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I rummage in my purse and pull out my drivers license, and a stack of papers. "Here," I say. "Be my guest." She glances at me, and then at the god-awful picture on my license; she reads through the copy of the emancipation petition I picked up at the family court before I came here. If I am a psychotic killer, then I have done my homework well. But there is a part of me already giving A
She hands back everything I've given her. "Where is everyone?" she asks.
"I don't know. I thought you could tell me." A
I tilt my head, considering this girl, who has already managed to surprise me. "Do you have time to talk?" I ask.
The zebras are the first stop in the Roger Williams Zoo. Of all the animals in the Africa section, these have always been my favorite. I can give or take elephants; I never can find the cheetah—but the zebras captivate me. They'd be one of the few things that would fit if we were lucky enough to live in a world that's black or white.
We pass blue duikers, bongos, and something called a naked mole rat that doesn't come out of its cave. I often take kids to the zoo when I'm assigned to their cases. Unlike when we sit down face-to-face in the courthouse, or even at Dunkin' Donuts, at the zoo they are more likely to open up to me. They'll watch the gibbons swinging around like Olympic gymnasts and just start talking about what happens at home, without even realizing what they are doing.
A
We walk through the winding trails of the zoo, A
"Tell me what you like to do," I say. "For fun."
"Play hockey," A
"Used to be?"
"The older you get, the less the coach forgives you if you miss a game." She shrugs. "I don't like letting a whole team down."
Interesting way to put it, I think. "Do your friends still play hockey?"
"Friends?" She shakes her head. "You can't really have anyone over to your house when your sister needs to be resting. You don't get invited back for sleepovers when your mom comes to pick you up at two in the morning to go to the hospital. It's probably been a while since you've been in middle school, but most people think freakhood is contagious."
"So who do you talk to?"
She looks at me. "Kate," she says. Then she asks if I have a cell phone.
I take one out of my pocketbook and watch her dial the hospital's number by heart. "I'm looking for a patient," A
"That's good, right?"
"It could just mean that the paperwork hasn't caught up to the operator yet. Sometimes it takes a few hours."
I lean against a railing near the elephants. "You seem pretty worried about your sister right now," I point out. "Are you sure you're ready to face what's going to happen if you stop being a donor?"
"I know what's going to happen." A
For a minute I look at her. What would I do, if I found out that Izzy needed a kidney, or part of my liver, or marrow? The answer isn't even questionable—I would ask how quickly we could go to the hospital and have it done.
But then, it would have been my choice, my decision.
"Have your parents ever asked you if you want to be a donor for your sister?"
A
"Did you ever tell your parents that you weren't comfortable with the choice they'd made for you?"
A
Small tumblers in this puzzle begin to hitch for me. Traditionally, parents make decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down. And somewhere, underneath all the rubble, are casualties like A
The question is, did she instigate this lawsuit because she truly feels that she can make better choices about her own medical care than her parents can, or because she wants her parents to hear her for once when she cries?
We wind up in front of the polar bears, Trixie and Norton. For the first time since we've gotten here, A
She is right; memories of the articles in the ProJo swim into my mind. It was a big public relations move for Rhode Island.
"Do you think he wonders what he did to get himself sent away?"
We are trained, as guardians ad litem, to see the signs of depression. We know how to read body language, and flat affect, and mood swings. A
Either this girl loses her sister, I think, or she's going to lose herself.
"Julia," she asks, "would it be okay if we went home?"
The closer we get to her house, A
"I'm going to talk to everyone else. Your mom and dad, your brother and sister. Your lawyer."
Now a dilapidated Jeep is parked in the driveway, and the front door of the house is open. I turn off the ignition, but A
"Why?"
"Because my mother's going to kill me."
This A
"I sort of left today without telling her where I was going."
"You do that a lot?"
A
Well, I am going to have to speak to Sara Fitzgerald sooner or later. I get out of the car, and wait for A
She is not the foe I've built her up to be. For one thing, A