My Sister’s Keeper (Wsp Readers Club)

Chapter Brian

brIAN

IT’S RAINING.

Like the day Anna was born—New Year’s Eve, and way too warm for that time of year.

What should have been snow became a torrential downpour.

Ski slopes had to close for Christmas, because all their runs got washed out.

Driving to the hospital, with Sara in labor beside me, I could barely see through the windshield.

There were no stars that night, what with all the rain clouds. And maybe because of that, when Anna arrived I said to Sara, “Let’s name her Andromeda. Anna, for short.”

“Andromeda?” she said. “Like the sci-fi book?”

“Like the princess,” I corrected. I caught her eye over the tiny horizon of our daughter’s head. “In the sky,” I explained, “she’s between her mother and her father.”