My Sister’s Keeper: 8. Wednesday: Anna Summary & Analysis

Anna doesn’t think that many people would come to her funeral: her parents, Suzanne, and then maybe her social studies teacher. She imagines the cemetery her grandmother was buried in, with its green lawn and statues. She imagines her parents crying and holding onto each other, and Kate and Jesse regretting all the times they were mean to her. She also imagines some of her friends from her hockey team attending. Her obituary would be on page 24 of the paper, and her crush, Kyle McFee, would mourn that he never got to date her. Kate’s funeral, on the other hand, would have everyone: nurses, other cancer patients, and townspeople. She imagines them having to turn away mourners and running a story about Kate’s life, which will be on the front page.

Anna meets with Judge DeSalvo in his office. He gives her a Coke and tells her a fun fact about the soda being able to dissolve a baby tooth, which makes Anna imagine her insides dissolving. The judge asks her about her intentions, since Campbell and Sara are both saying different things about what she wants. Anna asks him if there has to be a trial, and the judge tells her that there doesn’t have to be if her parents agree to medical emancipation—but Anna knows this won’t ever happen. Otherwise, since Anna has filed a petition, her parents will have to respond or the judge will rule in Anna’s favor by default.

Anna tries to hold it together, but the sight of Judge DeSalvo drinking apple juice brings up a memory of Kate in the hospital. A snotty nurse asked Kate for a urine sample, so Kate got Anna to go get a bottle of apple juice, which she poured into the specimen cup and then drank in front of the nurse as a prank. The two of them laughed themselves into cramps for the rest of the day. When the judge puts the apple juice down, Anna bursts into tears and tells him that she just can’t donate a kidney to her sister.

Judge DeSalvo tells Anna that no hospital will take her organ without her consent, but Anna argues that her parents will be the ones to sign off on the operation, not her. She states that it’s become the status quo for everyone to ignore her complaints and tells the judge that it’s just today that they’ll want her kidney—tomorrow, they’ll want something else from her. Judge DeSalvo asks her if Sara lied when she told him that Anna wanted to drop her lawsuit, and Anna says no—she lied to Sara because she loves her. Judge DeSalvo decides to appoint someone to help advocate for Anna, then calls everyone back into his chambers.

Judge DeSalvo tells Campbell and Sara that he’ll be appointing a guardian ad litem to spend two weeks with Anna in order to figure out what she actually wants, at which point there will be a hearing. When Sara protests about the timing given Kate’s illness, the judge reschedules the hearing to Monday instead. Anna marvels at how different Sara acts as a lawyer. Campbell interjects, pointing out that Anna could be influenced since she lives with opposing counsel. Judge DeSalvo refuses to take Anna out of her home, but he warns Sara not to talk about the case with her daughter. With that, he leaves. Campbell attempts to speak to Anna, but Sara immediately pulls her away.

Sara, Anna, and Brian have a tense drive home. Sara storms into the house and begins to prepare food while Jesse watches TV. Kate asks what happened, and Sara tells her to ask Anna, who doesn’t respond. Sara mocks her for being quiet now that a judge isn’t listening. Jesse interjects with surprise that they spoke to a judge, but quickly storms out after Sara tells him to leave. Brian says that everyone needs to calm down, to which Sara says that she can’t do that when Anna has just “signed her sister’s death sentence.” A moment later, she realizes what she’s said and attempts to apologize, but the damage has been done: Kate runs off to her room. Sara goes after her, and Anna runs out of the house.

Anna takes solace in a Laundromat. She reminisces about how, when she was little, Sara would dump hot clothes from the dryer on top of Anna and she would burrow beneath them. At the Laundromat, Anna people-watches, taking solace in the fact that everyone there looks as lonely as her. She tries to match people to the clothes in the dryers, then imagines what it would be like to be the person whose clothes are spinning in front of her. Although she daydreams about being a roofer or going to Harvard, she finds it difficult to imagine herself in these roles; all she knows is being Kate’s donor. A Laundromat employee asks her if she needs change, and Anna is “afraid to hear [her] own answer.”