My Sister's Keeper Read online

  How can he make jokes about something like this? And then I realize: it's what Kate does, too. Maybe if God gives you a handicap, he makes sure you've got a few extra doses of humor to take the edge off.

  "Why don't you take the rest of the day, Counselor," Judge DeSalvo offers.

  "No, I'm all right now. And I think it's important that we get to the bottom of this." He turns to the court reporter. "Could you, uh, refresh my memory?"

  She reads back the transcript, and Campbell nods, but he acts like he's hearing my words, regurgitated, for the very first time. "All right, Anna, you were saying Kate asked you to file this lawsuit for medical emancipation?"

  Again, I squirm. "Not quite."

  "Can you explain?"

  "She didn't ask me to file the lawsuit."

  "Then what did she ask you?"

  I steal a glance at my mother. She knows; she has to know. Don't make me say it out loud.

  "Anna," Campbell presses, "what did she ask you?"

  I shake my head, tight-lipped, and Judge DeSalvo leans over. "Anna, you're going to have to give us an answer to this question."

  "Fine." The truth bursts out of me; a raging river, now that the dam's washed away. "She asked me to kill her."

  *

  The first thing that was wrong was that Kate had locked the door to our bedroom, when there wasn't really a lock, which meant she'd either pushed up furniture or pennied it shut. "Kate," I yelled, banging, because I was sweaty and gross from hockey practice and I wanted to take a shower and change. "Kate, this isn't fair."

  I guess I made enough noise, because she opened up. And that was the second thing: there was something just wrong about the room. I glanced around, but everything seemed to be in place--most importantly, none of my stuff had been messed with--and yet Kate still looked like she'd swilled a mystery.

  "What's your problem?" I asked, and then I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and smelled it--sweet and almost angry, the same boozy scent I associated with Jesse's apartment. I started opening up cabinets and rummaging through towels and trying to find the proof, no pun intended, and sure enough there was a half-empty bottle of whiskey hidden behind the boxes of tampons.

  "Looky here . . . " I said, brandishing it and walking back into the bedroom, thinking I had a great little wedge of blackmail to use to my advantage for a while, and then I saw Kate holding the pills.

  "What are you doing?"

  Kate rolled over. "Leave me alone, Anna."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "No," Kate said. "I'm just sick of waiting for something that's going to happen anyway. I think I've fucked up everyone's life long enough, don't you?"

  "But everyone's worked so hard just to keep you alive. You can't kill yourself."

  All of a sudden Kate started to cry. "I know. I can't."

  It took me a few moments to realize this meant she'd already tried before.

  *

  My mother gets up slowly. "It's not true," she says, her voice stretched thin as glass. "Anna, I don't know why you'd say that."

  My eyes fill up. "Why would I make it up?"

  She walks closer. "Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or being dramatic." She smiles in the pained way of people who really want to cry. "Because if she was that upset, she would have told me."

  "She couldn't tell you," I reply. "She was too afraid if she killed herself she'd be killing you, too." I cannot catch my breath. I am sinking in a tar pit; I am running and the ground's gone beneath my feet. Campbell asks the judge for a few minutes so that I can pull myself together, but even if Judge DeSalvo answers, I am crying so hard I don't hear it. "I don't want her to die, but I know she doesn't want to live like this, and I'm the one who can give her what she wants." I keep my eyes on my mother, even as she swims away from me. "I've always been the one who can give her what she wants."

  *

  The next time it came up was after my mother came into our room to talk about donating a kidney. "Don't do it," Kate said, when they were gone.

  I glanced at her. "What are you talking about? Of course I'm going to do it."

  We were getting undressed, and I noticed that we had picked the same pajamas--shiny satin ones printed with cherries. As we slid into bed I thought we looked like we did as little kids, when our parents would dress us similarly because they thought it was cute.

  "Do you think it would work?" I asked. "A kidney transplant?"

  Kate looked at me. "It might." She leaned over, her hand on the light switch. "Don't do it," she repeated, and it wasn't until I heard her a second time that I understood what she was really saying.

  *

  My mother is a breath away from me, and in her eyes are all the mistakes she's ever made. My father comes up and puts his arm around her shoulders. "Come sit down," he whispers into her hair.

  "Your Honor," Campbell says, getting to his feet. "May I?"

  He walks toward me, Judge right beside him. I am just as shaky as he is. I think about that dog an hour ago. How did he know for sure what Campbell really needed, and when?

  "Anna, do you love your sister?"

  "Of course."

  "But you were willing to take an action that might kill her?"

  Something flashes inside me. "It was so she wouldn't have to go through this anymore. I thought it was what she wanted."

  He goes silent; and I realize at that moment: he knows.

  Inside me, something breaks. "It was . . . it was what I wanted, too."

  *

  We were in the kitchen, washing and drying the dishes. "You hate going to the hospital," Kate said.

  "Well, duh." I put the forks and spoons, clean, back into their drawer.

  "I know you'd do anything to not have to go there anymore."

  I glanced at her. "Sure. Because you'd be healthy."

  "Or dead." Kate plunged her hands into the soapy water, careful not to look at me. "Think about it, Anna. You could go to your hockey camps. You could choose a college in a whole different country. You could do anything you want and never have to worry about me."

  She pulled these examples right out of my head, and I could feel myself blushing, ashamed that they were even up there to be drawn out into the open. If Kate was feeling guilty about being a burden, then I was feeling twice as guilty for knowing she felt that way. For knowing I felt that way.

  We didn't talk after that. I dried whatever she handed me, and we both tried to pretend we didn't know the truth: that in addition to the piece of me that's always wanted Kate to live, there's another, horrible piece of me that sometimes wishes I were free.

  *

  There, they understand: I am a monster. I started this lawsuit for some reasons I'm proud of and many I'm not. And now Campbell will see why I couldn't be a witness--not because I was scared to talk in front of everyone--but because of all these terrible feelings, some of which are too awful to speak out loud. That I want Kate alive, but also want to be myself, not part of her. That I want the chance to grow up, even if Kate can't. That Kate's death would be the worst thing that's ever happened to me . . . and also the best.

  That sometimes, when I think about all this, I hate myself and just want to crawl back to where I was, to the person they want me to be.

  Now the whole courtroom is looking at me, and I'm sure that the witness stand or my skin or maybe both is about to implode. Under this magnifying glass, you can see right down to the rotten core at the heart of me. Maybe if they keep staring at me, I will go up in blue, bitter smoke. Maybe I will disappear without a trace.

  "Anna," Campbell says quietly, "what made you think that Kate wanted to die?"

  "She said she was ready."

  He walks up until he is standing right in front of me. "Isn't it possible that's the same reason she asked you to help her?"

  I look up slowly, and unwrap this gift Campbell's just handed me. What if Kate wanted to die, so that I could live? What if after all these years of saving Kate, she wa