The Jodi Picoult Collection #3
Page 78
The counterpart of the research I’ve done on death row involves holing up in my office wading through the Gospels for research . . . not just the ones that made it into the Bible but the ones that didn’t, like the Gospel of Thomas—a Gospel found in 1945 in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Like the other fifty-one texts found at Nag Hammadi, they contain a lot of sayings you can find in the Bible . . . and a lot you won’t. These are referred to as the Gnostic Gospels—part and parcel of a religious movement that was denounced as heresy by Orthodox Christianity in the middle of the second century. Gnosis means knowledge in Greek—and the basis for the Gnostics’ beliefs is that if you want to know God, you have to know yourself. Or in other words, there’s a little bit of divinity in all of us, coded and hidden . . . and it’s up to each of us to figure out how to get it out. The Gnostics felt that religion was something that by definition had to be personal—and that if you simply believed what others told you to believe or said the right words during a church service or got baptized, it wasn’t enough to reach spiritual fulfillment. Above all else, the Gnostics said, ask questions. Don’t believe everything you’re told; don’t assume that just because someone says “This is the way it should be done” that he or she is right. There are a lot of reasons—political and religious—why Orthodox Christianity rejected the Gnostic movement . . . but in a way, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. Not only were these Gospels lost for thousands of years . . . but so was some of the open-mindedness about faith in general. “If you bring forth what is within you,” Jesus says, in the Gospel of Thomas, “what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Sounds like a riddle, right? But it’s actually pretty simple: The potential to free yourself—or ruin yourself—is entirely up to you. And just maybe instead of focusing on the destination, we ought to look at the journey.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Jodi Picoult “Magic Words” © 1967, 1968 Education Development Center, Inc. (www.edc.org)
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Picoult, Jodi, 1966–
The tenth circle: a novel / by Jodi Picoult.
p. cm.
1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Comic books, strips, etc.—
Authorship—Fiction. 3. Rape victims—Fiction. 4. Date rape—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3566.I372T46 2006
813'.54—dc22
2005048281
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9670-4
ISBN-10: 0-7434-9670-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9671-1 (Pbk)
ISBN-10: 0-7434-9671-X (Pbk)
This Washington Square Press trade paperback edition October 2006
ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Jaime Putorti
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part One
Chapter 1: March 6, 2007
Chapter 2: Seventeen Years Before
Chapter 3: Hours After
Chapter 4: Twelve Years Before
Chapter 5: The Day After
Chapter 6: Six Years Before
Chapter 7: Ten Days After
Chapter 8: One Year Before
Chapter 9: One Month After
Chapter 10: The Month Before
Part Two
Chapter 11: Five Months After
Chapter 12: 6:30 A.M., The Day Of
Chapter 13: Five Months After
Chapter 14: 10:16 A.M., The Day Of
Chapter 15: Five Months After
Chapter 16: March 6, 2008
Readers Club Guide
For Emily Bestler, the finest editor and fiercest champion a girl could ask for, who makes sure I put my best foot forward, every time.
Thanks for your keen eye, your cheerleading, and most of all, your friendship.
Acknowledgments
You know it’s going to be an intriguing paragraph when I first thank the man who came to my house to teach me how to shoot a handgun in a woodpile in my own backyard: Captain Frank Moran. Thanks, too, to his colleague, Lieutenant Michael Evans, for detailed information on firearms, and to police chief Nick Giaccone for the bazillion last-minute email questions about search, seizure, and all things police-oriented. Detective Trooper Claire Demarais gets her own special kudo for being the queen of forensics and for walking Patrick through a crime scene of enormous proportion. I’m fortunate to have many friends and family who happen to also be experts in their fields, who let me share their stories, or who serve as sounding boards: Jane Picoult, Dr. David Toub, Wyatt Fox, Chris Keating, Suzanne Serat, Doug Fagen, Janine Scheiner, Conrad Farnham, Chris and Karen van Leer. Thanks to Guenther Frankenstein for his family’s generous contribution to the expansion of Hanover’s Howe Library and for the use of his marvelous name. Glen Libby patiently answered my questions about life at the Grafton County Jail, and Ray Fleer, the undersheriff at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, provided me with materials and information about the school shooting at Columbine. Thanks to David Plaut and Jake van Leer for the really bad math joke; Doug Irwin for teaching me the economics of happiness; Kyle van Leer and Axel Hansen for the premise behind Hide-n-Shriek; Luke Hansen for the C++ program; and Ellen Irwin for the popularity chart. I’m grateful, as always, to the team at Atria Books that makes me look so much better than I truly am: Carolyn Reidy, David Brown, Alyson Mazzarelli, Christine Duplessis, Gary Urda, Jeanne Lee, Lisa