Chapter 3 anna

When I was a child, I felt that the most mysterious thing was not "how a child was born", but why it was born.The technicalities of making dolls, I understand--my brother Jesse had given me information on that, but then I was sure he had heard half the truth.While the teacher turned and the other kids my age in the class were busy looking up definitions for "penis" and "vagina" in the classroom dictionary, I focused on other, different details.For example, why some mothers have only one child, while some families seem to be particularly fertile.Or the new girl at school, Sedona, telling everyone who will listen that she's named after the place where her parents made her on vacation. (My dad used to say, "It's a good thing they didn't go to Jersey City for vacation.")

Now that I'm thirteen, the reasons are even more complicated: an eighth-grade girl who dropped out of school because of a distended belly;Let me tell you, if aliens landed on the earth today and studied why people on earth have children, their conclusion would be: most people create children unintentionally, or because they drank too much on a certain night, or because Birth control isn't 100 percent reliable, or for a thousand other reasons that aren't convincing. I was born for a special reason.I was not born the result of a cheap drink, a full moon or a whim.I was born because a scientist managed to combine my mom's egg with my dad's sperm to create a particularly precious genetic material.In fact, when Jesse told me how the dolls came to be, I didn't believe it at all.I decided to ask my parents the truth about what happened, and I learned more than I expected.They sat me down and told me about how normal babies come about, and they explained that they chose me as a baby because I could save my sister Kate. "We love you all the more for it," my mom said firmly, "because we know what kind of baby we're going to have."

Still, I wonder, what would happen if Kate was healthy?It's likely that I'm still floating in heaven, or somewhere waiting for a body to attach, ready to be dispatched to Earth for a while.Of course, I wouldn't be part of the family that way.do you understand?Unlike other naturally conceived children, I did not come into this world by accident.If your parents conceived you for a reason, that reason had better remain.Because, if that reason doesn't exist, you don't need to exist either. A pawn shop may be full of clutter, but it's also a place full of stories.What happened to having to pawn a diamond jewelry that was still as bright as new?Who needs money so badly that he wants to sell a teddy bear with one eye missing?As I walked up to the counter, I wondered if the boss would take one look at the necklace I was pawning and ask me the same question.

The man standing at the checkout line has a nose shaped like a rutabagas and deep-set eyes.I can't imagine that he could see well enough to carry out his mission. "Do you need anything?" he asked. I tried to steady myself so I wouldn't turn around and walk out the door, pretending I had come in by mistake.The only thing that calms me down is the knowledge that I'm not the first person to stand at this counter with something I never thought would separate from it. "I have something to sell." I told him. "You want me to guess what it is?" "Oh." I swallowed, and pulled out a necklace with a locket pendant from my jeans pocket. "It's 14K gold," I push, "barely worn." That's a lie, and until this morning, I haven't taken it off in seven years.It was given to me by my dad after a bone marrow pump when I was six years old.He said, I gave my sister such an expensive gift, and I deserve my own expensive gift.Seeing the necklace on the counter, my neck trembled slightly, feeling naked.

The pawnbroker put on glasses, which made his eyes appear to be their normal size. "I can give you twenty dollars." "dollars?" "It's not dollars, is it pesos? What do you think it is?" "It's worth five times as much!" I said. The boss shrugged, "I'm not the one who needs the money." I picked up the necklace, intending to complete the transaction, but a strange thing happened-my fingers gripped the necklace tightly like life-saving claws.I tried my best to use my will to open my fingers, making my face flushed and hot.It seemed as long as an hour before the necklace fell into the boss's open palm.He looked at my face and spoke in a much softer tone. "Just say you lost it." He sent me a free piece of advice.

