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Saving Anna’s Family

SavingAnna’sFamily

ByReadWorks

Christine

closed

the

door

to

Anna’s

room.

Inside,

her

friend

had

fallen

asleep

while

they

watched

their

third

movie

of

the

evening.

Downstairs,

Christine’s

mom,

Donna,

was

grasping

Anna’s

mother

Sheila

around

the

shoulders.

“We

should

go,”

she

said.

“Get

some

rest,

huh?”

Sheila

nodded,

blew

her

nose,

and

then

reached

an

arm

out

for

Christine.

Christine

snaked

her

own

skinny

arm

around

both

women,

awkwardly,

patting

them

both

on

the

back.

On

the

car

ride

home,

Christine

worked

up

the

courage

to

ask

the

question

on

her

mind.

“Mom?

Why

was

Sheila

crying?”

She

thought

she

knew

the

answer,

of

course:

Anna’s

cancer.

Anna

had

been

missing

a

lot

of

school,

losing

hair,

and

sitting

through,

Christine

knew,

hours

of

chemotherapy

sessions,

in

which

her

doctors

dripped

poisonous

drugs

into

her

veins

in

order

to

pinpoint

and

kill

the

cancer

cells.

The

poison

was

never

enough

to

kill

Anna

herself,

luckily,

but

she’d

told

Christine

that

it

left

her

bones

feeling

rubbery

and

her

tongue

rough

and

raw.

In

the

past,

Anna

had

been

the

neighborhood

do‐gooder,

always

going

door

to

door

for

various

causes:

the

local

animal

shelter,

suffering

children

in

Africa,

or

the

families

who’d

lost

their

homes

to

fire

or

foreclosure

that

she’d

seen

on

the

news.

Now

Anna

could

barely

feed

herself,

when

she

had

an

appetite

at

all.

The

doctors

had

hope

for

her

recovery,

Sheila

had

told

Donna

before,

because

Anna

was

strong

and

young

and

ready

to

fight.

But

still,

Christine

thought,

it

seemed

so

unfair

when

bad

things

like

this

happened

to

good

people.