Jodie Picoult - My Sister's Keeper

"Jewel," he said, "I don't want you to think that's why I'm here."

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. "Then why are you here?"

"Because you know all the words to 'American Pie,' " Campbell said. "Because when you smile, I can almost see that tooth on the side that's crooked." He stared at me. "Because you're not like anyone I've ever met."

"Do you love me?" I whispered.

"Didn't I just say that?"

This time, when I reached for the buttons of his jeans, he didn't move away. In my palm he was so hot I imagined he would leave a scar. Unlike me, he knew what to do. He kissed and slipped, pushed, cracked me wide. Then he went perfectly still. "You didn't say you were a virgin," he said.

"You didn't ask."

But he'd assumed. He shuddered and began to move inside me, a poetry of limbs. I reached up to hold on to the gravestone behind me, words I could see in my mind's eye: Nora Deane, b. 1832, d. 1838.

"Jewel," he whispered, when it was over. "I thought. . ."

"I know what you thought." I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same.

I blame Campbell Alexander entirely for my bad luck with relationships. It is embarrassing to admit, but I have only had sex with three and a half other men, and none of those were any great improvement on my first experience.

"Let me guess," Seven said last night. "The first was a rebound. The second was married."

"How'd you know?"

He laughed. "Because you're a cliche."

I swirled my pinky in my martini. It was an optical illusion, making the finger look split and crooked. "The other one was from Club Med, a windsurfing instructor."

"That must have been worthwhile," Seven said.

"He was absolutely gorgeous," I answered. "And had a dick the size of a cocktail frank."

"Ouch."

"Actually," I mused, "you couldn't feel it at all."

Seven grinned. "So he was the half?"

I turned beet red. "No, that was some other guy. I don't know his name," I admitted. "I sort of woke up with him on top of me, after a night like this one."

"You," Seven pronounced, "are a train wreck of sexual history."

But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, I'll jump in front of the tracks. I'll even tie myself down in front of the speeding engine. There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.

Kate Fitzgerald is a ghost just waiting to happen. Her skin is nearly translucent, her hair so fair it bleeds into the pillowcase. "How are you doing, baby?" Brian murmurs, and he leans down to kiss her on the forehead.

"I think I might have to blow off the Ironman competition," Kate jokes.

Anna is hovering at the door in front of me; Sara holds out her hand. It is all the encouragement Anna needs to crawl up on Kate's mattress, and in my mind I mark off this small gesture from mother to child. Then Sara sees me standing at the threshold. "Brian," she says, "what is she doing here?"

I wait for Brian to explain, but he doesn't seem inclined to utter a word. So I paste a smile on my face and step forward. "I heard Kate was feeling better today, and I thought it might be a good time to talk to her."

Kate struggles to her elbows. "Who are you?" I expect a fight from Sara, but it is Anna who speaks up. "I don't think it's such a good idea," she says, although she knows this is the very reason I've come here. "I mean, Kate's still pretty sick." It takes me a moment, but then I understand: in Anna's life, everyone who ever talks to Kate takes Kate's side. She is doing what she can to keep me from defecting.

"You know, Anna's right," Sara hastily adds. "Kate's only just turned a corner."

I place my hand on Anna's shoulder. "Don't worry." Then I turn to her mother. "It's my understanding that you wanted this hearing—"

Sara cuts me off. "Ms. Romano, could we have a word outside?" We step into the hallway, and Sara waits for a nurse to pass with a Styrofoam tray of needles. "I know what you think of me," she says.

"Mrs. Fitzgerald—"

She shakes her head. "You're sticking up for Anna, and you should. I practiced law once, and I understand. It's your job, and part of that is figuring out what makes us us." She rubs her forehead with one fist. "My job is to take care of my daughters. One of them is extremely ill, and the other one's extremely unhappy. And I may not have it all figured out yet, but… I do know that Kate won't get better any quicker if she finds out that the reason you're here is because Anna hasn't withdrawn her lawsuit yet. So I'm asking you not to tell her, either. Please."

I nod slowly, and Sara turns to go back into Kate's room. With her hand on the door, she hesitates. "I love both of them," she says, an equation I am supposed to be able to solve.

I told Seven the Bartender that true love is felonious.

"Not if they're over eighteen," he said, shutting the till of the cash register.

By then the bar itself had become an appendage, a second torso holding up my first. "You take someone's breath away," I stressed. "You rob them of the ability to utter a single word." I tipped the neck of the empty liquor bottle toward him. "You steal a heart."

He wiped up in front of me with a dishrag. "Any judge would toss that case out on its ass."

"You'd be surprised."

Seven spread the rag out on the brass bar to dry. "Sounds like a misdemeanor, if you ask me."

I rested my cheek on the cool, damp wood. "No way," I said. "Once you're in, it's for life."

Brian and Sara take Anna down to the cafeteria. It leaves me alone with Kate, who is eminently curious. I imagine that the number of times her mother has willingly left her side is something she can count on two hands. I explain that I'm helping the family make some decisions about her health care.

"Ethics committee?" Kate guesses. "Or are you from the hospital's legal department? You look like a lawyer."

"What does a lawyer look like?"

"Kind of like a doctor, when he doesn't want to tell you what your labs say."

I pull up a chair. "Well, I'm glad to hear you're doing better today."

"Yeah. Apparently yesterday I was pretty out of it," Kate says. "Doped up enough to make Ozzy and Sharon look like Ozzie and Harriet."

"Do you know where you stand, medically, right now?"

Kate nods. "After my BMT, I got graft-versus-host disease—which is sort of good, because it kicks the leukemia's butt, but it also does some funky stuff to your skin and organs. The doctors gave me steroids and cyclosporine to control it, and that worked, but it also managed to break down my kidneys, which is the emergency flavor of the month. That's pretty much the way it goes—fix one leak in the dike just in time to watch another one start spouting. Something is always falling apart in me."

She says this matter-of-factly, as if I've grilled her about the weather or what's on the hospital menu. I could ask her if she has talked to the nephrologists about a kidney transplant, if she has any particular feelings about undergoing so many different, painful treatments. But this is exactly what Kate is expecting me to ask, which is probably why the question that comes out of my mouth is completely different. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"No one ever asks me that." She eyes me carefully. "What makes you think I'm going to grow up?"

"What makes you think that you're not? Isn't that why you're doing all this?"