Perfect Match

by Jodi Picoult

  It strikes me then; he is going.

  "But the snow ..."

  He shrugs. "Four-wheel drive. I'll be fine."

  I twirl my glass, so that the fake champagne swirls inside. "Please," I say, that's all. It was bad enough, before. Now that Patrick's been here, his voice filling the living room, his body spanning the space beside mine, it will seem that much emptier when he leaves.

  "It's already tomorrow." Patrick points to the clock: 12:14 A.M. "Merry Christmas." He pushes one of the plastic bags into my lap.

  "But I haven't gotten you anything." I do not say what I am thinking: that in all the years since Patrick has returned to Biddeford, he has not given me a Christmas gift. He brings presents for Nathaniel, but there is an unspoken agreement between us--anything more would be tightrope-walking on a line of propriety.

  "Just open it."

  Inside the first Wal-Mart bag is a pup tent. Inside the second, a flashlight and a brand new game of Clue. A smile darts across Patrick's face. "Now's your chance to beat me, not that you can."

  Delighted, I grin right back. "I'm going to whip you." We pull the tent out of its protective pouch and erect it in front of the Christmas tree. There is barely room enough for two, and yet we both crawl inside. "Tents have gotten smaller, I think."

  "No, we've gotten bigger." Patrick sets up the game board between our crossed legs. "I'm even going to let you go first."

  "You're a prince among men," I say, and we start to play. Each roll of the die reverses a year, until it is easy to imagine that the snow outside is a field of Queen Anne's lace; that this tournament is life-or-death; that the world is no larger than Patrick and me and a backyard campsite. Our knees bump hard and our laughter fills the tiny vinyl pyramid. The winking strand on the Christmas tree, out there, might be lightning bugs. The flames behind us, a bonfire. Patrick takes me back, and that is the best present I could ever receive.

  He wins, by the way. It is Miss Scarlett, in the library, with the wrench.

  "I demand a rematch," I announce.

  Patrick has to catch his breath; he's laughing that hard. "How many years did you go to college?"

  "Shut up, Patrick, and start over."

  "No way. I'm quitting while I'm ahead. By--what is it?--three hundred games?"

  I grab for his game piece, but he holds it out of my reach. "You're such a pain in the ass," I say.

  "And you're a sore loser." He jerks his hand higher, and in an effort to reach it, I knock the board sideways and overturn the tent as well. We go down in a tumble of vinyl and Clue cards and land on our sides, cramped and tangled. "Next time I buy you a tent," Patrick says, smiling, "I'm springing for the next size up."

  My hand falls onto his cheek, and he goes absolutely still. His pale eyes fix on mine, a dare. "Patrick," I whisper. "Merry Christmas." And I kiss him.

  Almost as quickly he jerks away from me. I can't even look at him, now. I cannot believe that I have done this. But then his hand curves around my jaw, and he kisses me back as if he is pouring his soul into me. We bump teeth and noses, we scratch and we scrape, and through this we do not break apart. The ASL sign for friends: two index fingers, locked at the first knuckles.

  Somehow we fall out of the tent. The fire is hot on the right side of my face, and Patrick's fingers are wrapped in my hair. This is bad, I know this is bad, but there is a place in me for him. It feels like he was first, before anyone else. And I think, not for the first time, that what is immoral is not always wrong.

  Drawing back on my elbows, I stare down at him. "Why did you get divorced?"

  "Why do you think?" he answers softly.

  I unbutton my blouse and then, blushing, pull it together again. Patrick covers my hands with his own and slides the sheer sleeves down. Then he pulls off his shirt, and I touch my fingers lightly to his chest, traveling a landscape that is not Caleb.

  "Don't let him in," Patrick begs, because he has always been able to think my thoughts. I kiss across his nipples, down the arrow of black hair that disappears beneath his trousers. My hands work at the belt, until I am holding him in my hands. Shifting lower, I take him into my mouth.

  In an instant he has yanked me up by the hair, crushed me to his chest. His heart is beating so fast, a summons. "Sorry," he breathes into my shoulder. "Too much. All of you, it's too much."

