The Tenth Circle

by Picoult, Jodi

  Daniel was the one who usually cooked, but when desperate measures were called for, Laura would put on an apron and pull out her great-grandmother's stoneware pie plate, the one that turned a different color each time it came out of an oven. She had baked Sorrow Pie for dinner the night Daniel got word of his mother's death a funeral he would not attend and a woman he had, to Laura's knowledge, never cried for. She made Sorrow Pie the afternoon Trixie's parakeet flew into a bathroom mirror and drowned in the toilet. She made it the morning after she'd first slept with Seth.

  Today, when she had gone to the grocery store to gather the ingredients, she found herself standing in the middle of the baking goods aisle with her mind blank. The recipe, which had always been as familiar to her as her own name, had been wiped out of her memory. She could not have said whether cardamom was part of the spice regimen, or if it was coriander. She completely forgot to buy eggs.

  It was no easier when Laura came home and took out a stew pot. only to find herself wondering what on earth she was supposed to put inside it. Frustrated, she made herself sit down at the kitchen table and write what she remembered of the recipe, aware that there were huge gaps and missing ingredients. Her mother, who'd died when Laura was twenty-two, had told her that writing the recipe down was a good way to have it stolen; Laura hated to think that this magic would end with her own carelessness. It was while she was staring at the blanks on the page that Trixie came downstairs. “What are you making?” she asked, surveying the hodgepodge of ingredients on the kitchen counter.

  “Sorrow Pie,” Laura answered.

  Trixie frowned. “You're missing the vinegar. And the carrots. At half the spices.” She backed into the pantry and began to pull jars. “Not to mention the chicken.”

  The chicken. How had Laura forgotten that?

  Trixie took a mixing bowl out and began to measure the flour and baking powder for the crust. “You don't have Alzheimer's, do you?”

  Laura couldn't remember ever teaching her daughter the way to make Sorrow Pie, yet here Trixie was passing the whisk to her left hand and closing her eyes as she poured the milk. Laura got up from the kitchen table and started peeling the pearl onions she'd bought, only to forget why she'd begun when she was halfway through.

  She was too busy recalling the look on Daniel's face when he'd finished his first serving, after hearing of his mother's death. How the deep vertical lines between his eyes smoothed clear, how his hands stopped shaking. She was thinking of how many helpings this family would need to come close to approximating normal. She was wondering how her mother never thought it important enough to tell her that missing a step might have grave consequences, not only for the person dining but also for the chef.

  The phone rang when they had just finished putting the top crust on the pie and painting their initials across it in vanilla.

  “It's Zeph,” Trixie told Laura. “Can you hang up while I go upstairs?”

  She handed Laura the phone, and moments later, Laura heard her pick up an extension. As tempted as Laura was to listen, she hung up. When she turned around, she noticed the pie, ready and waiting to be baked.

  It was as if it had been dropped down onto the counter from above. “Well,” she said out loud, and she shrugged. She lifted it up to slide it into the oven.

  An hour later, when the pie was cooling, Laura hovered in front of it. She had intended this to be supper but found herself digging for a fork. What was just a taste became a bite; what started as a bite turned into a mouthful. She stuffed her cheeks; she burned her tongue. She ate until there were no crumbs left in the baking dish, until every last carrot and clove and butter bean had disappeared. And still she was hungry.

  Until that moment, she'd forgotten this about Sorrow Pie, too: No matter how much you consumed, you would not have your fill.

  * * *

  When Venice Prudhomme saw Bartholemew walking into her lab, she told him no before he'd even asked his question. Whatever he wanted, she couldn't do it. She'd rushed the date rape drug test for him, and that was difficult enough, but the lab was in transition, moving from an eight-locus DNA system to a sixteen-locus system, and their usual backlog had grown to enormous proportions.

  Just hear me out, he'd said, and he started begging. Venice had listened, arms crossed. I thought this was a rape case.

  It was. Until the rapist died, and suicide didn't check out. What makes you think you 've got the right perp ?

  It's the rape victim's father, Bartholemew had said. If your kid was raped, what would you want to do to the guy who did it?

