Sing You Home

by Jodi Picoult

  "Sorry that didn't go as well for you as you'd hoped," she replies.

  "That went just fine, thank you very much."

  "Maybe that's what you all think in Louisiana, but, believe me, here you just got slammed," the lawyer says.

  Wade leans on the books that were brought in by the paralegal. "The true colors of this judge will come out, darlin'," he says. "And believe me . . . they're not rainbow-striped."

  "There is audio content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. The caption for this content is displayed below."

  The Mermaid (3:26)

  ZOE

  Lucy is drawing a mermaid: her hair long and twisted, her tail curled into the corner of the thick manila paper. As I finish singing "Angel," I put down my guitar, but Lucy keeps adding little touches--a ribbon of seaweed, the reflection of the sun. "You're a good artist," I tell her.

  She shrugs. "I design my own tattoos."

  "Do you have any?"

  "If I did, I'd be thrown out of my house," Lucy says. "One year, six months, four days."

  "That's when you're getting your tattoo?"

  She looks up at me. "That's the minute I turn eighteen."

  After our drumming session, I had vowed never to make Lucy meet in the special needs classroom again. Instead, Vanessa tells me which spaces are unoccupied (the French class that's on a field trip; the art class that has gone to the auditorium to watch a film). Today, for example, we are meeting in the health classroom. We're surrounded by inspirational posters: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS. And CHOOSE BOOZE? YOU LOSE. And a pregnant teen in profile: NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN.

  We have been working on lyric analysis. It's something I've done before with the nursing home groups, because it gets people interacting with each other. Usually I start by telling them the name of a song--often one they don't know--and ask them to guess what it will be about. Then I sing it, and ask for the words and phrases that stood out. We talk about their personal reactions to the lyrics, and, finally, I ask what emotions the song produced in them.

  Because I didn't think Lucy would want to verbally open up, I started having her draw her reactions to the lyrics. "It's interesting that you drew a mermaid," I said. "Angels aren't usually pictured underwater."

  Immediately, Lucy bristles. "You said there wasn't a right and a wrong way to do this."

  "There's not."

  "I guess I could have drawn some of those totally depressing animals on the ASPCA commercial . . ."

  It has been running a few years now: a montage of sad-eyed puppies and kittens, with this song playing in the background.

  "You know, Sarah McLachlan said the song was about the keyboard player for the Smashing Pumpkins, who OD'd on heroin," I say. I'd picked this song because I was hoping to get her talking about her previous suicide attempts.

  "Duh. That's why I drew a mermaid. She's floating and drowning at the same time."

  Sometimes Lucy says things that just leave me speechless. I wonder how Vanessa and all the other school counselors could have ever thought she was distancing herself from the world. She'd drawn a bead on it, better than any of us.

  "Have you ever felt like that?" I ask.

  Lucy looks up. "Like OD'ing on heroin?"

  "Among other things."

  She colors in the mermaid's hair, ignoring the question. "If you could pick, how would you want to die?"

  "In my sleep."

  "Everyone says that." Lucy rolls her eyes. "If that wasn't an option, then what?"

  "This is a pretty morbid conversation--"

  "So is talking about suicide."

  I nod, giving her that much. "Fast. Like an execution by firing squad. I wouldn't want to feel anything."

  "A plane crash," Lucy says. "You practically get vaporized."

  "Yeah, but imagine what it's like the few minutes before, when you know you're going down." I used to actually have nightmares about plane crashes. That I wouldn't be able to turn on my phone fast enough or get a signal so that I could leave Max a message telling him I loved him. I used to picture him sitting at the answering machine after my funeral, listening to the dead air and wondering what I was trying to say.

  "I've heard drowning's not so bad. You pass out from holding your breath before all the really awful stuff happens." She looks down at the paper, at her mermaid. "With my luck, I'd be able to breathe water."

  I look at her. "Why would that be so bad?"

  "How do mermaids commit suicide?" Lucy muses. "Death by oxygen?"

  "Lucy," I say, waiting for her to meet my gaze, "do you still think about killing yourself?"

