by Jodi Picoult
Meg whispered so quietly that Addie didn’t believe she had heard correctly. “She’s so lucky.”
“Who is?”
“Chloe.”
Addie’s hands stilled. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Meg wiped at her face with the bottom of her T-shirt. “I wish I were dead.”
It hit Addie then, what Meg had been doing at the cemetery. She had come back to the spot where the alleged assault had occurred. Jack hadn’t done it—she knew this as surely as she knew that Chloe was buried close by—but something had rattled Meg that night, all the same.
Addie squeezed Meg’s shoulders. “I think we should go. This place has bad memories for both of us.”
Meg reluctantly glanced in the direction of the clearing. “Ms. Peabody,” she whispered, miserable. “I think . . . I think he touched me, too.”
“Touched . . . you?” Addie said, the words round, with no sound behind them.
“Touched me,” Meg repeated, mortified. “You know.” And God help her, Addie did.
In the end, it came down to this: Being a mother was something that stayed with you, dormant, ready to flare at a single match-stroke of circumstance. And apparently it didn’t matter if the child was one of your body or just one with a place in your heart—instinct was instinct.
Addie loved Jack. She believed him when he said he hadn’t attacked Gillian Duncan. But she was a mother, and she knew what had to be done. So she took Meg to Charlie’s office at the police station and closed the door behind them. She kept her expression blank. Then, holding Meg’s hand tight for moral support, she listened as this girl—this friend of her daughter’s—told Charlie what she’d told Addie minutes before.
Charlie knew the floor was stable, but he could feel it rocking beneath his feet. He cleared his throat for the hundredth time and swallowed, then turned on the tape recorder that sat between himself and his daughter.
Meggie was shivering, although she wore the blue uniform jacket that usually hung on the back of his office door. Her hands fell at elbow-length in the jacket, and it made him think of how he and Barb would dress her up when she was just a baby, crazy angel wings made out of real feathers and soft headbands with antennae, things like that that were immortalized in dusty photo albums.
Oh, Christ.
“Where, um, did he touch you?”
She couldn’t look him in the eye, and that was fine, because Charlie couldn’t look at her, either. “Here. And here.”
“The victim,” Charlie said thickly, “is indicating her left hip and breast.”
Every muscle in his body was rigid with tension. How was he going to tell Barbara about this? How was he ever going to finish? You could not be a detective when you wanted so badly to be simply a father.
“Charlie.” Houlihan’s voice fell heavily. “You don’t have to do this.”
Charlie shook his head tightly. “Meg, did Jack St. Bride expose himself to you?”
“No,” his daughter whispered.
“Did he touch you anywhere else? In any other way?”
“Did any part of his body come in contact with part of yours?” Matt asked quietly.
“Jesus Christ!” Charlie was out of his seat, punching the button on the tape recorder to shut it off. Why couldn’t you rewind your own life? He paced to the far end of the room, Matt coming up beside him. “My little girl,” Charlie choked. “He did this to my little girl.”
“We’ll get him,” Matt promised. “We’ll press charges for this, too.”
Nodding, Charlie started back to the table, only to be restrained by Matt. “No,” the county attorney said. “Let me.”
Molly lay curled like a fiddlehead against her flannel crib sheets, her thumb tucked in her mouth as she slept. Matt stared down at her and could easily imagine the kind of pain that Charlie was in right now. God, if someone ever did anything to his child, he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions.
This latest drama was not what Matt needed the night before the trial began. But Meg’s accusations would be a different case, brought before a different judge on a different day . . . if there was enough evidence to try it. He would never have told Charlie, but part of Matt had to wonder how reliable Meg’s tearful confession was. She had already been taking hallucinogenic drugs that night. . . . It was possible that this alleged assault was imagined.
And that was how it affected his current case—he could no longer risk Meg as a witness. If she testified to bringing the drugs and then confessed to being attacked, too, would the jury believe her? And if they didn’t, would they still believe Gillian?
Matt couldn’t say for sure whether Meg was going to help or hurt the case. He didn’t need her to convict Jack St. Bride; therefore, he would simply omit her. He’d call Chelsea Abrams up for her eyewitness account, instead . . . and if her story didn’t match quite as neatly with Whitney O’Neill’s as Meg’s had, it was still less of a gamble with the jury.
Matt touched his hand lightly to the sweet globe of his daughter’s head. “Good night,” he whispered, but for long minutes afterward, he made no move to leave her.
The moon slipped over the windowsill and beneath the covers, but Jordan and Selena didn’t notice. Selena stared down at her arms, tangled with Jordan’s just below her breasts. “What are you thinking?”
“That I plead temporary insanity.”
“Ah.” Selena turned in his embrace. “Feeling guilty?”
“No. I feel . . . I feel . . .”
She swatted at his hand. “Yeah, I see what you feel.” Laughing, she darted out of the way. “Get out of there.”
“That’s not what you said ten minutes ago.”
“Maybe I’m pleading temporary insanity, too.”
They had fallen asleep sitting on the couch, watching reruns of Perry Mason on TVLand. Somehow, when they’d awakened, they’d been lying down in each other’s arms, pressed together from chest to thigh. It was all the impetus they needed; a subliminal reminder that no matter how hard they tried, they weren’t meant to be apart. From there, they’d been lucky to make it to the privacy of a bedroom.
