Jodie Picoult - My Sister's Keeper

Anna might be acting skittish about testifying, but I believe that subconsciously, it's what she really wants to do. Why else go to the trouble of instigating a lawsuit, if not to make sure that you finally get to speak your mind?

"You told me yesterday I wouldn't have to testify," Anna says, getting agitated.

"I was wrong."

"I hired you so that you could tell everyone what I want."

"It doesn't work that way," I say. "You started this lawsuit. You wanted to be someone other than the person your family's made you for the past thirteen years. And that means you have to pull back the curtain and show us who she is."

"Half the grown-ups on this planet have no idea who they are, but they get to make decisions for themselves every day," Anna argues.

"They aren't thirteen. Listen," I say, getting to what I imagine is the crux of the matter. "I know, in the past, standing up and speaking your mind hasn't gotten you anywhere. But I promise you, this time, when you talk, everyone will listen."

If anything, this has the reverse effect of what I've intended. Anna crosses her arms. "There is no way I'm getting up there," she says.

"Anna, being a witness isn't really that big a deal—"

"It is a big deal, Campbell. It's the biggest deal. And I'm not doing it."

"If you don't testify, we lose," I explain.

"Then find another way to win. You're the lawyer."

I'm not going to rise to that bait. I drum my fingers on the table for patience. "Do you want to tell me why you're so dead set against this?"

She glances up. "No."

"No, you're not doing it? Or no, you won't tell me?"

"There are just some things I don't like talking about." Her face hardens. "I thought you, of all people, would be able to understand that."

She knows exactly what buttons to push. "Sleep on it," I suggest tightly.

"I'm not going to change my mind."

I stand up and dump my full cup of coffee into the trash. "Well then," I tell her. "Don't expect me to be able to change your life."

Present Day

THERE IS A CURIOUS THING that happens with the passage of time: a calcification of character. See, if the light hits Brian's face the right way, I can still see the pale blue hue of his eyes that has always made me think of an island ocean I had yet to swim in. Beneath the fine lines of his smile, there is the cleft of his chin—the first feature I looked for in the faces of my newborn children. There is his resolve, his quiet will, and a steady peace with himself that I have always wished would rub off on me. These are the base elements that made me fall in love with my husband; if there are times I do not recognize him now, maybe this isn't a drawback. Change isn't always for the worst; the shell that forms around a piece of sand looks to some people like an irritation, and to others, like a pearl.

Brian's eyes dart from Anna, who is picking at a scab on her thumb, to me. He watches me like a mouse watches a hawk. There is something about this that makes me ache; is this really what he thinks of me?

Does everyone?

I wish there was not a courtroom between us. I wish I could walk up to him. Listen, I would say, this is not how I thought our lives would go; and maybe we cannot find our way out of this alley. But there is no one I'd rather be lost with.

Listen , I'd say, maybe I was wrong .

"Mrs. Fitzgerald," Judge DeSalvo asks, "do you have any questions for the witness?"

It is, I realize, a good term for a spouse. What else does a husband or a wife do, but attest to each other's errors in judgment?

I get up slowly from my seat. "Hello, Brian," I say, and my voice is not nearly as steady as I would have hoped.

"Sara," he answers.

Following that exchange, I have no idea what to say.

A memory washes over me. We had wanted to get away, but couldn't decide where to go. So we got into the car and drove, and every half hour we'd let one of the kids pick an exit, or tell us to turn right or left. We wound up in Seal Cove, Maine, and then stopped, because Jesse's next direction would have landed us in the Atlantic. We rented a cabin with no heat, no electricity—and our three kids afraid of the dark.

I do not realize I have been speaking out loud until Brian answers. "I know," he says. "We put so many candles on that floor I thought for sure we'd burn the place down. It rained for five days."

"And on the sixth day, when the weather cleared, the green-heads were so bad we couldn't even stand to be outside."

"And then Jesse got poison ivy and his eyes swelled shut…"

" Excuse me," Campbell Alexander interrupts.

"Sustained," Judge DeSalvo says. "Where is this going, Counselor?"

We hadn't been going anywhere, and the place we wound up was awful, and still I wouldn't have traded that week for the world. When you don't know where you're headed, you find places no one else would ever think to explore. "When Kate wasn't sick," Brian says slowly, carefully, "we've had some great times."

"Don't you think Anna would miss those, if Kate were gone?"

Campbell is out of his seat, just as I'd expect. "Objection!"

The judge holds up his hand, and nods to Brian for his answer.

"We all will," he says.

And in that moment, the strangest thing happens. Brian and I, facing each other and poles apart, flip like magnets sometimes can; and instead of pushing each other away we suddenly seem to be on the same side. We are young and pulse-to-pulse for the first time; we are old and wondering how we have walked this enormous distance in so short a period of time. We are watching fireworks on television on a dozen New Year's Eves, three sleeping children wedged between us in our bed, pressed so tight that I can feel Brian's pride even though we two are not touching.

Suddenly it does not matter that he has moved out with Anna, that he has questioned some of the decisions about Kate. He did what he thought was right, just the same as me, and I can't fault him for it. Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always another appointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to be notched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes, and completely forgotten to step back and see what we've accomplished.

If we lose Kate today, we will have had her for sixteen years, and no one can take that away. And ages from now, when it is hard to bring back the picture of her face when she laughed or the feel of her hand inside mine or the perfect pitch of her voice, I will have Brian to say, Don't you remember? It was like this.

The judge's voice breaks into my reverie. "Mrs. Fitzgerald, are you finished?"

There has never been a need for me to cross-examine Brian; I have always known his answers. What I've forgotten are the questions.

"Almost." I turn to my husband. "Brian?" I ask. "When are you coming home?"

In the bowels of the court building are a sturdy row of vending machines, none of which have anything you'd want to eat. After Judge DeSalvo calls a recess, I wander down there, and stare at the Starbursts and the Pringles and the Cheetos trapped in their corkscrew cells.

"The Oreos are your best shot," Brian says from behind me. I turn around in time to see him feed the machine seventy-five cents. "Simple. Classic." He pushes two buttons and the cookies begin their suicide plunge to the bottom of the machine.

He leads me to the table, scarred and stained by people who have carved their eternal initials and graffitied their inner thoughts across the top. "I didn't know what to say to you on the stand," I admit, and then hesitate. "Brian? Do you think we've been good parents?" I am thinking of Jesse, who I gave up on so long ago. Of Kate, who I could not fix. Of Anna.