She pushes back from me, until she can look me in the eye. “Don't
be,” she says fiercely. “Because I'm not.” She tries to smile,
tries so damn hard. “It was a good one, Mom, wasn't it?”
I bite my lip, feel the heaviness of tears. “It was the best,” I
answer.
THURSDAY
One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
CAMPBELL
IT'S RAINING.
When I come out to the living room, Judge has his nose pressed against the
plate glass wall that makes up one whole side of the apartment. He whines at
the drops that zigzag past him. “You can't get them,” I say, patting
him on the head. “You can't get to the other side.”
I sit down on the rug beside him, knowing I need to get up and get dressed
and go to court; knowing that I ought to be reviewing my closing argument again
and not sitting here idle. But there is something mesmerizing about this weather.
I used to sit in the front seat of my father's Jag, watching the raindrops run
their kamikaze suicide missions from one edge of the windshield to the wiper
blade. He liked to leave the wipers on intermittent, so that the world went
runny on my side of the glass for whole blocks of time. It made me crazy. When
you drive, my father used to say when I complained, you can do what
you want.
“You want the shower first?”
Julia stands in the open doorway of the bedroom, wearing one of my T-shirts.
It hits her at mid-thigh. She curls her toes into the carpet.
“You go ahead,” I tell her. “I could always just step out on
the balcony instead.”
She notices the weather. “Awful out, isn't it?”
“Good day to be stuck in court,” I answer, but without any great conviction.
I don't want to face Judge DeSalvo's decision today, and for once it has
nothing to do with fear of losing this case. I've done the best I could, given
what Anna admitted on the stand. And I hope like hell that I've made her feel a
little better about what she's done, too. She doesn't look like an indecisive
kid anymore, that much is true. She doesn't look selfish. She just looks like
the rest of us—trying to figure out exactly who she is, and what to make of it.
The truth is, as Anna once told me, nobody's going to win. We are going to
give our closing arguments and hear the judge's opinion and even then, it won't
be over.
Instead of heading back to the bathroom, Julia approaches. She sits down
cross-legged beside me and touches her fingers to the plate of glass.
“Campbell,” she says, “I don't know how to tell you this.”
Everything inside me goes still. “Fast,” I suggest.
“I hate your apartment.”
I follow her eyes from the gray carpet to the black couch, to the mirrored
wall and the lacquered bookshelves. It is full of sharp edges and expensive
art. It has the most advanced electronic gadgets and bells and whistles. It is
a dream residence, but it is nobody's home.
“You know,” I say. “I hate it, too.”
JESSE
IT'S RAINING.
I go outside, and start walking. I head down the street and past the
elementary school and through two intersections. I am soaked to the bone in
about five minutes flat. That's when I start to run. I run so fast that my
lungs start to ache and my legs burn, and finally when I cannot move another
step I fling myself down on my back in the middle of the high school soccer
field.
Once, I took acid here during a thunderstorm like this one. I lay down and
watched the sky fall. I imagined the raindrops melting away my skin. I waited
for the one stroke of lightning that would arrow through my heart, and make me
feel one hundred percent alive for the first time in my whole sorry existence.
The lightning, it had its chance, and it didn't come that day. It doesn't
come this morning, either.
So I get up, wipe my hair out of my eyes, and try to come up with a better
plan.
ANNA
IT'S RAINING.
The kind of rain that comes down so heavy it sounds like the shower's
running, even when you've turned it off. The kind of rain that makes you think
of dams and flash floods, arks. The kind of rain that tells you to crawl back
into bed, where the sheets haven't lost your body heat, to pretend that the
clock is five minutes earlier than it really is.
Ask any kid who's made it past fourth grade and they can tell you: water
never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The
river finds it way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds.
And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.
BRIAN
IT'S RAINING.
Like the day Anna was born-New Year's Eve, and way too warm for that time of
year. What should have been snow become a torrential downpour. Ski slopes had
to close for Christmas, because all their runs got washed out. Driving to the
hospital, with Sara in labor beside me, I could barely see through the
windshield.
There were no stars that night, what with all the rain clouds. And maybe
because of that, when Anna arrived I said to Sara, “Let's name her
Andromeda. Anna, for short.”
“Andromeda?” she said. “Like the sci-fi book?”
