My Sister's Keeper (32 page)

“Yes. It's a standard consent form for a surgical procedure.”

“Can you tell us who the patient receiving it was?”

“Anna Fitzgerald.”

“And who signed the consent form?”

“Sara Fitzgerald.”

I rock back on my heels. “Dr. Chance, anesthesia carries a risk of life
impairment or death. Those are pretty strong long-term effects.”

“That's exactly why we have a consent form. It's to protect us from
people like you,” he says. “But realistically, the risk is extremely
small. And the procedure of donating marrow is fairly simple.”

“Why was Anna being anesthetized for such a simple procedure?”

“It's less traumatic for a child, and they're less likely to squirm
around.”

“And after the procedure, did Anna experience any pain?”

“Maybe a little,” Dr. Chance says.

“You don't remember?”

“It's been a long time. I'm sure even Anna's forgotten about it by
now.”

“You think?” I turn to Anna. “Should we ask her?”

Judge DeSalvo crosses his arms.

“Speaking of risk,” I continue smoothly. “Can you tell us
about the research that's been done on the long-term effects of the growth
factor shots she's taken twice now, prior to harvest for transplant?”

“Theoretically, there shouldn't be any long-term sequelae.”

“Theoretically,” I repeat. “Why theoretically?”

“Because the research has been done on lab animals,” Dr. Chance
admits. “Effects on humans are still being tracked.”

“How comforting.”

He shrugs. “Physicians don't tend to prescribe drugs that have the
potential to wreak havoc.”

“Have you ever heard of thalidomide, Doctor?” I ask.

“Of course. In fact, recently, it's been resurrected for cancer
research.”

“And it was a milestone drug once before,” I point out. “With
catastrophic effects. Speaking of which . . . this kidney donation—are there
risks associated with the procedure?”

“No more than for most surgeries,” Dr. Chance says.

“Could Anna die from complications of this surgery?”

“It's highly unlikely, Mr. Alexander.”

“Well, then, let's assume Anna comes through the procedure with flying
colors. How will having a single kidney affect her for the rest of her
life?”

“It won't, really,” the doctor says. “That's the beauty of
it.”

I hand him a flyer that has come from the nephrology department of his own
hospital. “Can you read the highlighted section?”

He slips on his glasses again. “Increased chance of hypertension.
Possible complications during pregnancy.” Dr. Chance glances up.
“Donors are advised to refrain from contact sports to eliminate the risk
of harming their remaining kidney.”

I clasp my hands behind my back. “Did you know that Anna plays hockey
in her free time?”

He turns toward her. “No. I didn't.”

“She's a goalie. Has been for years now.” I let this sink in.
“But since this donation is hypothetical, let's concentrate on the ones
that have already happened. The growth factor shots, the DLI, the stem cells,
the lymphocyte donations, the bone marrow—all of these myriad treatments Anna
endured—in your expert opinion, Doctor, are you saying that Anna has not
undergone any significant medical harm from these procedures?”

“Significant?” He hesitates. “No, she has not.”

“Has she received any significant benefit from them?” Dr. Chance
looks at me for a long moment. “Sure,” he says. “She's saving
her sister.”

Anna and I are eating lunch upstairs at the courthouse when Julia walks in.
“Is this a private party?”

Anna waves her inside, and Julia sits down without so much as a glance
toward me. “How are you doing?” she asks.

“Okay,” Anna replies. “I just want it to be over.”

Julia opens up a packet of salad dressing and pours it over the lunch she's
brought. “It will be, before you know it.”

She looks at me when she says this, briefly.

That's all it takes for me to remember the smell of her skin, and the spot
below her breast where she has a beauty mark in the shape of a crescent moon.

Suddenly Anna gets up. “I'm going to take Judge for a walk.” she
announces.

“Like hell you are. There are reporters out there, still.”

“I'll walk him in the hallway, then.”

“You can't. He has to be walked by me; it's part of his training.”

“Then I'm going to pee,” Anna says. “That's something I'm
still allowed to do by myself, right?”

She walks out of the conference room, leaving Julia and me and everything
that shouldn't have happened but did.

“She left us alone on purpose,” I realize.

Julia nods. “She's a smart kid. She can read people very well.”
Then she sets down her plastic fork. “Your car is full of dog hair.”

