Jodie Picoult - My Sister's Keeper

The fire was all but out; the boys were inside doing salvage and overhaul. Smoke drew a veil over the night sky; I couldn't make out a single star in the constellation Scorpio. I took off my gloves and wiped my hands across my eyes, which would sting for hours. "Good work," I said to Red, as he packed up the hose.

"Good save, Cap," he called back.

It would have been better, of course, if Luisa had been in her own room, as her mother expected. But kids don't stay where they're supposed to. You turn around and find her not in the bedroom but hiding in a closet; you turn around and see she's not three but thirteen. Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves.

I took off my helmet and stretched the muscles of my neck. I looked up at the structure that was once a home. Suddenly I felt fingers wrap around my hand. The woman who lived here stood with tears in her eyes. Her youngest was still in her arms; the other kids were sitting in the fire truck under Red's supervision. Silently she raised my knuckles to her lips. A streak of soot came off my jacket to stripe her cheek. "You're welcome," I said.

On our way back to the station I directed Caesar the long way, so that we passed right down the street where I live. Jesse's Jeep sat in my driveway; the lights in the house were all off. I pictured Anna with the covers pulled up to her chin, like usual; Kate's bed empty.

"We all set, Fitz?" Caesar asked. The truck was barely crawling, almost stopped directly in front of my driveway.

"Yeah, we're set," I said. "Let's take it on home." I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.

BRIAN FITZGERALD'S CAR IS FILLED with stars. There are charts on the passenger seat and tables jammed into the console between us; the backseat is a palette for Xerox copies of nebulae and planets. "Sorry," he says, reddening. "I wasn't expecting company."

I help him clear off a space for me, and in the process pick up a map made of pinpricks. "What's this?" I ask.

"A sky atlas." He shrugs. "It's kind of a hobby."

"When I was little, I once tried to name every star in the sky after one of my relatives. The scary part is I hadn't run out of names by the time I fell asleep."

"Anna's named after a galaxy," Brian says.

"That's much cooler than being named after a patron saint," I muse. "Once, I asked my mom why stars shine. She said they were night-lights, so the angels could find their way around in Heaven. But when I asked my dad, he started talking about gas, and somehow I put it all together and figured that the food God served caused multiple trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night."

Brian laughs out loud. "And here I was trying to explain atomic fusion to my kids."

"Did it work?"

He considers for a moment. "They could all probably find the Big Dipper with their eyes closed."

"That's impressive. Stars all look the same to me."

"It's not that hard. You spot a piece of a constellation—like Orion's belt—and suddenly it's easier to find Rigel in his foot and Betelgeuse in his shoulder." He hesitates. "But ninety percent of the universe is made of stuff we can't even see."

"Then how do you know it's there?"

He slows to a stop at a red light. "Dark matter has a gravitational effect on other objects. You can't see it, you can't feel it, but you can watch something being pulled in its direction."

Ten seconds after Campbell left last night, Izzy walked into the living room where I was just on the cusp of having one of those bone-cleansing cries a woman should treat herself to at least once during a lunar cycle. "Yeah," she said dryly. "I can see this is a totally professional relationship."

I scowled at her. "Were you eavesdropping?"

"Pardon me if you and Romeo were having your little tete-a-tete through a thin wall."

"If you've got something to say," I suggested, "say it."

"Me?" Izzy frowned. "Hey, it's none of my business, is it?"

"No, it's not."

"Right. So I'll just keep my opinion to myself."

I rolled my eyes. "Out with it, Isobel."

"Thought you'd never ask." She sat down beside me on the couch. "You know, Julia, the first time a bug sees that big purple zapper light, it looks like God. The second time, he runs in the other direction."

"First, don't compare me to a mosquito. Second, he'd fly in the other direction, not run. Third, there is no second time. The bug's dead."

Izzy smirked. "You are such a lawyer."

"I am not letting Campbell zap me."

"Then request a transfer."

"This isn't the Navy." I hugged one of the throw pillows from the couch. "And I can't do that, not now. It'll make him think that I'm such a wimp I can't balance my professional life with some stupid, silly, adolescent. . . incident."

"You can't." Izzy shook her head. "He's an egotistical dickhead who's going to chew you up and spit you out; and you have a really awful history of falling for assholes that you ought to run screaming from; and I don't feel like sitting around listening to you try to convince yourself you don't still feel something for Campbell Alexander when, in fact, you've spent the past fifteen years trying to fill in the hole he made inside you."

I stared at her. "Wow."

She shrugged. "Guess I had a lot to get off my chest, after all.”

“Do you hate all men, or just Campbell?"

Izzy seemed to think about that for a while. "Just Campbell," she said finally.

What I wanted, at that moment, was to be alone in my living room so that I could throw things, like the TV remote or the glass vase or preferably my sister. But I couldn't order Izzy out of a house she'd moved into just hours before. I stood up and plucked my house keys off the counter. "I'm going out," I told her. "Don't wait up."

I'm not much of a party girl, which explains why I hadn't frequented Shakespeare's Cat before, although it was a mere four blocks from my condo. The bar was dark and crowded and smelled of patchouli and cloves. I pushed my way inside, hopped up on a stool, and smiled at the man sitting next to me.

I was in the mood to make out in the back row of the movie theater with someone who did not know my first name. I wanted three guys to fight for the honor of buying me a drink.

I wanted to show Campbell Alexander what he'd been missing.

The man beside me had sky-eyes, a black ponytail, and a Gary Grant grin. He nodded politely at me, then turned away and began to kiss a white-haired gentleman flush on the mouth. I looked around and saw what I had missed on my entrance: the bar was filled with single men—but they were dancing, flirting, hooking up with each other.

"What can I get you?" The bartender had fuchsia porcupine hair and an oxen ring pierced through his nose.

"This is a gay bar?"

"No, it's the officers' club at West Point. You want a drink or not?" I pointed over his shoulder to the bottle of tequila, and he reached for a shot glass.

I rummaged in my purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. "The whole thing." Glancing down at the bottle, I frowned. "I bet Shakespeare didn't even have a cat."

"Who peed in your coffee?" the bartender asked.

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at him. "You're not gay."

"Sure I am."

"Based on my track record, if you were gay, I'd probably find you attractive. As it is…" I looked at the busy couple beside me, and then shrugged at the bartender. He blanched, then handed me back my fifty. I tucked it back into my wallet. "Who says you can't buy friends," I murmured.

Three hours later, I was the only person still there, unless you counted Seven, which was what the bartender had rechristened himself last August after deciding to jettison whatever sort of label the name Neil suggested. Seven stood for absolutely nothing, he had told me, which was exactly the way he liked it.