I DON’T THINK ANYONE WOULD COME to my funeral. My parents, I guess, and Aunt Zanne and maybe Mr.

Ollincott, the social studies teacher. I picture the same cemetery we went to for my grandmother’s funeral,although that was in Chicago so it doesn’t really make any sense. There would be rolling hills that look likegreen velvet, and statues of gods and lesser angels, and that big brown hole in the ground like a split seam,waiting to swallow the body that used to be me.

I imagine my mom in a black-veiled Jackie O hat, sobbing. My dad holding on to her. Kate and Jesse staringat the shine of the coffin and trying to plea-bargain with God for all the times they did something mean tome. It is possible that some of the guys from my hockey team would come, clutching lilies and theircomposure. “That Anna,” they’d say, and they wouldn’t cry but they’d want to.

There would be an obituary on page twenty-four of the paper, and maybe Kyle McFee would see it and cometo the funeral, his beautiful face twisted up with the what-ifs of the girlfriend he never got to have. I thinkthere would be flowers, sweet peas and snapdragons and blue balls of hydrangea. I hope someone would sing“Amazing Grace,” not just the famous first verse but all of them. And afterward, when the leaves turned andthe snow came, every now and then I would rise in everyone’s minds like a tide.

At Kate’s funeral, everyone will come. There will be nurses from the hospital who’ve gotten to be ourfriends, and other cancer patients still counting their lucky stars, and townspeople who helped raise moneyfor her treatments. They will have to turn mourners away at the cemetery gates. There will be so many lushfuneral baskets that some will be donated to charity. The newspaper will run a story of her short and tragiclife.

Mark my words, it will be on the front page.

Judge DeSalvo’s wearing flip-flops, the kind soccer players wear when they take off their cleats. I don’tknow why, but this makes me feel a little better. I mean, it’s bad enough I’m here in this courthouse, beingled toward his private room in the back; there’s something nice about knowing that I’m not the only one whodoesn’t quite fit the part.

He takes a can from a dwarf fridge and asks me what I’d like to drink. “Coke would be great,” I say.

The judge opens the can. “Did you know that if you leave a baby tooth in a glass of Coke, in a few weeks it’llcompletely disappear? Carbonic acid.” He smiles at me. “My brother is a dentist in Warwick. Does that trickevery year for the kindergartners.”

I take a sip of the Coke, and imagine my insides dissolving. Judge DeSalvo doesn’t sit down behind his desk,but instead takes a chair right next to me. “Here’s the problem, Anna,” he says. “Your mom is telling me youwant to do one thing. And your lawyer is telling me you want to do another. Now, under normalcircumstances, I’d expect your mother to know you better than some guy you met two days ago. But younever would have met this guy if you hadn’t sought him out for his services. And that makes me think that Ineed to hear what you think about all this.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he says.

“Does there have to be a trial?”

“Well…your parents can just agree to medical emancipation, and that would be that,” the judge says.

Like that would ever happen.

“On the other hand, once someone files a petition—like you have—then the respondent—your parents—haveto go to court. If your parents really believe you’re not ready to make these kinds of decisions by yourself,they have to present their reasons to me, or else risk having me find in your favor by default.”

I nod. I have told myself that no matter what, I’m going to keep cool. If I fall apart at the seams, there’s noway this judge will think I’m capable of deciding anything. I have all these brilliant intentions, but I getsidetracked by the sight of the judge, lifting his can of apple juice.

Not too long ago, when Kate was in the hospital to get her kidneys checked out, a new nurse handed her acup and asked for a urine sample. “It better be ready when I come back for it,” she said. Kate—who isn’t afan of snotty demands—decided the nurse needed to be taken down a peg. She sent me out on a mission tothe vending machines, to get the very juice that the judge is drinking now. She poured this into the specimencup, and when the nurse came back, held it up to the light. “Huh,” Kate said. “Looks a little cloudy. Betterfilter it through again.” And then she lifted it to her lips and drank it down.

The nurse turned white and flew out of the room. Kate and I, we laughed until our stomachs cramped. For therest of that day, all we had to do was catch each other’s eye and we’d dissolve.

Like a tooth, and then there’s nothing left.

“Anna?” Judge DeSalvo prompts, and then he sets that stupid can of Mott’s down on the table between usand I burst into tears.

“I can’t give a kidney to my sister. I just can’t.”

Without a word, Judge DeSalvo hands me a box of Kleenex. I wad some into a ball, wipe at my eyes and mynose. For a while, he’s quiet, letting me catch my breath. When I look up I find him waiting. “Anna, nohospital in this country will take an organ from an unwilling donor.”

“Who do you think signs off on it?” I ask. “Not the little kid getting wheeled into the OR—her parents.”

“You’re not a little kid; you could certainly make your objections known,” he says.

“Oh, right,” I say, tearing up again. “When you complain because someone’s sticking a needle into you forthe tenth time, it’s considered standard operating procedure. All the adults look around with fake smiles andtell each other that no one voluntarily asks for more needles.” I blow my nose into a Kleenex. “The kidney—that’s just today. Tomorrow it’ll be something else. It’s always something else.”

“Your mother told me you want to drop the lawsuit,” he says. “Did she lie to me?”

“No.” I swallow hard.

“Then…why did you lie to her?”

There are a thousand answers for that; I choose the easy one. “Because I love her,” I say, and the tears comeall over again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

He stares at me hard. “You know what, Anna? I’m going to appoint someone who’s going to help yourlawyer tell me what’s best for you. How does that sound?”

My hair’s fallen all over the place; I tuck it behind my ear. My face is so red it feels swollen. “Okay,” Ianswer.

“Okay.” He presses an intercom button, and asks to have everyone else sent back.

My mother comes into the room first and starts to make her way over to me, until Campbell and his dog cuther off. He raises his brows and gives me a thumbs-up sign, but it’s a question. “I’m not sure what’s goingon,” Judge DeSalvo says, “so I’m appointing a guardian ad litem to spend two weeks with her. Needless tosay, I expect full cooperation on both of your parts. I want the guardian ad litem’s report back, and then we’llhave a hearing. If there’s anything more I need to know at that time, bring it with you.”

“Two weeks…&............