BRIAN FITZGERALD IS MY LOCK. Once the judge realizes that at least one of Anna’s parents agrees with herdecision to stop being a donor for her sister, granting her emancipation won’t be quite as great a leap. If Briandoes what I need him to—namely, tell Judge DeSalvo that he knows Anna has rights, too, and that he’sprepared to support her—then whatever Julia says in her report will be a moot point. And better still, Anna’stestimony 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 faceand 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 heseems 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 anddown 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 Brianwith 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, ananswer not meant for me.

“Mr. Fitzgerald, were there times that you disagreed with your wife about having Anna participate in medicaltreatments 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 umbilicusthat usually gets thrown out after giving birth—it wasn’t anything that the baby was ever going to miss, andit certainly wasn’t going to hurt her.” He meets Anna’s eye, gives her a smile. “And it worked for a littlewhile, too. Kate went into remission. But in 1996, she relapsed again. The doctors wanted Anna to donatesome 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 shewasn’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 yourchild is dying. You find yourself saying things and doing things you don’t want to do or say. And you thinkit’s something you have a choice about, but then you get up a little closer to it, and you see you had it allwrong.” He looks up at Anna, who is so still beside me I think she has forgotten to breathe. “I didn’t want todo 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 withany physical problems?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you, as Anna’s father, think this invasive procedure, which carried risk to Anna herself and nopersonal 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 foryour other daughter’s treatment?”

“A few years ago, Kate was hospitalized and…losing so much blood nobody thought she’d make it through. Ithought 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’tgive up on Kate and she came back fighting.” He looks over at his wife. “And now, Kate’s kidneys are givingout. I don’t want to see her suffering. But at the same time, I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. Idon’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 meticulouslycrafting. I need to reel him in. “Mr. Fitzgerald, did you know your daughter was going to file a lawsuitagainst 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 todo living in our house.”

“After having moved out with Anna, after having spoken to her at great lengths about why she’s initiated t............