  She doesn't make a joke out of the question. But she doesn't answer, either. She begins to draw patterns on the mermaid's tail, a flourish of scales. "You know how I get angry sometimes?" she says. "That's because it's the only thing I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here."

  Music therapy is a hybrid profession. Sometimes I'm an entertainer, sometimes I am a healer. Sometimes I am a psychologist, and sometimes I'm just a confidante. The art of my job is knowing when to be each of these things. "Maybe there are other ways to test yourself," I suggest. "To make you feel."

  "Like what?"

  "You could write some music," I say. "For a lot of musicians, songs become the way to talk about really hard things they're going through."

  "I can't even play the kazoo."

  "I could teach you. And it doesn't have to be the kazoo, either. It could be guitar, drums, piano. Anything you want."

  She shakes her head, already retreating. "Let's play Russian roulette," she says, and she grabs my iPod. "Let's draw the next song that comes up on Shuffle." She pushes the picture of the mermaid toward me and reaches for a fresh piece of paper.

  "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" starts playing.

  We both look up and start laughing. "Seriously?" Lucy says. "This is on one of your playlists?"

  "I work with little kids. This is a big favorite."

  She bends over the paper and starts drawing again. "Every year, my sisters watch this on TV. And every year, it scares the hell out of me."

  "Rudolph scares you?"

  "Not Rudolph. The place he goes."

  She is drawing a train with square wheels, a spotted elephant. "The Island of Misfit Toys?" I ask.

  "Yeah," Lucy says, looking up. "They creep me out."

  "I never really understood what was wrong with them," I admit. "Like the Charlie-in-the-Box? Big deal. Tickle Me Elmo would have still been a hit if it were called Tickle Me Gertrude. And I always thought a water pistol that shot jelly could be the next Transformer."

  "What about the polka-dotted elephant?" Lucy says, a smile playing over her lips. "Total freak of nature."

  "On the contrary--sticking him on the island was a blatantly racist move. For all we know his mother had an affair with a cheetah."

  "The doll is the scariest . . ."

  "What's her issue?"

  "She's depressed," Lucy says. "Because none of the kids want her."

  "Do they ever actually tell you that?"

  "No, but what else could her problem be?" Suddenly, she grins. "Unless she's a he . . ."

  "Cross-dressing," we say, at the same time.

  We both laugh, and then Lucy bends down over her artwork again. She draws in silence for a few moments, adding spots to that poor misunderstood elephant. "I'd probably fit right in on that stupid island," Lucy says. "Because I'm supposed to be invisible, but everyone can still see me."

  "Maybe you're not supposed to be invisible. Maybe you're just supposed to be different."

  As I say the words, I think of Angela Moretti, and Vanessa, and those frozen embryos. I think of Wade Preston, with his Hong Kong tailored suit and slicked-back hair, looking at me as if I am a total aberration, a crime against the species.

  If I remember correctly, those toys all jump into Santa's sleigh and get redistributed beneath Christmas trees everywhere. I hope that, if this is t
rue, I wind up under Wade Preston's.

  I turn to find Lucy staring at me. "The other time I feel things," she confesses, "is when I'm here with you."

  Usually after Lucy's therapy session, I go to Vanessa's office and we have lunch in the cafeteria--Tater Tots, let me tell you, are vastly underrated--but today, she's off at a college admissions fair in Boston, so I head to my car instead. On the way I check my phone messages. There's one from Vanessa, telling me about an admissions officer from Emerson with an orange beehive hairdo who looks like she fell off a B-52's album cover, and another just telling me she loves me. There's one from my mother, asking me if I can help her move furniture this afternoon.

  As I get closer to my yellow Jeep in the parking lot, I see Angela Moretti leaning against it. "Is something wrong?" I say immediately. It can't be a good thing when your attorney travels an hour to tell you something.

  "I was in the neighborhood. Well, Fall River, anyway. So I figured I'd swing by to tell you the latest."

  "That doesn't sound very good . . ."