If Mr. Way decided to put the term "weird" in his big dictionary, Anna Fitzgerald must be the best definition he could find.Not just looks, she was as thin as a refugee, her breasts were as flat as an airport, her hair was the color of mud, and her cheeks were dotted with freckles.Let me tell you, don't try to fade freckles with lemon juice or sunscreen or, sadder, scrubs.useless.God was clearly in a bad mood on the day I was born because He mixed these very different body codes into the genes I was born into into a family that needed them. My parents tried to make everything seem normal, but that was only relative.In fact, I was never a normal kid.Honestly, neither are Kate and Jesse.I thought maybe my brother had enjoyed his childhood in the sun before he was four years old, before Kate was diagnosed.But since Kate's illness, we've all been too busy growing up to look back.You know, most kids think they're like cartoon characters, and if an anvil falls and hits them on the head, they can escape the sidewalk unscathed and keep walking.I never believed in that kind of thing.How could I be so naive?In our daily lives there is always a place for death at the dinner table.

Kate is a patient with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).In fact, that's not entirely true -- she's not sick now.But the disease was still lurking in her body, like a bear in hibernation, who would wake up and roar at an unknown time.She was diagnosed with the disease when she was two years old, and she is now sixteen.Molecular relapse, granulocytes, and venous cannulation, these are the words I look up in the dictionary even though I never see them in any of the test questions.I'm an allogeneic donor -- a perfect match between siblings.When Kate needs white blood cells, stem cells, or bone marrow to trick her body into being healthy, I supply those.Almost every time Kate is hospitalized, I have to report.

Those are nothing, except for what I tell you, you don't have to believe everything you hear about me. I was about to go upstairs when my mother came out of her room, again in a new evening dress. "Oh," she said, turning her back on me, "you're exactly what I was looking for." I help her zip up her back and watch her turn.My mother would be more beautiful if she lived someone else's life.She has long dark hair and a princess-like collarbone, but the corners of her mouth always hang down, as if she swallowed only bitter news.She didn't have much free time, and if my sister got a bruise or a nosebleed, my mom's schedule would have to be drastically altered.If she has time, she spends it on Lanfei Clothing Online, absurdly ordering some gorgeous evening dresses that she has no occasion to wear out.

"How do you feel?" she asked. The evening gown was all the colors of a sunset, the material made it rustle as she moved, and it had no straps, just like the kind of gowns stars wear on the red carpet -- not at all appropriate for Darby, Rhode Island Suburban house.My mother tied her long hair back in a bun.There were three other evening dresses on the bed—a black body-hugging one, one with oval glass beads, and another that seemed too small. "you look like……" Very tired.The answer stuck in my mouth bubbling. Mom stood stiffly, and I wondered if she had slipped her tongue.She held out a finger, whispered to me, then tilted her ear to the open door, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" "Kate." "I heard no sound." But she didn't believe me, because she wouldn't believe anything about Kate.She hurried upstairs, opened the door to my room and Kate's, and found my sister sitting hysterically on the bed, like her world was falling apart again.My dad, an amateur astronomer, tried to explain black holes in the universe to me.He said that a black hole has such a powerful attraction that it can suck everything in, even light, into its center.At this time, it seems that there is a black hole, no matter what you grab, you will be sucked in after all.