  In the end, Venice still said no. It would take a while for her to do a full DNA test, even one that she put at the top of the pile. But something in his desperation must have struck her, because she told him that she could at least give him a head start. She'd been part of the validation team for a portion of the sixteen-locus system and still had some leftovers from her kit. The DNA extraction process was the same; she'd be able to use that sample to run the other loci once the lab came up for some air. Bartholemew fell asleep waiting for her to complete the test. At four in the morning, Venice knelt beside him and shook him awake. “You want the good news or the bad news?” He sighed. “Good.”

  “I got your results.”

  That was excellent news. The medical examiner had already told Bartholemew that the dirt and river silt on the victim's hand might have contaminated the blood to the point where DNA testing was impossible due to dropout. “What's the bad news?”

  “You've got the wrong suspect.”

  Mike stared at her. “How can you tell? I haven't even given you a control sample from Daniel Stone yet.”

  “Maybe the kid who got raped wanted revenge even more than her dad did.” Venice pushed the results toward him. “I did an amelogenin test . . . it's the one we run on nuclear DNA to determine gender. And the guy who left your drop of blood behind?” Venice glanced up. “He's a girl.”

  * * *

  Zephyr gave Trixie the details. The service was at two o'clock at the Bethel Methodist Church, followed by an interment ceremony at the Westwind Cemetery. She said that school was closing early, that's how many people were planning on attending. The six juniors on the hockey team had been asked to serve as pallbearers. In memoriam, three senior girls had dyed their hair black. Trixie's plan was simple: She was going to sleep through Jason's funeral, even if she had to swallow a whole bottle of NyQuil to do it. She pulled the shades in her room, creating an artificial night, and crawled under her covers - only to have them yanked down a moment later.

  You don't think I'm going to let you off the hook, do you?

  She knew he was standing there before she even opened her eyes. Jason leaned against her dresser, one elbow already morphing through the wood. His eyes had faded almost entirely; all Trixie could see were holes as deep as the sky.

  “The whole town's going,” Trixie whispered. “You won't notice if I'm not there.”

  Jason sat down on top of the covers. What about you, Trix? Will you notice when I'm not here?

  She turned onto her side, willing him to go away. But instead she felt him curl up behind her, spooning, his words falling over her ear like frost. If you don't come, he whispered, how will you know I'm really gone?

  She felt him disappear a little while after that, taking all the extra air in the room. Finally, gasping, Trixie got out of bed and threw open the three windows in her bedroom. It was twenty degrees outside, and the wind whipped at the curtains. She stood in front of one

  window and watched people in dark suits and black dresses exit their houses, their cars being drawn like magnets past Trixie's house.

  Trixie peeled off her clothes and stood shivering in her closet. What was the right outfit to wear to the funeral of the only boy you'd ever loved? Sackcloth and ashes, a ring of thorns, regret? What she needed was an invisibility cloak, like the kind her father sometimes drew for his comic book heroes, something sheer that would keep everyone from pointing fingers and wh
ispering that this was all her fault.

  The only dress Trixie owned in a dark color had short sleeves, so she picked out a pair of black pants and paired it with a navy cardigan. She'd have to wear boots anyway, because of all the snow, and they'd look stupid with a skirt. She didn't know if she could do this - stand at Jason's grave while people passed his name around like a box of sweets - but she did know that if she stayed in her room during this funeral, as she'd planned to, it would all come back to haunt her.

  She glanced around her room again, checking the top of the dresser and under the bed and in her desk drawers for something she knew was missing, but in the end, she had to leave without her courage or risk being late.

  During her studies of rebellion, Trixie had learned which floorboards in the hallway screamed like traitors and which ones would keep a secret. The trickiest one was right in front of her father's office door - she sometimes wondered if he'd had the builder do that on purpose, thinking ahead. To get past him without making any noise, Trixie had to edge along the inside wall of the house, then slide in a diagonal and hope she didn't crash into the banister. From there, it was just a matter of avoiding the third and seventh stairs, and she was home free. She could take the bus that stopped three blocks away from her house, ride it downtown, and then walk to the church.

