They Chose My Sister, Then Learned She Was Dying novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Paper Plates

Shanna's POV

I said yes to the coordinator that night, and two days later they moved Maisie to a room on the fourth floor with a window and a sink.

The surgery was set for the end of the week.

I sat on the edge of her bed with the grocery bag in my lap.

I had carried it from my flat to the hospital without opening it, because Maisie had told me not to until she was awake enough to watch.

"Go on," she said.

Under the pill bottles and a toothbrush there was a stack of paper plates.

They were the flimsy white kind, gone soft and yellow, with frosting stains in four colors.

Every one had a date written on the back in pencil, in small round handwriting.

My hands stopped.

"I wrote the date because I thought you'd want them someday," Maisie said. "I was nine when I started. I didn't know what else to do."

"Nine."

"Old enough to know what I was looking at."

I turned over the top plate.

It said June 14 and the year she turned fifteen.

I remembered that night, because a cousin had come, and Mom had asked me to take the plate upstairs so the guests wouldn't "wonder."

"Mom said I wouldn't mind," I said.

Maisie went still.

"At nine. You got the last piece of the cake, and my aunt asked if there was another, and Mom said, Shanna won't mind, she never does."

"I remember."

"I minded, Maisie."

My voice was low and perfectly steady, which scared me.

"I stood in the hall with my fork and I minded so much I couldn't taste anything. And I looked at you at the table with your mouth full of frosting. You were five. You looked right at me."

"Shanna..."

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