My Sisters Keeper | Page 2

asks.

It's all I can do to not turn around and walk out the door, pretend I've come in by mistake. The only
thing that keeps me steady is knowing I am not the first person to stand in front of this counter
holding the one item in the world I never thought I'd part with.
"I have something to sell," I tell him.
"Am I supposed to guess what it is?"
"Oh." Swallowing, I pull the locket out of the pocket of my jeans. The heart falls on the glass counter
in a pool of its own chain. "It's fourteen-karat gold," I pitch. "Hardly ever worn." This is a lie; until
this morning, I haven't taken it off in seven years. My father gave it to me when I was six after the
bone marrow harvest, because he said anyone who was giving her sister such a major present
deserved one of her own. Seeing it there, on the counter, my neck feels shivery and naked.
The owner puts a loop up to his eye, which makes it seem almost , normal size. "I'll give you
twenty."
"Dollars?"
"No, pesos. What did you think?"
"It's worth five times that!" I'm guessing.
The owner shrugs. "I'm not the one who needs the money."
I pick up the locket, resigned to sealing the deal, and the strangest thing happens--my hand, it just
clamps shut like the Jaws of Life. My face goes red with the effort to peel apart my fingers. It takes
what seems like an hour for that locket to spill into the owner's outstretched palm. His eyes stay on
my face, softer now. "Tell them you lost it," he offers, advice tossed in for free.
If Mr. Webster had decided to put the word freak in his dictionary, Anna Fitzgerald would be the
best definition he could give. It's more than just the way I look: refugee-skinny with absolutely no
chest to speak of, hair the color of dirt, connect-the-dot freckles on my cheeks that, let me tell you,
do not fade with lemon juice or sunscreen or even, sadly, sandpaper. No, God was obviously in some
kind of mood on my birthday, because he added to this fabulous physical combination the bigger
picture--the household into which I was born.
My parents tried to make things normal, but that's a relative term. The truth is, I was never really a
kid. To be honest, neither were Kate and Jesse. I guess maybe my brother had his moment in the
sun for the four years he was alive before Kate got diagnosed, but ever since then, we've been too
busy looking over our shoulders to run headlong into growing up. You know how most little kids
think they're like cartoon characters-- if an anvil drops on their heads they can peel themselves off
the sidewalk and keep going? Well, I never once believed that. How could I, when we practically set
a place for Death at the dinner table?
Kate has acute promyelocytic leukemia. Actually, that's not quite true--right now she doesn't have
it, but it's hibernating under her skin like a bear, until it decides to roar again. She was diagnosed

when she was two; she's sixteen now. Molecular relapse and granulocyte and portacath--these
words are part of my vocabulary, even though I'll never find them on any SAT. I'm an allogeneic
donor--a perfect sibling match. When Kate needs leukocytes or stem cells or bone marrow to fool
her body into thinking it's healthy, I'm the one who provides them. Nearly every time Kate's
hospitalized, I wind up there, too.
None of which means anything, except that you shouldn't believe what you hear about me, least of
all that which I tell you myself.
As I am coming up the stairs, my mother comes out of her room wearing another ball gown. "Ah,"
she says, turning her back to me. "Just the girl I wanted to see."
I zip it up and watch her twirl. My mother could be beautiful, if she were parachuted into someone
else's life. She has long dark hair and the fine collarbones of a princess, but the corners of her mouth
turn down, like she's swallowed bitter news. She doesn't have much free time, since a calendar is
something that can change drastically if my sister develops a bruise or a nosebleed, but what she
does have she spends at Bluefly.com, ordering ridiculously fancy evening dresses for places she is
never going to go. "What do you think?" she asks.
The gown is all the colors of a sunset, and made out of material that swishes when she moves. It's
strapless, what a star might wear sashaying down a red carpet--totally not the dress code for a
suburban house in Upper Darby, RI. My mother