“Like the princess,” I corrected. I caught her eye over the tiny
horizon of our daughter's head. “In the sky,” I explained,
“she's between her mother and her father.”
SARA
IT'S RAINING.
Not an auspicious beginning, I think, I shuffle my index cards on the table,
trying to look more skilled than I actually am. Who was I kidding? I am no
lawyer, no professional. I have been nothing more than a mother, and I have not
even done a very square job of that.
“Mrs. Fitzgerald?” the judge prompts.
I take a deep breath, stare down at the gibberish in front of me, and grab
the whole sheaf of index cards. Standing up, I clear my throat, and start to
read aloud. “In this country we have a long legal history of allowing
parents to make decisions for their children. It's part of what the courts have
always found to be the constitutional right to privacy. And given all the
evidence this court has heard—” Suddenly, there is a crash of lightning,
and I drop all my notes onto the floor. Kneeling, I scramble to pick them up,
but of course now they are out of order. I try to rearrange what I have in
front of me, but nothing makes sense.
Oh, hell. It's not what I need to say, anyway.
“Your Honor,” I ask, “can I start over?” When he nods, I
turn my back on him, and walk toward my daughter, who is sitting beside
Campbell.
“Anna,” I tell her, “I love you. I loved you before I ever
saw you, and I will love you long after I'm not here to say it. And I know that
because I'm a parent, I'm supposed to have all the answers, but I don't. I
wonder every single day if I'm doing the right thing. I wonder if I know my
children the way I think I do. I wonder if I lose my perspective in being your
mother, because I'm so busy being Kate's.”
I take a few steps forward. “I know I jump at every sliver of
possibility that might cure Kate, but it's all I know how to do. And even if
you don't agree with me, even if Kate doesn't agree with me, I want to be the
one who says I told you so. Ten years from now, I want to see your
children on your lap and in your arms, because that's when you'll understand. I
have a sister, so I know—that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want
your sibling to have exactly what you have—the same amount of toys, the same
number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a
mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever
did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. It's bigger
than words.” I touch my chest. “And it still all manages to fit very
neatly inside here.”
I turn to Judge DeSalvo. "I didn't want to come to court, but I had to.
The way the law works, if a petitioner takes action—even if that's your own
child—you must have a reaction. And so I was forced to explain, eloquently, why
I believe that I know better than Anna what is best for her. When you get down
to it, though, explaining what you believe isn't all that easy. If you say that
you believe something to be true, you might mean one of two
things—that you're still weighing the alternatives, or that you accept it as a
fact. I don't logically see how one single word can have contradictory
definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand. Because there are times
I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess
myself every step of the way.
“Even if the court found in my favor today, I couldn't force Anna to
donate a kidney. No one could. But would I beg her? Would I want to,
even if I restrained myself? I don't know, not even after speaking to Kate, and
after hearing from Anna. I am not sure what to believe; I never was. I
know, indisputably, only two things: that this lawsuit was never really about
donating a kidney… but about having choices. And that nobody ever really makes
decisions entirely by themselves, not even if a judge gives them the right to
do so.”
Finally, I face Campbell. “A long time ago I used to be a lawyer. But
I'm not one anymore. I am a mother, and what I've done for the past eighteen
years in that capacity is harder than anything I ever had to do in a courtroom.
At the beginning of this hearing, Mr. Alexander, you said that none of us is
obligated to go into a fire and save someone else from a burning building. But
that all changes if you're a parent and the person in that burning building is
your child. If that's the case, not only would everyone understand if you ran
in to get your child—they'd practically expect it of you.”
I take a deep breath. “In my life, though, that building was on fire,
one of my children was in it—and the only opportunity to save her was to send
in my other child, because she was the only one who knew the way. Did I know I
was taking a risk? Of course. Did I realize it meant maybe losing both of them?
Yes. Did I understand that maybe it wasn't fair to ask her to do it?
Absolutely. But I also knew that it was the only chance I had to keep both
of them. Was it legal? Was it moral? Was it crazy or foolish or cruel? I don't
know. But I do know it was right.”
Finished, I sit down at my table. The rain beats against the windows to my
right. I wonder if it will ever let up.
