by Jodi Picoult
He held the boy at knifepoint, backing Jason up against a pine tree until he was kneeling, securing his arms and ankles behind him with duct tape so that he was effectively trussed. The whole time, Daniel kept thinking of what Laura had said about Dante-of Trixie�s soul trapped in that tree, with Jason�s body wrapped around it. That image was all he needed to give him the strength to subdue a seventeen-year-old athlete when Jason started fighting back.
Jason struggled, pulling on the tape until his wrists and ankles were raw, while Daniel built a campfire. Finally, the boy sagged against the trunk and let his head fall forward. �What are you going to do to me?�
Daniel took his knife and slipped it under the hem of Jason�s T-shirt. He dragged it up to the boy�s throat in one long line, cutting the fabric in half. �This,� he said.
Daniel systematically shredded Jason�s clothing, until the kid was naked and shivering. He tossed the strips of fabric and denim into the flames.
By then, Jason�s teeth were chattering. �How am I supposed to get home?�
�What makes you think I�m going to let you?�
Jason swallowed hard, his eyes on the knife Daniel still held in his hand. �How is she?� he whispered.
Daniel felt the granite gate of restraint burst inside him. How could this bastard think he had the right to ask after Trixie? Leaning down, Daniel pressed the blade against Jason�s testicles. �Do you want to know what it�s like to bleed out? Do you really want to know how she felt?�
�Please,� Jason begged, going pale. �Oh, Jesus, don�t.�
Daniel pushed the slightest bit, until a line of blood welled up at the crease of Jason�s groin.
�I didn�t do anything to her, I swear it,� Jason cried, trying to twist away from Daniel�s hand. �I didn�t. Stop. God. Please stop.�
Daniel set his face an inch away from Jason�s. �Why should I? You didn�t.�
In that moment between reason and rage, Trixie slipped into both of their minds. It was all Jason needed to break down, sobbing; it was all Daniel needed to remember himself. He looked down at his hand, holding the knife. He blinked at Jason. Then he shook his head to clear it.
Daniel was not in the bush anymore, and this was no village corporation store he was robbing for booze or cash. He was a husband, he was a father. Instead of having something to prove, he had everything to lose.
Lifting the blade, Daniel staggered to his feet. He hurled the knife the hundred feet it would take to land in the middle of the river and then walked back to Jason, who was fighting for breath. He took the boy�s car keys from his own pocket and wrapped them tight in the only morsel of mercy he had left. These, he wedged into Jason�s hand, still bound by duct tape.
It was not compassion that led to Daniel�s change of heart, and it was not kindness. It was realizing that, against all odds, he had something in common with Jason Underhill. Like Daniel, Jason had learned the hard way that we are never the people we think we are. We are the ones we pretend, with all our hearts, we can�t become.
4
I t took Jason a half hour to saw through the duct tape with his keys. When he could pull his arms forward again, the blood burned as it circulated, a severe pain that overtook the numbness caused by the cold. He stumbled to his feet, running toward the spot where Stone had made him leave the truck, praying it was still there.
The only clothes he had were in his hockey equipment bag, so he wound up dressing in a jersey and his padded pants. He kept expecting to be ambushed again at any moment. His hands shook so badly that it took four tries to get the key into the ignition.
He drove to the police station, thinking only that there was no way he was going to let Trixie�s father get away with something like this. But as he pulled into the parking lot, he heard Daniel Stone�s voice in his head again: Tell anyone, he�d said, and I�ll kill you. Frankly, Jason could believe it. There had been something in the man�s eyes-something inhuman-that made Jason think he was capable of anything.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn�t see the pedestrian walking across the parking lot. As Jason braked hard, the car lurched forward and stopped. Detective Bartholemew, the same man who�d arrested Jason, stood with one hand on the hood of his car, staring him down. And suddenly Jason remembered what the judge had said at the arraignment: If Jason had any contact whatsoever with Trixie Stone or her family, he�d be shipped off to the juvenile detention facility. He was already accused of rape. If he reported what had happened to the cops, would they even believe him? What if they confronted Daniel Stone-and he insisted it had been Jason who approached him?