  After a moment, he tastes his way down me. I try not to think of my soft belly, my stretch marks, my flaws. These are the things you do not have to worry about, in a marriage. "I'm not ... you know."

  "You're not what?" His words are a puff of breath between my legs.

  "Patrick." I yank at his hair. But his finger slides inside, and I am falling. He rises over me, holds me close, fits. We move as if we have been doing this forever. Then Patrick rears back, pulls out, and comes between us.

  It binds us, skin to skin, a viscous guilt.

  "I couldn't--"

  "I know." I touch my fingers to his lips.

  "Nina." His eyes drift shut. "I love you."

  "I know that too." That is all I can allow myself to say, now. I touch the slope of his shoulders, the line of his spine. I try to commit this to memory.

  "Nina." Patrick hides a grin in the hollow of my neck. "I'm still better at Clue."

  He falls asleep in my embrace, and I watch him. That's when I tell him what I cannot manage to tell anyone else. I make a fist, the letter S, and move it in a circle over his heart. It is the truest way I know to say I'm sorry.

  Patrick wakes up when the sun is a live wire at the line of the horizon. He touches his hand to Nina's shoulder, and then to his own chest, just to make sure this is real. He lies back, stares into the glowing coals of the fireplace, and tries to wish away morning.

  But it will come, and with it, all the explanations. And in spite of the fact that he knows Nina better than she knows herself, he is not sure which excuse she will choose. She has made a living out of judging people's misdeeds. Yet no matter what argument she uses, it will all sound the same to him: This should not have happened; this was a mistake.

  There is only one thing Patrick wants to hear on her lips, and that is his own name.

  Anything else--well, it would just chip away at this, and Patrick wants to hold the night intact. So he gently slides his arm out from beneath the sweet weight of Nina's head. He kisses her temple, he breathes deeply of her. He lets go of her, before she has a chance to let go of him.

  The tent, standing upright, is the first thing I see. The second is the absence of Patrick. Sometime during that incredible, deep sleep, he left me.

  It is probably better this way.

  By the time I've cleaned up our feast from the previous night and showered, I have nearly convinced myself that this is true. But I cannot imagine seeing Patrick again without picturing him leaning over me, his black hair brushing my face. And I don't think that the peace inside me, spread like honey in my blood, can be chalked up to Christmas.

  Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

  But have I? Does Fate ever play by the rules? There is a gulf as wide as an ocean between should and want, and I am drowning in it.

  The doorbell rings, and I jump up from the couch, hurriedly wiping my eyes. Patrick, maybe back with coffee, or bagels. If he makes the choice to return, I'm absolved of blame. Even if it was what I was wishing for all along.

  But when I open the door, Caleb is standing on the porch, with Nathaniel in front of him. My son's smile is brighter than the dazzle of snow on the driveway, and for one panicked moment I peer over Caleb's shoulder to see whether the tracks made by Patrick's police cruiser have been covered over by the storm. Can you smell transgression, like a perfume deep in the skin? "Mommy!" Nathaniel shouts.

  I lift him high, revel in the straight weight of him. My heart beats like a hummingbird in my throat. "Caleb."

  He will not look at me. "I'm not staying."

  This is a mercy visit, then. In minutes, Nathaniel will be gone. I hug him closer.

 
"Merry Christmas, Nina," Caleb says. "I'll pick him up tomorrow." He nods at me, then walks off the porch. Nathaniel chatters, his excitement wrapping us tighter as the truck pulls away. I study the footprints Caleb has left in the snowy driveway as if they are clues, the unlikely proof of a ghost that comes and goes.

  III

  Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.

  --Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld

  Today in school Miss Lydia gave us a special snack.

  First, we had a piece of lettuce with a raisin on it. This was an egg.

  Then we had a string cheese caterpillar.

  Next came a chrysalis, a grape.

  The last part was a piece of cinnamon bread, cookie-cuttered into the body of a butterfly.

