by Jodi Picoult
“She’s gone, man. Eloped, last night.”
Eloped? People still do that? “With whom?” I ask, though it’s none of my business.
“Some performance artist who sculpts dog crap into busts of world leaders. It’s supposed to be a statement.”
I feel a momentary pang for poor Ophelia. Take it from me: love has all the lasting permanence of a rainbow—beautiful while it’s there, and just as likely to have disappeared by the time you blink.
The waiter reaches into his back pocket and hands me a plastic card. “Here’s the Braille menu.”
“I want a double espresso and two croissants, and I’m not blind.”
“Then what’s Fido for?”
“I have SARS,” I say. “He’s tallying the people I infect.”
The waiter can’t seem to figure out if I am joking. He backs away, unsure, to get my coffee.
Unlike my normal table, this one has a view of the street. I watch an elderly lady narrowly avoid the swipe of a taxi; a boy dances past with a radio three times the size of his head balanced on his shoulder. Twins in parochial school uniforms giggle behind the pages of a teen magazine. And a woman with a running river of black hair spills coffee on her skirt, dropping the paper cup on the pavement.
Inside me, everything stops. I wait for her to lift her face—to see if this could possibly be who I think it is—but she turns away from me, blotting the fabric with a napkin. A bus cuts the world in half, and my cell phone begins to ring.
I glance down at the incoming number: no surprise there. Turning off the power button without bothering to take my mother’s call, I glance back at the woman outside the window, but by then the bus is gone and so is she.
• • •
I open the door of the office, already barking orders for Kerri. “Call Osterlitz and ask him whether he’s available to testify during the Weiland trial; get a list of other complainants who’ve gone up against New England Power in the past five years; make me a copy of the Melbourne deposition; and phone Jerry at the court and ask who the judge is going to be for the Fitzgerald kid’s hearing.”
She glances up at me as the phone begins to ring. “Speaking of.” She jerks her head in the direction of the door to my inner sanctum. Anna Fitzgerald stands on the threshold with a spray can of industrial cleaner and a chamois cloth, polishing the doorknob.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What you told me to.” She looks down at the dog. “Hey, Judge.”
“Line two for you,” Kerri interrupts. I give her a measured look—why she even let this kid in here is beyond me—and try to get into my office, but whatever Anna has put on the hardware makes it too greasy to turn. I struggle for a moment, until she grips the knob with the cloth and opens the door for me.
Judge circles the floor, finding the most comfortable spot. I punch the blinking light on the call row. “Campbell Alexander.”
“Mr. Alexander, this is Sara Fitzgerald. Anna Fitzgerald’s mother.” I let this information settle. I stare at her daughter, polishing a mere five feet away.
“Mrs. Fitzgerald,” I answer, and as expected, Anna stops in her tracks.
“I’m calling because . . . well, you see, this is all a misunderstanding.”
“Have you filed a response to the petition?”
“That isn’t going to be necessary. I spoke to Anna last night, and she isn’t going to continue with her case. She wants to do anything she can to help Kate.”
“Is that so.” My voice falls flat. “Unfortunately, if my client is planning to call off her lawsuit, I’ll need to hear it directly from her.” I raise a brow, catch Anna’s gaze. “You wouldn’t happen to know where she is?”
“She went out for a run,” Sara Fitzgerald says. “But we’re going to come down to the courthouse this afternoon. We’ll talk to the judge, and get this straightened out.”
“I suppose I’ll see you then.” I hang up the phone and cross my arms, look at Anna. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
She shrugs. “Not really.”
“That’s not what your mother seems to think. Then again, she’s also under the impression that you’re out playing Flo Jo.”
Anna glances out into the reception area, where Kerri, naturally, is hanging on our words like a cat on a rope. She closes the door and walks up to my desk. “I couldn’t tell her I was coming here, not after last night.”