“I know. I keep asking Judge to pull it back in a ponytail but he never
listens.”

“Why didn't you just get me up?”

I grin. “Because we were anchored in a no-wake zone.”

Julia, however, doesn't even crack a smile. “Was last night a joke to
you, Campbell?”

That old adage pops into my head: If you want to see God laugh, make
apian. And because I am a coward, I grab the dog by his collar. “I
need to walk him before we're called back into court.”

Julia's voice follows me to the door. “You didn't answer me.”

“You don't want me to,” I say. I don't turn around. That way I
don't have to see her face.

When Judge DeSalvo adjourns us for the day at three because of a weekly
chiropractic appointment, I walk Anna out to the lobby to find her father—but
Brian's gone. Sara looks around, surprised. “Maybe he got a fire
call,” she says. "Anna, I'll—

But I put my hand on Anna's shoulder. “I'll take you to the fire
station.”

In the car, she is quiet. I pull into the station parking lot and leave the
engine running. “Listen,” I tell her, “you may not have realized
it, but we had a great first day.”

“Whatever.”

She gets out of my car without another word and Judge hops up into the
vacated front seat. Anna walks toward the station, but then veers left. I start
to pull back out, and then against my better judgment turn off the engine.
Leaving Judge in the car, I follow her around the back of the building.

She stands like a statue, her face turned up to the sky. What am I supposed
to do, say? I have never been a parent; I can barely take care of myself.

As it turns out, Anna starts speaking first. “Did you ever do something
you knew was wrong, even though it felt right?”

I think of Julia. “Yeah.”

“Sometimes I hate myself,” Anna murmurs.

“Sometimes,” I tell her, “I hate myself, too.”

This surprises her. She looks at me, and then at the sky again.
“They're up there. The stars. Even when you can't see them.”

I put my hands into my pockets. “I used to wish on a star every
night.”

“For what?”

“Rare baseball cards for my collection. A golden retriever. Young, hot
female teachers.”

“My dad told me that a bunch of astronomers found a new place where
stars are being born. Only it's taken us 2,500 years to see them.” She
turns to me. “Do you get along with your parents?”

I think about lying to her, but then I shake my head. “I used to think
I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I'm not. And the thing is, somewhere
along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.”

The sun washes over her milky skin, lights the line of her throat. “I
get it,” Anna says. “You were invisible, too.”

TUESDAY

A little fire is quickly trodden out;

Which, being suffered, rivers can not quench.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VI

CAMPBELL

BRIAN FITZGERALD IS MY LOCK. Once the judge realizes that at least one of
Anna's parents agrees with her decision to stop being a donor for her sister,
granting her emancipation won't be quite as great a leap. If Brian does what I
need him to—namely, tell Judge DeSalvo that he knows Anna has rights, too, and
that he's prepared to support her—then whatever Julia says in her report will
be a moot point. And better still, Anna's testimony would only be a formality.

Brian shows up with Anna early the next morning, wearing his captain's
uniform. I paste a smile on my face and get up, walking toward them with Judge.
“Morning,” I say. “Everyone ready?”

Brian looks at Anna. Then he looks at me. There is a question right there on
the verge of his lips, but he seems to be doing everything he can not to ask it.

“Hey,” I say to Anna, brainstorming. “Want to do me a favor?
Judge could use a couple of quick runs up and down the stairs, or he's going to
get restless in court.”

“Yesterday you told me I couldn't walk him.”

“Well, today you can.”

Anna shakes her head. “I'm not going anywhere. The minute I leave
you're just going to talk about me.”

So I turn to Brian again. “Is everything all right?”

At that moment, Sara Fitzgerald comes into the building. She hurries toward
the courtroom, and seeing Brian with me, pauses. Then she turns slowly away
from her husband and continues inside. Brian Fitzgerald's eyes follow his wife,
even after the doors close behind her. “We're fine,” he says, an
answer not meant for me.

“Mr. Fitzgerald, were there times that you disagreed with your wife
about having Anna participate in medical treatments for Kate's benefit?”

