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Chapter Forty
AS THE WHITE LIGHT FADED, I could see the doctor and nurses working around me. I lay lifeless on my back with my arms at my sides, my pants and shirt gone. A doctor scrubbed two paddles together and placed them on either side of my bare chest. Everyone stepped back.
“Clear!”
A tone sounded and as the capacitors discharged, the lights dimmed and my body jolted off the gurney. I had the revolting sensation of being sucked through a tunnel and slammed into a concrete wall. Then it happened again.
“Clear!”
Again, the capacitors discharged. Lightning streaked through my brain and my heart vaulted. Faces and events streamed by. Mom, Dad, and me. My sister jumping in the surf at the beach. Sydney at thirteen, ducking away from me laughing and running. Martha in cap and gown crossing a stage. An ivy-covered gravestone. Winston sitting in a car outside the fence at the Little League park watching my first time at bat. His face dark. His eye
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My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-One
ASHLEIGH MATTHEWS SAT in a waiting room at Duke University Medical Center idly flipping through the pages of a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan. The only other person in the room—a man—surfed the channels on a TV mounted high on a wall.Her brother David had been in surgery for five hours and she’d heard nothing from the doctor. She dropped the magazine on the seat next to her and walked to the nurse’s station. “Have you heard anything about how things are going with David’s operation? How much longer it might be?”“The doctor will come and speak with you just as soon as he’s out of surgery.”“Does it usually take this long?”“What they’re doing with David? Yes.”“Thank you.”Ashleigh paced to a window, stopped, and scanned the view. The TV paused on each channel just long enough to hear six or seven words before jumping to another. She addres
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Two
MARTHA QUERIED AN ON-LINE phone directory for the Methodist Home for Boys in Yonkers, dialed the number it gave her, and asked to speak to someone about a former student. After several minutes, a deep, gravelly voice came on the line.“This is Geoffrey Lord. How can I help you?”“Mr. Lord, my name is Martha Baimbridge. I’m looking for a former resident of the home who was there back in the 1980s. A man named Dane Bonner?”The man remained silent for a moment. “From where are you calling?”“North Carolina.”“So, Dane Bonner still lives.”“Then, you do remember him.”“Miss, I remember every kid that passes through here. Especially the troublemakers. Bonner came with a lot of baggage and left with a lot of baggage. Probably the most emotionally crippled child to ever leave here. Killed his own father when he was nine. Hacked him up with a Cub Sco
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Three
IN THE CARDIAC CARE UNIT, I found Martha and Mom sitting in the room with Dad. He didn’t look good at all. None of them did. When Martha saw me, she rolled out with her head hanging low. I bent and gave her a hug. “How’s he doing?”“Not too well. How are you? Things are better for you now—after the fire. Right?”“I hope.”“That license plate number we got from the beach house belongs to a man named Dane Bonner from Charleston. Not much on him on the Internet, but I’ve got a lead I’m working on.”“There was a man at that house named Bonner.”“Then we might be onto something with that. Oh, by the way, I just talked to a nurse and learned that you can extract semen from a man by massaging his prostate gland. All you need is a rubber glove, some petroleum jelly, and a finger. She says the fertility nurses do it all the time.”&
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Four
SCOTT HAD SEEN how panicked Sydney became when she realized Richard had seen her with him, and it hurt. And it angered him. He had taken her under his wing when another love had gone wrong for her. He’d showed her how to be strong and how to get what you want out of life. He’d built up her confidence and taught her how to set goals and take the necessary steps to achieve them. The way he figured it; she’d have nothing today had it not been for him. He glanced at her. She clutched her purse with one hand and grasped the door handle with the other.“I told you I’ve come into some money recently,” he said, pausing to let her respond. She didn’t. “It’s a lot of money, Sydney, and I thought how fantastic it would be for us to just pick up and go. We could go anywhere you’d like—anywhere in the world—and you’d never have to work again.”“I don’t want to
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Five
AS THE LAST STRANDS of pink faded and the sky turned steel gray, I drove past the McLeod Hotel and parked several blocks away. It stood tall and proud at the center of the seediest part of Wilmington. Built in the late 1800s, it had not had a coat of paint since Hitler marched on France. A few windows on the bottom floor had been covered with plywood that had since grayed and curled, threatening to fall off. One window on the second floor was covered by cardboard. I got more than a few strange looks as I walked past the neon signs and cheap bars back toward it.The prostitutes propositioned me and the men kept an eye on me. The entrance to the hotel was too narrow and too congested with people I wouldn’t dare ask to move or try to slither through. I lowered my head and walked on by, disappearing into a narrow alley a few doors farther. Stepping over broken bottles, drug vials, and piles of excrement, I made my way to the back of the buildings.Night was falling q
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Six
IN SPITE OF THE RECENT WARM WEATHER, Scott McGillikin pulled the collar of his wool overcoat up around his ears, hunched forward with his shoulders high, and slunk along the street Martha and Richard had played on as children. As he approached the Baimbridge home, a Saint Bernard across the street reeled off a string of low-pitched barks that sounded more like a car being started with a dying battery than any kind of living creature.The neighborhood was actually safer now than it had been twenty years earlier. Transplants from the north were buying up all the older homes, restoring them to better-than-original condition, and adding decks, brick walks, outdoor lamps, and herb gardens.As he turned up the Baimbridge sidewalk, a young girl next door leaned out over a porch railing to get a better look at him. He lowered his chin, mounted the steps, and had raised a gloved hand to knock when the door abruptly swung open.Before him sat a startled woman in her wheel
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Seven
AS I PULLED UP TO MY PARENTS’ HOUSE, I saw my mother flailing about the front yard flanked by two policemen and two neighbors attempting to console her. My first thoughts were that something had happened to Dad. I left the engine running and jumped out. “What happened?”Mother surged toward me screaming and crying, but her cries concealed her words. I took hold of her hands. “What? Slow down.”She tried to say something, but instead collapsed against me, her weight sending both of us against the side of the car.“What is it, Mama? Has something happened to Dad?”Like a wounded animal, she thrashed about sliding down the side of the car to the ground.“For Heaven’s sake, can’t someone tell me what’s going on?”The woman living next door stepped forward. “Your sister’s been in an accident.”“An accident?”Mom rolled to the ground
My Sister's Keeper Chapter Forty-Eight
A MISTY RAIN WAS FALLING as Ashleigh crossed from the parking garage to the lobby of Duke Medical Center in Durham. A clock high on a wall read 7:39 a.m. Collapsing her umbrella, she stepped to the main information desk where an elderly woman stared at a computer monitor.“Could you tell me which room David Matthews is in, please?” Ashleigh asked.Leaning forward, the woman clicked a few keys on her keyboard and squinted at the monitor. “Let’s see... Hmm. Is he a patient here?”“He was in surgery all day yesterday.”“Matthews...Matthews…Okay, here he is. Are you family?”“Sister.”“Well, he spent the night in Intensive Care, but he’s being moved to another room right now and I don’t have that number yet. Give me your name and I’ll page you when I have it.”“How long is that going to take?”“I don’t know
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- My Sister's Keeper Epilogue
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Nine
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Eight
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Seven
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Six
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Five
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Four
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Three
- My Sister's Keeper Chapter Fifty-Two