"Kate!" Mom dropped to her knees on the floor beside the bed, the hem of the silly tuxedo huddled around her, "Kate, honey, what's wrong with you?" Kate hugged a pillow and burst into tears.Her light-colored hair was wet, sticking to her face in strands, and her breathing was too rapid.I froze and stood in the doorway, waiting for instructions: call Dad, call 911, call Dr. Chance.Mom hadn't called the shots yet, nervously waiting for Kate to reveal her situation. "It's Beston," she sobbed. "He left Selena forever." Only then did we notice: the TV was on.On the screen, a handsome blond guy stared at a woman who was crying miserably like her sister, then walked out of the room and slammed the door. "Where the hell is it hurting you?" Mom asked, still sure Kate wasn't crying just because of the plot. "Oh my God!" Kate sniffled. "Do you know how many twists and turns Selena and Beston have been through? Do you?" I relax and know it's okay now.In our house, "normal" is like a blanket that is too short to cover the entire bed, sometimes it can just cover you, and other times it may make you shiver with cold.Worse, you never know which of the two situations will happen.I sit next to Kate's bed.Although I am only thirteen years old, I am already taller than her. People often mistake me for my elder sister and she for my younger sister.At various times over the summer, she fell in love with the main male characters of the soap, Callaghan, Walter and Rhyme.Now, I guess, she's hooked on Beston again."And the abduction scare," I volunteered. I knew the episodes so well that Kate asked me to tape them while she was having a kidney analysis. "She almost married his twin brother by mistake," Kate added. "Don't forget he died in a shipwreck." Mom joins our conversation, and I remember how she used to watch this show with Kate in the hospital.Kate seemed to finally notice her mom's outfit, "What are you wearing?" "Oh. I want to return it." Mom stood in front of me and asked me to unzip it for her.A fancy mail-order catalog would trigger an irresistible buying urge for other mothers, but for my mom, she probably saw it as a healthy leisure activity.I wonder if she prefers to wear clothes she tried on herself, or the mechanism of returning items that don’t fit.She looked at Kate seriously and asked, "Are you sure you're not sick?" After Mom left our room, Kate lay down a little.That's the only way I can describe it -- the blood faded quickly from her face, and she was as white as the pillow.Every time she became seriously ill, her face became paler, and I was afraid that one day I would wake up and lose sight of her at all. "Go away," Kate ordered, "you're blocking the TV." I walk away and sit on my bed, "It's just a teaser for the next episode." "If I die tonight, I wonder what I'm missing." I fluffed my own pillow and set it up on my head.Kate changed her pillows as usual so they weren't rock hard and she would have a fluffy pillow to sleep on from time to time.She deserves more comfort because she's three years older than me, because she's sick, and because the moon is in Aquarius -- always for a reason.I squinted at the TV, hoping to switch to another show, but I knew the odds were slim. "Beston looks like it's made of plastic." "Then why did I hear you whispering to him last night?" "Shut up." I said. "You just shut up." Kate smiled at me. "He's probably gay. What a waste, wasting all of us Fitzgerald sisters..." She stopped suddenly, wincing in pain.I rolled over to her, "Kate?" She rubbed her lower back, "It's nothing." Her kidneys were torturing her. "Shall I call Mommy?" "Not yet." She reached between our beds.The distance between our beds was about two arms lengths, and we could both touch each other with our hands outstretched.I also reach out.When we were younger, we would hold hands and build bridges to see how many Barbies we could hold on our arms and still balance. Recently, I often have nightmares. In the dream, I was cut into many pieces. I tried to put myself back together, but a few pieces were missing. My dad said the fire would go itself out unless you opened the window to give it fuel.I think what I'm doing now is pretty much that.But, my dad also said, when the fire gets to your heels, if you want to escape, you have to break a wall or two.So, when Kate had taken her pills and fell asleep, I took out the wallet I had hidden between the mattress and the box springs and went into the secluded bathroom.I knew Kate would peek at my stuff, so I put a red thread between the teeth of the zipper so I could tell if anyone was peeking into my wallet without my permission.However, although the red line has been pulled, the money in the wallet has not decreased.I turned on the bathtub faucet, and the sound gave me a reason to go into the bathroom, and then I sat down on the floor and counted my money. Adding the twenty yuan I got from the pawn shop, I have one hundred and thirty-six yuan and eighty-seven cents.It's not enough, but there must be a way to solve it.When Jesse bought his old jeep, he didn't have enough money for twenty-nine hundred dollars, and the bank gave him a loan.Of course, my parents had to sign the document.I