troop to the hospital for her routine CBC, but if I suggest a side trip to the video store or Dunkin’ Donuts afterward, she begs off.

  One Saturday morning, the door to the girls’ bedroom is ajar; I knock gently. “Want to go to the mall?”

  Kate shrugs. “Not now.”

  I lean against the doorframe. “It’ll be good to get out of the house.”

  “I don’t want to.” Although I am sure she does not even realize she is doing it, she skims her palm over her head before tucking her hand into her back pocket.

  “Kate,” I begin.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me that nobody’s going to stare at me, because they will. Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter, because it does. And don’t tell me I look fine because that’s a lie.” Her eyes, lash-bare, fill with tears. “I’m a freak, Mom. Look at me.”

  I do, and I see the spots where her brows have gone missing, and the slope of her endless brow, and the small divots and bumps that are usually hidden under a cover of hair. “Well,” I say evenly. “We can fix this.”

  Without another word, I walk out of her room, knowing Kate will follow. I pass Anna, who abandons her coloring book to trail behind her sister. In the basement, I pull out a pair of ancient electric grooming clippers we found when we bought the house, and plug them in. Then I cut a swath right down the middle of my scalp.

  “Mom!” Kate gasps.

  “What?” A tumble of brown waves falls onto Anna’s shoulder; she picks them up delicately. “It’s only hair.”

  With another swipe of the razor, Kate starts to smile. She points out a spot that I’ve missed, where a small thatch stands like a forest. I sit down on an overturned milk crate and let her shave the other side of my head herself. Anna crawls onto my lap. “Me next,” she begs.