Keim, Sarah Branham, and the indefatigable Jodi Lipper. To Judith Curr, thanks for singing my praises without stopping to take a breath. To Camille McDuffie, thank you for making me that rarest of things in publishing: a brand name. To Laura Gross, I raise a wee dram of Highland whiskey and salute you, because I can’t imagine this business without you. To Emily Bestler, well, check out the following page. A very special nod to Judge Jennifer Sargent, without whose input the character of Alex could not have existed. And to Jennifer Sternick, my own personal prosecutor—you’re one of the brightest women I’ve ever met, and you make work way too much fun for our own good (long live King Wah), so it’s clearly your own damn fault that I keep asking you to help again and again. Thanks, as always, to my family—Kyle, Jake, and Sammy—who make sure I remember what’s really important in life; and to my husband, Tim—the reason I’m the luckiest woman on earth. Lastly, I would like to thank a cadre of people who were the heart and soul of this book: the survivors of actual school shootings in America, and those who helped with the emotional aftermath: Betsy Bicknase, Denna O’Connell, Linda Liebl, and the remarkable Kevin Braun—thank you for having the courage to revisit your memories and the grace to let me borrow them. And finally, to the thousands of kids out there who are a little bit different, a little bit scared, a little bit unpopular: this one’s for you.
PART ONE
If we don’t change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.
—CHINESE PROVERB
By the time you read this, I hope to be dead.
You can’t undo something that’s happened; you can’t take back a word that’s already been said out loud. You’ll think about me and wish that you had been able to talk me out of this. You’ll try to figure out what would have been the one right thing to say, to do. I guess I should tell you, Don’t blame yourself; this isn’t your fault, but that would be a lie. We both know that I didn’t get here by myself.
You’ll cry, at my fune
ral. You’ll say it didn’t have to be this way. You will act like everyone expects you to. But will you miss me?
More importantly—will I miss you?
Does either one of us really want to hear the answer to that question?
March 6, 2007
In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.
Nineteen minutes is how long it took the Tennessee Titans to sell out of tickets to the play-offs. It’s the length of a sitcom, minus the commercials. It’s the driving distance from the Vermont border to the town of Sterling, New Hampshire.
In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem.
In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.
In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.
* * *
As usual, Alex Cormier was running late. It took thirty-two minutes to drive from her house in Sterling to the superior court in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and that was only if she speeded through Orford. She hurried downstairs in her stockings, carrying her heels and the files she’d brought home with her over the weekend. She twisted her thick copper hair into a knot and anchored it at the base of her neck with bobby pins, transforming herself into the person she needed to be before she left her house.
Alex had been a superior court judge now for thirty-four days. She’d believed that, having proved her mettle as a district court judge for the past five years, this time around the appointment might be easier. But at forty, she was still the youngest judge in the state. She still had to fight to establish herself as a fair justice—her history as a public defender preceded her into her courtroom, and prosecutors assumed she’d side with the defense. When Alex had submitted her name years ago for the bench, it had been with the sincere desire to make sure people in this legal system were innocent until proven guilty. She just never anticipated that, as a judge, she might not be given the same benefit of the doubt.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee drew Alex into the kitchen. Her daughter was hunched over a steaming mug at the kitchen table, poring over a textbook. Josie looked exhausted—her blue eyes were bloodshot; her chestnut hair was a knotty ponytail. “Tell me you haven’t been up all night,” Alex said.
Josie didn’t even glance up. “I haven’t been up all night,” she parroted.
Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and slid into the chair across from her. “Honestly?”
“You asked me to tell you something,” Josie said. “You didn’t ask for the truth.”
Alex frowned. “You shouldn’t be drinking coffee.”
“And you shouldn’t be smoking cigarettes.”
Alex felt her face heat up. “I don’t—”
“Mom,” Josie sighed, “even when you open up the bathroom windows, I can still smell it on the towels.” She glanced up, daring Alex to challenge her other vices.
Alex herself didn’t have any other vices. She didn’t have time for any vices. She would have liked to say that she knew with authority that Josie didn’t have any vices, either, but she would only be making the same inference the rest of the world did when they met Josie: a pretty, popular, straight-A student who knew better than most the consequences of falling off the straight-and-narrow. A girl who was destined for great things. A young woman who was exactly what Alex had hoped her daughter would grow to become.
