My Sister’s Keeper: 3. 1990: Sara Summary & Analysis

Jesse spots a bruise between Kate’s shoulder blades during their bath, but it doesn’t appear to hurt. While Sara bathes the children, Brian tells her about an insurance case involving a man who “burned” his cigars by smoking them. Jesse presses hard on Kate’s bruise, causing her to scream in pain. Sara passes her to Brian and orders Jesse out of the bath, but he slips and hits his knee as he gets out. Sara picks him up and sooths him as she continues to talk to Brian about the case, which he spoke as an expert witness in; the defendant was sentenced to a count of arson for every cigar. Brian was called because he is a firefighter who knows how to locate the source of a fire even in a destroyed structure.

Sara used to be a civil attorney but changed her life path and became a stay-at-home mother when she realized how much she enjoyed parenthood. Her sister Suzanne, who works in finance, hates this for her, feeling it’s a waste of her life, but Sara feels that she is a much better mother than she would have been a lawyer. She wonders if there are other women who found their true calling in life by “going nowhere” rather than pursuing a career. When Brian asks her if she misses the courtroom, Sara says that she misses it “like a root canal.”

The next morning, Brian is at work by the time Sara wakes up at nine o’clock. She rushes downstairs to find that Jesse has gotten milk and cereal all over the kitchen. When she asks him where Kate is, he tells her that she’s still sleeping—this is unusual, and Sara wonders if she’s coming down with a cold. She goes to wake Kate up, then pulls off her pajama top. A trail of blue bruises is running down Kate’s spine.

At the pediatrician’s office, Sara asks the doctor, Dr. Wayne, if it could be anemia. Dr. Wayne says it could be a virus and asks for a blood test. When Jesse hears this, he scares Kate by describing the needle she’ll be stuck with. Kate looks to Sara for reassurance, and Sara tells her that it will only be a small shot. But when the nurse comes in with the needles, Kate begins to cry, and although she’s briefly comforted by Sara’s claim that it will only be a tiny pinch, she wails throughout the blood draw. However, by the third vial, she has gone completely limp. Sara doesn’t know whether this or the screaming is worse.

After an hour of waiting, Dr. Wayne calls the family back in and informs them that Kate’s white cell count is extremely low. He speculates that it could be an autoimmune disorder or even a lab error, but he refers them to a hematologist to redo the tests just to be safe. Sara is exasperated at having to repeat the ordeal, but pauses when she sees that the hematologist, Ileana Farquad, specializes in both hematology and oncology. Sara points this out, waiting for Dr. Wayne to reassure her that it’s simply part of the doctor’s title and has nothing to do with Kate’s tests. Dr. Wayne, however, does not reassure her.

Sara calls Brian’s work and discovers that he’s on a call. Sara hesitates, looking down at Kate in the hospital waiting room. She reflects on how, in life, there are moments where one makes major, life-changing decisions without even realizing it. She cites her decision to summon Brian away from his call—even though she’s trying to convince herself nothing significant is happening—as one of these decisions.

After three hours of waiting, the Fitzgeralds are seen by a resident, who asks them various questions about Kate’s medical history. A phlebotomist comes in and asks for a coag panel, which would involve more needles. Sara asks for a finger stick, but the phlebotomist claims that this is the “easiest way,” which causes Sara to get into an argument about how none of this is easy for her or Kate. The phlebotomist storms away and Brian tries to calm Sara down, but she tells him that she can’t calm down when nobody is telling them what’s going on. Brian hugs her and tells her it’s going to be alright, and for the first time ever, she doesn’t believe him.

Dr. Farquad returns after being gone for several hours and tells Sara and Brian that Kate’s white blood count is very low. This, in addition to some other aspects of her tests, leads Dr. Farquad to believe that Kate has leukemia—specifically, acute promyelocytic leukemia. Brian asks if Kate is going to die, to which Dr. Farquad explains that Kate would have a prognosis of nine months to three years with aggressive treatment. Sara thinks of the week before, when she and Brian talked about Kate’s eventual wedding dress. Dr. Farquad reassures them that kids beat the odds every day while Sara looks down at Kate, feeling that this whole thing must be a mistake. She thinks that, although she’s only known Kate two years, every memory they have together would reach forever if stretched end to end.

The doctors bring Kate in for a bone marrow extraction. She’s taped down to the examination table, with one of the nurses stroking Kate’s hand even after she’s been knocked out from the anesthesia. When they turn her face to the side, the paper beneath her face is wet. Sara learns from Kate that you don’t have to be awake to cry.

On the drive home from the hospital, Sara is struck with the feeling that the entire world is inflatable, that she could veer the car through a fence and it would simply bounce back into place. While she drives, she plays animal sounds with Kate, who is eating animal crackers. While they play, Sara thinks about what Kate’s death will look like. Kate asks what giraffes say, to which Sara answers that giraffes don’t say anything. When Kate asks why, Sara says that that’s how they’re born. After this answer, she can’t bring herself to speak anymore.

Sara drops Jesse off with a neighbor in order to care for Kate, since her and Brian’s only babysitters are in high school and both her and Brian’s parents are dead. When she enters the kitchen, Brian is on the phone talking casually to a friend of his from the fire academy; when asked, he tells his friend that the kids are doing great. Sara stares silently at him after he hangs up the phone, and he admits that he couldn’t bring himself to tell his friend the truth.

That night, Sara and Brian lie awake in bed next to each other, silent. Sara runs through various reasons that this is happening to them: she yelled at Jesse; she didn’t buy Kate the M&Ms she wanted; she briefly thought what her life would have been like without kids. Next to her, Brian asks if she thinks they gave Kate the cancer through their genes. Sara doesn’t answer, so he continues, claiming that the hospital doesn’t know what they’re doing—implying that they could be wrong about Kate’s prognosis. Sara tells him that she won’t let Kate die. Brian begins to cry into her shoulder; she repeats her promise, but she knows that it’s a hollow one.