My Sisters Keeper

MY SISTER'S KEEPER
A NOVEL
Jodi Picoult
First published in Australia in 2004
First published in the United States in 2004 by Atria Boob,
a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Copyright © Jodi Picoult 2004

In my first memory, I am three years old and I am trying to kill my sister. Sometimes the
recollection is so clear I can remember the itch of the pillowcase under my hand, the sharp point of
her nose pressing into my palm. She didn't stand a chance against me, of course, but it still didn't
work. My father walked by, tucking in the house for the night, and saved her. He led me back to my
own bed. "That," he told me, "never happened."
As we got older, I didn't seem to exist, except in relation to her. I would watch her sleep across the
room from me, one long shadow linking our beds, and I would count the ways. Poison, sprinkled on
her cereal. A wicked undertow off the beach. Lightning striking.
In the end, though, I did not kill my sister. She did it all on her own.
Or at least this is what I tell myself.

monday
Brother, I am fire Surging under ocean floor. I shall never meet you, brother-- Not for years,
anyhow; Maybe thousands of years, brother. Then I will warm you, Hold you close, wrap you in
circles, Use you and change you-- Maybe thousands of years, brother. --carl sandburg, "Kin"
anna
when I Was LITTLE, the great mystery to me wasn't how babies were made, but why. The
mechanics I understood--my older brother Jesse had filled me in--although at the time I was sure
he'd heard half of it wrong. Other kids my age were busy looking up the words penis and vagina in
the classroom dictionary when the teacher had her back turned, but I paid attention to different
details. Like why some mothers only had one child, while other families seemed to multiply before
your eyes. Or how the new girl in school, Sedona, told anyone who'd listen that she was named for
the place where her parents were vacationing when they made her ("Good thing they weren't
staying in Jersey City," my father used to say).
Now that I am thirteen, these distinctions are only more complicated: the eighth-grader who
dropped out of school because she got into trouble; a neighbor who got herself pregnant in the
hopes it would keep her husband from filing for divorce. I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth
today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people have
children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control
isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.
On the other hand, I was born for a very specific purpose. I wasn't the result of a cheap bottle of
wine or a full moon or the heat of the moment. I was born because a scientist managed to hook up
my mother's eggs and my father's sperm to create a specific combination of precious genetic
material. In fact, when Jesse told me how babies get made and I, the great disbeliever, decided to
ask my parents the truth, I got more than I bargained for. They sat me down and told me all the
usual stuff, of course--but they also explained that they chose little embryonic me, specifically,
because I could save my sister, Kate. "We loved you even more," my mother made sure to say,
"because we knew what exactly we were getting."
It made me wonder, though, what would have happened if Kate had been healthy. Chances are, I'd
still be floating up in Heaven or wherever, waiting to be attached to a body to spend some time on
Earth. Certainly I would not be part of this family. See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn't get
here by accident. And if your parents have you for a reason, then that reason better exist. Because
once it's gone, so are you.
Pawnshops may be full of junk, but they're also a breeding ground for stories, if you ask me, not that
you did. What happened to make a person trade in the Never Before Worn Diamond Solitaire? Who
needed money so badly they'd sell a teddy bear missing an eye? As I walk up to the counter, I
wonder if someone will look at the locket I'm about to give up, and ask these same questions.
The man at the cash register has a nose the shape of a turnip, and eyes sunk so deep I can't imagine
how he sees well enough to go about his business. "Need something?" he