by Jodi Picoult
“What?”
“I didn’t think so. But if we were asked to defend a client who was a neo-Nazi in a criminal suit, could you do your job—even if you found his beliefs disgusting?”
“Of course, and that’s a question for a first-year law student,” I said immediately. “But this is totally different.”
Bob shook his head. “That’s the thing, Marin,” he replied. “It really isn’t.”
I waited until he’d closed the door to his office and then let out a groan of frustration. Inside my office, I kicked off my heels and stomped to my desk to sit down. Briony had brought in my mail, neatly bound in an elastic band. I sifted through it, sorting envelopes into case-by-case piles, until I came to one that had an unfamiliar return address.
A month ago, after I’d fired the private investigator, I had sent a letter to the court in Hillsborough County to get my adoption decree. For ten dollars, you could get a copy of the original document. Armed with that, and the fact that I had been born at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, I planned to do some legwork and ferret out the first name of my birth mother. I was hoping for a court intern who might not know what he or she was doing and would forget to white out my birth name on the document. Instead, I wound up with a clerk named Maisie Donovan, who’d worked at the county court since the dinosaurs died out—and who had sent me the envelope I now held in my shaking hands.
COUNTY COURT OF HILLSBOROUGH, NEW HAMPSHIRE IN RE: ADOPTION OF BABY GIRL FINAL DECREE
AND NOW, July 28, 1973, upon consideration of the within Petition and of the hearing and thereon, and the Court having made an investigation to verify the statements of the Petition and other facts to give the Court full knowledge as to the desirability of the proposed adoption;
The Court, being satisfied, finds that the statements made in the Petition are true, and that the welfare of the person proposed to be adopted will be promoted by this adoption; and directs that BABY GIRL , the person proposed to be adopted, shall have all the rights of a child and heir of Arthur William Gates and Yvonne Sugarman Gates, and shall be subject to all the duties of such child; and shall hereafter assume the name of MARIN ELIZABETH GATES.
I read it a second time, and a third. I stared at the judge’s signature—Alfred something-or-other. For ten dollars I had been given the earth-shattering information that
1. I am female
2. My name is Marin Elizabeth Gates
Well, what had I expected? A Hallmark card from my birth mother and an invitation to this year’s family reunion? With a sigh, I opened my filing cabinet and dropped the decree into the folder that I’d marked PERSONAL. Then I took out a new manila folder and wrote O’KEEFE across the tab. “Wrongful birth,” I murmured out loud, just to test the words on my tongue; they were (no surprise) bitter as coffee grains. I tried to turn my attention to a lawsuit with the thinly veiled message that there are some children who should never be born, and winged a silent thank-you to my birth mother for not feeling the same way.
Piper
Technically, I was your godmother. Apparently, that meant that I was responsible for your religious education, which was sort of a colossal joke since I never set foot in a church (blame that healthy fear of the roof bursting into flames), while your mother rarely missed a weekend Mass. I liked to think of my role, instead, as the fairy-tale version. That one day, with or without the help of mice wearing tiny overalls, I’d make you feel like a princess.
To that end, I rarely showed up to your house empty-handed. Charlotte said I was spoiling you, but I wasn’t draping you in diamonds or giving you the keys to a Hummer. I brought magic tricks, candy bars, kiddie videotapes that Emma had outgrown. Even when I visited directly from a stint at the hospital, I’d improvise: a rubber glove, knotted into a balloon. A hair net from the OR. “The day you bring her a speculum,” Charlotte used to say, “your welcome is officially rescinded.”
“Hello,” I yelled as I walked through the front door. To be honest, I can’t remember a time I ever knocked. “Five minutes,” I said, as Emma tore up the stairs to find Amelia. “Don’t even take your coat off.” I wandered through the hallway into Charlotte’s living room, where you were propped up in your spica cast, reading.
“Piper!” you said, and your face lit up.
