Ollincott, the social studies teacher. I picture the same cemetery1 we went to for my grandmother’s funeral,although that was in Chicago so it doesn’t really make any sense. There would be rolling hills that look likegreen velvet2, and statues of gods and lesser3 angels, and that big brown hole in the ground like a split seam,waiting to swallow the body that used to be me.
I imagine my mom in a black-veiled Jackie O hat, sobbing4. My dad holding on to her. Kate and Jesse staringat the shine of the coffin5 and trying to plea-bargain with God for all the times they did something mean tome. It is possible that some of the guys from my hockey team would come, clutching lilies and theircomposure. “That Anna,” they’d say, and they wouldn’t cry but they’d want to.
There would be an obituary6 on page twenty-four of the paper, and maybe Kyle McFee would see it and cometo the funeral, his beautiful face twisted up with the what-ifs of the girlfriend he never got to have. I thinkthere would be flowers, sweet peas and snapdragons and blue balls of hydrangea. I hope someone would sing“Amazing Grace,” not just the famous first verse but all of them. And afterward7, when the leaves turned andthe snow came, every now and then I would rise in everyone’s minds like a tide.
At Kate’s funeral, everyone will come. There will be nurses from the hospital who’ve gotten to be ourfriends, and other cancer patients still counting their lucky stars, and townspeople who helped raise moneyfor her treatments. They will have to turn mourners away at the cemetery gates. There will be so many lushfuneral baskets that some will be donated to charity. The newspaper will run a story of her short and tragiclife.
Mark my words, it will be on the front page.
Judge DeSalvo’s wearing flip-flops, the kind soccer players wear when they take off their cleats. I don’tknow why, but this makes me feel a little better. I mean, it’s bad enough I’m here in this courthouse, beingled toward his private room in the back; there’s something nice about knowing that I’m not the only one whodoesn’t quite fit the part.
He takes a can from a dwarf8 fridge and asks me what I’d like to drink. “Coke would be great,” I say.
The judge opens the can. “Did you know that if you leave a baby tooth in a glass of Coke, in a few weeks it’llcompletely disappear? Carbonic acid.” He smiles at me. “My brother is a dentist in Warwick. Does that trickevery year for the kindergartners.”
I take a sip9 of the Coke, and imagine my insides dissolving. Judge DeSalvo doesn’t sit down behind his desk,but instead takes a chair right next to me. “Here’s the problem, Anna,” he says. “Your mom is telling me youwant to do one thing. And your lawyer is telling me you want to do another. Now, under normalcircumstances, I’d expect your mother to know you better than some guy you met two days ago. But younever would have met this guy if you hadn’t sought him out for his services. And that makes me think that Ineed to hear what you think about all this.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Does there have to be a trial?”
“Well…your parents can just agree to medical emancipation10, and that would be that,” the judge says.
Like that would ever happen.
“On the other hand, once someone files a petition—like you have—then the respondent—your parents—haveto go to court. If your parents really believe you’re not ready to make these kinds of decisions by yourself,they have to present their reasons to me, or else risk having me find in your favor by default.”
I nod. I have told myself that no matter what, I’m going to keep cool. If I fall apart at the seams, there’s noway this judge will think I’m capable of deciding anything. I have all these brilliant intentions, but I getsidetracked by the sight of the judge, lifting his can of apple juice.
Not too long ago, when Kate was in the hospital to get her kidneys checked out, a new nurse handed her acup and asked for a urine sample. “It better be ready when I come back for it,” she said. Kate—who isn’t afan of snotty demands—decided the nurse needed to be taken down a peg11. She sent me out on a mission tothe vending12 machines, to get the very juice that the judge is drinking now. She poured this into the specimencup, and when the nurse came back, held it up to the light. “Huh,” Kate said. “Looks a little cloudy. Betterfilter it through again.” And then she lifted it to her lips and drank it down.
The nurse turned white and flew out of the room. Kate and I, we laughed until our stomachs cramped13. For therest of that day, all we had to do was catch each other’s eye and we’d dissolve.
Like a tooth, and then there’s nothing left.
“Anna?” Judge DeSalvo prompts, and then he sets that stupid can of Mott’s down on the table between usand I burst into tears.
“I can’t give a kidney to my sister. I just can’t.”
