Read Online My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult - Free Book Online Page A

than
anything, is to turn back time a little. To become the kid I used to be, who
believed whatever my mother said was one hundred percent true and right without
looking hard enough to see the hairline cracks.
    My mother holds me tighter. “We'll talk to the judge and explain it. We
can fix this,” she says. “We can fix everything.” And because
those words are really all I've ever wanted to hear, I nod.
     
    SARA
    THERE IS AN UNEXPECTED COMFORT to being at the oncology wing of the
hospital, a sense that I am a member of the club. From the kindhearted parking
attendant who asks us if it's our first time, to the legions of children with
pink emesis basins tucked beneath their arms like teddy bears—these people have
all been here before us, and there's safety in numbers.
    We take the elevator to the third floor, to the office of Dr. Harrison
Chance. His name alone has put me off. Why not Dr. Victor? “He's
late,” I say to Brian, as I check my watch for the twentieth time. A
spider plant languishes, brown, on a windowsill. I hope he is better with
people.
    To amuse Kate, who is starting to lose it, I inflate a rubber glove and knot
it into a coxcomb balloon. On the glove dispenser near the sink is a prominent
sign, warning parents not to do this very thing. We bat it back and forth,
playing volleyball, until Dr. Chance himself comes in without a single apology
for his delay.
    “Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald.” He is tall and rail-thin, with snapping
blue eyes magnified by thick glasses, and a tightly set mouth. He catches
Kate's makeshift balloon in one hand and frowns at it. “Well, I can see
there's already a problem.”
    Brian and I exchange a glance. Is this coldhearted man the one who will lead
us through this war, our general, our white knight? Before we can even
backpedal with explanations, Dr. Chance takes a Sharpie marker and draws a face
on the latex, complete with a set of wire-rimmed glasses to match his own.
“There,” he says, and with a smile that changes him, he hands it back
to Kate.
    I only see my sister Suzanne once or twice a year. She lives less than an
hour and several thousand philosophical convictions away.
    As far as I can tell, Suzanne gets paid a lot of money to boss people
around. Which means, theoretically, that she did her career training with me.
Our father died while mowing the lawn on his forty-ninth birthday; our mother
never quite sewed herself together in the aftermath. Suzanne, ten years my
senior, took up the slack. She made sure I did my homework and filled out law
school applications and dreamed big. She was smart and beautiful and always
knew what to say at any given moment. She could take any catastrophe and find
the logical antidote to cure it, which is what made her such a success at her
job. She was just as comfortable in a boardroom as she was jogging along the
Charles. She made it all look easy. Who wouldn't want a role model
like that?
    My first strike was marrying a guy without a college degree. My second and
third were getting pregnant. I suppose that when I didn't go on to become the
next Gloria Allred, she was justified in counting me a failure. And I suppose
that until now, I was justified in thinking that I wasn't one.
    Don't get me wrong, she loves her niece and nephew. She sends them carvings
from Africa, shells from Bali, chocolates from Switzerland. Jesse wants a glass
office like hers when he grows up. “We can't all be Aunt Zanne,” I
tell him, when what I mean is that I can't be her.
    I don't remember which of us stopped returning phone calls first, but it was
easier that way. There's nothing worse than silence, strung like heavy beads on
too delicate a conversation. So it takes me a full week before I pick up the
phone. I dial direct. “Suzanne Crofton's line,” a man says.
    “Yes.” I hesitate. “Is she available?”
    “She's in a meeting.”
    “Please…” I take a deep breath. “Please tell her it's her
sister calling.”
    A moment later that