“What happened last night?” When Anna goes mute, I lose my patience. “Listen. If you’re not going to go through with a lawsuit . . . if this is a colossal waste of my time . . . then I’d appreciate it if you had the honesty to tell me now, rather than later. Because I’m not a family therapist or your best buddy; I’m your attorney. And for me to be your attorney there actually has to be a case. So I will ask you one more time: have you changed your mind about this lawsuit?”
I expect this tirade to put an end to the litigation, to reduce Anna to a wavering puddle of indecision. But to my surprise, she looks right at me, cool and collected. “Are you still willing to represent me?” she asks.
Against my better judgment, I say yes.
“Then no,” she says, “I haven’t changed my mind.”
• • •
The first time I sailed in a yacht club race with my father I was fourteen, and he was dead set against it. I wasn’t old enough; I wasn’t mature enough; the weather was too iffy. What he really was saying was that having me crew for him was more likely to lose him the cup than to win it. In my father’s eyes, if you weren’t perfect, you simply weren’t.
His boat was a USA-1 class, a marvel of mahogany and teak, one he’d bought from the keyboard player J. Geils up in Marblehead. In other words: a dream, a status symbol, and a rite of passage, all wrapped up in a gleaming white sail and a honey-colored hull.
We hit the start dead-on, crossing the line at full sail just as the cannon shot off. I did my best to be a step ahead of where my father needed me to be—guiding the rudder before he even gave the order, jibing and tacking until my muscles burned with effort. And maybe this even would have had a happy ending, but then a storm blew in from the north, bringing sheets of rain and swells that stretched ten feet high, pitching us from height to gulley.
I watched my father move in his yellow slicker. He didn’t seem to notice it was raining; he certainly didn’t want to crawl into a hole and clutch his sick stomach and die, like I did. “Campbell,” he bellowed, “come about.”
But to turn into the wind meant to ride another roller coaster up and down. “Campbell,” my father repeated, “now.”
A trough opened up in front of us; the boat dipped so sharply I lost my footing. My father lunged past me, grabbing for the rudder. For one blessed moment, the sails went still. Then the boom whipped across, and the boat tacked along an opposite course.
“I need coordinates,” my father ordered.
Navigating meant going down into the hull where the charts were, and doing the math to figure out what heading we had to be on to reach the next race buoy. But being below, away from the fresh air, only made it worse. I opened a map just in time to throw up all over it.
My father found me by default, because I hadn’t returned with an answer. He poked his head down and saw me sitting in a puddle of my own vomit. “For Christ’s sake,” he muttered, and left me.
It took all the strength I had to pull myself up after him. He jerked the wheel and yanked at the rudder. He pretended I was not there. And when he jibed, he did not call it. The sail whizzed across the boat, ripping the seam of the sky. The boom flew, clipped me on the back of the head and knocked me out.
I came to just as my father was stealing the wind of another boat, mere feet from the finish line. The rain had mellowed to a mist, and as he put our craft between the airstream and our closest competitor, the other boat fell back. We won by seconds.
I was told to clean up my mess and take the taxi in, while my father sailed the dory to the yacht club to celebrate
. It was an hour later when I finally arrived, and by then he was in high spirits, drinking scotch from the crystal cup he had won. “Here comes your crew, Cam,” a friend called out. My father lifted the victory cup in salute, drank deeply, and then slammed it down so hard on the bar that its handle shattered.
“Oh,” said another sailor. “That’s a shame.”
My father never took his eyes off me. “Isn’t it, though,” he said.
• • •
On the rear bumper of practically every third car in Rhode Island you’ll find a red-and-white sticker celebrating the victims of some of the bigger criminal cases in the state: My Friend Katie DeCubellis Was Killed by a Drunk Driver. My Friend John Sisson Was Killed by a Drunk Driver. These are given out at school fairs and fund-raisers and hair salons, and it doesn’t matter if you never knew the kid who got killed; you put them on your vehicle out of solidarity and secret joy that this tragedy did not happen to you.
Last year, there were red-and-white stickers with a new victim’s name: Dena DeSalvo. Unlike the other victims, this was one I knew marginally. She was the twelve-year-old daughter of a judge, who reportedly broke down during a custody trial held shortly after the funeral and took a three-month leave of absence to deal with his grief. The same judge, incidentally, who has been assigned to Anna Fitzgerald’s case.
