I KNOCK ON THE DOOR of the men’s room, and then walk inside. On one wall is a really long, gross urinal.
On the other, washing his hands in a sink, is Campbell. He’s wearing a pair of my dad’s uniform pants. Helooks different now, as if all the straight lines that had been used to draw his face have been smudged. “Juliasaid you wanted me to come in here,” I say.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you alone, and all the conference rooms are upstairs. Your dad doesn’t think Iought to tackle that just yet.” He wipes his hands on a towel. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
Well, I don’t even know if there’s a decent answer to that. I chew on my lower lip. “Is that why I couldn’t patthe dog?”
“Yeah.”
“How does Judge know what to do?”
Campbell shrugs. “It’s supposed to have something to do with scent or electrical impulses that an animal cansense before a human can. But I think it’s because we know each other so well.” He pats Judge on the neck.
“He gets me somewhere safe before it happens. I usually have about twenty minutes’ lead time.”
“Huh.” I am suddenly shy. I’ve been with Kate when she’s really, really sick, but this is different. I hadn’tbeen expecting this from Campbell. “Is this why you took my case?”
“So that I could have a seizure in public? Believe me, no.”
“Not that.” I look away from him. “Because you know what it’s like to not have any control over your body.”
“Maybe,” Campbell says thoughtfully. “But my doorknobs did sorely need polishing.”
If he’s trying to make me feel better, he’s failing miserably. “I told you having me testify wasn’t the greatestidea.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders. “Anna, come on. If I can go back in there after that performance, yousure as hell can climb into the hot seat for a few more questions.”
How am I supposed to fight that logic? So I follow Campbell back into the courtroom, where nothing is theway it was just an hour ago. With everyone watching him like he’s a ticking bomb, Campbell walks up to thebench and turns to the court in general. “I’m very sorry about that, Judge,” he says. “Anything for a ten-minute break, right?”
How can he make jokes about something like this? And then I realize: it’s what Kate does, too. Maybe if Godgives you a handicap, he makes sure you’ve got a few extra doses of humor to take the edge off.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day, Counselor,” Judge DeSalvo offers.
“No, I’m all right now. And I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this.” He turns to the courtreporter. “Could you, uh, refresh my memory?”
She reads back the transcript, and Campbell nods, but he acts like he’s hearing my words, regurgitated, forthe very first time. “All right, Anna, you were saying Kate asked you to file this lawsuit for medicalemancipation?”
Again, I squirm. “Not quite.”
“Can you explain?”
“She didn’t ask me to file the lawsuit.”
“Then what did she ask you?”
I steal a glance at my mother. She knows; she has to know. Don’t make me say it out loud.
“Anna,” Campbell presses, “what did she ask you?”
I shake my head, tight-lipped, and Judge DeSalvo leans over. “Anna, you’re going to have to give us ananswer to this question.”
“Fine.” The truth bursts out of me; a raging river, now that the dam’s washed away. “She asked me to killher.”
The first thing that was wrong was that Kate had locked the door to our bedroom, when there wasn’t really alock, which meant she’d either pushed up furniture or pennied it shut. “Kate,” I yelled, banging, because Iwas sweaty and gross from hockey practice and I wanted to take a shower and change. “Kate, this isn’t fair.”
I guess I made enough noise, because she opened up. And that was the second thing: there was somethingjust wrong about the room. I glanced around, but everything seemed to be in place—most importantly, noneof my stuff had been messed with—and yet Kate still looked like she’d swilled a mystery.
“What’s your problem?” I asked, and then I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and smelled it—sweet and almost angry, the same boozy scent I associated with Jesse’s apartment. I started opening upcabinets and rummaging through towels and trying to find the proof, no pun intended, and sure enough therewas a half-empty bottle of whiskey hidden behind the boxes of tampons.
“Looky here…” I said, brandishing it and walking back into the bedroom, thinking I had a great little wedgeof blackmail to use to my advantage for a while, and then I saw Kate holding the pills.
“What are you doing?”
Kate rolled over. “Leave me alone, Anna.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No,” Kate said. “I’m just sick of waiting for something that’s going to happen anyway. I think I’ve fuckedup everyone’s life long enough, don’t you?”
“But everyone’s worked so hard just to keep you alive. You can’t kill yourself.”
All of a sudden Kate started to cry. “I know. I can’t.”
It took me a few moments to realize this meant she’d already tried before.
My mother gets up slowly. “It’s not true,” she says, her voice stretched thin as glass. “Anna, I don’t knowwhy you’d say that.”
