All Chapters of My family Chose My Foster Sister, Then I Died: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"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 i

The next morning, two hospital administrators came in and immediately began taking the coats out of my closet.I pushed myself up on the edge of the bed, my arms trembling. "What are you doing?"The supervisor held out a tablet. "I'm sorry, Ms. Adams. Your private nursing care has been canceled, and you need to vacate the suite. We're moving you to a shared room on the seventh floor."I looked at the room transfer confirmation on the screen.My father's name appeared in the requester field.My mother came in with an insulated bag and stopped when she saw them packing. "Why so early? Wasn't the move this afternoon?"She made it sound as though she were asking on my behalf.She came quickly to the bed. "Why are you sitting up? Why do you look like that?"Her fingertip brushed the needle marks on the back of my hand, then pulled away. "Isabella's surgery is tomorrow. She cried all night. She says the regular rooms are too noisy, and she can't sleep."I looked at her. "So you want me to mo

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

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

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