Perfect Match

by Jodi Picoult

  "We got the report back from O'Brien. You did a nice job, Nina. I'll leave it for you to look over ..."

  In the dark under here, I begin to hum, so that I can't hear him.

  "Well."

  I stick my fingers in my ears.

  "I don't think there's anything else." I feel a commotion to my left as he gathers his files. "I'll be in touch after Christmas." He begins to walk away from me, his expensive shoes striking the carpet like rumors.

  I have killed a man; I have killed a man. This has become a part of me, like the color of my eyes or the birthmark on my right shoulder blade. I have killed a man, and nothing I do can take that away.

  I pull the covers down from my face just as he reaches the door. "Fisher," I say, the first word I've spoken in days.

  He turns, smiles.

  "I'm taking the stand."

  That smile vanishes. "No you're not."

  "I am."

  He approaches the bed again. "If you take the stand, Brown is going to rip you to shreds. If you take the stand, even I can't help you."

  I stare at him, unblinking, for a lifetime. "So?" I say.

  "Someone wants to talk to you," Caleb announces, and he drops the portable phone on the bed. When I don't bother to reach for it, Caleb seems to think twice. "It's Patrick," he adds.

  Once, on a trip to the beach, I let Nathaniel bury me in the sand. It took so long that the hills enclosing my legs--the spot where he'd started--had dried and hardened. The weight of the beach pressed down on my chest, and I remember feeling claustrophobic as his small hands built a dune around me. When I finally did move, I was a Titan, rising from the earth with enough leashed power to topple gods.

  Now, I watch my hand crawl across the covers toward the phone, and I cannot stop it. As it turns out, there is one thing strong enough to seduce me away from my careful paralysis and self-pity--the possibility of action. And even though I have looked the consequences right in their yellow-wolf eyes, it turns out I am still addicted. Hello, my name is Nina, and I need to know where he is.

  "Patrick?" I press the receiver to my ear.

  "I found him. Nina, he's in Louisiana. A town called Belle Chasse. He's a priest."

  All my breath leaves my lungs in a rush. "You arrested him."

  There is a hesitation. "No."

  As I sit up, the covers fall away. "Did you ..." I cannot finish. There is a part of me hoping so hard that he will tell me something horrible, something I desperately want to hear. And there is another part of me hoping that whatever I have turned into has not poisoned him too.

  "I talked to the guy. But I couldn't let him know I was onto him, or that I was even from Maine. You remember going through this at the beginning, with Nathaniel--tip off a molester and he's going to run, and we'll never get a confession. Gwynne's even more cagey, because he knows his half-brother was killed due to an allegation of child sexual abuse that he committed himself." Patrick hesitates. "So instead I said I was getting married and looking for a church for the ceremony. It was the first thing that came to mind."

  Tears spring to my eyes. He was within Patrick's grasp, and still nothing has happened. "Arrest him. For God's sake, Patrick, get off this phone and run back there--"

  "Nina, stop. I'm not a cop in Louisiana. The crime didn't happen here. I need an arrest warrant in Maine before I can get a fugitive charge lodged against Gwynne in Louisiana, and even then, he might fight extradition." He hesitates. "And what do you imagine my boss will say when he finds out I'm using my shield to dig up information about a case that I haven't even been assigned to?"

  "But Patrick ... you found him."

  "I know. And he's going to be punished." There is a silence. "Just not today."

  He asks me if I am all right, and I lie to him. How can I be all right? I am back where I started. Except now, after I am tried for the murder of an innocent man, Nathaniel will be embroiled in another trial. While I sit in jail, he'll have to face his abuser, drag back the nightmare. Nathaniel will suffer; he will hurt.

  Patrick says good-bye, and I hang up the phone. I stare at the receiver in my hand for a minute, rub the edge of the smooth plastic.

  The first time, I had much more to lose.

  "What are you doing?"

  My head pops through the turtleneck to find Caleb standing in the bedroom. "What does it look like I'm doing?" I button my jeans. Stuff my feet into my clogs.

  "Patrick got you out of bed," he says, and there is a note in his voice that strikes off-chord.

  "Patrick gave me information that got me out of bed," I correct. I try to move around Caleb, but he blocks my exit. "Please. I have to go somewhere."

  "Nina, you're not going anywhere. The bracelet."