My eyes fill up. “Why would I make it up?”
She walks closer. “Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or being dramatic.” Shesmiles in the pained way of people who really want to cry. “Because if she was that upset, she would havetold me.”
“She couldn’t tell you,” I reply. “She was too afraid if she killed herself she’d be killing you, too.” I cannotcatch my breath. I am sinking in a tar pit; I am running and the ground’s gone beneath my feet. Campbellasks the judge for a few minutes so that I can pull myself together, but even if Judge DeSalvo answers, I amcrying so hard I don’t hear it. “I don’t want her to die, but I know she doesn’t want to live like this, and I’mthe one who can give her what she wants.” I keep my eyes on my mother, even as she swims away from me.
“I’ve always been the one who can give her what she wants.”
The next time it came up was after my mother came into our room to talk about donating a kidney. “Don’t doit,” Kate said, when they were gone.
I glanced at her. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m going to do it.”
We were getting undressed, and I noticed that we had picked the same pajamas—shiny satin ones printedwith cherries. As we slid into bed I thought we looked like we did as little kids, when our parents would dressus similarly because they thought it was cute.
“Do you think it would work?” I asked. “A kidney transplant?”
Kate looked at me. “It might.” She leaned over, her hand on the light switch. “Don’t do it,” she repeated, andit wasn’t until I heard her a second time that I understood what she was really saying.
My mother is a breath away from me, and in her eyes are all the mistakes she’s ever made. My father comesup and puts his arm around her shoulders. “Come sit down,” he whispers into her hair.
“Your Honor,” Campbell says, getting to his feet. “May I?”
He walks toward me, Judge right beside him. I am just as shaky as he is. I think about that dog an hour ago.
How did he know for sure what Campbell really needed, and when?
“Anna, do you love your sister?”
“Of course.”
“But you were willing to take an action that might kill her?”
Something flashes inside me. “It was so she wouldn’t have to go through this anymore. I thought it was whatshe wanted.”
He goes silent; and I realize at that moment: he knows.
Inside me, something breaks. “It was…it was what I wanted, too.”
We were in the kitchen, washing and drying the dishes. “You hate going to the hospital,” Kate said.
“Well, duh.” I put the forks and spoons, clean, back into their drawer.
“I know you’d do anything to not have to go there anymore.”
I glanced at her. “Sure. Because you’d be healthy.”
“Or dead.” Kate plunged her hands into the soapy water, careful not to look at me. “Think about it, Anna.
You could go to your hockey camps. You could choose a college in a whole different country. You could doanything you want and never have to worry about me.”
She pulled these examples right out of my head, and I could feel myself blushing, ashamed that they wereeven up there to be drawn out into the open. If Kate was feeling guilty about being a burden, then I wasfeeling twice as guilty for knowing she felt that way. For knowing I felt that way.
We didn’t talk after that. I dried whatever she handed me, and we both tried to pretend we didn’t know thetruth: that in addition to the piece of me that’s always wanted Kate to live, there’s another, horrible piece ofme that sometimes wishes I were free.
There, they understand: I am a monster. I started this lawsuit for some reasons I’m proud of and many I’mnot. And now Campbell will see why I couldn’t be a witness—not because I was scared to talk in front ofeveryone—but because of all these terrible feelings, some of which are too awful to speak out loud. That Iwant Kate alive, but also want to be myself, not part of her. That I want the chance to grow up, even if Katecan’t. That Kate’s death would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me…and also the best.
That sometimes, when I think about all this, I hate myself and just want to crawl back to where I was, to theperson they want me to be.
Now the whole courtroom is looking at me, and I’m sure that the witness stand or my skin or maybe both isabout to implode. Under this magnifying glass, you can see right down to the rotten core at the heart of me.
Maybe if they keep staring at me, I will go up in blue, bitter smoke. Maybe I will disappear without a trace.
“Anna,” Campbell says quietly, “what made you think that Kate wanted to die?”
“She said she was ready.”
He walks up until he is standing right in front of me. “Isn’t it possible that’s the same reason she asked you tohelp her?”
I look up slowly, and unwrap this gift Campbell’s just handed me. What if Kate wanted to die, so that I couldlive? What if after all these years of saving Kate, she was only trying to do the same for me?
“Did you tell Kate you were going to stop being a donor?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“When?”
“The night before I hired you.”
“Anna, what did Kate say?”
Until now, I hadn’t really thought about it, but Campbell has triggered the memory. My sister had gotten veryquiet, so quiet that I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. And then she turned to me with all the world in her eyes,and a smile that crumbled like a fault line.
