Chapter 4

Becca scrambled to her feet and fled toward the stairs.

I hovered in the corner of Lillian's room, watching Dad and Mom sit on either side of her bed like devoted guards.

Whatever feeling I had left for them finally went still.

Two years earlier, I'd completed my schooling and every part of my family's training program. I wanted to go to Port Calloway and expand our operations there.

I'd packed my things. Our people in the city were ready to meet me.

Then Dad confiscated everything I'd prepared and canceled the arrangements in Port Calloway.

He told me to stay home and practice cooking instead.

Lillian had a poor appetite, he said. She barely ate unless I was the one preparing her meals. If I left, who would cook for her?

I begged them through tears.

"I have things I want to accomplish too. I want to prove I can make our family stronger.

"I'm only going there to grow the business. It could take our whole family to the next level."

Mom slapped me hard across the face.

"How can you be so selfish? You'd chase your own glory and not care whether your sister lives or dies!

"You think you're grown now? With that attitude, you'd only waste the family's resources if we sent you away."

That was when I finally understood my place in this house.

I existed to serve Lillian.

My own life wasn't something I was allowed to have.

Downstairs, the operating room lights burned painfully bright.

Alan's white coat was soaked through with blood.

"Her pressure is still falling! We can't get it up!"

"She's lost more than two liters through the chest drain. The bleeding won't stop!"

The overlapping alarms sounded like a funeral dirge played just for me.

Alan kept performing chest compressions, refusing to pause. Sweat ran down his face. My chest had caved in under the force of his compressions.

"Alan. It's time."

Joanna gently caught his wrist. Exhaustion weighed down her voice.

"Her pupils are fixed and dilated. The monitor's been flat for more than twenty minutes.

"You have to let her go."

Alan sagged to the floor as though every bit of strength had drained out of him. He stared at the straight line on the monitor, his eyes bloodshot.

Becca stumbled back into the room.

"Doctor, the Don and Donna DeMarco said Anna was faking. They won't come. They ordered us not to go upstairs again because Lillian needs to rest."

For a moment, it was as if everyone had stopped breathing.

They looked from Becca to my ruined body on the operating table, unable to believe a girl's own parents could behave that way.

Alan tore off his sterile gloves and dropped them on the floor.

"Time of death," he said, his voice shaking despite his effort to control it. "Four fifty a.m.

"Give me the death certificate. I'll take it to Don DeMarco myself."

From above, I watched a nurse draw a white sheet over me, slowly covering my feet, my legs, my chest, and finally my face.

It was over.

No more contempt. No more favoritism. No more insults from the people who were supposed to love me.

I followed Alan back to the VIP floor.

The corridor was unnaturally quiet. Every doctor and nurse on duty seemed afraid to speak above a whisper. Alan's footsteps rang against the tiles.

He knocked on Lillian's door and entered.

"Don DeMarco, this is Anna's death certificate."

Dad didn't look at it. He reached out to shove Alan back into the hallway.

"You're one of the best doctors we have, Alan. Don't tell me you're in on Anna's little act too.

"I already told you, she can put on whatever performance she wants. I'm not going to comfort her. If she's got the guts, she can stay in that operating room for the rest of her life."

Mom carefully fitted noise-blocking earplugs into the sleeping Lillian's ears, then stepped outside and gently closed the door behind her.

"Alan, you've saved our family more times than I can count, so we'll let this go.

"Please leave. Lillian has only just fallen asleep. You know she doesn't sleep well, and she's had a terrible fright today. We can't have you waking her."

But Lillian wasn't going to stay asleep. She took out her earplugs and came to the doorway.

"Doctor, don't let Anna fool you. She's done things like this since we were little. She even hurts herself to get Mom and Dad's attention."

Alan gave a strange, humorless laugh.

He held up the death certificate so all three of them could see it clearly.

"Don and Donna DeMarco, I'm not lying.

"Anna wasn't putting on an act. She's dead.

"Please look over the death certificate. Her body is still in the operating room. Where would you like us to take her?"