  I look at my husband's face. There are lines on his brow I cannot remember seeing; with no small shock I realize I have put them there.

  I owe him this.

  So I put my hand on his arm, lead him to the bed, have him sit beside me on the edge. "Patrick found the name of the bone marrow donor. He's the priest that came to visit St. Anne's this October. The one with the cat. His name is Arthur Gwynne, and he works at a church in Belle Chasse, Louisiana."

  Caleb's face goes pale. "Why ... why are you telling me this?"

  Because the first time, I acted alone, when I should have at least told you my plans. Because when they ask you in court, you will not have to testify. "Because," I say, "it's not finished yet."

  He reels back. "Nina. No." I get up, but he catches my wrist, pulls me up close to his face. My arm, twisted, hurts. "What are you gonna do? Break your house arrest to go kill another priest? One life sentence isn't enough for you?"

  "They have the death penalty in Louisiana," I shoot back.

  My response is a guillotine, severing us. Caleb releases me so quickly I stumble and fall onto the floor. "Is that what you want?" he asks quietly. "Are you that selfish?"

  "Selfish?" By now I am crying, hard. "I'm doing this for our son."

  "You're doing this for yourself, Nina. If you were thinking of Nathaniel, even a little, you'd concentrate on being his mother. You'd get out of bed and get on with your life and let the legal system deal with Gwynne."

  "The legal system. You want me to wait for the courts to get around to charging this bastard? While he rapes ten, twenty other children? And then wait some more while the governors of our states fight over who gets the honor of holding his trial? And then wait again while Nathaniel testifies against the son of a bitch? And watch Gwynne get a sentence that ends before our son even stops having nightmares about what was done to him?" I draw in a long, shaky breath. "There's your legal system, Caleb. Is it worth waiting for?"

  When he doesn't answer, I get to my feet. "I'm already going to prison for killing a man. I don't have a life anymore. But Nathaniel can."

  "You want your son to grow up without you?" Caleb's voice breaks. "Let me save you the trouble."

  Standing abruptly, he leaves the bedroom, calling Nathaniel's name. "Hey, buddy," I hear him say. "We're going on an adventure."

  My hands and feet go numb. But I manage to get to Nathaniel's bedroom, and find Caleb haphazardly stuffing clothes into a Batman knapsack. "What ... what are you doing?"

  "What does it look like I'm doing?" Caleb replies, an echo of my own earlier words.

  Nathaniel jumps up and down on his bed. His hair flies to the sides like silk. "You can't take him away from me."

  Caleb zips shut the bag. "Why not? You were willing to take yourself away from him." He turns to Nathaniel, forces a smile. "You ready?" he asks, and Nathaniel leaps into his outstretched arm.

  "Bye, Mommy!" he crows. "We're on an adventure!"

  "I know." Smiling is hard, with this knot in my throat. "I heard."

  Caleb carries him past me. There is the thunder of footsteps on the stairs, and the definitive slam of a door. The engine of Caleb's truck, revving and reversing down the driveway. Then it is so quiet I can hear my own misgivings, small susurrations in the a
ir around me.

  I sink onto Nathaniel's bed, into sheets that smell of crayons and gingerbread. The fact of the matter is, I cannot leave this house. The moment I do, police cars will come screaming up behind me. I will be arrested before I ever board a plane.

  Caleb has succeeded; he's stopped me from doing what I so badly want to.

  Because he knows if I do walk out that door now, I won't go after Arthur Gwynne at all. I'll be searching for my son.

  Three days later Caleb has not called me. I have tried every hotel and motel in the area, but if he is staying at one, it's not under his own name. It's Christmas Eve, though, and surely they will come back. Caleb is a big one for having holiday traditions, and to this end I have wrapped all of Nathaniel's Christmas presents--ones I've stored in the attic all year. From the dwindling supply of food in the refrigerator I have cooked a chicken and made celery soup; I have set the table with our fancy wedding china.

  I have cleaned up, too, because I want Caleb to notice that the moment he walks through the door. Maybe if he sees a difference on the outside, he will understand that I'm different within, too. My hair is coiled into a French twist, and I'm wearing black velvet pants and a red blouse. In my ears are the present Nathaniel gave me last Christmas--little snowman earrings made from Sculpy clay.

