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At ho a nervous breakdown She flies out the door as soon as I pull intospot "Thank God," she says "I need your help"

She doesn't even look back to see if I' her inside, and that is how I know it's Kate The door to my sisters' room has been kicked in, the wooden frame around it splintered My sister lies still on her bed Then all of a sudden she bursts to life, jerking up like a tire jack and puking blood A stain spreads over her shirt and onto her flowered comforter, red poppies where there weren't any before

Myback her hair and pressing a towel up to her ush of blood "Jesse," she says matter-of-factly, "your father's out on a call, and I can't reach him I need you to drive us to the hospital, so that I can sit in the back with Kate"

Kate's lips are slick as cherries I pick her up in h the skin of her T-shirt

"When Anna ran off, Kate wouldn't let ave her a little while to calet in there"

So you kicked it down, I think, and it doesn't surprise me We reach the car, and she opens the door so that I can slide Kate inside I pull out of the driveway and speed even faster than norhway, toward the hospital

Today, when my parents were at court with Anna, Kate and I watched TV She wanted to put on her soap and I told her fuck off and put on the scrahts, I' that I'd let her watch that retarded soap I' not to look at her little white coin of a face in the rearview et used to it, that moments like this wouldn't coh my veins with each beat: Is this it? Is this it? Is this it?

The minute we hit the ER driveway, et Kate We are quite a picture walking through the autorabbing the first nurse alks by "She needs platelets," my mother orders

They take her away from me, and for a few moments, even after the ER team and my mother have disappeared with Kate behind closed curtains, I stand with et used to the fact that there's no longer anything in them

Dr Chance, the oncologist I know, and Dr Nguyen, soured out: these are the death throes of end-stage kidney disease My ht around Kate's IV pole "Can you still do a transplant?" she asks, as if Anna never started her lawsuit, as if it

"Kate's in a pretty grave clinical state," Dr Chance tells her "I told you before I didn't know if she was strong enough to survive that level of surgery; the odds are even slighter now"

"But if there was a donor," she says, "would you do it?"

"Wait" You'd think my throat had just been paved with straw "Would mine work?"

Dr Chance shakes his head "A kidney donor doesn't have to be a perfect match, in an ordinary case But your sister isn't an ordinary case"

When the doctors leave, I can feelat me "Jesse," she says

"It wasn't like I was volunteering I just wanted to, you know, know" But inside, I'ht at the warehouse What , even now? What made me think I could save my sister, when I can't even save myself?

Kate's eyes open, so that she's staring right at me She licks her lips--they're still caked with blood--and it makes her look like a vampire The undead If only

I lean closer, because she doesn't have enough in her right now to make the words creep across the air between us Tell, she mouths, so that my mother won't look up

I answer, just as silent Tell? I want to ht

Tell Anna

But the door to the room bursts open and my father fills the room with smoke His hair and clothes and skin reek of it, so o off "What happened?" he asks, going right to the bed

I slip out of the room, because nobody needs me there anyht a cigarette

Tell Anna what?

SARA

1990-1991

BY PURE CHANCE, or maybe karnant We sit under the dryers, hands folded over our bellies like a row of Buddhas "My top choices are Freedo her hair dyed pink

"What if it's not a boy?" asks the wo on my other side

"Oh, those are meant to be for either"

I hide a smile "I vote for Jack"

The girl squints, looking out theat the rotten weather "Sleet is nice," she says absently, and then tries it on for size "Sleet, pick up your toys Sleet, honey, coonna be late for the Uncle Tupelo concert" She digs a piece of paper and a pencil stub out of her maternity overalls and scribbles down the name

The worins at me "Is this your first?"

"My third"

"Mine too I have two boys I'ers crossed"

"I have a boy and a girl," I tell her "Five and three"

"Do you knohat you're having this time?"

I know everything about this baby, fro the ones that make her a perfect : a irl," I answer

"Ooh, I'm so jealous! My husband and I, we didn't find out at the ultrasound I thought if I heard it was another boy, I ht never finish out the last five months" She shuts off her hair dryer and pushes it back "You have any names picked?"

It strikes h I have had plenty of time to dream, I have not really considered the specifics of this child I have thought of this daughter only in terhter I already have I haven't adht with his head onfor the twitches that herald--he thinks--the first feain, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save her sister's life

"We're waiting," I tell the woman

Sometimes I think it is all we ever do

There was a moment, after Kate's three h to believe we had beaten the odds Dr Chance said that she seemed to be in remission, and that ould just keep an eye on what caot back to nor out in Kate's preschool class and even taking a hot bath to relax

And yet, there was a part of me that knew the other shoe was bound to drop This part scoured Kate's pillow every row back with its frizzy, burned ends, just in case it started falling out again This part went to the geneticist recoiven the thumbs-up by scientists to be a perfect match for Kate Took the hormones for IVF and conceived that embryo, just in case

It was during a routine bone marrow aspiration that we learned Kate was in molecular relapse On the outside, she looked like any other three-year-old girl On the inside, the cancer had surged through her systeress that had been made with chemo

Now, in the backseat with Jesse, Kate's kicking her feet and playing with a toy phone Jesse sits next to her, staring out the"Mom? Do buses ever fall on people?"

"Like out of trees?"

"No Likejust over" Hemotion with his hand

"Only if the weather's really bad, or if the driver's going too fast"

He nods, accepting my explana