My Sister's Keeper

24

Lucky. Adjective. Describing one's ability to have successes or failures brought on by chance rather than action. Most would describe themselves as unlucky, due to a thing that psychology likes to call pessimism. Self-efficacy is the belief that positive things happen to us due to external factors, such as other people or luck.

So am I lucky? There is no success or failure in this story. There is no silver lining that pushes the facts in either direction. I do believe, however, in the power of chance. That things such as these happen for a reason, we just don't know it at the time. Perhaps, ten years from now, I will be walking on my way to work, and I will clumsily run into someone, and I will realize that it is indeed who I was waiting for.

For the ability to hope and dream and wonder and live, we are all a lot luckier than we think or know.

Meredith was filling out a chart at the nurse's station when a man began walking towards her. She didn't think much of it until he called out her name. "Are you Meredith Grey?" Meredith nodded, a bit confused. She had just gotten out of a long surgery. She didn't need any more drama.

"You've been served."

That was the last thing she was expecting today. Upon opening the envelope, her eyes began to water. The sperm donor who hadn't even known about his daughter was suing her for custody?

"What the hell is this?" Alex heard Meredith scream. He came over to her, prying the papers out of her hands before she ran into one of the storage closets. He followed, trying to read the papers and support his person at the same time.

"I can't lose her! Why is the world against us having these kids?"

"Mer." Alex bit, "What if Cassie asked him to do this?"

"If she wanted to leave, she would have told me."

"Would she? Think about it, Mer. She wouldn't want to hurt your feelings like that. Or, maybe she had nothing to do with this but Joel the asshole is going to get a good punch next time I see him."

"No. We're going to figure this out. I am not about to lose my kid."

Alex chuckled. "Neither am I."

-

Cassie could feel her heart beating outside of her chest for as long as it took it for her to finish her school day and go home. Sitting at the kitchen table with her homework and notes sprawled all over, she still felt incredibly nervous. She knew Meredith was going to walk in at some point in the next couple hours, and that she was going to be holding a manila envelope in her hands.

She knew she was stupid. She knew what she was doing was stupid. All of the great test scores in the world could not make up for the fact that she had done this out of purely being afraid that Amber's leaving would be her fault if she didn't do something, even if that something was stupid and reckless and not going to work.

An hour later, Meredith walked in with Ellis in her arms and Bailey and Zola in tow in her arms. She put Ellis in the high chair and Bailey and Zola ran off to play. She didn't say anything and just stared at her with one eyebrow raised. She was probably assessing what to say. She sat down across from her and just watched.

"Did Joel talk to you about trying to get custody of me?" She finally said.

Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. "I, uh, asked him to do it."

"Why?" One word. One word with so much meaning. Why would you do this? Why don't you want to live here anymore?

And the biggest and heaviest: Why wasn't I enough?