“Yes. The doctors said that it was only cord blood we needed for Kate.
They'd be taking part of the umbilicus that usually gets thrown out after
giving birth—it wasn't anything that the baby was ever going to miss, and it
certainly wasn't going to hurt her.” He meets Anna's eye, gives her a
smile. “And it worked for a little while, too. Kate went into remission.
But in 1996, she relapsed again. The doctors wanted Anna to donate some
lymphocytes. It wasn't going to be a cure, but it would hold Kate over for a
while.” I try to draw him along. “You and your wife didn't see eye to
eye over this treatment?”

“I didn't know if it was such a great idea. This time Anna was going to
know what was happening, and she wasn't going to like it.”

“What did your wife say to make you change your mind?”

“That if we didn't draw blood from Anna this time, we'd need marrow
soon anyway.”

“How did you feel about that?”

Brian shakes his head, clearly uncomfortable. “You don't know what it's
like,” he says quietly, “until your child is dying. You find yourself
saying things and doing things you don't want to do or say. And you think it's
something you have a choice about, but then you get up a little closer to it,
and you see you had it all wrong.” He looks up at Anna, who is so still
beside me I think she has forgotten to breathe. “I didn't want to do that
to Anna. But I couldn't lose Kate.”

“Did you have to use Anna's bone marrow, eventually?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Fitzgerald, as a certified EMT, would you ever perform a procedure
on a patient who didn't present with any physical problems?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you, as Anna's father, think this invasive procedure,
which carried risk to Anna herself and no personal physical benefit, was in her
best interests?”

“Because,” Brian says, “I couldn't let Kate die.”

“Were there other points, Mr. Fitzgerald, when you and your wife
disagreed over the use of Anna's body for your other daughter's
treatment?”

“A few years ago, Kate was hospitalized and… losing so much blood
nobody thought she'd make it through. I thought maybe it was time to let her
go. Sara didn't.”

“What happened?”

“The doctors gave her arsenic, and it kicked in, putting Kate into
remission for a year.”

“Are you saying that there was a treatment which saved Kate, that
didn't involve the use of Anna's body?”

Brian shakes his head. “I'm saying… I'm saying I was so sure Kate was
going to die. But Sara, she didn't give up on Kate and she came back fighting.”
He looks over at his wife. “And now, Kate's kidneys are giving out. I
don't want to see her suffering. But at the same time, I don't want to make the
same mistake twice. I don't want to tell myself it's over, when it doesn't have
to be.”

Brian has become an emotional avalanche, headed right for the glass house I
have been meticulously crafting. I need to reel him in. “Mr. Fitzgerald,
did you know your daughter was going to file a lawsuit against you and your
wife?”

“No.”

“When she did, did you speak to Anna about it?”

“Yes.”

“Based on that conversation, Mr. Fitzgerald, what did you do?”

“I moved out of the house with Anna.”

“Why?”

“At the time I believed Anna had the right to think this decision out,
which wasn't something she'd be able to do living in our house.”

“After having moved out with Anna, after having spoken to her at great
lengths about why she's initiated this lawsuit—do you agree with your wife's
request to have Anna continue to be a donor for Kate?”

The answer we have rehearsed is no; this is the crux of my case.
Brian leans forward to reply. “Yes, I do,” he says.

“Mr. Fitzgerald, in your opinion …” I begin, and then I realize
what he's just done. “Excuse me?”

“I still wish Anna would donate a kidney,” Brian admits. Staring
at this witness who has just completely fucked me over, I scramble for footing.
If Brian won't support Anna's decision to stop being a donor, then the judge
will find it far harder to rule in favor of emancipation.

At the same time, I'm patently aware of the smallest sound that has escaped
from Anna, the quiet break of soul that comes when you realize that what looked
like a rainbow was actually only a trick of the light. “Mr. Fitzgerald,
you're willing to have Anna undergo major surgery and the loss of an organ to
benefit Kate?”

It is a curious thing, watching a strong man fall to pieces. “Can you
tell me what the right answer is here?” Brian asks, his voice raw.
“Because I don't know where to look for it. I know what's right. I know
what's fair. But neither of those apply here. I can sit, and I can think about
it, and I can tell you what should be and what ought to be. I can even tell you
there's got to be a better solution. But it's been thirteen years, Mr.
Alexander, and I still haven't found it.”