My Sister's Keeper

I sure as shit wasn't going to put my mouth over a sheep and do artificial respiration, but I used my fingernails to rip apart the skin sac, to yank it down from the neck of the lamb. And it turned out, that was all it needed. A minute later it unbent its clothespin legs and started whickering for its mother.

There were, I think, twenty lambs born during that summer session. Every time I passed the pen I could pick mine out from a crowd. He looked like all the others, except that he moved with a little more spring; he always seemed to have the sun shining off the oil in its wool. And if you happened to get him calm enough to look you in the eye, the pupils had gone milky white, a sure sign that he'd walked on the other side long enough to remember what he was missing.

I tell you this now because when Kate finally stirs in that hospital bed, and opens her eyes, I know she's got one foot on the other side already, too.

"Oh my God," Kate says weakly, when she sees me. "I wound up in Hell after all."

I lean forward in my chair and cross my arms. "Now, sis, you know I'm not that easy to kill." Getting up, I kiss her on the forehead, letting my lips stay an extra second. How is it that mothers can read fever that way? I can only read imminent loss. "How you doing?"

She smiles at me, but it's like a cartoon drawing when I've seen the real thing hanging in the Louvre. "Peachy," she says. "To what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

Because you won't be here much longer, I think, but I do not tell her this. "I was in the neighborhood. Plus there's a really hot nurse who works this shift."

This makes Kate laugh out loud. "God, Jess. I'm go

She says it so easily that I think it surprises both of us. I sit down on the edge of the bed and trace the little puckers in the thermal blanket. "You know—" I begin a pep talk, but she puts her hand on my arm.

"Don't." Then her eyes come alive, for just a moment. "Maybe I'll get reincarnated."

"Like as Marie Antoinette?"

"No, it's got to be something in the future. You think that's crazy?"

"No," I admit. "I think we probably all just keep ru

"So what will you come back as, then?"

"Carrion." She winces, and something beeps, and I panic. "You want me to get someone?"

"No, you're fine," Kate answers, and I'm sure she doesn't mean it this way, but it pretty much makes me feel like I've swallowed lightning.

I suddenly remember an old game I used to play when I was nine or ten, and was allowed to ride my bike until it got dark. I used to make little bets with myself as I watched the sun getting lower and lower on the horizon: if I hold my breath to twenty seconds, the night won't come. If I don't blink. If I stand so still a fly lands on my cheek. Now, I find myself doing the same thing, bargaining to keep Kate, even though that isn't the way it works.

"Are you afraid?" I blurt out. "Of dying?"

Kate turns to me, a smile sliding over her mouth. "I'll let you know." Then she closes her eyes. "I'm just go

It's not fair, but Kate knows that. It doesn't take a whole long life to realize that what we deserve to have, we rarely get. I stand up, with that lightning bolt branding the lining of my throat, which makes it impossible to swallow, so everything gets backed up like a dammed river. I hurry out of Kate's room and far enough down the hall where I won't disturb her, and then I lift my fist and punch a hole in the thick white wall and still this isn't enough.

BRIAN

HERE IS THE RECIPE TO BLOW SOMETHING UP: a Pyrex bowl; potassium chloride—found at health food stores, as a salt substitute. A hydrometer. Bleach. Take the bleach and pour it into the Pyrex, put it onto a stove burner. Meanwhile, weigh out your potassium chloride and add to the bleach. Check it with the hydrometer and boil until you get a reading of 1.3. Cool to room temperature, and filter out the crystals that form. This is what you will save.

It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.

I'm in what has to be the ugliest courtroom on the East Coast, sitting in chairs until it's my turn, when suddenly my beeper goes off. I look at the number, groan, and try to figure out what to do. I'm a witness later, but the department needs me right now.

It takes a few talking heads but I get permission from the judge to remove myself from the premises. I leave through the front door, and immediately I'm assailed with questions and cameras and lights. It is everything I can do not to punch these vultures, who want to rip apart the bleached bones of my family.

When I couldn't find A

He wasn't home either, although by now this is hardly a surprise. There was a time when Jesse disappointed me regularly; eventually, I told myself not to expect anything from him, and as a result, it has gotten easier for me to take what comes. I knocked on the door and yelled for A

I put everything back in, except for the orange juice container, which I've told Jesse isn't recyclable and which he puts in the bin nonetheless every damn week.

The difference between these fires and the other ones was that now the stakes have been ratcheted up a notch. Instead of an abandoned warehouse or a shack at the side of the water, it is an elementary school. This being summer, no one was on the premises when the fire was started. But there's no question in my mind it was due to u

When I get there, the engines are just loading up after salvage and overhaul. Paulie comes over to me right away. "How's Kate?"

"She's okay," I tell him, and I nod toward the mess. "What'd you find?"

"He pretty much managed to gut the whole north side of the facility," Paulie says. "You doing a walk through?"

'Yeah."

The fire began in the teacher's lounge; the char patterns point like an arrow to the origin. A collection of synthetic stuffing that hasn't burned clean through is still visible; whoever set this was smart enough to light his fire in the middle of a pile of couch cushions and stacks of paper. I can still smell the accelerant; this time it was as simple as gasoline. Bits of glass from the exploded Molotov cocktail litter the ashes.

I wander to the far side of the building, peer through a broken window. The guys must have vented the fire here. "You think we'll catch this little fuck, Cap?" asks Caesar, coming into the room. Still in his turnout gear, with a smudge across his left cheek, he looks down at the debris in the fire line. Then he bends down, and with his heavy glove, picks up a cigarette butt. "Unbelievable. The secretary's desk melted down to a puddle, but a goddamn tobacco stick survives."

I take it out of his hands and turn it over in my palm. "That's because it wasn't here when the fire started. Someone had a nice smoke while he watched this, and then he walked away." I tip it onto the side, to where the yellow meets the filter, and read the brand.

Paulie sticks his head in the shattered window, looking for Caesar. "We're heading back. Get on the truck." Then he turns to me. "Hey, just so you know, we didn't break this one."