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Chapter 10

Author: Stellan
The following winter, Howard went to Switzerland.

He took very little with him.

An old brochure and a leaf from a Shakespeare First Folio in a protective sleeve.

It was the leaf I had circled in the auction catalog on my birthday.

After the funeral, Howard himself removed it from the climate-controlled frame in Isabella's room. She stood in the doorway with her fingers tucked inside her sleeve. She opened her mouth but didn't dare stop him.

His hands shook badly as he slid the leaf into the sleeve.

He pressed the seal shut with his head bowed. His voice was so hoarse I could barely make out the words. "This was supposed to be Anna's."

I don't need it now.

The cable car ticket agent asked him, "How many?"

Howard held the brochure against his chest and paused for two seconds.

"Two."

The agent looked at him but didn't ask why. He tore off two tickets.

The car climbed slowly up the mountain.

There was nothing but snow outside the glass. Howard sat by the window and put the brochure on the empty seat beside him.

More than ten years earlier, he had held that same brochure against the glass of my isolation room, pointed to this very mountain, and told me, "When you're better, I'm taking you there."

I never got better.

And he never took me there.

The wind at the top blew hard.

He opened the brochure. All twelve of my notes were still there.

He took out a pen and held it over the space after the final line for a long time. He didn't cross anything out or mark any of them paid. Then he put the pen back in his pocket.

"Anna."

The wind made his eyes red.

"Your brother brought you here."

He reached for the medal on his wrist.

The cold had made the soldered joint in the chain brittle. With a faint snap, the chain broke.

The medal dropped into the deep snow.

Howard's expression changed. He dropped to his knees and began digging. He wasn't wearing gloves, and all ten fingers quickly reddened from the cold. As the hole deepened, the skin around his nails began to bleed, but he kept his head down and searched through the snow inch by inch.

"Don't get lost.

"I can't lose anything else."

Somebody nearby came over to help.

A few minutes later, Howard's fingers found the small medal in the snow. He closed his fist around it, leaving blood from his palm on the gold.

He sat down in the snow with his head bowed, his shoulders slowly sagging.

The chain had been repaired, but the mended spot was still its weakest point.

Afterward, he placed the medal beside the brochure and never had the chain repaired again.

Howard bought two tickets for the cable car ride down as well.

He sat on one side.

The seat beside him stayed empty for the entire ride.

The old brochure lay still on the empty seat. The wind flipped it open to the mountain page, revealing the promise he had written as a boy.

[When you get out, I'm taking you here.]

Twelve years too late, he finally kept that promise.

But from the top of the mountain to the bottom, there was no one beside him anymore to grin and remind him, "Howard, that's another one you owe me."
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  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 9

    After the funeral, my father arranged for Isabella to move out of the Adams house.He gave her a house and enough money to live on. He considered that enough to settle things between them after all the years they had raised her.Isabella stood in the doorway, her face paler than it had been the day she left the hospital."Dad, Mom..."My mother's eyes were sunken, as if she hadn't slept in days.She didn't hug Isabella the way she always had. She only said quietly, "Take care of yourself."Isabella looked at Howard with red eyes.Howard didn't look at her. He kept his head down as he placed the medal with its repaired chain in a box. He was going to put it beside my ashes.Isabella finally started to cry."Do you all blame me?"Nobody answered.It was a long time before Howard spoke. "While Anna was alive, we asked her to be understanding about everything. Now that she's dead, let's not make her forgive anyone."Isabella stopped crying.This time, no one went to wipe away her tears.My

  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 8

    The attendant handed my family a bag of my belongings and asked them to sign for it.The bag was light.A few changes of clothes. A dead phone. Half a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers. And the Switzerland brochure, its corners worn white.My father had been signing the paperwork mechanically until he saw the final medication log attached to the bag.Strong pain medication discontinued.Insufficient funds in backup account.Just two lines on a page. No accusation. No tears. But my father's hand shook so hard he could barely hold the pen.He was the one who had moved the money out of my backup account that afternoon.That night, I called and told him it hurt to breathe. He said I was only on maintenance medication and this family couldn't keep burning through money like that.The money is still there.I don't need it now.My mother rummaged through the bag and pulled out an old photograph.The photograph showed me as a small child, sitting up in a hospital bed with my grandmother's

  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 7

    The cake knife fell out of my mother's hand.She stared at Howard with frosting still on her fingers.Howard's lips moved several times before he spoke. "The hospital says nobody has claimed Anna's body."My mother's face went blank. Then she actually laughed."How can that be? Anna was transferred to another hospital. She was much worse than this when she was eighteen, and she pulled through just fine, didn't she?"My father's face had gone gray. "It's a scam call. If something had really happened to her at that hospital, why did they wait fifteen days to tell us?"Howard suddenly remembered something. He bolted for the entryway and dug out the jacket he had worn several times since then.The critical condition notice was still in the pocket, creased and softened from handling.My father saw the red warning on it, and his voice rose. "You were holding a critical condition notice. Why didn't you go see the doctor?"Howard didn't move."I thought..."He swallowed a few times. His face h

  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 6

    During the fifteen days Isabella spent in the hospital, no one made any real effort to find me.My father asked his assistant to find out where I'd gone. The assistant only learned that I'd left the unit, so my father decided I'd transferred to another hospital behind the family's back."She thinks this will make us feel guilty for giving up on her," he said without looking up from Isabella's recovery plan.My mother twisted the hem of her blouse between her fingers, looking uneasy. "Anna was still on oxygen when she left. Could she really have arranged a transfer by herself?"He didn't answer.Howard stood by the window, staring silently at our message thread.The last message was from him, asking me to lend the medal to Isabella.I never replied.Isabella took my mother's hand, her eyes red again. "Is Anna still blaming me? If it weren't for me, she wouldn't have had to leave."My mother pushed aside her own unease and comforted her. "None of this is your fault. She gave up the heart

  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 5

    Howard stared at the cart as the color slowly drained from his face.He started after it, but just then, the operating room doors opened behind him. Isabella was wheeled out on a gurney. She was still coming out of anesthesia, her face pale. Her fingers closed around his sleeve without her even realizing it."Howard..."He froze midstep.My mother noticed the paper in his hand and hesitated. "That paper for Anna... was it really a critical condition notice?"His voice was tight. "Her doctor wants the family there immediately.""Then go check on her."She had barely finished speaking when Isabella frowned and the monitor on her chest chirped twice.Everyone who had just begun to relax crowded around her again.My father clapped a hand on Howard's shoulder. "Anna has been in critical condition before. Hasn't she always pulled through in the end? Isa has never had surgery this serious. If she wakes up and we aren't here, she'll be frightened."Howard looked down at the critical condition

  • My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died   Chapter 4

    The day Isabella got the transplant, it poured in Los Angeles.When I woke, Dr. Smith was standing beside my bed, telling a nurse, "Move her to the ICU now. She's unstable, and she could go downhill at any minute."The nurse dialed over and over. The screen lit and went dark. Nobody picked up.Dr. Smith kept his temper in check. "Keep calling. Her next of kin needs to sign both the critical condition notice and the high-risk resuscitation consent form."An announcement came over the speakers: the donor heart had arrived at the hospital.I said quietly, "I know where they are."Dr. Smith turned. "Anna, you can't be moving around.""I just want to see them once." I looked at him. "Ten minutes."He was quiet for a long time. Then he hooked me up to portable oxygen. "Ten minutes. The second you can't catch your breath, you come straight back."The private wing on the third floor was brightly lit.Isabella's bed was being wheeled toward the operating room.My mother had combed Isabella's ha

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