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We all like Dr Chance; by now, he ht as well be the sixth member of our family

"Give me a number" He means on the pain scale "Five?"

"Three"

Dr Chance sits down on the edge of her bed "It may be a five in an hour," he cautions "It may be a nine"

My plant "But Kate's feeling great right now!" she cheerleads

"I know But the lucid et briefer and further apart," Dr Chance explains "This isn't the APL This is renal failure"

"But after a transplant--" my mother says

All the air in the rooe You'd be able to hear a huets I want to slink out of the room like mist; I don't want this to be my fault

Dr Chance is the only one brave enough to look at an is under debate"

"But--"

"Mo are we talking about?"

"A week, maybe"

"Wow," she says softly "Wow" She touches the edge of the newspaper, rubs her thue "Will it hurt?"

"No," Dr Chance promises "I will make sure of that"

Kate lays the paper in her lap and touches his arm "Thanks For the truth, I mean"

When Dr Chance looks up, his eyes are red-riets up so heavily that I think heanother word

My mother, she folds into herself, that's the only way to explain it Like paper, when you put it deep into the fireplace, and instead of burning, it simply seems to vanish

Kate looks at me, and then down at all the tubes that anchor her to the bed So I get up and walk toward my mother I put a hand on her shoulder "Mom," I say "Stop"

She lifts her head and looks at me with haunted eyes "No, Anna You stop"

It takes me a little while, but I break away "Anna," I murmur

My mother turns "What?"

"A four-letter word for vessel," I say, and I walk out of Kate's room

Later that afternoon, I' in circles on the swivel chair inacross from me On the desk are a half-dozen pictures ofa knit hat that looks like a strawberry Another with Jesse andjust as wide as the bluefish balanced between our hands I used to wonder about the fake pictures that came in frames you buy at the store--ladies with srapefruit-headed babies on their sibling's knees--people who in real life probably were strangers brought together by a talent scout to be a phony family

Maybe it's not so different from real photos, after all

I pick up one picture that shows er than I can ever re "Do you have a boyfriend?" I ask Julia

"No!" she says, way too fast When I glance up, she just sort of shrugs "Do you?"

"There's this one guy, Kyle McFee, that I thought I liked but now I'm not sure" I pick up a pen and start to unscrew the whole thing, pull out the skinny little tube of blue ink It would be so cool to have one of these built inside you, like a squid; you could point your finger and leave youryou wanted

"What happened?"

"I went to a movie with him, like on a date, and when it was over and we stood up he was--" I turn bright red "Well, you know" I wave in the general vicinity of my lap

"Ah," Julia says

"He asked me whether I'd ever taken wood shop at school--I o to tell hiht there" I put the decapitated pen down on my dad's blotter "When I see him now around town it's all I can think about" I stare up at her, a thought co at me "Am I a pervert?"

"No, you're thirteen And for the record, so is Kyle He couldn't help it happening anyabout it when you see him My brother Anthony used to say there were only two ti the night"

"Your brother used to talk to you about stuff like that?"

She laughs "I guess so Why, wouldn't Jesse?"

I snort "If I asked Jesse a question about sex, he'd laugh so hard he'd bust a rib, and then he'd give me a stash of Playboys and tell me to do research"

"How about your parents?"

I shake my head My dad is out of the question--because he's my dad My mom's too distracted And Kate is in the saht over the sauy?"

"Actually, we don't go for the same type"

"What's your type?"

She thinks about it "I don't know Tall Dark-haired Breathing"

"Do you think Campbell's cute?"

Julia nearly falls out of her chair "What?"

"Well, I uy"

"I could see where soht find him attractive," she says

"He looks like a character on one of the soaps that Kate likes" I run roove of wood on the desk "It's weird That I get to grow up and kiss soet married"

And Kate doesn't

Julia leans forward "What's going to happen if your sister dies, Anna?"

One of the pictures on the desk is of me and Kate We are little--maybe five and two It is before her first relapse, but after her hair grew back We're standing on the edge of a beach, wearingpatty-cake You could fold this picture in half and think it was a e and me tall; Kate's hair a different color but with the same natural part and flip at the bottoainst mine Until now, I don't think I've really realized how much alike we are

The phone rings just before ten o'clock that night, and to hout the firehouse I pick up the extension in the kitchen area, which has been cleaned and ht "Hello?"

"Anna," my mother says

I about Kate There isn't s earlier at the hospital "Is everything okay?"

"Kate's asleep"

"That's good," I reply, and then wonder if it really is

"I called for two reasons The first is to say that I'"

I feel very small "Me too," I admit In that ht She'd go to Kate's bed first, and lean down, and announce that she was kissing Anna And then she'd co Kate Every ti moments after she left, the room still smelled of the lotion she used on her skin to keep it as soft as the inside of a flannel pillowcase

"The second reason I called," ht"

"That's all?"

In her voice, I can hear a sh?"

"Sure," I tell her, although it isn't

Because I can't fall asleep, I slip out ofI steal the Guinness Book of World Records from the men's rooht An eighteen-month-old baby named Alejandro fell 65 feet 7 inches from theof his parents' apartment in Murcia, Spain, and becaest fall Roy Sullivan, of Virginia, survived seven lightning strikes, only to co spurned by a lover A cat was found in rubble eighty days after a Taiwanese earthquake that killed 2,000, andthe section called "Survivors and Lifesavers," adding listings inAPL patient, it would read Most ecstatic sister

My father findsfor Vega "Can't seea seat beside ht wrapped in clouds; even the moon seems covered with cotton

"Nope," I say "Everything's fuzzy"

"You try the telescope?"

I watch him fiddle with the scope for a while, and then decide that it's just not worth it tonight I suddenly re beside hirown-ups found their way to places After all, I had never seen him pull out a map