  After, we went outside and set free the monarchs that had been born in our classroom. One landed on my wrist. It looked different now, but I just knew this was the same caterpillar I found a week before and gave to Miss Lydia. Then it flew into the sun.

  Sometimes things change so fast it makes my throat hurt from the inside out.

  SEVEN

  When I was four I found a caterpillar on my bedroom windowsill and decided to save its life. I made my mother take me to the library so that I could look it up in a Field guide. I punched pinholes in the top of a jar; I gave it grass and leaves and a tiny thimbleful of water. My mother said that if I didn't let the caterpillar go, it would die, but I was convinced I knew better. Out in the world, it could be run over by a truck. It could be scorched by the sun. My protection would stack the odds.

  I changed its food and water religiously. I sang to it when the sun went down. And on the third day, in spite of my best intentions, that caterpillar died.

  Years later, it is happening all over again.

  "No," I tell Fisher. We have stopped walking; the cold January air is a cobra charmed up the folds of my coat. I thrust the paper back at him, as if holding my son's name out of sight might keep it from being on the witness list at all.

  "Nina, it's not your decision," he says gently. "Nathaniel's going to have to testify."

  "Quentin Brown's just doing this to get to me. He wants me to watch Nathaniel have a relapse in court so maybe I'll snap again, this time in front of a judge and a jury." Tears freeze on the tips of my eyelashes. I want it over, now. It was why I had murdered a man--because I thought that would stop this boulder from rolling on and on; because if the defendant was gone then my son would not have to sit on a witness stand and recount the worst thing that had ever happened to him. I wanted Nathaniel to be able to close this godawful chapter--and so, ironically, I didn't.

  But even this great sacrifice--of the priest's life, of my own future--has not done what it was supposed to.

  Nathaniel and Caleb have kept their distance since Christmas, but every few days Caleb brings him to the house to spend a few hours with me. I don't know how Caleb has explained our living arrangements to Nathaniel. Maybe he says I am too sick to take care of a child, or too sad; and maybe either of these are true. One thing is certain--it is not in Nathaniel's best interests to watch me plan for my own punishment. There is already too much he's witnessed.

  I know the name of the motel where they are staying, and sometimes, when I feel particularly courageous, I call. But Caleb always answers the phone, and either we have nothing to say to each other, or there are so many words clogging the wires between us that none of them fall forward.

  Nathaniel, though, is doing well. When he comes to the house, he is smiling. He sings songs for me that Miss Lydia has taught the class. He no longer jumps when you come up behind him and touch his shoulder.

  All of this progress, and it will be erased at a competency hearing.

  In the park behind us, a toddler lies on his back making a snow angel. The problem with one of those is that you have to ruin it when you stand up. No matter what, there is always a footprint binding you to the ground. "Fisher," I say simply, "I'm going to jail."

  "You don't--"

  "Fisher. Please." I touch his arm. "I can handle that. I even believe that it's what I deserve, because of what I did. But I killed a man for one reason and one reason only--to keep Nathaniel from being hurt any more. I don't want him to think about what happened to him ever again. If Quentin wants to punish someone, he can punish me. But Nathaniel, he's off limits."

  He sighs. "Nina, I'll do the best I can--"

  "You don't understand," I interrupt. "That's not good enough."

  *

  Because Judge Neal hails from Portland, he doesn't have chambers at the Alfred Superior Court, so he's been given another judge's lair to borrow for the duration of my trial. Judge McIntyre, however, spends his free time hunting. To this end, the small room is decorated with the heads of moose and ten-point bucks, prey that has lost the battle. And me? I think. Will I be next?

  Fisher has filed a motion, and the resulting meeting is being held in private chambers to prevent the media from getting involved. "Judge, this is so outrageous," he says, "that I can't begin to express my absolute chagrin. The state has Father Szyszynski's death on videotape. What possible need do they have for this child to testify to anything?"

  "Mr. Brown?" the judge prompts.

