My Sister’s Keeper

During a break, Julia goes into the bathroom and puts down her bag, a Guatemalan woven knapsack, on the counter. Anna exits a bathroom stall and washes her hands. Julia asks her about her decision not to testify. When Anna is evasive, Julia tells her that getting what you want sometimes requires doing things you don’t want to do. Anna blows her off but compliments her bag. Julia explains that it takes 20 spools of thread to make the pattern. Anna compares this to truth, then leaves.

Julia takes the stand; she watches Campbell’s hands tremble. He asks her what her recommendation is. Julia looks at Anna and says that she understands the profound responsibility that Anna feels, having been conceived to save Kate. However, she also understands Sara and Brian’s drive to do whatever it takes to save Kate. Julia testifies that there is a point where the Fitzgeralds must let go.

In a flashback to after her breakup with Campbell, Julia is inconsolable and is barely getting out of bed. Finally, she musters the energy to go to Wheeler and approaches a boy on the sailing team, asking him for a ride home. The two of them have sex in the back of his car. Julia explains that she did this so that she could get the smell and taste of Campbell off of her, and so that she could stop feeling as hollow as a balloon.

Back in the present, Julia explains how, when she first accepted this assignment, she initially thought that medical emancipation was the best choice. The easy part of the decision is determining that, physiologically, donating a kidney is not in Anna’s best interest. However, Julia also feels that, given the entire family’s inability to make informed decisions due to the constant state of crisis they’re in, Anna is not able to make independent decisions without the pressure of her parents’ wishes weighing on her. In other words, Julia says that nobody in the family has the ability to make unbiased decisions about Anna’s care. Judge DeSalvo asks what her recommendation is.