The detective walked to the driver�s side of the car. �Mr. Underhill,� he said. �What brings you here?�
�I�I thought I might be getting a flat,� he managed.
The detective walked around the vehicle. �Doesn�t look that way.� He leaned closer to the car; Jason could see him doing a quick visual assessment. �Anything else I can help you with?�
It was all right there, caught behind the fence of his teeth: He dragged me off, he tied me up, he threatened me. But Jason found himself shaking his head. �No, thanks,� he said. He put the car into gear and drove at snail speed out of the parking lot, aware of Bartholemew�s gaze following him.
In that moment, Jason made the decision to tell no one what happened: not his buddies, not his parents, not his lawyer. Not the police. He was too damn scared that telling the truth, in this case, would severely backfire on him.
He found himself wondering: Had Trixie felt that, too?
The way drunks kept a bottle of gin hidden in the toilet tank, and addicts tucked an emergency hit in the hem of a threadbare old coat, Daniel kept a pad and a pen in his car. In the parking lot of the hospital, he sketched. Instead of his comic book hero, however, he started penciling his daughter. He drew her when she was only minutes old, rolled into a blanket like sushi. He drew her taking her first steps. He froze moments-the birthday when she made him spaghetti for breakfast; the school play where she fell off the stage into the audience; the high-rise hotel they visited, where they spent hours pushing all the elevator buttons to see if the floors looked any different.
When his hand cramped so badly that he couldn�t sketch another line, Daniel gathered up the pictures and got out of the car, heading toward Trixie�s room.
Shadows reached across the bed like the fingers of a giant. Trixie had fallen asleep again; in a chair beside her, Laura dozed too. For a moment he stared at the two of them. No question about it: Trixie had been cut from the same cloth as her mother. It was more than just their coloring: Sometimes she�d toss him a glance or an expression that reminded him of Laura years ago. He�d wondered if the reason he loved Trixie so damn much was that, through her, he got to fall in love with his wife all over again.
He crouched down in front of Laura. The movement of the air against her skin made her stir, and her eyes opened and locked onto Daniel�s. For a fraction of a second, she started to smile, having forgotten where she was, and what had happened to her daughter, and what had gone wrong between the two of them. Daniel found his hands closing into fists, as if he could catch that moment before it disappeared entirely.
She glanced over at Trixie, making sure she was still asleep. �Where were you?�
Daniel certainly couldn�t tell her the truth. �Driving.�
He took off his coat and began to lay the sketches he�d done over the pale green blanket on the hospital bed. There was Trixie sliding into his lap the day Daniel got the phone call about his mother�s death, asking, If everyone died, would the world just stop? Trixie holding a caterpillar, wondering whether it was a boy or a girl. Trixie pushing his hand away as he brushed a tear off her cheek, and saying, Don�t wipe off my feelings.
�When did you do these?� Laura whispered.
�Today.�
�But there are so many��
Daniel didn�t answer. He knew no words big enough to explain to Trixie how much he loved her, so instead, he wanted her to wake up covered with memories.
He wanted to remember why he could not afford to let go.
It was from his friend Cane that Daniel learned language was a force to be reckoned with. Like most Yup�ik Eskimos, Cane lived by three rules. The first was that thoughts and deeds were inextricably linked. How many times had Cane�s grandfather explained that you couldn�t properly butcher a moose while you were yammering about which girl in the fifth grade had to mail-order for an honest-to-God bra? You had to keep the thought of the moose in your mind, so that you�d make way for them to come back to you another time, during another hunt.
The second rule was that individual thoughts were less important than the collective knowledge of the elders-in other words, do whatever you�re told and stop complaining.
But it was the third rule that was the hardest for Daniel to understand: the idea that words were so powerful they had the ability to change someone else�s mind�even if they remained unspoken. It was why, when the Moravian church moved into the bush and the reverend told the Yupiit they had to leave fish camp on a Sunday to attend services about Jesus, they agreed, without ever having any real intention of going. What the reverend saw as a blatant lie, the Yup�ik Eskimos saw as a measure of respect: They liked the reverend too much to tell him he was wrong; instead, they just acquiesced and pretended otherwise.