Without a word, Judge DeSalvo hands me a box of Kleenex. I wad some into a ball, wipe at my eyes and mynose. For a while, he’s quiet, letting me catch my breath. When I look up I find him waiting. “Anna, nohospital in this country will take an organ from an unwilling14 donor15.”
“Who do you think signs off on it?” I ask. “Not the little kid getting wheeled into the OR—her parents.”
“You’re not a little kid; you could certainly make your objections known,” he says.
“Oh, right,” I say, tearing up again. “When you complain because someone’s sticking a needle into you forthe tenth time, it’s considered standard operating procedure. All the adults look around with fake smiles andtell each other that no one voluntarily asks for more needles.” I blow my nose into a Kleenex. “The kidney—that’s just today. Tomorrow it’ll be something else. It’s always something else.”
“Your mother told me you want to drop the lawsuit,” he says. “Did she lie to me?”
“No.” I swallow hard.
“Then…why did you lie to her?”
There are a thousand answers for that; I choose the easy one. “Because I love her,” I say, and the tears comeall over again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
He stares at me hard. “You know what, Anna? I’m going to appoint someone who’s going to help yourlawyer tell me what’s best for you. How does that sound?”
My hair’s fallen all over the place; I tuck it behind my ear. My face is so red it feels swollen16. “Okay,” Ianswer.
“Okay.” He presses an intercom button, and asks to have everyone else sent back.
My mother comes into the room first and starts to make her way over to me, until Campbell and his dog cuther off. He raises his brows and gives me a thumbs-up sign, but it’s a question. “I’m not sure what’s goingon,” Judge DeSalvo says, “so I’m appointing a guardian17 ad litem to spend two weeks with her. Needless tosay, I expect full cooperation on both of your parts. I want the guardian ad litem’s report back, and then we’llhave a hearing. If there’s anything more I need to know at that time, bring it with you.”
“Two weeks…” my mother says. I know what she’s thinking. “Your Honor, with all due respect, two weeksis a very long time, given the severity of my other daughter’s illness.”
She looks like someone I do not recognize. I have seen her before be a tiger, fighting a medical system thatisn’t moving fast enough for her. I have seen her be a rock, giving the rest of us something to cling to. I haveseen her be a boxer18, coming up swinging before the next punch can be thrown by Fate. But I have never seenher be a lawyer before.
Judge DeSalvo nods. “All right. We’ll have a hearing next Monday, then. In the meantime I want Kate’smedical records brought to—”
“Your Honor,” Campbell Alexander interrupts. “As you’re well aware, due to the strange circumstances ofthis case, my client is living with opposing counsel. That’s a flagrant breach19 of justice.”
My mother sucks in her breath. “You are not suggesting my child be taken away from me.”
Taken away? Where would I go?
“I can’t be sure that opposing counsel won’t try to use her living arrangements to her best advantage, YourHonor, and possibly pressure my client.” Campbell stares right at the judge, unblinking.
“Mr. Alexander, there is no way I am pulling this child out of her home,” Judge DeSalvo says, but then heturns to my mother. “However, Mrs. Fitzgerald, you cannot talk about this case with your daughter unless herattorney is present. If you can’t agree to that, or if I hear of any breach in that domestic Chinese wall, I mayhave to take more drastic action.”
“Understood, Your Honor,” my mother says.
“Well.” Judge DeSalvo stands up. “I’ll see you all next week.” He walks out of the room, his flip-flopsmaking small sucking slaps on the tile floor.
The minute he is gone, I turn to my mother. I can explain, I want to say, but it never makes its way out loud.
Suddenly a wet nose pokes20 into my hand. Judge. It makes my heart, that runaway21 train, slow down.
“I need to speak to my client,” Campbell says.
“Right now she’s my daughter,” my mother says, and she takes my hand and yanks me out of my chair. Atthe threshold of the door, I manage to look back. Campbell’s fuming22. I could have told him it would wind uplike this. Daughter trumps23 everything, no matter what the game.
spaceWorld War III begins immediately, not with an assassinated24 archduke or a crazy dictator but with a missedleft turn. “Brian,” my mother says, craning her neck. “That was North Park Street.”
My father blinks out of his fog. “You could have told me before I passed it.”
“I did.”
Before I can even weigh the costs and benefits of entering someone else’s battle again, I say, “I didn’t hearyou.”
My mother’s head whips around. “Anna, right now, you are the last person whose input25 I need or want.”
“I just—”
She holds up her hand like the privacy partition in a cab. She shakes her head.
