My Sisters Keeper | Page 7

you don't give your
sister a kidney?"
"She'll die."
"And you're okay with that?"
Anna's mouth sets in a thin line. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are. I'm just trying to figure out what made you want to put your foot down, after all this
time."
She looks over at the bookshelf. "Because," she says simply, "it never stops."
Suddenly, something seems to jog her memory. She reaches into her pocket and puts a wad of
crumpled bills and change onto my desk. "You don't have to worry about getting paid, either. That's
$136.87. I know it's not enough, but I'll figure out a way to get more."
"I charge two hundred an hour."
"Dollars?"
"Wampum doesn't fit in the ATM deposit slot," I say.
"Maybe I could walk your dog, or something."

"Service dogs get walked by their owners." I shrug. "We'll work something out."
"You can't be my lawyer for free," she insists.
"Fine, then. You can polish my doorknobs." It's not that I'm a particularly charitable man, but rather
that legally, this case is a lock: she doesn't want to give a kidney; no court in its right mind would
force her to give up a kidney; I don't have to do any legal research; the parents will cave in before
we go to trial, and that will be that. Plus, the case will generate a ton of publicity for me, and will
jack up my pro bono for the whole damn decade. "I'm going to file a petition for you in family court:
legal emancipation for medical purposes," I say.
"Then what?"
"There will be a hearing, and the judge will appoint a guardian ad litem, which is--"
--a person trained to work with kids in the family court, who determines what's in the child's best
interests," Anna recites. "Or in other words, just another grown-up deciding what happens to me."
"Well, that's the way the law works, and you can't get around it. But a GAL is theoretically only
looking out for you, not your sister or your parents."
She watches me take out a legal pad and scrawl a few notes. Does it bother you that your name is
backward?"
"What?" I stop writing, and stare at her.
Campbell Alexander. Your last name is a first name, and your first name is a last name." She pauses.
"Or a soup."
And how does that have any bearing on your case?"

"It doesn't," Anna admits, "except that it was a pretty bad decision your parents made for you."
I reach across my desk to hand her a card. "If you have any questions, call me."
She takes it, and runs her fingers over the raised lettering of my name. My backward name. For the
love of God. Then she leans across the desk, grabs my pad, and tears the bottom off the page.
Borrowing my pen, she writes something down and hands it back to me. I glance down at the note
in my hand:
M*a bbb 3211 *
"If you have any questions," she says.
When I walk out to the reception area, Anna is gone and Kerri sits at her desk, a catalog spread-
eagled across it. "Did you know they used to use those L. L. Bean canvas bags to carry ice?"
"Yeah." And vodka and Bloody Mary mix. Toted from the cottage to the beach every Saturday
morning. Which reminds me, my mother called.
Kerri has an aunt who makes her living as a psychic, and every now and then this genetic
predisposition rears its head. Or maybe she's just been working for me long enough to know most
of my secrets. At any rate, she knows what I am thinking. "She says your father's taken up with a
seventeen-year-old and that discretion isn't in his vocabulary and that she's checking herself into
The Pines unless you call her by . .. Kerri glances at her watch. "Oops."
"How many times has she threatened to commit herself this week?"
"Only three," Kerri says.
"We're still way below average." I lean over the desk and close the catalog. "Time to earn a living,
Ms. Donatelli."
"What's going on?" "That girl, Anna Fitzgerald--"
"Planned Parenthood?"
"Not quite," I say. "We're representing her. I need to dictate a petition for medical emancipation, so
that you can file it with the family court by tomorrow."
"Get out! You're representing her?"
I put a hand over my heart. "I'm wounded that you think so little of me."
"Actually, I was thinking about your wallet. Do her parents know?"
"They will by tomorrow."
"Are you a complete idiot?"
"Excuse me?"

Kerri shakes her head. "Where's she going to live?"
The comment stops me. In fact, I hadn't really considered it. But a girl who brings a lawsuit against
her parents