A Sister's Promise (Promises) Read Free Page A

treat this before it gets worse.”
    “What are my other options?” Joely asked Dr. Martin with steel in her voice.
    He squared his shoulders. “There are none. This is the treatment I recommend. With dialysis you would depend upon a machine until you could get a kidney transplant. It’s only used as a last resort.”
    “Be reasonable,” Kate said to Joely.
    Joely blinked her dewy eyes. “How could giving up my future babies be reasonable?”
    Dr. Martin flipped through Joely’s file until his index finger pointed at something he must have found relevant. “There is a chance your ovaries could recover after the cyclophosphamide treatment. I’ve heard of it happening for women younger than you—in their twenties.” He shook his head. “But at age thirty-two, it’s hard to say. You should consider other options if you want children.”
    Joely wadded up the tissue and squeezed it in her fist. “Other options? Like what—adoption?”
    He nodded.
    Joely started ripping apart the tissue. “What about freezing my eggs?”
    Dr. Martin put down the chart. “You could, but there isn’t time to go on drugs to stimulate egg production. Unfortunately, the harvesting procedure costs thousands of dollars and insurance won’t pay for it.” He softened his voice. “I know this is hard to hear, but even then, the odds of a woman with lupus carrying a baby to term are only fifty-fifty.”
    Joely crossed her arms and looked at Dr. Martin. “Maybe you’re wrong. You said yourself lupus is difficult to diagnose.”
    Dr. Martin pursed his lips. “I’m confident of this diagnosis. Now, the treatment involves an injection once a month. I can arrange for you to start tomorrow.”
    Joely shook her head. “I won’t do it.”
     
    # # #
     
    That evening Joely lay on her well-worn leather couch, a navy afghan across her legs. She stared at the blank tv screen. “I was pregnant once.”
    The remote control slipped from Kate’s hand. She’d been ready to ask if Joely would welcome the distraction. “You were? When?” Crossing the room, she sat on the worn carpet, near Joely’s pale face.
    Joely continued to look past her. “I was sixteen. Junior year.” Her chest rose and fell with her breath.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    Joely turned her sharp gaze toward Kate. “Because you left. I needed you, but you weren’t there.”
    “I didn’t abandon you. I went to college.” Kate remembered calling Joely from her dorm, bubbling with excitement about having a room with a view of the courtyard and a closet she didn’t have to share. Hearing the flatness of Joely’s voice at first made Kate think their guardian, Aunt Suzy, had done something cruel, but Joely denied it. When Kate asked repeatedly what was wrong, Joely replied, “Nothing.” As the one-sided conversation continued, Kate determined that Joely resented her simply for leaving.
    So Kate shut up about her adventure and inquired about Joely’s life. Her sister offered few details, her silence shredding Kate’s heart. Kate kept calling several times a week, despite her growing phone bill, trying to reconnect with her sister. After a while, Kate grew to resent how their quiet feud cast a shadow over her freshman year.
    Joely scowled at Kate. “You left me alone in that house. You finished your high school credits early even, so you could get out of there.”
    Kate couldn’t deny that. Escaping Aunt Suzy’s lair had been her incentive for graduating a semester early. But she couldn’t save Joely. She could only save herself. At least that’s the story she’d told herself.
    A strand of her brunette hair hovered near Joely’s eye. Kate brushed it back with her fingers. “Who was the father?”
    “Ray.”
    Kate pictured Ray, the blond boy next door with big ears and an even bigger smile. Joely had been crushing on him since sixth grade and finally in tenth grade, he’d grown his hair long enough to camouflage his ears, decided he was cute, and asked