My Sisters Keeper | Page 5

not a single photo of a wife or a kid or even himself; and that in spite of
the fact that the room is spotless, there's a mug full of water sitting on the floor.
I find myself making up explanations: it's a swimming pool for an army of ants. It's some kind of
primitive humidifier. It's a mirage.

I've nearly convinced myself about that last one, and am leaning over to touch it to see if it's real,
when the door bursts open. I practically fall out of my chair and that puts me eye to eye with an
incoming German shepherd, which spears me with a look and then marches over to the mug and
starts to drink.
Campbell Alexander comes in, too. He's got black hair and he's at least as tall as my dad--six feet--
with a right-angle jaw and eyes that look frozen over. He shrugs out of a suit jacket and hangs it
neatly on the back of the door, then yanks a file out of a cabinet before moving to his desk. He never
makes eye contact with me, but he starts talking all the same. "I don't want any Girl Scout cookies,"
Campbell Alexander says. "Although you do get Brownie points for tenacity. Ha." He smiles at his
own joke.

"I'm not selling anything."
He glances at me curiously, then pushes a button on his phone. "Kerri," he says when the secretary
answers. "What is this doing in my office?"
"I'm here to retain you," I say.
The lawyer releases the intercom button. "I don't think so."
"You don't even know if I have a case."

I take a step forward; so does the dog. For the first time I realize it's wearing one of those vests with
a red cross on it, like a St. Bernard that might carry rum up a snowy mountain. I automatically reach
out to pet him. "Don't," Alexander says. "Judge is a service dog."
My hand goes back to my side. "But you aren't blind."
"Thank you for pointing that out to me."
"So what's the matter with you?"
The minute I say it, I want to take it back. Haven't I watched Kate field this question from hundreds
of rude people?
"I have an iron lung," Campbell Alexander says curtly, "and the dog keeps me from getting too close
to magnets. Now, if you'd do me the exalted honor of leaving, my secretary can find you the name of
someone who--
But I can't go yet. "Did you really sue God?" I take out all the newspaper clippings, smooth them on
the bare desk.
A muscle tics in his cheek, and then he picks up the article lying on top. "I sued the Diocese of
Providence, on behalf of a kid in one of their orphanages who needed an experimental treatment
involving fetal tissue, which they felt violated Vatican II. However, it makes a much better headline
to say that a nine-year-old is suing God for being stuck with the short end of the straw in life." I just
stare at him. "Dylan Jerome," the lawyer admits, "wanted to sue God for not caring enough about
him."
A rainbow might as well have cracked down the middle of that big mahogany desk. "Mr. Alexander,"
I say, "my sister has leukemia."
"I'm sorry to hear that. But even if I were willing to litigate against God again, which I'm not, you
can't bring a lawsuit on someone else's behalf."
There is way too much to explain--my own blood seeping into my sister's veins; the nurses holding
me down to stick me for white cells Kate might borrow; the doctor saying they didn't get enough
the first time around. The bruises and the deep bone ache after I gave up my marrow; the shots that
sparked more stem cells in me, so that there'd be extra for my sister. The fact that I'm not sick, but I
might as well be. The
fact that the only reason I was born was as a harvest crop for Kate. The fact that even now, a major
decision about me is being made, and no one's bothered to ask the one person who most deserves it
to speak her opinion.
There's way too much to explain, and so I do the best I can. "It's not God. Just my parents," I say. "I
want to sue them for the rights to my own body."

campbell
when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
This is something my father, the first Campbell Alexander, used to say; it is also in my opinion the
cornerstone of the American civil justice system. Simply put, people who have been backed into a
corner will do anything to fight their way to the center again.