CAMPBELL
I GET TO MY FEET, look at my notecards, and—like Sara—toss them into the
trash. “Like Mrs. Fitzgerald just said, this case isn't about Anna
donating a kidney. It isn't about her donating a skin cell, a single blood
cell, a rope of DNA. It's about a girl who is on the cusp of becoming someone.
A girl who is thirteen—which is hard, and painful, and beautiful, and
difficult, and exhilarating. A girl who may not know what she wants
right now, and she may not know who she is right now, but who deserves
the chance to find out. And ten years from now, in my opinion, I think she's
going to be pretty amazing.”
I walk toward the bench. "We know that the Fitzgeralds were asked to do
the impossible—make informed health-care decisions for two of their children,
who had opposing medical interests. And if we—like the Fitzgeralds—don't know
what the right decision is, then the person who has to have the final say is
the person whose body it is… even if that's a thirteen-year-old. And
ultimately, that too is what this case is about: the moment when perhaps a
child knows better than her parents.
“I know that when Anna made the choice to file this lawsuit, she did
not do it for all the self-centered reasons you might expect of a
thirteen-year-old. She didn't make this decision because she wanted to be like
other kids her age. She didn't make this decision because she was tired of
being poked and prodded. She didn't make this decision because she was afraid of
the pain.”
I turn around, and smile at her. “You know what? I wouldn't be
surprised if Anna gives her sister that kidney after all. But what I think doesn't
matter. Judge DeSalvo, with all due respect, what you think doesn't
matter. What Sara and Brian and Kate Fitzgerald think doesn't matter. What Anna
thinks does.” I walk back toward my chair. “And that's the
only voice we ought to be listening to.”
Judge DeSalvo calls for a fifteen-minute recess to render his decision, and
I use it to walk the dog. We circle the little square of green behind to the
Garrahy building, with Vern keeping an eye on the reporters who are waiting for
a verdict. “Come on already,” I say, as Judge makes his fourth loop
around, in search of the ultimate spot. “No one's watching.”
But this turns out to not be entirely true. A kid, no older than three or
four, breaks away from his mother and comes crashing toward us.
“Puppy!” he yells. He stretches out his hands in hot pursuit, and
Judge steps closer to me.
His mother catches up a moment later. “Sorry. My son's going through a
canine stage. Can we pet him?”
“No,” I say automatically. “He's a service dog.”
“Oh.” The woman straightens, pulls her son away. “But you
aren't blind.”
I'm epileptic, and this is my seizure dog. I think about coming
clean, for once, for the first time. But then again, you have to be able to
laugh at yourself, don't you? “I'm a lawyer,” I say, and I grin at
her. “He chases ambulances for me.”
As Judge and I walk off, I'm whistling.
When Judge DeSalvo comes back to the bench he brings a framed picture of his
dead daughter, which is how I know that I've lost this case. “One thing
that has struck me through the presentation of the evidence,” he begins,
“is that all of us in this courtroom have entered into a debate about the
quality of life versus the sanctity of life. Certainly the Fitzgeralds have
always believed that having Kate alive and part of the family was crucial—but
at this point the sanctity of Kate's existence has become completely
intertwined with the quality of Anna's life, and it's my job to see whether
those two can be separated.”
He shakes his head. “I'm not sure that any of us is qualified to decide
which of those two is the most important—least of all myself. I'm a father. My
daughter Dena was killed when she was twelve years old by a drunk driver, and
when I rushed to the hospital that night, I would have given anything for
another day with her. The Fitzgeralds have had fourteen years of being in that
position—of being asked to give anything to keep their daughter alive a little
bit longer. I respect their decisions. I admire their courage. I envy the fact
that they even had these opportunities. But as both attorneys have pointed out,
this case is no longer about Anna and a kidney, it's about how these decisions
get made and how we decide who should make them.”
He clears his throat. “The answer is that there is no good answer. So
as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make
decisions that allow us to sleep at night—because morals are more important
than ethics, and love is more important than law.”
Judge DeSalvo turns his attention to Anna, who shifts uncomfortably.
“Kate doesn't want to die,” he says gently, “but she doesn't
want to live like this, either. And knowing that, and knowing the law, there's
really only one decision I can make. The sole person who should be allowed to
make that choice is the very one who lies at the heart of the issue.”