On the backseat, I slide sideways and curl my feet up, facing to the rear, so that all I see is black.
“Brian,” my mother says. “You missed it again.”
When we walk in, my mother steams past Kate, who opened the door for us, and past Jesse, who is watchingwhat looks like the scrambled26 Playboy channel on TV. In the kitchen, she opens cabinets and bangs themshut. She takes food from the refrigerator and smacks27 it onto the table.
“Hey,” my father says to Kate. “How’re you feeling?”
She ignores him, pushing into the kitchen. “What happened?”
“What happened. Well.” My mother pins me with a gaze. “Why don’t you ask your sister what happened?”
Kate turns to me, all eyes.
“Amazing how quiet you are now, when a judge isn’t listening,” my mother says.
Jesse turns off the television. “She made you talk to a judge? Damn, Anna.”
My mother closes her eyes. “Jesse, you know, now would be a good time for you to leave.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” he says, his voice full of broken glass. We hear the front door open andshut, a whole story.
“Sara.” My father steps into the room. “We all need to cool off a little.”
“I have one child who’s just signed her sister’s death sentence, and I’m supposed to cool off?”
The kitchen gets so silent we can hear the refrigerator whispering. My mother’s words hang like too-ripefruit, and when they fall on the floor and burst, she shudders28 into motion. “Kate,” she says, hurrying towardmy sister, her arms already outstretched. “Kate, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not what I meant.”
In my family, we seem to have a tortured history of not saying what we ought to and not meaning what wedo. Kate covers her mouth with her hand. She backs out of the kitchen door, bumping into my father, whofumbles but cannot catch her as she scrambles29 upstairs. I hear the door to our room slam shut. My mother, ofcourse, goes after her.
So I do what I do best. I move in the opposite direction.
Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It’s like a rainy Sunday when you don’thave to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father’s just mowed—comfortfood for your nose. When I was little my mom would take hot clothes out of the dryer30 and dump them on topof me where I was sitting on the couch. I used to pretend they were a single skin, that I was curled tightbeneath them like one large heart.
The other thing I like is that Laundromats draw lonely people like metal to magnets. There’s a guy passed outon a bank of chairs in the back, with army boots and a T-shirt that says Nostradamus Was an Optimist31. Awoman at the folding table sifts32 through a heap of men’s button-down shirts, sniffing33 back tears. Put tenpeople together in a Laundromat and chances are you won’t be the one who’s worst off.
I sit down across from a bank of washers and try to match up the clothes with the people waiting. The pinkpanties and lace nightgown belong to the girl who is reading a romance novel. The woolly red socks andcheckered shirt are the skanky sleeping student. The soccer jerseys34 and kiddie overalls35 come from the toddlerwho keeps handing filmy white dryer sheets to her mom, oblivious36 on a cell phone. What kind of person canafford a cell phone, but not her own washer and dryer?
I play a game with myself, sometimes, and try to imagine what it would be like to be the person whoseclothes are spinning in front of me. If I were washing those carpenter jeans, maybe I’d be a roofer in Phoenix,my arms strong and my back tan. If I had those flowered sheets, I might be on break from Harvard, studyingcriminal profiling. If I owned that satin cape37, I might have season tickets to the ballet. And then I try topicture myself doing any of these things and I can’t. All I can ever see is me, being a donor for Kate, eachtime stretching to the next.
Kate and I are Siamese twins; you just can’t see the spot where we’re connected. Which makes separationthat much more difficult.
When I look up the girl who works the Laundromat is standing38 over me, with her lip ring and blue streakeddreadlocks. “You need change?” she asks.
To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to hear my own answer.
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1
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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7
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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sip
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| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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12
vending
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| v.出售（尤指土地等财产）( vend的现在分词 )；（尤指在公共场所）贩卖；发表（意见，言论）；声明 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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pokes
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| v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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assassinated
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input
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| n.输入(物)；投入；vt.把(数据等)输入计算机 | |
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scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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smacks
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| 掌掴（声）( smack的名词复数 )； 海洛因； （打的）一拳； 打巴掌 | |
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shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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scrambles
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| n.抢夺( scramble的名词复数 )v.快速爬行( scramble的第三人称单数 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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dryer
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| n.干衣机，干燥剂 | |
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optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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sifts
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| v.筛( sift的第三人称单数 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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jerseys
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| n.运动衫( jersey的名词复数 ) | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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