Sometimes, when I looked at you, I didn’t see the compromised twist of your bones or the short stature that came part and parcel with your illness. Instead, I remembered your mother crying when she told me that she had failed to get pregnant yet another month; I remembered her taking the Doptone out of my ears at an office visit so that she could listen to your hummingbird heartbeat, too.
I sat down beside you on the couch and took your gift du jour out of my coat pocket. It was a beach ball—believe me, it wasn’t easy finding one of those in February. “We didn’t get to go to the beach,” you said. “I fell down.”
“Ah, but this isn’t just a beach ball,” I corrected, and I inflated it until it was as firm and round as the belly of a woman in her ninth month. Then I pushed it between your knees, the ball wedged tight against the plaster, and began to strike the top of it with an open palm. “This,” I said, “is a bongo drum.”
You laughed, and began to smack the plastic surface, too. The sound brought Charlotte into the room. “You look like hell,” I said. “When was the last time you slept?”
“Gee, Piper, it’s really great to see you, too . . .”
“Is Amelia ready?”
“For what?”
“Skating?”
She smacked her forehead. “I totally forgot. Amelia!” she yelled, and then to me: “We just got home from the lawyer’s.”
“And? Is Sean still on a rampage to sue the world?”
Instead of answering, she rapped her hand against the beach ball. She didn’t like it when I ragged on Sean. Your mother was my best friend in the world, but your father could drive me crazy. He got an idea in his head, and that was the end of that—you couldn’t budge him. The world was utterly black-and-white for Sean, and I guess I’ve always been the kind of person who prefers a splash of color.
“Guess what, Piper,” you interrupted. “I went skating, too.”
I glanced at Charlotte, who nodded. She was usually terrified about the pond in the backyard and its constant temptation; I couldn’t wait to hear the details of this story. “I suppose if you forgot about skating, you forgot about the bake sale, too?”
Charlotte winced. “What did you make?”
“I made brownies,” I told her. “In the shape of skates. With frosting for the laces and blades. Get it? Ice skates with frosting?”
“You made brownies?” Charlotte said, and I followed her as she headed toward the kitchen.
“From scratch. The rest of the moms already blacklisted me because I missed the spring show for a medical conference. I’m trying to atone.”
“So you whipped these up when? While you were stitching an episiotomy? After being on call for thirty-six hours?” Charlotte opened her pantry and rummaged through the shelves, finally grabbing a package of Chips Ahoy! and spilling them onto a serving platter. “Honestly, Piper, do you always have to be so damn perfect?”
With a fork, she was attacking the edges of the cookies. “Whoa. Who peed in your Cheerios?”
“Well, what do you expect? You waltz in here and tell me I look like crap, and then you make me feel completely inadequate—”
“You’re a pastry chef, Charlotte. You could bake circles around— What on earth are you doing?”
“Making them look homemade,” Charlotte said. “Because I’m not a pastry chef, not anymore. Not for a long time.”
When I’d first met Charlotte, she had just been named the finest pastry chef in New Hampshire. I’d actually read about her in a magazine that lauded her ability to take unlikely ingredients and come up with the most remarkable confections. She used to never come empty-handed to my house—she’d bring cupcakes with spun-sugar icing, pies with berries that burst like
fireworks, puddings that acted like balms. Her soufflés were as light as summer clouds; her chocolate fondant could wipe your mind clean of whatever obstacles had littered your day. She told me that, when she baked, she could feel herself coming back to center, that everything else fell away, and she remembered who she was supposed to be. I’d been jealous. I had a vocation—and I was a damn good doctor—but Charlotte had a calling. She dreamed of opening a patisserie, of writing her own bestselling cookbook. In fact, I never imagined she would find anything she loved more than baking, until you came along.
I moved the platter away. “Charlotte. Are you okay?”
“Let’s see. I was arrested last weekend; my daughter’s in a body cast; I don’t even have time to take a shower—yup, I’m just fantastic.” She turned to the doorway and the staircase upstairs. “Amelia! Let’s go!”
“Emma’s gone selectively deaf, too,” I said. “I swear she ignores me on purpose. Yesterday, I asked her eight times to clear the kitchen counter—”
“You know what,” Charlotte said wearily. “I really don’t care about the problems you’re having with your daughter.”
