I laughed. “I’m not touching that with a barge pole, Louisa—you work it out with Caroline.”

I shook out her pillows and turned on the TV for her before going off to find Caroline. Louisa had never been much given to kissing, but she squeezed my hand tightly for a few seconds.

3

My Sister’s Keeper

Caroline was sitting at the dining-room table, eating fried chicken and making notes on a colored graph. Chaotic stacks of paper—reports, magazines, flyers—covered all of the small surface. A large pile near her left elbow teetered uncertainly on the table edge. She put down her pencil when she heard me come into the room.

“I went out for some Kentucky Fried while you were in with Ma. Want some? What did you think—kind of a shock, huh?”

I shook my head in dismay. “It’s terrible to see her like this. How are you holding up?”

She grimaced. “It wasn’t so bad until her legs wouldn’t support her anymore. She show ’em to you? I knew she would. It’s really tough on her not being able to get around. The hard part for me was realizing how long she’d been sick before I noticed anything. You know Ma—she’d never complain in a million years, especially about anything as private as her kidneys.”

She rubbed a greasy hand through her unruly curls. “It was only three years ago, when I suddenly noticed how much weight she’d been losing, that I even knew anything was wrong. Then it came out she’d been feeling off for a long time—dizzy and stuff, her feet numb—but she didn’t want to say anything that might jeopardize her job.”

The story sounded depressingly familiar. People on the hip North Side went to the doctor every time they stubbed their toes, but in South Chicago you expected life to be tough. Dizziness and weight loss happened to lots of people; it was the kind of thing grown-ups kept to themselves.

“You satisfied with the doctors she’s seeing?”

Caroline finished gnawing on the chicken thigh and licked her fingers. “They’re okay. We go to Help of Christians because that’s where Xerxes has their medical plan, and they do as much as anyone could. I mean, her kidneys just aren’t working at all—they call it acute renal failure—and it looks like she may have some bone marrow problems and may be starting with emphysema. That’s our only real problem—she keeps going on about her damned cigarettes. Hell, they may have helped get her into this fix to begin with.”

I said awkwardly, “If she’s in that bad shape, the cigarettes aren’t going to make her any worse, you know.”

“Vic! You didn’t say that to her, did you? I have to fight her about them ten times a day as it is. If she thinks you’re backing her up, I might as well quit on the spot.” She slapped the table emphatically; the teetering pile of papers flew across the floor. “I was sure you of all people would support me on this.”