  "I got another motion on my desk this morning, courtesy of Wade Preston," Angela explains. "He wants to appoint a guardian ad litem to the case."

  "A what?"

  "They're common in custody cases. It's someone whose job it is to determine the best interests of the child, and to communicate that to the court." She shakes her head. "Preston wants one appointed for the pre-born children."

  "How could he . . ." My voice trails off.

  "This is posturing," Angela explains. "It's his way of setting forth a political agenda, that's all. It's going to be knocked out of court before you even sit down in your chair." She glances up at me. "There's more. Preston was on Joe Hoffman last night."

  "Who's Joe Hoffman?"

  "A conservative who runs the Voice of Liberty Broadcasting. A mecca for the closed-minded, if you ask me."

  "What did he talk about?"

  Angela looks at me squarely. "The destruction of family values. He specifically named you and Vanessa as being at the forefront of the homosexual movement to ruin America. Do you two receive mail at your house? Because I'd strongly recommend a post office box. And I assume you have an alarm system . . ."

  "Are you saying we're in danger?"

  "I don't know," Angela says. "Better safe than sorry. Hoffman's small potatoes, compared to where Preston's headed. O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh. He didn't take this case because he cares so deeply for Max. He took it because it gives him a platform to stand on while he's preaching, and because it's a current hook that gets him booked on these shows. By the time we go to trial, Preston's going to make sure you can't turn on the TV without seeing his face."

  Angela had warned us that this would be an uphill battle, that we had to be prepared. I'd assumed that what was at stake was my chance to be a mother; I hadn't realized that I'd also lose my privacy, my anonymity.

  "When you think about the lengths he's going to, it's laughable," Angela says.

  But I don't find it funny. When I start crying, Angela hugs me. "Is it all going to be like this?" I ask.

  "Worse," she promises. "But imagine the stories you'll have to tell your baby one day."

  She waits until I've pulled myself together, and then tells me to be at court tomorrow to fight the motion. As I'm getting into my car again, my cell phone rings.

  "Why aren't you home yet?" Vanessa says.

  I should tell her about Angela's visit; I should tell her about Wade Preston. But when you love someone, you protect her. I may stand to lose my credibility, my reputation, my career, but then again, it's my battle. This is my ex-husband, my former marriage's embryos. The only reason Vanessa is even involved is because she had the misfortune of falling for me.

  "I got tied up," I say. "Tell me about the beehive lady."

  But Vanessa is having none of it. "What's the matter? You sound like you're crying."

  I close my eyes. "I'm getting a cold."

  It is the first time, I realize, I've ever lied to her.

  It takes my mother and me two hours to swap all the furniture in my old bedroom and hers. She's decided that she needs a new perspective, and what better way to start each day than to see something different when she opens her eyes?

  "Plus," she says, "your window opens to the west. I'm tired of waking up with the sun in my eyes."

  I glance around at the same bedding, the same bedroom set. "So basically you're your own life coach?"

  "How can I expect my clients to follow my advice if I don't follow it myself?"

  "And you really believe that relocating ten feet down the hall is going to revolutionize your life?"

  "Beliefs are the roads we take to reach our dreams. Believe you can do something--or believe you can't--and you'll be right every time."

  I roll my eyes at her. I am pretty sure there was a self-help movement not too long ago that followed that mantra. I remember seeing a high school student on a newsmagazine who subscribed to the philosophy and then didn't study for her SATs because, after all, she could visualize that perfect 2400. Needless to say, she wound up going to a community college and complaining on television about how it was really all a load of BS.

  I look around the room at my mother's same old bedding, same furniture. "Doesn't it defeat the purpose of starting over when you're doing it with stuff you've had forever?"

  "Honestly, Zoe, you are such a downer sometimes." My mother sighs. "I'm more than happy to give you a little life coaching, free of charge."

  "I'll take a rain check, thanks."

  "Suit yourself." She slides down, her back pressed to the wall, while I collapse across the mattress. When I look up, I see a freckling of glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling.

  "I'd forgotten about those," I say.