It was this rule, ultimately, that divided Daniel and Cane. �Tomorrow�s going to be a good day for hunting,� Cane would tell Daniel, and Daniel would agree. But the next day Cane would go off with his grandfather for caribou and never ask Daniel to join them. It took years for Daniel to get up the nerve to ask Cane why he wasn�t invited. �But I do invite you,� he said, confused. �Every time.�
Daniel�s mother tried to explain it to him: Cane never would have come right out and asked Daniel to go hunting, because Daniel might have had other plans. It would be disrespectful to issue a formal invitation, because simply putting the words out into the world might cause Daniel to change his mind about what he wanted to do the next day, and Cane liked Daniel too much to risk that. When you are thirteen, though, cultural differences hardly matter. What you feel is every minute of the Saturday you spend by yourself, wishing you�d been asked to tag along. What you notice is the loneliness.
Daniel started to isolate himself, because it hurt less than being pushed away. He never really considered that a Yup�ik boy who couldn�t ask him to come hunting might have even more difficulty asking Daniel what he�d done to make him angry. Within two years� time, Daniel had taken to occupying himself-vandalizing the school building and getting drunk and stealing snow machines. Cane was just someone Daniel used to know.
It wasn�t until a year later, when Daniel was standing over Cane�s body in the gymnasium and his hands were covered with Cane�s blood, that he realized the Yupiit had been right all along. One word might have changed everything. One word might have spread like fire.
One word might have saved them both.
Could you pinpoint the very moment when your life began to fall apart?
For Laura, it seemed like each instance she found had an antecedent. Trixie�s rape. Her own affair with Seth. Her unexpected pregnancy. The decision she made to find Daniel after he drew her. The first time she laid eyes on him and knew that everything else she saw from then on would no longer look the same. Disaster was an avalanche, gathering speed with such acceleration that you worried more about getting out of its path, not finding the pebble at its center.
It was easier for Laura to find the moment Trixie�s life had been ruined. It all started, and ended, with Jason Underhill. If she�d never met him, if she�d never dated him, none of this would have happened. Not the rape, not the cutting, not even the suicide attempt. Laura had given it serious thought today: Jason was to blame for all of it. He had been the root of Trixie�s deceptions; he had been the reason Laura hadn�t been able to see her own daughter clearly.
She lay alone in bed, wide awake. Sleep was out of the question, with Trixie still at the hospital. The doctors had assured Laura that Trixie would be watched like a hawk, that if all was well, they could bring her home tomorrow-but that didn�t keep Laura from wondering if she was comfortable, if there was a nurse taking care of her even now.
Daniel wasn�t asleep either. She had been listening to his footsteps downstairs, moving like open-ended questions. But now she heard him heading upstairs. A moment later he stood by the side of the bed. �Are you still up?� he whispered.
�I was never asleep.�
�Can I�can I ask you something?�
She kept her eyes trained on the ceiling. �Okay.�
�Are you afraid?�
�Of what?�
�Forgetting?�
Laura understood what he was trying to say. Although talking about what had happened to Trixie was the hardest thing in the world, they had to do it. If they didn�t, they ran the risk of losing-by comparison-the memory of who Trixie used to be.
It was a catch-22: If you didn�t put the trauma behind you, you couldn�t move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened.
It was why, even when they weren�t actively discussing it, the word rape hung like smoke over all of their heads. It was why, even as they were making polite conversation, every other thought in Laura�s and Daniel�s heads was unfaithful.
�Daniel,� Laura admitted, �I�m afraid all the time.�
He sank to his knees, and it took her a moment to realize that he was crying. She could not remember ever seeing Daniel cry-he used to say that he�d used up his allotment of tears as a kid. Laura sat up in bed, the covers falling away from her. She put her hands on Daniel�s bowed head and stroked his hair. �Sssh,� she said, and she drew him up onto the bed and into her arms.
