While My Sister Sleeps by Barbara Delinsky Page B

person could be alive one minute and dead the next. The fact that Robin's heart was beating was a technicality. The damage was done. Robin was gone.
    He knew things like that happened. He remembered 9/11. He remembered Virginia Tech. He just hadn't personally known anyone who had died like that.
    Erin's voice came quietly through the dark. “I wish I'd known Robin better. I kept thinking there'd be a time when she wouldn't be running so much, maybe even when she'd have a baby and we'd have more in common.” Her voice turned his way. “Do you think tomorrow's test will be any different?”
    “No.”
    “What'll your Mom do?”
    He had no idea. They had never faced anything catastrophic before.
    “The machines could keep Robin alive forever,” Erin said. “Would the hospital allow that?”
    “If the insurance pays.”
    “Does it?”
    “I can't go there yet, Erin.”
    “How can you not?” she asked. “Your sister's about to be declared brain dead.”
    He might have snapped if she hadn't sounded so upset herself. She also happened to be right. Today—tomorrow—they would face a decision. Insurance might pay. But if Robin's brain was dead, what was the point?
    Climbing out of bed, he went down the hall to Chloe's room. In the pale yellow haze of a butterfly night-light, he looked at her. She was lying on her back, her hands up by her head, her mouth nursing an imagined bottle. Even asleep, she was sweet.
    He couldn't think of life without her, but it hadn't always been that way. He hadn't been ready for kids and had gone along with Erin only because she wanted one so badly. He had been hoping that getting pregnant would take a while, but two months was all it took; and even then, he didn't focus on having a child. It wasn't until the sonogram showed something resembling a human being that it hit him. A subsequent sonogram increased the feeling, and then, when Erin got big and the baby started to move under his hand, he was completely won over. He adored Chloe the instant she was born.
    “I'm sorry,” Erin said from the door. “I didn't mean to make things worse. Are you okay?”
    He nodded.
    She came to stand beside him. After a minute, she reached into the crib and smoothed the baby's blond hair. “I can't imagine …”
    “Me either.”
    “I didn't know what to say to your mom.”
    “What's there to say? There's no solution.”
    “Maybe it isn't about solutions. Maybe it's about helping Kathryn.”
    Chris felt an anger come from nowhere. “Maybe Robin should have thought of that. How could she have kept racing if she knew she had a heart problem? She should have thought about what we'd go through, what
Mom
would go through if something happened to her. But Robin was into Robin. It was always about her.”
    “We were the ones who put her on a pedestal.”
    “Not me,” Chris declared.
    “Well, I did. I thought she was amazing. I was totally intimidated.”
    “Most people are.”
    “I feel closer to Molly.”
    “Molly's more human.”
    “That's unkind.”
    “It's realistic.”
    “Robin is brain dead.”
    “I know that, Erin. She's my sister. Don't you think I'm hurting, too?”
    Erin faced him in the dark. “Maybe if we talked it out—”
    “Look, this is a tough time for me.”
    “The nurse mentioned social services. Maybe we should be talking to them.”
    “I'm not talking to strangers.”
    “They're trained in things like this. They know what we're facing.”
    “They can't cure Robin.”
    “This isn't about Robin anymore.”
    One part of Chris knew that. But he couldn't focus on what Erin wanted. “It'll be about Robin until her heart stops. Give her that much, okay?”

ATHRYN USED A PULL-OUT BED IN ROBIN'S room but slept sporadically. Nurses came and went, and the equipment beeped and hissed. Rarely did an hour pass without an alarm ringing somewhere in the unit.
    By dawn, she gave up on sleep. This was race day. She didn't care if Robin came in last, as long as she placed. The clock