I exhale heavily.
“And by that, I don't mean Kate, but Anna.”
Beside me, she sucks in her breath. “One of the issues brought up
during these past few days has involved whether or not a thirteen-year-old is
capable of making choices as weighty as these. I'd argue, though, that age is
the least likely variable here for basic understanding. In fact, some of the
adults here seem to have forgotten the simplest childhood rule: You don't take
something away from someone without asking permission. Anna,” he asks,
“will you please stand up?”
She looks at me, and I nod, standing up with her. “At this time,”
Judge DeSalvo says, “I'm going to declare you medically emancipated from
your parents. What that means is that even though you will continue to live
with them, and even though they can tell you when to go to bed and what TV
shows you can't watch and whether you have to finish your broccoli, with
regards to any medical treatment, you have the last word.” He turns toward
Sara. “Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mr. Fitzgerald—I'm going to order you to meet with
Anna and her pediatrician and discuss the terms of this verdict so that the
doctor understands he needs to deal directly with Anna. And just so that she
has additional guidance, should she need it, I'm going to ask Mr. Alexander to
assume medical power of attorney for her until age eighteen, so that he may
assist her in making some of the more difficult decisions. I'm not in any way
suggesting that these decisions should not be made in conjunction with her
parents—but I am finding that the final decision will rest with Anna
alone.” The judge pins his gaze on me. “Mr. Alexander, will you
accept this responsibility?”
With the exception of Judge, I have never had to take care of anyone or
anything before. And now I will have Julia, and I will have Anna. “I'd be
honored,” I say, and I smile at her.
“I want those forms signed before you leave the courthouse today,”
the judge orders. “Good luck, Anna. Stop by every now and then, and let me
know how you are.”
He bangs his gavel, and we rise as he leaves the courtroom.
“Anna,” I say, when she remains still and shocked beside me.
“You did it.”
Julia reaches us first and leans over the gallery railing to hug Anna.
“You were very brave.” Over Anna's shoulder she grins at me.
“And so were you.”
But then Anna steps away, and finds herself facing her parents. There is a
foot between them, and a universe of time and comfort. It isn't until that
moment that I realize I have begun already to think of Anna as older than her
biological age, yet here she is unsure and unable to make eye contact.
“Hey,” Brian says, bridging the gap, pulling his daughter into a
rough embrace. “It's okay.” And then Sara slips into this huddle, her
arms coming around both of them, all their shoulders forming the wide wall of a
team that has to reinvent the very game they play.
ANNA
VISIBILITY SUCKS. The rain, if possible, is coming down even harder. I have
this brief vision of it pummeling the car so hard it crunches like an empty
Coke can, and just like that it's harder for me to breathe. It takes a second
for me to realize that this has nothing to do with the shitty weather or latent
claustrophobia, but with the fact that my throat is only half as wide as
usual/tears hardening it like an artery, so that everything I do and say
involves twice as much work.
I have been medically emancipated for a whole half hour now. Campbell says
the rain is a blessing, it's kept the reporters away. Maybe they will find me
at the hospital and maybe they won't, but by then I will be with my family and
it won't really matter. My parents left before us; we had to fill out the
stupid paperwork. Campbell offered to drop me off when we were through, which
is nice considering I know he wants nothing more than to hook up with Julia,
which they seem to think is some tremendous mystery, but so isn't. I wonder
what Judge does, when it's the two of them. I wonder if he feels left out.
“Campbell?” I ask, out of nowhere. “What do you think I
should do?”
He doesn't pretend to not know what I'm talking about. “I just fought
very hard at a trial for your right to choose, so I'm not going to
tell you what I think.”
“Great,” I say, settling deep into my seat. “I don't even
know who I really am.”
"I know who you are. You're the premier doorknob caddy in all of
Providence Plantations. You've got a wise mouth, and you pick the crackers out
of the Chex Mix, and you hate math and…"
It's kind of cool, watching Campbell try to fill in all the blanks.
“… you like boys?” he finishes, but that one's a question.
“Some of them are okay,” I admit, “but they probably all grow
up to be like you.”
He smiles. “God forbid.”
“What are you going to do next?”
Campbell shrugs. “I may actually have to take on a paying case.”