Josie had once been so proud to have a mother as a judge. Alex could remember Josie broadcasting her career to the tellers at the bank, the baggers in the grocery store, the flight attendants on planes. She’d ask Alex about her cases and her decisions. That had all changed three years ago, when Josie entered high school, and the tunnel of communication between them slowly bricked shut. Alex didn’t necessarily think that Josie was hiding anything more than any other teenager, but it was different: a normal parent might metaphorically judge her child’s friends, whereas Alex could do it legally.
“What’s on the docket today?” Alex said.
“Unit test. What about you?”
“Arraignments,” Alex replied. She squinted across the table, trying to read Josie’s textbook upside down. “Chemistry?”
“Catalysts.” Josie rubbed her temples. “Substances that speed up a reaction, but stay unchanged by it. Like if you’ve got carbon monoxide gas and hydrogen gas and you toss in zinc and chromium oxide, and . . . what’s the matter?”
“Just having a little flashback of why I got a C in Orgo. Have you had breakfast?”
“Coffee,” Josie said.
“Coffee doesn’t count.”
“It does when you’re in a rush,” Josie pointed out.
Alex weighed the costs of being even five minutes later, or getting another black mark against her in the cosmic good-parenting tally. Shouldn’t a seventeen-year-old be able to take care of herself in the morning? Alex started pulling items out of the refrigerator: eggs, milk, bacon. “I once presided over an involuntary emergency admission at the state mental hospital for a woman who thought she was Emeril. Her husband had her committed when she put a pound of bacon in the blender and chased him around the kitchen with a knife, yelling Bam!”
Josie glanced up from her textbook. “For real?”
“Oh, believe me, I can’t make these things up.” Alex cracked an egg into a skillet. “When I asked her why she’d put a pound of bacon in the blender, she looked at me and said that she and I must just cook differently.”
Josie stood up and leaned against the counter, watching her mother cook. Domesticity wasn’t Alex’s strong point—she didn’t know how to make a pot roast but was proud to have memorized the phone numbers of every pizza place and Chinese restaurant in Sterling that offered free delivery. “Relax,” Alex said dryly. “I think I can do this without setting the house on fire.”
But Josie took the skillet out of her hands and laid the strips of bacon in it, like sailors bunking tightly together. “How come you dress like that?” she asked.
Alex glanced down at her skirt, blouse, and heels and frowned. “Why? Is it too Margaret Thatcher?”
“No, I mean . . . why do you bother? No one knows what you have on under your robe. You could wear, like, pajama pants. Or that sweater you have from college that’s got holes in the elbows.”
“Whether or not people see it, I’m still expected to dress . . . well, judiciously.”
A cloud passed over Josie’s face, and she busied herself over the stove, as if Alex had somehow given the wrong answer. Alex stared at her daughter—the bitten half-moon fingernails, the freckle behind her ear, the zigzag part in her hair—and saw instead the toddler who’d wait at the babysitter’s window at sundown, because she knew that was when Alex came to get her. “I’ve never worn pajamas to work,” Alex admitted, “but I do sometimes close the door to chambers and take a nap on the floor.”
A slow, surprised smile played over Josie’s face. She held her mother’s admission as if it were a butterfly lighting on her hand by accident: an event so startling you could not call attention to it without risking its loss. But there were miles to drive and defendants to arraign and chemical equations to interpret, and by the time Josie had set the bacon to drain on a pad of paper toweling, the moment had winged away.
“I still don’t get why I have to eat breakfast if you don’t,” Josie muttered.
“Because you have to be a certain age to earn the right to ruin your own life.” Alex pointed at the scrambled eggs Josie was mixing in the skillet. “Promise me you’ll finish that?”
Josie met her gaze. “Promise.”
“Then I’m headed out.”
Alex grabbed her travel mug of coffee. By the time she backed her car out of the garage, her head was already focused on the decision she had to write that afternoon; the number of arraignment
s the clerk would have stuffed onto her docket; the motions that would have fallen like shadows across her desk between Friday afternoon and this morning. She was caught up in a world far away from home, where at that very moment her daughter scraped the scrambled eggs from the skillet into the trash can without ever taking a single bite.
* * *
Sometimes Josie thought of her life as a room with no doors and no windows. It was a sumptuous room, sure—a room half the kids in Sterling High would have given their right arm to enter—but it was also a room from which there really wasn’t an escape. Either Josie was someone she didn’t want to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted.