My Sister’s Keeper: 13. Wednesday: Anna Summary & Analysis

Anna looks through the family photos in the living room, which depict time passing over the years. She picks up a picture of Jesse at about age two in a cowboy costume and thinks about how different it is from him now. There are tons of photos of Kate and a decent amount of Jesse, but not quite as many of Anna. She goes “from infant to about ten years old in one fell swoop.” She wonders if her parents got tired of cataloging life, or if they just forgot. Although she doesn’t blame them, it saddens her that there were so few moments where her parents stopped what they were doing to capture her.

Brian calls the house to see if Anna wants to be picked up to sleep at the station, since Sara is staying at the hospital. Anna declines and asks how Kate’s doing; Brian responds that she’s on a lot of drugs and out of it. He begins to say something, but the station bell rings behind him, forcing him to hang up. Anna envisions him putting on his uniform and rushing out to the fire engine. She thinks about how “every time he goes to work, he has to put out fires,” which motivates her to head to Jesse’s room.

Anna thinks back to a classmate of hers, Jimmy Stredboe, who was a social outcast among all the kids until he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; after that, everyone was kind to him. Anna, for her part, has always been “the girl with the sick sister,” and thus has been treated similarly kindly by everyone around her. She wonders if maybe she’s actually a terrible person and everyone is just nice to her because they assume her situation made her this way. She also wonders if what she’s about to do is just part of her true, ugly personality.

Jesse drives Anna in his car. He lights up a cigarette, which prompts Anna to ask for one. She is afraid to light the cigarette herself, but Jesse insists that she smoke properly and do it all herself. She takes one drag and breaks out into a coughing fit. Jesse takes it from her and tosses it out the window, then asks her why she wanted to do it. Anna says she might as well. He tells her that she’s not doing the wrong thing, and she responds that she’s not doing the right thing, either. They pull into the hospital parking lot, and Jesse warns her that Sara will be sleeping next to Kate. He also tells her that seeing Kate won’t make her feel better, although he agrees to help her get into the hospital.

In a flashback from two years ago, Anna and Kate train to break the world record for longest simultaneous headstands. As they talk about their future fame, Kate brings up a kid that got on the Today show for playing the piano with his feet, which reminds her of an acquaintance of Sara’s who was killed by a falling piano. She then asks Anna what she thinks is the best way to die, which Anna refuses to answer. Kate considers what it would be like to die in a plane crash as well as dying in her sleep. When Anna protests, Kate insists that everyone thinks about dying—to which Anna retorts that everyone thinks about Kate dying. There’s an uncomfortable silence, then Kate says that at least Anna is being honest.

Anna and Jesse go up to the eighth floor, where Jesse tucks Anna into a linen closet and tells her to wait for a cue from him. He then pours whiskey all over himself and puts on a show of being drunk in the hallway. Anna, impressed by his performance, muses that perhaps all the other times she saw him drunk were an act, too. Mortified, Sara comes out of Kate’s room and takes Jesse down to the cafeteria. As the nurses talk among themselves about how hard it must be for Sara to be Jesse’s mom, Anna sneaks into Kate’s room.

Anna thinks back to one of the few normal Thanksgivings the Fitzgeralds have had. She recalls fighting for the wishbone with Kate. Right before they pull, Sara leans down and tells Anna that she knows what to wish for. Anna thinks of Kate as she pulls and is spitefully satisfied when she loses. Later, Brian and the kids play touch football outside, which makes Sara anxious due to the possibility of Kate getting injured. At one point, Jesse slams Kate to the ground, infuriating Brian. Jesse, apologetic, admits that he forgot to be gentle with her. Sara frantically checks to see where Kate’s hurt, but Kate smiles and says she feels great. She beams up at the sun and says: “He forgot.”

Anna sneaks into Kate’s dark hospital room. She observes that, though she’s seen Kate in a bed like this countless times, she always looks smaller than Anna remembers. She sits down gently, but Kate wakes up anyway. Anna wonders whether, if your sister dies, you stop saying you have one or whether you’re always a sister no matter what. Anna crawls into Kate’s bed and hugs her. Jesse is wrong, she thinks; she didn’t come here to make herself feel better, but because she doesn’t know who she is without Kate.