  The Tenth Circle

  Her father's office door was closed. Trixie took a deep breath, crept, slid, and hopped her way silently down the stairs. The floor of the mudroom looked like the scene of a dismemberment: a mess of

  scattered boots and discarded jackets and tossed gloves. Trixie pulled what she needed from the pile, wrapped a scarf around the lower half of her face, and gingerly opened the door. Her father was sitting in his truck with the motor running, as if he'd been waiting for her all along. As soon as he saw her exiting the house, he unrolled the power window. “Hop in.” Trixie approached the truck and peered inside. “Where are you going?”

  Her father reached over and opened the door for her. “Same place you are.” As he twisted in his seat to back out of the driveway, Trixie could see the collared shirt and tie he was wearing under his winter jacket.

  They drove in silence for two blocks. Then, finally, she asked,

  “How come you want to go?”

  “I don't.”

  Trixie watched the swirling snow run away from their tires to settle in the safe center of the divided highway. Dots between painted dashes, they spelled out in Morse code the unspoken rest of her father's sentence: But you do.

  * * *

  Laura sat in the student center, wishing she was even an eighth as smart as the advice ladies who wrote “Annie's Mailbox.” They knew all the answers, it seemed, without even trying. In the days after Jason's death, she'd become addicted to the column, craving it as much as her morning cup of coffee. My daughterin-law started her marriage as a size four, and now she's plus plus plus. She's a wonderful person, but her health is a concern for me. I've given her books and exercise videos, but none of it helps. What can I do? Skinny in Savannah

  My 14-year-old son has started replacing his boxer shorts with silky thong underwear he found in a catalog. Is this a style that hasn't hit my hometown yet, or should I be worried about cross-dressing? Nervous in Nevada

  On her deathbed, my great-aunt just confided a secret to me that my mother was born as the result of an extramarital affair. Do I tell my mother I know the truth? Confused in California Lauras obsession grew in part from the fact that she was not the only one walking around with questions. Some of the letters were frivolous, some cut through her heart. All of them hinted at a universal truth: At any crossroads in life, half of us are destined to take a

  wrong turn.

  She opened the newspaper to the right page, skimming past the Marmaduke cartoon and the crossword puzzle to find the advice column, and nearly spilled her cup of coffee. I've been having an affair. It's over, and I'm sorry it ever happened. I want to tell my husband so that I can start fresh. Should I? Repentant in Rochester

  Laura had to remind herself to breathe.

  We can't say this enough, the advice columnists answered. What people don't know can't hurt them. You've already done your spouse a great disservice. Do you really think it's fair to cause him pain, just so you can clear your conscience? Be a big girl, they wrote. Actions have consequences.

  Her heart was pounding so hard she looked up, certain that everyone in the room would be staring.

  She had been careful not to ask herself the question she should have: If Trixie hadn't gotten raped, if Daniel hadn't called her office the night she'd been breaking off her affair with Seth would she ever have confessed? Would she have kept it to herself, a stone in her soul, a cancer clouding her memory?

  What people don't know can't hurt them.

  The problem with coming clean was that you thought you were clearing the slate, starting over, but it never quite worked that way. You didn't erase what you'd done. As Laura knew now, the stain would still be there, every time he looked at you, before he remembered to hide the disappointment in his eyes.

  Laura thought of what she had not told Daniel, the things he had not told her. The best decisions in a marriage were based not on honesty but on the number of casualties that the truth might cause, versus the number saved by ignorance.

  With great care, she folded the edge of the newspaper and ripped it gently along the crease. She did this until the advice column had been entirely cut out. Then she folded the article and slipped it under the strap of her bra. The ink smudged on Laura's fingers, the way it sometimes did when she read the paper. She imagined a tattoo that might go through flesh and bone and blood to reach her heart - a warning, a reminder not to make the same mistake.

  * * *

  “Ready?” Daniel asked.