I glance up at Campbell. “She said thanks.
On the other, washing his hands in a sink, is Campbell. He’s wearing a pair of my dad’s uniform pants. Helooks different now, as if all the straight lines that had been used to draw his face have been smudged. “Juliasaid you wanted me to come in here,” I say.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you alone, and all the conference rooms are upstairs. Your dad doesn’t think Iought to tackle that just yet.” He wipes his hands on a towel. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
Well, I don’t even know if there’s a decent answer to that. I chew on my lower lip. “Is that why I couldn’t patthe dog?”
“Yeah.”
“How does Judge know what to do?”
Campbell shrugs. “It’s supposed to have something to do with scent or electrical impulses that an animal cansense before a human can. But I think it’s because we know each other so well.” He pats Judge on the neck.
“He gets me somewhere safe before it happens. I usually have about twenty minutes’ lead time.”
“Huh.” I am suddenly shy. I’ve been with Kate when she’s really, really sick, but this is different. I hadn’tbeen expecting this from Campbell. “Is this why you took my case?”
“So that I could have a seizure in public? Believe me, no.”
“Not that.” I look away from him. “Because you know what it’s like to not have any control over your body.”
“Maybe,” Campbell says thoughtfully. “But my doorknobs did sorely need polishing.”
If he’s trying to make me feel better, he’s failing miserably. “I told you having me testify wasn’t the greatestidea.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders. “Anna, come on. If I can go back in there after that performance, yousure as hell can climb into the hot seat for a few more questions.”
How am I supposed to fight that logic? So I follow Campbell back into the courtroom, where nothing is theway it was just an hour ago. With everyone watching him like he’s a ticking bomb, Campbell walks up to thebench and turns to the court in general. “I’m very sorry about that, Judge,” he says. “Anything for a ten-minute break, right?”
How can he make jokes about something like this? And then I realize: it’s what Kate does, too. Maybe if Godgives you a handicap, he makes sure you’ve got a few extra doses of humor to take the edge off.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day, Counselor,” Judge DeSalvo offers.
“No, I’m all right now. And I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this.” He turns to the courtreporter. “Could you, uh, refresh my memory?”
She reads back the transcript, and Campbell nods, but he acts like he’s hearing my words, regurgitated, forthe very first time. “All right, Anna, you were saying Kate asked you to file this lawsuit for medicalemancipation?”
Again, I squirm. “Not quite.”
“Can you explain?”
“She didn’t ask me to file the lawsuit.”
“Then what did she ask you?”
I steal a glance at my mother. She knows; she has to know. Don’t make me say it out loud.
“Anna,” Campbell presses, “what did she ask you?”
I shake my head, tight-lipped, and Judge DeSalvo leans over. “Anna, you’re going to have to give us ananswer to this question.”
“Fine.” The truth bursts out of me; a raging river, now that the dam’s washed away. “She asked me to killher.”
The first thing that was wrong was that Kate had locked the door to our bedroom, when there wasn’t really alock, which meant she’d either pushed up furniture or pennied it shut. “Kate,” I yelled, banging, because Iwas sweaty and gross from hockey practice and I wanted to take a shower and change. “Kate, this isn’t fair.”
I guess I made enough noise, because she opened up. And that was the second thing: there was somethingjust wrong about the room. I glanced around, but everything seemed to be in place—most importantly, noneof my stuff had been messed with—and yet Kate still looked like she’d swilled a mystery.
“What’s your problem?” I asked, and then I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and smelled it—sweet and almost angry, the same boozy scent I associated with Jesse’s apartment. I started opening upcabinets and rummaging through towels and trying to find the proof, no pun intended, and sure enough therewas a half-empty bottle of whiskey hidden behind the boxes of tampons.
“Looky here…” I said, brandishing it and walking back into the bedroom, thinking I had a great little wedgeof blackmail to use to my advantage for a while, and then I saw Kate holding the pills.
“What are you doing?”
Kate rolled over. “Leave me alone, Anna.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No,” Kate said. “I’m just sick of waiting for something that’s going to happen anyway. I think I’ve fuckedup everyone’s life long enough, don’t you?”
“But everyone’s worked so hard just to keep you alive. You can’t kill yourself.”
All of a sudden Kate started to cry. “I know. I can’t.”
It took me a few moments to realize this meant she’d already tried before.
My mother gets up slowly. “It’s not true,” she says, her voice stretched thin as glass. “Anna, I don’t knowwhy you’d say that.”
My eyes fill up. “Why would I make it up?”