doubt they would vouch for me in the same situation?I count the money again, lest the banknotes miraculously multiply.But math is math, and the sum remains the same.Then, I read newspaper clippings. Campbell Alexander.I think the name is silly.It sounds like the name of an expensive bar mix, or an agency name, but you can't deny the guy's past track record. To go to my brother's room, you have to get out of my house first, he likes to be weird.As soon as he turned sixteen, Jesse moved into the garage loft--which was the perfect arrangement, because he didn't want my parents to see what he was doing, and my parents didn't really want to.He uses four snow-resistant deep-groove tires to block the stairs leading to his den, which has a small wall of cardboard boxes against which an oak table leans.I sometimes think that Jesse puts all these obstacles just to give himself more challenges. I climbed over the barrier and up the stairs, feeling the stairs vibrate from Jesse's loud speaker.I knocked on the door for like five minutes before Jesse finally heard. "What?" He only opened the door a crack. "May I come inside?" He thought for a moment before stepping back and letting me in.The entire room is a heap of dirty laundry, magazines, and leftover Chinese food boxes, and it smells like sweaty hockey skates.The only tidy place is the display case for his special collections—the silver Jaguar mascot, the Mercedes logo, the horse totem for the Ford Mustang sports car.He told me that he picked up the decorations on the hood.I'm not an idiot, and of course I wouldn't naively believe his nonsense. Don't get me wrong - it's not that my parents didn't care about Jesse, and Jesse wasn't just a troubled, hopelessly troubled teen.My parents really don't have time for him, they have more important things to do and Jesse isn't on their priority list. Jesse ignored me and went back to what he was doing on the other side of his junk pile.My attention was drawn to a saucepan - something that disappeared from our kitchen a few months ago and now sits on top of Jesse's TV.A copper tube pierced its lid, down into a plastic milk jug filled with ice cubes, and then into a wide-mouth glass jar.Jesse may be a troubled teenager on the verge of breaking the law, but he's smart.I was about to touch the weird thing when Jess turned around. "Hey!" He literally flew over the couch and opened my hand, "You're going to blow the condenser." "I want to?" A malicious smile appeared on his face, "That depends on what you're thinking." He pried open the glass jar, and the liquid inside dripped onto the carpet, "Try it." This pot of still bubbling sticky stuff had turned, strangely, into a fairly strong moonshine.A ball of heat rushed through my belly and I fell onto the couch. "It's disgusting." I gasped. Jesse smiled and took a swig, but he didn't seem to respond. "What do you want from me?" "How do you know what I want from you?" "Because no one crawls here for a social visit," he said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. "If it's anything to do with Kate, you'll let me know when you get in." "It's about Kate. Kind of." I slipped the clipping into my brother's hand, and it could explain it better than I could.After scanning the clipping with his eyes, he turned to look at me.His eyes are the palest silver, and sometimes when he looks at you, you are so surprised that you completely forget what you were trying to say. "Anna, get out of this trouble," he said bitterly. "We all play our parts. Kate is the sufferer. I am the doomed one. And you, you are the peacemaker. " He thinks he understands me, but that goes both ways -- Jesse is a trouble addict when it comes to getting trouble.I looked directly at him, "Who said that?" Jesse agreed to wait for me in the parking lot.This is one of the few times I can remember him offering to help me.I went around to the front of the building, where two grotesques guarded the gate. The office of the man Campbell Alexander was on the third floor.The walls were paneled with sorrel mare hide, and when I stepped onto the thick oriental rug on the floor, my sneakers sank an inch into it.The black high-heeled shoes worn by Miss Secretary are so bright that I can see my face reflected on them.I look at the jeans that have been cut from the knee down and the Keds espadrilles I painted on with the Magic Color Pen when I was bored last week. The secretary had perfect skin and eyebrows and full lips, and she was screaming at the audience on the other end of the phone like a murder. "You can't expect me to say that to a judge. Just because you don't want to hear Kleeman yelling doesn't mean I have to... no, really, the raise is because I'm doing a really good job and I have to Put up with some shit. In fact, when we're…" She held the microphone away from her ear.I hear the buzz of a disconnected phone. "Bastard!" she cursed under her breath, before she seemed to notice that I was standing three feet away from her. "What's the matter?" I score first impressions.Undoubtedly, she did not give me high marks. I lifted my chin and pretended I was a cool girl, "I have an appointment with Mr. Alexander. Four o'clock." "Your