  After my father died, I became obsessed with ghosts. I desperately wanted my father to be one, in the hope that I might find him sitting on the edge of my bed when I woke up in the middle of the night, or feel him whisper a shiver across the nape of my neck. To this end, I borrowed books from the library on paranormal activity; I tried to conduct seances in my bedroom; I sneaked downstairs late at night and watched horror movies when I should have been sleeping. My teacher noticed, and told my mother I might need help. The psychiatrist I'd been seeing sporadically after my father's death agreed it could be an issue to address.

  My mother didn't. She figured if I wanted my father to be a spirit, I must have had a valid reason.

  One night at dinner she said, "I don't think he's a ghost. I think he's a star, looking down on us."

  "That's dumb. A star's just a ball of gas," I scoffed.

  "And a ghost is . . . ?" my mother pointed out. "Ask any scientist--they'll tell you that new stars are born every minute."

  "People who die don't become stars."

  "Some Native Americans would disagree with you, there."

  I considered this. "Where do stars go during the day?"

  "That's the thing," my mother said, "they're still there. They're watching us, even when we're too busy to be watching them."

  While I was at school the next day, my mother hot-glued little plastic stars on my ceiling. That night, we both lay down on the bed and covered ourselves with my blanket. I didn't sneak out of bed to watch a scary movie. Instead, I fell asleep with my mother's arms around me.

  Now, I look at her. "Do you think I would have turned out differently if Dad had been around when I was growing up?"

  "Well, sure," my mother says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. "But I think he'd be pretty proud of the outcome all the same."

  After Angela left, I'd stopped off at my house. I'd gotten on the Internet and downloaded the podcast of Joe Hoffman's radio program, where I listened to him and Wade Preston rattle off statistics: children raised by homosexual parents were more likely to try a homosexual relationship themselves; children of homosexual parents were embarrassed to let their friends find out about their home lives; lesbian mothers feminized their sons and m
asculinized their daughters.

  "My lawsuit was on Joe Hoffman's radio show," I say.

  "I know," my mother says. "I heard it."

  "You listen to him?"

  "Religiously . . . pun intended. I tune in when I'm on the treadmill. I've found that, when I'm angry, I walk faster." She laughs. "I save Rush for my abdominal crunches."

  "But what if he has a point? What if we have a boy? I don't know anything about raising one. I don't know about dinosaurs or construction equipment or how to play catch . . ."

  "Honey, babies don't come with instruction booklets. You'd learn the same way we all do--you'd read up on dinosaurs; you'd Google backhoes and skidders. And you don't need a penis to go buy a baseball glove." My mother shakes her head. "Don't you dare let anyone tell you what you can and cannot be, Zoe."

  "You have to admit, things would have been easier if Dad was here," I say.

  "Yes. I actually agree with Wade Preston in one respect: every child should be raised by a married couple." She smiles broadly. "That's why same-sex marriage should be legal."

  "When did you become such a gay activist?"

  "I'm not. I'm a Zoe activist. If you'd told me you were vegan, I can't say I'd stop eating meat, but I'd fight for your right to not eat it. If you'd told me you were becoming a nun, I can't promise you I'd convert, but I'd read the Bible so I could talk to you about it. But you're gay, so instead I know that the American Psychological Association says children raised by gay parents describe themselves as straight in the same proportion as those raised in heterosexual households. I know there's no scientific basis for saying gay people are any less capable than straight parents. As a matter of fact, there are certain bonuses that come with being raised by two mommies or two daddies: compassion, for one. Plus, girls play and dress in ways that break gender stereotypes, and boys tend to be more affectionate, more nurturing, and less promiscuous. And probably because they've dealt with questions all their lives, kids raised by gay parents are better at adjusting in general."

  My jaw drops. "Where did you learn all that?"

  "On the Internet. Because when I'm not listening to Joe Hoffman, I'm researching what I'm going to say when I finally back Wade Preston into a corner."

  No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it's not gender that makes a family; it's love. You don't need a mother and a father; you don't necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who's got your back.