“Hey, Selena?”
“Mmm?”
“Why didn’t we do this a month ago?”
“Oh, take your pick: We were smarter then. We had better self-control.”
Jordan looked at her soberly. “You really think that?”
For once, she had no smart answer. “Actually,” Selena admitted, “I don’t.” She stared at him. “How do you think this will all turn out?”
Jordan shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Selena smiled against his chest. “Are you talking about us, or the case?”
“Either one.” He sighed, choosing the easier route of conversation. “All we’ve really been able to prove is that she’s a witch.”
“A witch on drugs. I’ve thought about it,” Selena confessed. “And I can explain away just about all the evidence, and clear Jack in my head. Except for that semen. That’s not something you leave behind while you’re just chatting it up with someone.”
“The semen’s the most inconclusive evidence Houlihan’s got. A jury will see that.”
“You hope.”
“I hope.”
“Jack could still be lying to you,” Selena pointed out.
“So could Gillian Duncan.”
They were quiet for a while, soaking up the heat and the memory of each other’s bodies. “Speaking of lies,” Selena whispered. “I have to tell you something.”
Jordan came up on one elbow. “What?”
“My car was ready two weeks ago.”
“I have to tell you something, too.” His teeth flashed in the darkness. “Your car would have been ready five weeks ago, but I paid the mechanic to say the part was delayed.”
Selena came up on an elbow. “You’d go to all that trouble to keep from losing your best investigator?”
Jordan leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “No,” he said. “I
’d go to all that trouble to keep from losing you.”
They held hands across a cafeteria table, surrounded by men who had murdered others in fights and beaten their wives and burned houses to the ground with people still inside. A correctional officer stood guard. When Addie had first embraced Jack, the CO had tapped her on the shoulder and politely explained that sort of touching was not allowed.
Addie looked at the couple beside them. The man had a snake tattooed around his neck. His visitor was a woman with spiked green hair, an eyebrow ring, and a dog collar.
In fifteen hours, the trial would begin.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“No. I figure the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I’ll be with you.”
Addie bent her head. “That,” she said, “will be wonderful.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, you know. We’ll go to the Carribbean. June is the rainy season, but I figure we could both use a vacation. I want to be outside all day long. I want to sleep outside. Hell, maybe we won’t even have to pay for a room.”
Addie choked on a laugh, one that rounded neatly into a little sob. She looked up at Jack and tried to smile.
“If you’re that upset, sweetheart, I’ll get us a hotel.” He spoke softly, stroking her palm with his thumb.
A deep, shuddering breath wracked Addie. “What if—”
“Ah, Addie, don’t.” Jack put his finger to her lips a moment before the guard frowned at the contact. “Sometimes, when I think I’m going to lose it in here, I just imagine that I’m already out. I think about what we’re going to do for the weekend, and whether the diner’s going to be busy that day, and how all I want is for it to be nighttime so that I can sleep holding onto you. I think about us, six months from now. Six years from now. Until I can remember what it’s like to have a normal life back.”
“A normal life,” Addie repeated, with longing.
“We can even practice,” Jack said earnestly. He cleared his throat. “Hi, honey. What did you do today?”
Addie stared into his eyes, those beautiful ocean eyes. She thought of Meg. And then she imagined a beach as wide as the world, a froth of waves that raced over her feet and Jack’s as they watched the sun seal another absolutely ordinary day. “Nothing,” she said, smiling hard from the bottom of her heart. “Nothing at all.”
1979
New York City
Jack and J. T. and Ralph hunkered down in the crawl space beneath the staircase that led up to the second floor of the St. Bride penthouse, a spot usually reserved for the vacuum but that worked equally as well as a clandestine spot for ten-year-old boys trading baseball cards and secrets. “I’ll give you Keith Hernandez for Luis Alvarado,” J. T. said.
“You think I’m a moron?” Ralph scowled. “Hernandez is worth three White Sox.”
“I’ve got Bruce Sutter,” Jack said. “I’ll trade him for Hernandez.”
“Cool.”
The boys swapped cards, turning them over to read the stats, a faint bubble-gum smell enveloping the deal.
“I’ve got a Don Baylor,” J. T. said.
“California sucks this year.”
Ralph snickered. “I wouldn’t use a Baylor card to scrape dog shit off the street.”
“He’s an MVP, you jerk.” But J. T. shuffled the card to the back of his shoebox all the same.
Suddenly, Ralph held up the crown jewel of baseball cards that summer, Willie Stargell from the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I’m willing to trade. For the right price.”
Jack riffled through the heap of cards he’d collected. Ralph wouldn’t take a Palmer or a Guidry, the two best players Jack had. There was only one other card he could even think of trading for equal value, although the player was just a really crappy outfielder for the Chicago White Sox who couldn’t have hit a curveball if it were hanging dead still on a string in front of him. What made Jack’s card the envy of every other young collector was the name on it.
“Holy shit,” J. T. breathed. “Jack’s got Rusty Kuntz.”