“So you can continue to support Julia in the style to which she's
accustomed?”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “Something like that.”
It gets quiet for a moment, so all I can hear is the squelch of the
windshield wipers. I slip my hands under my thighs, sit on them. “What you
said at the trial… do you really think I'll be amazing in ten years?”
“Why, Anna Fitzgerald, are you fishing for compliments?”
“Forget I said anything.”
He glances at me. “Yes, I do. I imagine you'll be breaking guy's
hearts, or painting in Montmartre, or flying fighter jets, or hiking through
undiscovered countries.” He pauses. “Maybe all of the above.”
There was a time when, like Kate, I'd wanted to be a ballerina. But since
then I've gone through a thousand different stages: I wanted to be an
astronaut. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I wanted to be a backup singer for
Aretha Franklin, a member of the Cabinet, a Yellowstone National Park ranger.
Now, based on the day, I sometimes want to be a microsurgeon, a poet, a ghost
hunter.
Only one thing's a constant. “Ten years from now,” I say,
“I'd like to be Kate's sister.”
BRIAN
MY BEEPER GOES OFF just as Kate starts another course of dialysis. An MVA,
two cars, with Pl-a motor vehicle accident with injuries. 'They need me,“
I tell Sara. 'You'll be okay?”
The ambulance is headed to the corner of Eddy and Fountain, a bad
intersection to begin with, rendered worse by this weather. By the time I
arrive, the cops have blocked off the area. It's a T-bone: the two vehicles
rammed together by sheer force into a conglomerate of twisted steel. The truck
made out better; the smaller BMW is literally bent like a smile around its
front end. I get out of the car and into the pouring rain, find the first
policeman I can. “Three injured,” he says. “One's already en
route.”
I find Red working the Jaws of Life, trying to cut through the driver's side
of the second car to get to the victims. “What have you got?” I shout
over the sirens.
“First driver went through the windshield,” he yells back.
“Caesar took her in the ambulance. The second ambulance is on its way.
There are two people in here, from what I can see, but both doors are
accordions.”
“Let me see if I can crawl over the top of the truck.” I start to
work my way up the slick metal and shattered glass. My foot goes through a hole
I couldn't see in the flatbed, and I curse and try to get myself untangled.
With careful movements I pull myself into the pleated cab of the truck,
maneuver myself forward. The driver must have flown out the windshield over the
height of the little BMW; the entire front end of the Ford-150 has plowed
through the sports car's passenger side, as if it were made of paper.
I have to crawl out what was the window of the truck, because the engine is
between me and whoever's inside the BMW. But if I twist myself a certain way,
there is a tiny space where I can nearly fit myself, one that puts me up
against the tempered glass, spiderweb-shattered, stained red with blood. And
just as Red forces the driver's side door free with the Jaws and a dog comes
whimpering out, I realize that the face pressed up against the other side of
the broken window is Anna's.
“Get them out,” I yell, “get them out now!” I do not
know how I force myself back out of this snarled skeleton to knock Red out of
the way; how I unhook Campbell Alexander from his seat belt and drag him to lay
in the street with the rain pelting around him; how I reach inside to where my
daughter is still and wide-eyed, strapped into her belt the way she is supposed
to be and Jesus God no.
Paulie comes out of nowhere and lays his hands on her and before I know what
I'm doing I deck him, sending him sprawling. “Fuck, Brian,” he says, holding
his jaw.
“It's Anna. Paulie, it's Anna.”
When they understand, they try to hold me back and do this work for me, but
it is my baby, my baby, and I am having none of it. I get her onto a backboard
and strap her down, let them load her onto the ambulance. I tip back the bottom
of her chin, ready to intubate, but see the little scar she got from falling on
Jesse's ice skate, and fall apart. Red moves me aside and does it instead, then
takes her pulse. “It's weak, Cap,” he says, “but it's
there.”
He puts in an IV line while I pick up the radio and call in our ETA.
'Thirteen-year-old female, MVA, severe closed head injury…“ When the
cardiac monitor blanks out, I drop the receiver and start CPR. ”Get the
paddles," I order, and I pull open Anna's shirt, cut through the lace of
the bra she wanted so badly but doesn't need. Red shocks her, and gets the
pulse back, bradycardia with ventricular escape beats.