  Trixie had been sitting in the truck for five minutes, watching townspeople crowd into the tiny Methodist church. The principal had gone in, as well as the town manager and the selectmen. Two local television stations were broadcasting from the steps of the church, with anchors Daniel recognized from the evening news.

  “Yes,” Trixie said, but she made no move to get out of the truck. Daniel pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out of the truck. He walked around to the passenger door and opened it, unbuckling Trixie's seat belt just like he used to when she was a baby. He held her hand as she stepped out, into the shock of the cold.

  They took three steps. “Daddy,” she said, stopping, “what if I can't do this?”

  Her hesitation made him want to carry her back to the truck, hide her so securely that no one would ever hurt her again. But as he'd learned the hard way - that wasn't possible. He slid an arm around her waist. “Then I'll do it for you,” he said, and he guided her up the steps of the church, past the shocked wide eyes of the television cameras, through an obstacle course of hissed whispers, to the place where she needed to be. For a single moment, the focus of everyone in the church swung from the boy in the lily-draped coffin to the girl walking through the double doors.

  * * *

  Outside, left alone, Mike Bartholemew emerged from behind a potbellied oak and crouched beside the trail of boot prints that Daniel and Trixie Stone had left in the snow. He lay a ruler down beside the best print of the smaller track and took a camera from his pocket for a few snapshots. Then he sprayed the print with aerosol wax and let the red skin dry on the snow before he spread dental stone to make a cast.

  By the time the mourners adjourned to their cars to caravan to the cemetery for the interment service, Bartholemew was headed back to the police department, hoping to match Trixie Stone's boot to the mystery print left in the snow on the bridge where Jason Underhill had died.

  * * *

  “Blessed are those who mourn,” said the minister, “for they will be comforted.”

  Trixie pressed herself more firmly against the back wall of the church. From here, she was completely blocked by the rest of the people who'd come for Jason's memorial servi
ce. She didn't have to stare at the gleaming coffin. She didn't have to see Mrs. Underhill, slumped against her husband.

  "Friends, we gather here to comfort and support each other in this time of loss . . . but most of all we come here to remember and

  celebrate the mortal life of Jason Adam Underhill and his blessed future at the side of our Lord Jesus Christ." The minister's words were punctuated by the tight coughs of men who'd promised themselves they wouldn't cry and the quicksilver hiccups of the women who'd known better than to make a promise they couldn't keep.

  “Jason was one of those golden boys that the sun seemed to follow. Today, we remember him for the way he could make us laugh with a joke and the devotion he applied to everything he did. We remember him as a loving son and grandson, a caring cousin, a steadfast friend. We remember him as a gifted athlete and a diligent student. But most of all we remember him because Jason, in the short time we had with him, managed to touch each and every one of us.”

  The first time Jason touched Trixie, they were in his car, and he was illegally teaching her how to drive. You have to let up on the clutch while you shift, he explained, as she'd jerked the little Toyota around an empty parking lot. Maybe I should just wait until I'm sixteen, Trixie had said when she'd stalled for the bazillionth time. Jason had laced his fingers between hers on the stick shift, guiding her through the motions, until all she could think about was the temperature of his hand heating hers. Then Jason had grinned at her. Why wait?

  The minister's voice grew like a vine. “In Lamentations 3, we hear these words: My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, 'Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.' We, whom Jason left behind, must wonder if these were the thoughts that weighed heavy on his heart, that led him to believe there was no other way out.” Trixie closed her eyes. She had lost her virginity in a field of lupine behind the ice rink, where the Zamboni shavings were dumped, an artificial winter smack in the middle of the September flowers. Jason had borrowed the key from the rinkmaster and taken her skating after the rink was closed for the day. He'd laced up her skates and told her to close her eyes. Then he'd reached for her hands, skating backward so fast she felt like she was falling to earth. We're writing in cursive, he told her as he pulled in a straight line. Can you read it? Then he looped the breadth of the rink, skated a circle, a right angle, a tinier loop, finishing with a curl. I LOVE U? Trixie had recited, and Jason had laughed. Close enough, he'd said. Later, in that field, with the pile of snow hiding them from sight, Jason had again been moving at lightning speed, and Trixie could