As I make my way into the Garrahy Complex, where the family court is housed, I wonder if a man carrying around so much baggage will be able to try a case where a winning outcome for my client will precipitate the death of her teenage sister.
There is a new bailiff at the entrance, a man with a neck as thick as a redwood and most likely the brainpower to match. “Sorry,” he says. “No pets.”
“This is a service dog.”
Confused, the bailiff leans forward and peers into my eyes. I do the same, right back at him. “I’m nearsighted. He helps me read the road signs.” Stepping around the guy, Judge and I head down the hall to the courtroom.
Inside, the clerk is being taken down a peg by Anna Fitzgerald’s mother. That’s my assumption, at least, because in actuality the woman looks nothing like her daughter, who stands beside her. “I’m quite sure that in this case, the judge would understand,” Sara Fitzgerald argues. Her husband waits a few feet behind her, apart.
When Anna notices me, a wash of relief rushes over her features. I turn to the clerk of the court. “I’m Campbell Alexander,” I say. “Is there a problem?”
“I’ve been trying to explain to Mrs. Fitzgerald, here, that we only allow attorneys into chambers.”
“Well, I’m here on behalf on Anna,” I reply.
The clerk turns to Sara Fitzgerald. “Who’s representing your party?”
Anna’s mother is stricken for a moment. She turns to her husband. “It’s like riding a bicycle,” she says quietly.
Her husband shakes his head. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t want to do this. I have to do this.”
The words fall into place like cogs. “Hang on,” I say. “You’re a lawyer?”
Sara turns. “Well, yes.”
I glance down at Anna, incredulous. “And you neglected to mention this?”
“You never asked,” she whispers.
The clerk gives us each an Entry of Appearance form, and summons the sheriff.
“Vern.” Sara smiles. “Good to see you again.”
Oh, this just keeps getting better.
“Hey!” The sheriff kisses her cheek, shakes hands with the husband. “Brian.”
So not only is she an attorney; she also has all the public servants in the palm of her hand. “Are we finished with Old Home Day?” I ask, and Sara Fitzgerald rolls her eyes at the sheriff: The guy’s a jerk, but what are you gonna do? “Stay here,” I tell Anna, and I follow her mother back toward chambers.
Judge DeSalvo is a short man with a monobrow and a fondness for coffee milk. “Good morning,” he says, waving us toward our seats. “What’s with the dog?”
“He’s a service dog, Your Honor.” Before he can say anything else, I leap into the genial conversation that heralds every meeting in chambers in Rhode Island. We are a small state, smaller still in the legal community. It is not only conceivable that your paralegal is the niece or sister-in-law of the judge with whom you’re meeting; it’s downright likely. As we chat, I glance over at Sara, who needs to understand which of us is part of this game, and which of us isn’t. Maybe she was an attorney, but not in the ten years I’ve been one.
She is nervous, pleating the bottom of her blouse. Judge DeSalvo notices. “I didn’t know you were practicing law again.”
“I wasn’t planning to, Your Honor, but the complainant is my daughter.”
At that, the judge turns to me. “Well, what’s this all about, Counselor?”
“Mrs. Fitzgerald’s youngest daughter is seeking medical emancipation from her parents.”
Sara shakes her head. “That’s not true, Judge.” Hearing his name, my dog glances up. “I spoke to Anna, and she assured me she really doesn’t want to do this. She had a bad day, and wanted a little extra attention.” Sara lifts a shoulder. “You know how thirteen-year-olds can be.”
The room grows so quiet, I can hear my own pulse. Judge DeSalvo doesn’t know how thirteen-year-olds can be. His daughter died when she was twelve.
Sara’s face flames red. Like the rest of this state, she knows about Dena DeSalvo. For all I know, she’s got one of the bumper stickers on her minivan. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
The judge looks away. “Mr. Alexander, when was the last time you spoke with your client?”