voice," she said, "on the phone, you don't sound like..." young? She smiled uncomfortably, "We don't take juvenile cases, that's our policy. I can refer you to other practicing lawyers who—" I take a deep breath. "Actually," I interjected, "you're wrong. Smith v. Whitley, Edmonds v. Women's and Children's Hospital, Jeremy v. Catholic parish groups, all of these cases involved persons under the age of eighteen. These three Juries have found in favor of Mr Alexander's clients in all cases, and that was only last year." The secretary winked at me.An appreciative smile slowly spread across her face, as if she had decided that she might like me. "I remembered that you made an appointment with him, why don't you wait in his office?" She got up and led the way. Even if I spent every minute of my life reading, I don't believe I'd be able to read all the books that Mr. Campbell Alexander lined up and down the walls of his office.I did the math - if there are about four hundred words in a book, four hundred pages in each law book, twenty books in each shelf, and six shelves in a bookcase - wow!That's nineteen million words, and that's only part of the book in the office. I waited alone in his office for a while and noticed that his desk was clean and you could play Cuju, an ancient Chinese football, on his blotting paper.He doesn't have a picture of his wife or children in his office, not even himself.But although the room was very tidy, there was a small bowl filled with water on the floor. I found myself making excuses for the bowl of water: it was an army of ants' swimming pool, it was a simple air humidifier, it was a mirage. I was almost convincing myself of the last reason, and was leaning down to touch it, to see if it was real, when the door swung open.I awkwardly slid out of the chair so that I was eye to eye at level with an incoming German Shepherd, who glanced at me and walked over to the small bowl for a drink. Campbell Alexander also walked in.He has dark hair and is at least six feet tall like my dad.He has a right-angled chin, and his eyes seem to have been frozen.He shrugged and took off his suit jacket, hung it behind the door, then pulled out a folder from the filing cabinet, and walked to the desk.He kept looking away from me, but he started talking. "I won't buy Girl Scout cookies," he said, "even though Kelly said you were stubborn." He finished, smiling. "I'm not here to sell anything." He glanced at me curiously, then pressed a button on the phone. "Kelly," he asked after the secretary answered, "what's going on in my office?" "I'll hire you," I said. Mr. Lawyer let go of the internal button, "I don't think so." "You don't even know if I have a case for you." I took a step forward and so did the dog.I first spotted him wearing a vest with a red cross emblazoned on it, like a St. Bernard who can piggyback rum on the alpine snow.I reached out and caressed it unconsciously. "Don't do that," Alexander said, "a judge is a care dog." I retracted my hand, "But you are not blind." "thank you for telling me." "Then what's wrong with you?" As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.Didn't I watch Kate get asked that question by hundreds of rude people? "I have an iron lung," said Campbell Alexander curtly, "and this dog will keep me away from magnets. Now do me a huge favor and leave my office, and my secretary will help you find another lawyer...  " I can't go yet. "Did you really accuse God?" I took out the newspaper clipping, smoothed it out, and placed it on the clean table. A muscle in his cheek twitched, and he picked up the newspaper clipping. "I'm suing the Catholic Diocese of Providence. I'm petitioning on behalf of a child in one of their orphanages. He needs an experimental treatment involving fetal tissue, which the Diocese feels violates the resolution of the Second Vatican Council. Anyway , a headline about a nine-year-old accusing God of treating his life like nothing, is more sensational." I stared at him.Lawyer admits: "Dylan Jeremy wants to sue God for not caring enough for him." Or the rainbow might break in the middle and fall on his mahogany table. "Mr. Alexander," I said, "my sister has leukemia." "I'm sorry to hear that. But even if I'm willing to sue God this time - and let me be clear I don't want to - you can't sue on someone else's behalf." It took a lot of work to explain - my blood had to be transfused into my sister's veins from time to time; the nurse had to hold me down and draw my white blood cells to lend to Kate; the doctor said they didn't draw enough the first time; I suffered from bruises and severe bone pain after donating my bone marrow; they had to give more injections to take more stem cells from me, and would rather take more so my sister could have a spare.The truth is, I'm not sick, but I could be.The truth is, the only reason I was born was to be Kate's cure.The truth is, even now, they've made an important decision about me, and no one ever asks me, the person who should have the most say. There are so many things to explain that I can only briefly describe them. "I'm not suing God. I'm suing my parents," I said. "I'm suing them for taking away my body."