She walks closer. “Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or being dramatic.” Shesmiles in the pained way of people who really want to cry. “Because if she was that upset, she would havetold me.”
“She couldn’t tell you,” I reply. “She was too afraid if she killed herself she’d be killing you, too.” I cannotcatch my breath. I am sinking in a tar pit; I am running and the ground’s gone beneath my feet. Campbellasks the judge for a few minutes so that I can pull myself together, but even if Judge DeSalvo answers, I amcrying so hard I don’t hear it. “I don’t want her to die, but I know she doesn’t want to live like this, and I’mthe one who can give her what she wants.” I keep my eyes on my mother, even as she swims away from me.
“I’ve always been the one who can give her what she wants.”
The next time it came up was after my mother came into our room to talk about donating a kidney. “Don’t doit,” Kate said, when they were gone.
I glanced at her. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m going to do it.”
We were getting undressed, and I noticed that we had picked the same pajamas—shiny satin ones printedwith cherries. As we slid into bed I thought we looked like we did as little kids, when our parents would dressus similarly because they thought it was cute.
“Do you think it would work?” I asked. “A kidney transplant?”
Kate looked at me. “It might.” She leaned over, her hand on the light switch. “Don’t do it,” she repeated, andit wasn’t until I heard her a second time that I understood what she was really saying.
My mother is a breath away from me, and in her eyes are all the mistakes she’s ever made. My father comesup and puts his arm around her shoulders. “Come sit down,” he whispers into her hair.
“Your Honor,” Campbell says, getting to his feet. “May I?”
He walks toward me, Judge right beside him. I am just as shaky as he is. I think about that dog an hour ago.
How did he know for sure what Campbell really needed, and when?
“Anna, do you love your sister?”
“Of course.”
“But you were willing to take an action that might kill her?”
Something flashes inside me. “It was so she wouldn’t have to go through this anymore. I thought it was whatshe wanted.”
He goes silent; and I realize at that moment: he knows.
Inside me, something breaks. “It was…it was what I wanted, too.”
We were in the kitchen, washing and drying the dishes. “You hate going to the hospital,” Kate said.
“Well, duh.” I put the forks and spoons, clean, back into their drawer.
“I know you’d do anything to not have to go there anymore.”
I glanced at her. “Sure. Because you’d be healthy.”
“Or dead.” Kate plunged her hands into the soapy water, careful not to look at me. “Think about it, Anna.
You could go to your hockey camps. You could choose a college in a whole different country. You could doanything you want and never have to worry about me.”
She pulled these examples right out of my head, and I could feel myself blushing, ashamed that they wereeven up there to be drawn out into the open. If Kate was feeling guilty about being a burden, then I wasfeeling twice as guilty for knowing she felt that way. For knowing I felt that way.
We didn’t talk after that. I dried whatever she handed me, and we both tried to pretend we didn’t know thetruth: that in addition to the piece of me that’s always wanted Kate to live, there’s another, horrible piece ofme that sometimes wishes I were free.
There, they understand: I am a monster. I started this lawsuit for some reasons I’m proud of and many I’mnot. And now Campbell will see why I couldn’t be a witness—not because I was scared to talk in front ofeveryone—but because of all these terrible feelings, some of which are too awful to speak out loud. That Iwant Kate alive, but also want to be myself, not part of her. That I want the chance to grow up, even if Katecan’t. That Kate’s death would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me…and also the best.
That sometimes, when I think about all this, I hate myself and just want to crawl back to where I was, to theperson they want me to be.
Now the whole courtroom is looking at me, and I’m sure that the witness stand or my skin or maybe both isabout to implode. Under this magnifying glass, you can see right down to the rotten core at the heart of me.
Maybe if they keep staring at me, I will go up in blue, bitter smoke. Maybe I will disappear without a trace.
“Anna,” Campbell says quietly, “what made you think that Kate wanted to die?”
“She said she was ready.”
He walks up until he is standing right in front of me. “Isn’t it possible that’s the same reason she asked you tohelp her?”
I look up slowly, and unwrap this gift Campbell’s just handed me. What if Kate wanted to die, so that I couldlive? What if after all these years of saving Kate, she was only trying to do the same for me?
“Did you tell Kate you were going to stop being a donor?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“When?”
“The night before I hired you.”
“Anna, what did Kate say?”
Until now, I hadn’t really thought about it, but Campbell has triggered the memory. My sister had gotten veryquiet, so quiet that I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. And then she turned to me with all the world in her eyes,and a smile that crumbled like a fault line.
I glance up at Campbell. “She said thanks.