No sooner had my jaw dropped—I had always been Charlotte’s confidante, not her punching bag—than she shook her head and apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
Just then the older girls clattered down the stairs and skidded past us in a flurry of whispers and giggles. I put my hand on Charlotte’s arm. “Just so you know,” I said firmly. “You’re the most devoted mother I’ve ever met. You’ve given up your whole life to take care of Willow.”
She ducked her head and nodded before looking up at me. “Do you remember her first ultrasound?”
I thought for a second, and then I grinned. “We saw her sucking her thumb. I didn’t even have to point it out to you and Sean; it was clear as day.”
“Right,” your mother repeated. “Clear as day.”
Charlotte
March 2007
What if it was someone’s fault?
The idea was just the germ of a seed, carried in the hollow beneath my breastbone when we left the law offices. Even when I was lying awake next to Sean, I heard it as a drumbeat in my blood: what if, what if, what if. For five years now I had loved you, hovered over you, held you when you had a break. I had gotten exactly what I so desperately wished for: a beautiful baby. So how could I admit to anyone—much less myself—that you were not only the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me . . . but also the most exhausting, the most overwhelming?
I would listen to people complain about their kids being impolite or surly or even getting into trouble with the law, and I’d be jealous. When those kids turned eighteen, they’d be on their own, making their own mistakes and being held accountable. But you were not the kind of child I could let fly in the world. After all, what if you fell?
And what would happen to you when I wasn’t around to catch you anymore?
After one week went by and then another, I began to realize that the law offices of Robert Ramirez were just as disgusted by a woman who would harbor these secret thoughts as I was. Instead, I threw myself into making you happy. I played Scrabble until I knew all the two-letter words by heart; I watched programs on Animal Planet until I had memorized the scripts. By now, your father had settled back into his work routine; Amelia had gone back to school.
This morning, you and I were squeezed into the downstairs bathroom. I faced you, my arms under yours, balancing you over the toilet so that you could pee. “The bags,” you said. “They’re getting in the way!”
With one hand, I adjusted the trash bags that were wrapped around your legs while I grunted under the weight of you. It had taken a series of failed attempts to figure out how one went to the bathroom while wearing a spica cast—another little tidbit the doctors don’t share. From parents on online forums I had learned to wedge plastic garbage bags under the lip of the cast where it had been left open, a liner of sorts so that the plaster edge would stay dry and clean. Needless to say, a trip to the bathroom for you took about thirty minutes, and after a few accidents, you’d gotten very good at predicting when you had to go, instead of waiting till the last minute.
“Forty thousand people get hurt by toilets every year,” you said.
I gritted my teeth. “For God’s sake, Willow, just concentrate before you make it forty thousand and one.”
“Okay, I’m done.”
With another balancing act, I passed you the roll of toilet tissue and let you reach between your legs. “Good work,” I said, leaning down to flush and then gingerly backing out of the narrow bathroom door. But my sneaker caught on the edge of the rug, and I felt myself going down. I twisted so that I’d land first, so that my body would cushion your blow.
I’m not sure which of us started to laugh first, and when the doorbell and phone rang simultaneously, we started to laugh even harder. Maybe I would change my message. Sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now. I’m holding my daughter, in her fifty-pound cast, over the toilet bowl.
I levered myself on my elbows, pulling you upright with me. The doorbell rang again, impatient. “Coming,” I called out.
“Mommy!” you screeched. “My pants!”
You were still half naked after our bathroom run, and getting you into your flannel pajama bottoms would be another ten-minute endeavor. Instead, I grabbed one of the trash bags still tucked into your cast and wrapped it around you like a black plastic skirt.
On the front porch stood Mrs. Dumbroski, one of the neighbors who lived down the road. She had twin grandsons your age, who had visited last year, stolen her glasses when she fell asleep, and set a pile of raked leaves on fire that would have spread to her garage if the mailman hadn’t come by at just the right moment. “Hello, dear,” Mrs. Dumbroski said. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”
“Oh no,” I answered. “We were just . . .” I looked at you, wearing the trash bag, and we both started to laugh again.
