My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died

"Done." I threw the pen onto the nightstand.

Howard immediately took the waiver from me. He ran his thumb over my signature twice to make sure the ink hadn't smeared, then slid the page into the inside pocket of his suit.

My mother took Isabella's arm and led her out. Just before the door closed, Isabella looked back at me with red-rimmed eyes, her fingers clutching my mother's sleeve.

Howard buttoned his jacket, and his voice softened. "That's better. Once Isabella recovers, I'll take you to Europe for a change of scenery. My treat."

He said something like that the first Christmas after the fire.

I was in an isolation room. He held a travel brochure against the glass, pointed to the Swiss mountains, and promised to take me there once I got better. I read that brochure until the corners curled. The trip never happened. Not once.

He was at the door when I stopped him. "Do you still remember that Switzerland brochure?"

His hand stopped on the handle. "That was a lifetime ago. Why bring it up now?"

I looked at the bulge in his jacket. My waiver was in there. So was the promise he had just made me.

"Nothing. You owe me enough already. Maybe stop making promises."

Isabella called softly for him from the hallway.

Howard swallowed hard, then left.

My attending physician, Dr. Smith, came in carrying my test results and passed Howard in the doorway.

He glanced over his shoulder at Howard, then hurried to my bed and slapped the results down on the table.

"Anna, have you lost your mind? You're already in critical condition. Do you know what turning down that transplant means?"

I asked, "How long do I have?"

"Four weeks at most." Dr. Smith pulled over a chair and sat down, lowering his voice. "If acute heart failure sets in, you may not make it a week. The chances of finding another match are almost zero."

"I didn't want to give it up." I closed my eyes. "They were just never going to choose me."

Cheers erupted in the hallway.

My mother was crying with joy. My father was on the phone with the best rehabilitation center in Los Angeles. Howard stood outside my door, calming Isabella in a low, gentle voice. I heard every bit of it through the door, loud and joyful, as if they were celebrating a new life.

I pulled out my phone. A GoFundMe link appeared on the screen: Save Our Angel Isabella.

In the photo, Isabella leaned into Howard while my parents kissed her cheeks from either side.

The description read:

[Our little angel is about to begin a new life. Special thanks to her sister Anna, who has been her rock and given her endless support.]

This rock couldn't get her own pain medication refilled.

I asked a nurse to message Howard and see if he could cover my medical costs first. All I got was a one-line reply from his assistant.

[Mr. Adams is occupied with Isabella's surgery at present. Please make your own arrangements for now.]

The fundraiser's donor list showed that he had given Isabella fifty thousand dollars.

Not long after, Isabella sent me a photo.

She sat in her room in the hospital's private wing, with a specially prepared meal on the table. The cashmere wrap my mother had knitted was draped around her shoulders.

[Thank you for letting me have it. I'll take this heart out into the world and see it all for you.]

My chest suddenly tightened as I read it, and cold sweat soaked through my gown.

Isabella's birth mother, Lucy, had died when she went back into the fire for the medication that kept me alive.

At the funeral, my father promised in front of everyone that he would raise Isabella as his own daughter. From then on, whenever they could afford treatment for only one of us, they always stopped my medication.

I turned the screen off.

Four weeks left.

This time, I supposed, I really was going to give Lucy back the life she'd paid for with her own.