  And yet, this is all just a surface glaze. My eyes are ringed with circles--I have not slept since they left, as if this is some kind of cosmic punishment for dozing away the days when we were all together. I walk the halls at night, trying to find the spots in the carpet that have been worn down by Nathaniel's running feet. I stare at old photographs. I haunt my own home.

  We have no tree, because I wasn't able to go out to chop one down. It's a tradition for us to walk our property the Saturday before Christmas and pick one out as a family. But then, we have not been much of a family this holiday season.

  By four P.M. I've lit candles and put on a Christmas CD. I sit with my hands folded in my lap and wait.

  It's something I'm working on.

  At four-thirty, it begins to snow. I rearrange all of Nathaniel's presents in size order. I wonder if there will be enough of an accumulation for him to sled down the back hill on the Flexible Flyer that stands propped against the wall, festooned with a bow.

  Ten minutes later, I hear the heavy chug of a truck coming down the driveway. I leap to my feet, take one last nervous look around, and throw open the door with a bright smile. The UPS man, weary and dusted with snowflakes, stands on my porch with a package. "Nina Frost?" he asks in a monotone.

  I take the parcel as he wishes me a Merry Christmas. Inside, on the couch, I tear it open. A leather-bound desk calendar for the year 2002, stamped on the inner cover with the name of Fisher's law office. HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Carrington, Whitcomb, Horoby, and Platt, Esqs. "This will come in so handy," I say aloud, "after I'm sentenced."

  When the stars shyly push through the night sky, I turn off the stereo. I look out the window, watch the driveway get erased by snow.

  Even before Patrick got his divorce, he'd sign up to work on Christmas. Sometimes, he even does double shifts. The calls most often bring him to the homes of the elderly, reporting a strange bump or a suspicious car that's disappeared by the time Patrick arrives. What these people want is the company on a night when no one else is alone.

  "Merry Christmas," he says, backing away from the home of Maisie Jenkins, eighty-two years old, a recent widow.

  "God bless," she calls back, and goes into a home as empty as the one that Patrick is about to return to.

  He could go visit Nina, but surely Caleb has brought Nathaniel back for the night. No, Patrick wouldn't interrupt that. Instead he gets into his car and drives down the slick streets of Biddeford. Christmas lights glitter like jewels on porches, inside windows, as if the world has been strewn with an embarrassment of riches. Cruising slowly, he imagines children asleep. What the hell are sugar plums, anyway?

  Suddenly, a bright blur barrels across the range of Patrick's headlights, and he brakes hard. He steers into the skid and avoids hitting the person who's run across the road. Getting out of the car, he rushes to the side of the fallen man. "Sir," Patrick asks, "are you all right?"

  The man rolls over. He is dressed in a Santa suit, and alcohol fumes rise from his phony cotton beard. "St. Nick, to you, boyo. Get it straight."

  Patrick helps him sit up. "Did you hurt anything?"

  "Lay off." Santa struggles away from him. "I could sue you."

  "For not hitting you? I doubt it."

  "Reckless operation of a vehicle. You're probably drunk."

  At that, Patrick laughs. "As opposed to you?"

  "I haven't had a drop!"

  "Okay, Santa." Patrick hauls him to his feet. "You got somewhere to call home?"

  "I gotta get my sleigh."

  "Sure you do." With a bracing arm, he steers the man toward his cruiser.

  "The reindeer, they chew up the shingles if I leave them too long."

  "Of course."

  "I'm not getting in there. I'm not finished yet, you know."

  Patrick opens the rear door. "I'll take the chance, Pop. Go on. I'll take you down to a nice warm bunk to sleep this off."

  Santa shakes his head. "My old lady'll kill me."

  "Mrs. Claus will get over it."

  His smile fades as he looks at Patrick. "C'mon, officer. Cut me a little slack. You know what it's like to go home to a woman you love, who just wishes you'd stay the hell away?"

  Patrick ducks him into the car, with maybe a little too much force. No, he doesn't know what it's like. He can't get past the first part of that sentence: You know what it's like to go home to a woman you love?

  By the time he gets to the station, Santa is unconscious, and has to be hauled into the building by Patrick and the desk officer. Patrick punches out on the clock, gets into his own truck. But instead of driving home, he heads in the opposite direction, past Nina's house. Just to make sure everything's all right. It is something he has not done with regularity since the year he returned to Biddeford, when Nina and Caleb were already married. He would drive by on the graveyard shift and see all the lights out, save the one in their bedroom. An extra dose of security, or so he told himself back then.

