I think of Julia. "Yeah."

"Sometimes I hate myself," Anna murmurs.

"Sometimes," I tell her, "I hate myself, too."

This surprises her. She looks at me, and then at the sky again. "They're up there. The stars. Even when you can't see them."

I put my hands into my pockets. "I used to wish on a star every night."

"For what?"

"Rare baseball cards for my collection. A golden retriever. Young, hot female teachers."

"My dad told me that a bunch of astronomers found a new place where stars are being born. Only it's taken us 2,500 years to see them." She turns to me. "Do you get along with your parents?"

I think about lying to her, but then I shake my head. "I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I'm not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway."

The sun washes over her milky skin, lights the line of her throat. "I get it," Anna says. "You were invisible, too."

BRIAN FITZGERALD IS MY LOCK. Once the judge realizes that at least one of Anna's parents agrees with her decision to stop being a donor for her sister, granting her emancipation won't be quite as great a leap. If Brian does what I need him to—namely, tell Judge DeSalvo that he knows Anna has rights, too, and that he's prepared to support her—then whatever Julia says in her report will be a moot point. And better still, Anna's testimony would only be a formality.

Brian shows up with Anna early the next morning, wearing his captain's uniform. I paste a smile on my face and get up, walking toward them with Judge. "Morning," I say. "Everyone ready?"

Brian looks at Anna. Then he looks at me. There is a question right there on the verge of his lips, but he seems to be doing everything he can not to ask it.

"Hey," I say to Anna, brainstorming. "Want to do me a favor? Judge could use a couple of quick runs up and down the stairs, or he's going to get restless in court."

"Yesterday you told me I couldn't walk him."

"Well, today you can."

Anna shakes her head. "I'm not going anywhere. The minute I leave you're just going to talk about me."

So I turn to Brian again. "Is everything all right?"

At that moment, Sara Fitzgerald comes into the building. She hurries toward the courtroom, and seeing Brian with me, pauses. Then she turns slowly away from her husband and continues inside. Brian Fitzgerald's eyes follow his wife, even after the doors close behind her. "We're fine," he says, an answer not meant for me.

"Mr. Fitzgerald, were there times that you disagreed with your wife about having Anna participate in medical treatments for Kate's benefit?"

"Yes. The doctors said that it was only cord blood we needed for Kate. They'd be taking part of the umbilicus that usually gets thrown out after giving birth—it wasn't anything that the baby was ever going to miss, and it certainly wasn't going to hurt her." He meets Anna's eye, gives her a smile. "And it worked for a little while, too. Kate went into remission. But in 1996, she relapsed again. The doctors wanted Anna to donate some lymphocytes. It wasn't going to be a cure, but it would hold Kate over for a while." I try to draw him along. "You and your wife didn't see eye to eye over this treatment?"

"I didn't know if it was such a great idea. This time Anna was going to know what was happening, and she wasn't going to like it."

"What did your wife say to make you change your mind?"

"That if we didn't draw blood from Anna this time, we'd need marrow soon anyway."

"How did you feel about that?"

Brian shakes his head, clearly uncomfortable. "You don't know what it's like," he says quietly, "until your child is dying. You find yourself saying things and doing things you don't want to do or say. And you think it's something you have a choice about, but then you get up a little closer to it, and you see you had it all wrong." He looks up at Anna, who is so still beside me I think she has forgotten to breathe. "I didn't want to do that to Anna. But I couldn't lose Kate."

"Did you have to use Anna's bone marrow, eventually?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Fitzgerald, as a certified EMT, would you ever perform a procedure on a patient who didn't present with any physical problems?"

"Of course not."

"Then why did you, as Anna's father, think this invasive procedure, which carried risk to Anna herself and no personal physical benefit, was in her best interests?"

"Because," Brian says, "I couldn't let Kate die."

"Were there other points, Mr. Fitzgerald, when you and your wife disagreed over the use of Anna's body for your other daughter's treatment?"

"A few years ago, Kate was hospitalized and… losing so much blood nobody thought she'd make it through. I thought maybe it was time to let her go. Sara didn't."

"What happened?"

"The doctors gave her arsenic, and it kicked in, putting Kate into remission for a year."

"Are you saying that there was a treatment which saved Kate, that didn't involve the use of Anna's body?"

Brian shakes his head. "I'm saying… I'm saying I was so sure Kate was going to die. But Sara, she didn't give up on Kate and she came back fighting." He looks over at his wife. "And now, Kate's kidneys are giving out. I don't want to see her suffering. But at the same time, I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I don't want to tell myself it's over, when it doesn't have to be."

Brian has become an emotional avalanche, headed right for the glass house I have been meticulously crafting. I need to reel him in. "Mr. Fitzgerald, did you know your daughter was going to file a lawsuit against you and your wife?"

"No."

"When she did, did you speak to Anna about it?"

"Yes."

"Based on that conversation, Mr. Fitzgerald, what did you do?"

"I moved out of the house with Anna."

"Why?"

"At the time I believed Anna had the right to think this decision out, which wasn't something she'd be able to do living in our house."

"After having moved out with Anna, after having spoken to her at great lengths about why she's initiated this lawsuit—do you agree with your wife's request to have Anna continue to be a donor for Kate?"

The answer we have rehearsed is no; this is the crux of my case. Brian leans forward to reply. "Yes, I do," he says.

"Mr. Fitzgerald, in your opinion …" I begin, and then I realize what he's just done. "Excuse me?"

"I still wish Anna would donate a kidney," Brian admits. Staring at this witness who has just completely fucked me over, I scramble for footing. If Brian won't support Anna's decision to stop being a donor, then the judge will find it far harder to rule in favor of emancipation.

At the same time, I'm patently aware of the smallest sound that has escaped from Anna, the quiet break of soul that comes when you realize that what looked like a rainbow was actually only a trick of the light. "Mr. Fitzgerald, you're willing to have Anna undergo major surgery and the loss of an organ to benefit Kate?"

It is a curious thing, watching a strong man fall to pieces. "Can you tell me what the right answer is here?" Brian asks, his voice raw. "Because I don't know where to look for it. I know what's right. I know what's fair. But neither of those apply here. I can sit, and I can think about it, and I can tell you what should be and what ought to be. I can even tell you there's got to be a better solution. But it's been thirteen years, Mr. Alexander, and I still haven't found it."

He slowly sinks forward, too big in that tiny space, until his forehead rests on the cool bar of wood that borders the witness stand.