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Judge DeSalvo frowns down at me. "Then Ms. Romano," he asks, "what's your recommendation to the court?"
CAMPBELL
SHE'S NOT GOING TO VETO the petition.
That's my first incredible thought—that my case isn't going down in flames yet, even after Julia's testimony. My second thought is that Julia is as ripped up about this case and what it's done to A
Judge has chosen this moment to become a colossal pain in the ass. He sinks his teeth into my coat and starts tugging, but I'll be damned if I'm going to break before I hear Julia finish.
"Ms. Romano," DeSalvo asks, "what's your recommendation to the court?"
"I don't know," she says softly. "I'm sorry. This is the first time I've ever served as a guardian ad litem and been unable to reach a recommendation, and I know that's not acceptable. But on one hand I have Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, who have done nothing but make choices throughout the course of both their daughters' lives out of love. Put that way, they certainly don't seem like the wrong decisions—even if they aren't the right decisions for both of those daughters anymore."
She turns to A
When I feel a tug on my other arm I start to slap the dog away again, but then realize that this time, it's A
Judge DeSalvo excuses Julia from the stand. "Okay what?" I whisper back.
"Okay I'll talk," A
I stare at her in disbelief. Judge is whining now, and batting his nose against my thigh, but I can't risk a recess. All it will take for A
But she doesn't answer me. She stands up, drawing all attention in the courtroom to herself. "Judge DeSalvo?" A
ANNA
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT the first time I had to give an oral report in class: it was third grade, and I was in charge of talking about the kangaroo. They're pretty interesting, you know. I mean, not only are they found on Australia alone, like some kind of mutant evolutionary strain—they have the eyes of deer and the useless paws of a T. Rex. But the most fascinating thing about them is the pouch, of course. This baby, when it gets born, is like the size of a germ and manages to crawl under the flap and tuck itself inside, all while its clueless mother is bouncing around the Outback. And that pouch isn't like they make it out on Saturday morning cartoons—it's pink and wrinkled like inside your lip, and full of important motherish plumbing. I'll bet you didn't know kangaroos don't just carry one joey at a time. Every now and then there will be a miniature sibling, tiny and jellied and stuck in the bottom while her older sister scrapes around with enormous feet and makes herself comfortable.
As you can see, I clearly knew my stuff. But when it was nearly my turn, just as Stephen Scarpinio was holding up a papier-mache model of a lemur, I knew that I was going to be sick. I went up to Mrs. Cuthbert, and told her if I stayed to do this assignment, no one was going to be happy.
"A
Then I projectile vomited over four kids who had the bad luck to be sitting in the front row.
For the whole rest of the year, I was called KangaRalph. Every now and then some kid would go on a plane on vacation, and I'd go to my cubby to find a barf bag pi
I'm telling you this to explain my general aversion to public speaking.
But now, on the witness stand, there's even more to be worried about. It's not that I'm nervous, like Campbell thinks. I am not afraid of clamming up, either. I'm afraid of saying too much.
I look out at the courtroom and see my mother, sitting at her lawyer table, and at my father, who smiles at me just the tiniest bit. And suddenly I can't believe I ever thought I might be able to go through with this. I get to the edge of my seat, ready to apologize for wasting everyone's time and bolt—only to realize that Campbell looks positively awful. He's sweating, and his pupils are so big they look like quarters set deep in his face. "A
I look at him and think, Do you?
What I want is to go home. I want to run away to a place where no one knows my name and pretend to be a millionaire's adopted daughter, the heir to a toothpaste manufacturing kingdom, a Japanese pop star.
Campbell turns to the judge. "May I confer for a moment with my client?"
"Be my guest," Judge DeSalvo says.
So Campbell walks up to the witness stand and leans so close that only I can hear him. "When I was a kid I had a friend named Joseph Balz," he whispers. "Imagine if Dr. Neaux had married him."
He backs away while I am still smiling, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I can last for another two or three minutes up here.
Campbell's dog is going crazy—he's the one who needs water or something, from the looks of it. And I'm not the only one to notice. "Mr. Alexander," Judge DeSalvo says, "please control your animal."
"No, Judge."
"Excuse me?!"
Campbell goes tomato red. "I was speaking to the dog, Your Honor, like you asked." Then he turns to me. "A
A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your mouth expecting toffee filling and you get lemon zest instead. "She asked," I say, the first two words that will become an avalanche.
"Who asked what?"
"My mom," I say, staring at Campbell's shoes. "For a kidney." I look down at my skirt, pick at a thread. Just maybe I will unravel the whole thing.
About two months ago, Kate was diagnosed with kidney failure. She got tired easily, and lost weight, and retained water, and threw up a lot. The blame was pi
One night, my mother came into our room when Kate and I were just hanging out. She had my father with her, which meant we were in for a more heavy discussion than who-left-the-sink-ru
Kate looked at me and popped in a new CD. We both knew where this was headed. "You can't exactly pick up a kidney at Kmart."
"I know. It turns out that you only need to match a couple of HLA proteins to be a kidney donor—not all six. I called Dr. Chance to ask if I might be a match for you, and he said in normal cases, I probably would."
Kate hears the right word. "Normal cases?"
"Which you're not. Dr. Chance thinks you'd reject an organ from the general donor pool, just because your body has already been through so much." My mother looked down at the carpet. "He won't recommend the procedure unless the kidney comes from A