  Years later, he still doesn't believe it.

  It is supposed to be a big deal, Nathaniel knows. Not only does he get to stay up extra late on Christmas Eve, but he can open as many presents as he wants, which is all of them. And they're staying in a real live old castle, in a whole new country called Canada.

  Their room at this castle-hotel has a fireplace in it, and a bird that looks real but is dead. Stuffed, that's what his father called it, and maybe it did look like it had eaten too much, although Nathaniel doesn't think you can die from that. There are two huge beds and the kinds of pillows that squinch when you lie on them, instead of popping right back.

  Everyone talks a different language, one Nathaniel doesn't understand, and that makes him think of his mother.

  He has opened a remote-control truck, a stuffed kangaroo, a helicopter. Matchbox cars in so many colors it makes him dizzy. Two computer games and a tiny pinball machine he can hold in his hand. The room is littered with wrapping paper, which his father is busy feeding into the mouth of the fire.

  "That's some haul," he muses, smiling at Nathaniel.

  His father has been letting Nathaniel call the shots. To that end, they got to play at a fort the whole day, and ride up and down a cable car, the funsomething, Nathaniel forgets. They went to a restaurant with a big moose head mounted outside and Nathaniel got to order five desserts. They went back to the room and opened their presents, saving their stockings for tomorrow. They have done everything Nathaniel has asked, which never happens when he is at home.

  "So," his father says. "What's next?"

  But all Nathaniel wants to do is make it the way it used to be.

  The doorbell rings at eleven, and it's a Christmas tree. Then Patrick's face pokes th
rough the branches, from behind the enormous balsam. "Hi," he says.

  My face feels rubbery, this smile strange upon it. "Hi."

  "I brought you a tree."

  "I noticed." Stepping back, I let him into the house. He props the tree against the wall, needles raining down around our feet. "Caleb's truck isn't here."

  "Neither's Caleb. Or Nathaniel."

  Patrick's eyes darken. "Oh, Nina. Christ, I'm sorry."

  "Don't be." I give him my best grin. "I have a tree now. And someone to help me eat Christmas Eve dinner."

  "Why, Miz Maurier, I'd be delighted." At the same moment, we realize Patrick's mistake--calling me by my maiden name, the name by which he first knew me. But neither one of us bothers to make the correction.

  "Come on in. I'll get the food out of the fridge."

  "In a second." He runs out to his car, and returns with several Wal-Mart shopping bags. Some are tied with ribbons. "Merry Christmas." An afterthought, he leans forward and kisses me on the cheek.

  "You smell like bourbon."

  "That would be Santa," Patrick says. "I had the unparalleled pleasure of sticking St. Nick in a cell to sleep off a good drunk." As he talks, he starts unpacking the bags. Cracker Jacks, Cheetos, Chex Mix. Non-alcoholic champagne. "There wasn't much open," he apologizes.

  Picking up the fake champagne, I turn it over in my hands. "Not even gonna let me get trashed, huh?"

  "Not if it gets you busted." Patrick meets my gaze. "You know the rules, Nina."

  And because he has always known what is right for me, I follow him into the living room, where we set up the tree in the empty stand. We light a fire, and then hang ornaments from boxes I keep tucked in the attic. "I remember this one," Patrick says, pulling out a delicate glass teardrop with a figurine inside. "There used to be two."

  "And then you sat on one."

  "I thought your mother was going to kill me."

  "I think she would have, but you were already bleeding--"

  Patrick bursts out laughing. "And you kept pointing at me, and saying, 'He's cut on the butt.'" He hangs the teardrop on the tree, at chest level. "I'll have you know, there's still a scar."

  "Yeah, right."

  "Wanna see?"

  He is joking, his eyes sparkling. But all the same, I have to pretend I am busy with something else.

  When we are finished, we sit down on the couch and eat cold chicken and Chex Mix. Our shoulders brush, and I remember how we used to fall asleep on the floating dock in the town swimming pond, the sun beating down on our faces and chests and heating our skin to the same exact temperature. Patrick puts the other Wal-Mart bags beneath the tree. "You have to promise me you'll wait till the morning to open them."