“Yesterday morning, Your Honor. She was in my office when her mother called me to say it was a misunderstanding.”
Predictably, Sara’s jaw drops. “She couldn’t have been. She was jogging.”
I look at her. “You sure about that?”
“She was supposed to be jogging . . .”
“Your Honor,” I say, “this is precisely my point, and the reason Anna Fitzgerald’s petition has merit. Her own mother isn’t aware of where she is on any given morning; medical decisions regarding Anna are made with the same haphazard—”
“Counselor, can it.” The judge turns to Sara. “Your daughter told you she wanted to call off the lawsuit?”
“Yes.”
He glances at me. “And she told you that she wanted to continue?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’d better talk directly to Anna.”
When the judge gets up and walks out of chambers, we follow. Anna is sitting on a bench in the hall with her father. One of her sneakers is untied. “I spy something green,” I hear her say, and then she looks up.
“Anna,” I say, at the exact same moment as Sara Fitzgerald.
It is my responsibility to explain to Anna that Judge DeSalvo wants a few minutes in private. I need to coach her, so that she says the right things, so that the judge doesn’t throw the case out before she gets what she wants. She is my client; by definition, she is supposed to follow my counsel.
But when I call her name, she turns toward her mother.
ANNA
I DON’T THINK ANYONE WOULD COME to my funeral. My parents, I guess, and Aunt Zanne and maybe Mr. Ollincott, the social studies teacher. I picture the same cemetery we went to for my grandmother’s funeral, although that was in Chicago so it doesn’t really make any sense. There would be rolling hills that look like green velvet, and statues of gods and lesser angels, and that big brown hole in the ground like a split seam, waiting to swallow the body that used to be me.
I imagine my mom in a black-veiled Jackie O hat, sobbing. My dad holding on to her. Kate and Jesse staring at the shine of the coffin and trying to plea-bargain with God for all the times they did something mean to me. It is possible that some of the guys from my hockey team would come, clutching lilies and their composure. “That Anna,” they’d say, and they wouldn’t cry but they’d want to.
>
There would be an obituary on page twenty-four of the paper, and maybe Kyle McFee would see it and come to the funeral, his beautiful face twisted up with the what-ifs of the girlfriend he never got to have. I think there would be flowers, sweet peas and snapdragons and blue balls of hydrangea. I hope someone would sing “Amazing Grace,” not just the famous first verse but all of them. And afterward, when the leaves turned and the snow came, every now and then I would rise in everyone’s minds like a tide.
At Kate’s funeral, everyone will come. There will be nurses from the hospital who’ve gotten to be our friends, and other cancer patients still counting their lucky stars, and townspeople who helped raise money for her treatments. They will have to turn mourners away at the cemetery gates. There will be so many lush funeral baskets that some will be donated to charity. The newspaper will run a story of her short and tragic life.
Mark my words, it will be on the front page.
• • •
Judge DeSalvo’s wearing flip-flops, the kind soccer players wear when they take off their cleats. I don’t know why, but this makes me feel a little better. I mean, it’s bad enough I’m here in this courthouse, being led toward his private room in the back; there’s something nice about knowing that I’m not the only one who doesn’t quite fit the part.
He takes a can from a dwarf fridge and asks me what I’d like to drink. “Coke would be great,” I say.
The judge opens the can. “Did you know that if you leave a baby tooth in a glass of Coke, in a few weeks it’ll completely disappear? Carbonic acid.” He smiles at me. “My brother is a dentist in Warwick. Does that trick every year for the kindergartners.”
I take a sip of the Coke, and imagine my insides dissolving. Judge DeSalvo doesn’t sit down behind his desk, but instead takes a chair right next to me. “Here’s the problem, Anna,” he says. “Your mom is telling me you want to do one thing. And your lawyer is telling me you want to do another. Now, under normal circumstances, I’d expect your mother to know you better than some guy you met two days ago. But you never would have met this guy if you hadn’t sought him out for his services. And that makes me think that I need to hear what you think about all this.”