“I was looking for my dish,” Mrs. Dumbroski said.
“Your dish?”
“The one I baked the lasagna in. I do hope you’ve had a chance to enjoy it.”
It must have been one of the meals that had been waiting for us on our return home from the hell that was Disney World. To be honest, we’d eaten only a few; the rest were getting freezer burn even as I stood there. There was only so much mac and cheese and lasagna and baked ziti that a human could stomach.
It seemed to me that if you made a meal for someone who was sick, it was pretty cheeky to ask whether or not she’d finished it so you could have your Pyrex back.
“How about I try to find the dish, Mrs. Dumbroski, and have Sean drop it off at your house later?”
Her lips pursed. “Well,” she said, “then I suppose I’ll have to wait to make my tuna casserole.”
For just a moment I entertained the thought of stuffing you into Mrs. Dumbroski’s chicken-wing arms and watching her totter under the weight of you while I went to the freezer, found her stupid lasagna, and threw it onto the ground at her feet—but instead I just smiled. “Thanks for being so accommodating. I’ve got to get Willow down for a nap now,” I said, and I closed the door.
“I don’t take naps,” you said.
“I know. I just said that to make her leave, so I wouldn’t kill her.” I twirled you into the living room and positioned a legion of pillows behind your back and under your knees, so that you could sit comfortably. Then I reached for your pajama bottoms and leaned over to tap the blinking button on the answering machine. “Left leg first,” I said, sliding the wide waistband over your cast.
You have one new message.
I slipped your right leg into the pants and shimmied them over the plaster at your hips.
Mr. and Mrs. O’Keefe . . . this is Marin Gates from the Law Offices of Robert Ramirez. We’ve got something we’d like to discuss with you.
“Mom,” you whined as my hands stilled at your waist.
I gathered the extra fabric into a knot. “Yes,” I said, my heart racing. “Almost done.”
• • •
This time, Amelia was in school, but we still had to bring Willow to the lawyer’s office. And this time, they were ready: beside the coffee machine were juice packs; next to the glossy architectural magazines was a small stack of picture books. When the secretary brought us back to meet the lawyers, we were not led to the conference room. Instead she opened the door to an office that was a hundred different shades of white: from the pickled wood floor to the creamy wall paneling to the pair of pale leather sofas. You craned your neck, taking this all in. Was it supposed to look like heaven? And if so, what did that make Robert Ramirez?
“I thought the couch might be more comfortable for Willow,” he said smoothly. “And I also thought she might like to watch a movie instead of listening to the grown-ups talk about all this boring stuff.” He held up the DVD of Ratatouille—your favorite, although he couldn’t have known that. After we’d watched it for the first time, we’d cooked the real deal for dinner.
Marin Gates brought over a portable DVD player and a very swanky pair of Bose headphones. She plugged it in, settled you on the couch, turned on the DVD, and popped the straw into a juice pack.
“Sergeant O’Keefe, Mrs. O’Keefe,” Ramirez said. “We thought it would be better to discuss this without Willow in the room, but we also realized that might be a physical impossibility given her condition. Marin’s the one who came up with the idea of the DVD. She’s also been doing a great deal of work these past two weeks. We reviewed your medical records, and we gave them to someone else to review. Does the name Marcus Cavendish ring a bell?”
Sean and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
“Dr. Cavendish is Scottish. He’s one of the foremost experts on osteogenesis imperfecta in the world. And according to him, it appears that you have a good cause of action of medical malpractice against your obstetrician. You remembered your eighteen-week ultrasound being too clear, Mrs. O’Keefe . . . That’s significant evidence that your obstetrician missed. She should have been able to recognize your baby’s condition then, long before broken bones were visible at the later ultrasound. And she should have presented that information to you at a time in your pregnancy . . . that might have allowed you to change the outcome.”