The three boys dissolved into fits of laughter. “Man, you have Kuntz,” Ralph said.
“I need Kuntz!” J. T. cried, and then rolled on the floor, giggling so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.
Ralph held out his hand for the card. “Bet it’s easy to give up Kuntz when you can get the real thing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ralph pursed his lips, kissing at the air. “Oh, Jack,” he said in a falsetto. “You are the awesomest boy in the whole school!”
J. T. snorted. “Rachel Covington might as well take out a billboard at Yankee Stadium, she’s so in love with you.”
“She is not,” Jack scowled. “She’s just a girl.” Okay, so she hung around him a lot since he’d gotten an older kid to stop spreading the rumor that she’d gotten her period when she was only eight years old. So what if she had big boobs stuffed into a training bra? All the girls were gonna, one day, and as far as Jack could see, they were an incredible nuisance, probably slapping you under the chin when you were trying to run for speed or distance.
“Jack and Rachel sitting in a tree . . .” Ralph sang out.
“Shut up!” Jack reached over and snatched his Kuntz card out of Ralph’s hand.
“Hey!”
“I don’t like Rachel Covington, okay?”
“Whatever,” Ralph muttered.
Suddenly the small door to the alcove opened. Corazon, the cook and housekeeper, frowned at them, fists planted on her thick hips. “Out,” she ordered. “I need to clean.”
The boys scrambled from their hiding place with their boxes of baseball cards, J. T. and Ralph elbowing each other as they walked down the hall. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Jack yelled after them, squeezing Rusty Kuntz’s card so hard it folded down the middle.
It turned out that Corazon wasn’t just doing her routine sweep and vacuum of the penthouse. Jack’s mother had called and told her to get ready for a guest. Jack sat on a kitchen stool, watching the Mexican woman slap at a lump of dough on the butcher block. He kept looking at it and wishing it was Ralph’s face.
“You want some bread so badly,” Cora said, “you might try the loaf that’s already been cooked.”
“I don’t want bread.”
“No? Then how come you stare like a starving man?”
Jack set his elbows on the counter. “Just wishing I had something to beat up, too.”
Cora pushed the dough across the table. “Be my guest.” She wiped her palms on her apron, leaving behind daffodil handprints. “J. T. and Ralph left in some hurry today.”
Jack shrugged. “They’re losers.”
“Oh, sí? Just this morning you couldn’t even sit through breakfast, waiting for them to show up.” She covered Jack’s hands and molded the dough along with him, giving him a rhythm. “You have a fight?”
“I don’t like Rachel Covington. You know, I mean, I like her . . . I just don’t like her. I don’t like any girl.”
“They were teasing you about that?”
“All’s I did was stick up for her because she was too scared to do it for herself.”
“Then it’s no wonder she’s fallen for you, querido.”
Jack leaned his cheek against his hand, heedless of the mark of flour he left behind. “Cora, what makes girls like that? Why can’t they just say thanks and get out of your hair?”
Corazon smiled at him. “You know how your mother keeps her Christmas card list? How she sends to people who send her one, and that list gets longer and longer every year?”
“Yeah,” Jack muttered. “I have to lick the damn stamps.”
“Watch your mouth,” Cora reprimanded. “See, love’s like that. Once you give it, even by accident, you’re on that list forever.”
“What if I don’t want to send Rachel a card back?”
The housekeeper laughed. “You never know. Maybe she’ll keep them coming anyway. But maybe one day she’ll go through that list and cross you
off.”
“I don’t want her to be in love with me,” Jack muttered. “I’m gonna tell her to stop.”
“You can tell her, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna change anything.”
Jack punched at the dough. “Why not?”
“Because it’s her heart,” she said, “and she gets to choose where it goes.”
It was not unusual for Annalise St. Bride to come home with a mission in tow, one wearing spandex and high heels, who’d been stolen away from a pimp on Seventh Avenue. Often the woman would arrive at the penthouse sporting a split lip or a broken nose, gathering her shame as tightly around her as the cut-rate chenille coat she wore. She’d stay in the chrysalis of St. Bride House for a week or so, and then one day she would emerge from the guest room wearing Levi’s and an oxford-cloth shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail away from her healing face, which was scrubbed free of makeup. Jack was always amazed at the transformation. They went in looking like old ladies; they came out as teenagers.
They were prostitutes. Jack wasn’t supposed to know that, because he was only ten and his parents liked to pretend things like that didn’t exist in New York City, along with muggings and rats in Central Park and a Democratic mayor. And he wasn’t allowed into their rooms. His mother went in and out like Florence Nightingale, carrying soup and clothing and books by women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, writers Jack’s dad once described as chicks who wanted dicks. But even if Jack was supposed to pretend that the whore upstairs was no different than a visiting cousin, and even if his dad tended to simply look the other way when his mom went off on a tear like this, he knew the truth . . . and somehow it always left him feeling a little sick to his stomach.
Like always, once the penthouse was clean and the bread in the oven, an air of anticipation spread until it filled every corner. Jack sat on the stairs, idly leafing through his baseball cards but really just waiting to see who it was this time around.
At three-forty-five, his mother came home. And the woman she brought with her wasn’t a woman at all.