At first it was about comfort: Laura being able to give; Daniel softening under her hands. But then Laura felt the air move like liquid as Daniel�s body pressed against hers, desperate, his actions full of now and need. She felt her pulse jump under his fingers, as she fell back in time, remembering him like this years ago, and herself reacting. Then just as abruptly as Daniel had begun, he stopped. In the dark, she could see only the shine of his eyes. �I�m sorry,� he murmured, backing away.
�Don�t be,� she said, and she reached for him.
It was all Daniel needed to let loose the last thread of restraint. He laid siege to Laura; he took no quarter. He scratched her skin and bit her throat. He reached for her hands and pinned them over her head. �Look at me,� he demanded, until her eyes flew open and locked on his. �Look at me,� he said again, and he drove himself into her.
Daniel waited until she was underneath him, writhing, poised for each moment when he came into her. As his arms anchored her closer, she threw back her head and let herself break apart. She felt Daniel�s hesitation, and his glorious, reckless fall.
As his sweat cooled on her own body, Laura traced a message over Daniel�s right shoulder blade. S-O-R-R-Y, she wrote, even though she knew that the truths that sneak up behind a person are the ones he�s most likely to miss.
Once, the Yupiit say, there was a man who was always quarreling with his wife. They fought over everything. The wife said her husband was lazy. The husband said his wife only wanted to sleep with other men. Finally, the wife went to a shaman in the village and begged to be changed into another creature. Anything but a woman, she said.
The shaman turned her into a raven. She flew off and built a nest, where she mated with other ravens. But every night, she found herself flying back to the village. Now, ravens can�t come inside dwellings, so she would sit on the roof and hope to catch a glimpse of her husband. She�d think of reasons for him to come outside.
One night, he stepped through the entry and stood under the stars. Oh, she thought, how lovely you are.
The words fell into her husband�s out
stretched hands, and just like that, the raven turned back into a woman. Just like that, the man wanted her once again to be his wife.
The next morning, a chill snaked its way into the house. Daniel found his teeth chattering as he headed downstairs to make a pot of coffee. He put a call in to the hospital: Trixie had had a good night.
Well. So had he. His mistake had been in not admitting just how much had gone wrong between him and Laura. Maybe you had to scrape the bottom before you could push your way back to the surface.
He was bent over the fireplace, feeding kindling to the paper he�d lit, when Laura came downstairs wearing a sweater over her flannel pajamas. Her hair was sticking up in the back, and her cheeks were still flushed with a dream. �Morning,� she murmured, and she slipped by him to pour herself a glass of orange juice.
Daniel waited for her to say something about the previous night, to admit that things had changed between them, but Laura wouldn�t even look him in the eye. Immediately, his boldness faded. What if this spiderweb connection they�d made last night was not, as he�d thought, a first step�but a mistake? What if the whole time she�d been with Daniel, she�d wished she wasn�t? �The hospital says we can get Trixie at nine,� he said neutrally.
At news of Trixie, Laura turned. �How is she?�
�Great.�
�Great? She tried to kill herself yesterday.�
Daniel sat back on his heels. �Well�compared to yesterday, then�I guess she is doing pretty damn great.�
Laura looked down at the counter. �Maybe that�s true for all of us,� she said.
Her face was red, and Daniel realized she wasn�t embarrassed but nervous. He stood up and walked into the kitchen until he was standing beside her. Sometime between when they had gone to bed last night and the sun coming up this morning, the world had shifted beneath them. It wasn�t what they had said to each other but what they hadn�t: that forgiving and forgetting were fused together-flip sides of the same coin-and yet they couldn�t both exist at the same time. Choosing one meant that you sacrificed seeing the other.
Daniel slipped his arm around Laura�s waist and felt her shiver. �Cold out,� she said.
�Brutal.�
�Did you hear anything about weather like this?�
Daniel faced her. �I don�t think anyone predicted it.�
He opened his arms, and Laura moved into them, her eyes closing as she leaned against him. �I guess these things happen,� she replied, as a rogue burst of sparks rose up the chimney.