  "Your Honor, the alleged rationale for the murder was the boy's psychiatric condition at the time, and the fact that the defendant believed her son had been the victim of molestation at the hands of Father Szyszynski. The state has learned that, in fact, this is not the truth. It's important that the jury get to hear what Nathaniel actually told his mother before she went out and killed this man."

  The judge shakes his head. "Mr. Carrington, it's going to be very difficult for me to quash a subpoena if the state alleges they can make it relevant. Now, once we're in trial, I may be able to rule that it's not relevant at all--but as it stands now, this witness's testimony goes to motive."

  Fisher tries once again. "If the state will submit a written allegation of what they believe the child's testimony to be, maybe we can stipulate to it, so that Nathaniel doesn't have to take the stand."

  "Mr. Brown, that seems reasonable," the judge says.

  "I disagree. Having this witness, in the flesh, is critical to my case."

  There is a moment of surprised silence. "Think twice, counselor," Judge Neal urges.

  "I have, Your Honor, believe me."

  Fisher looks at me, and I know exactly what he is about to do. His eyes are dark with sympathy, but he waits for me to nod before he turns to the judge again. "Judge, if the state is going to be this inflexible, then we need a competency hearing. We're talking about a child who's been rendered mute twice in the past six weeks."

  The judge will leap at this compromise, I know. I also know that of all the defense attorneys I've seen in action, Fisher is one of the most compassionate toward children during competency hearings. But he won't be, not this time. Because the best-case scenario, now, is to get the judge to declare Nathaniel not competent, so that he will not have to suffer through a whole trial. And the only way Fisher can do that is to actively try to make Nathaniel fall to pieces.

  Fisher has kept it to himself, but his personal opinion is that art is beginning to imitate life. That is, his insanity defense for Nina--a complete fabrication at first--is starting to hit quite close to the mark. To keep her from dissolving after the motions hearing this morning, he took her out to lunch in a swanky restaurant, a place where she was less likely to have a breakdown. He had her tell him all the questions the prosecutor would ask Nathaniel on the stand, questions she'd asked child witnesses a thousand times.

  The courthouse is dark now, empty except for the custodial staff, Caleb, Nathaniel, and Fisher. They move down the hall quietly, Nathaniel clutched in his father's arms.

  "He's a little nervous," Caleb says, clearing his throat.

  Fisher ignores the comment. He might as well be walking a tightrope ten thousand feet above the ground. The last thing he wants to do is deal harshly with the boy; but the
n again, if he's too solicitous, Nathaniel might feel comfortable enough at the hearing to be declared competent to stand trial. Either way, Nina will have his head.

  Inside the court, Fisher switches on the overhead lights. They hiss, then flood the room with a garish brilliance. Nathaniel burrows closer to his father, his face pressed into the big man's shoulder. Where is a roll of Tums when you need it?

  "Nathaniel," Fisher says tersely, "I need you to go sit in that chair. Your father is going to be in the back. He can't say anything to you, and you can't say anything to him. You just have to answer my questions. You understand?"

  The boy's eyes are as wide as the night. He follows Fisher to the witness stand, then scrambles onto the stool that has been placed inside. "Get down for a second." Fisher reaches inside and takes out the stool, replacing it with a low chair. Now, Nathaniel's brow does not even clear the lip of the witness stand.

  "I ... I can't see anything," Nathaniel whispers.

  "You don't need to."

  Fisher is about to begin asking practice questions when a sound distracts him--Caleb, methodically gathering every high stool in the courtroom, corralling them near the double doors. "I thought maybe these might be ... better off somewhere else. So they're not around first thing in the morning." He meets Fisher's gaze.

  The attorney nods. "The closet. One of the janitors can lock them up."

  When he turns back to the boy, he has to work to keep a smile off his face.

  Now Nathaniel knows why Mason always tries to pull out of his collar--this thing called a tie that doesn't have a bow in it at all is choking his neck. He tugs at it again, only to have his father grab his hand. There are flutters in his stomach, and he'd rather be at school. Here, everyone is going to be staring at him. Here, everyone wants him to talk about things he doesn't like to say.

  Nathaniel clutches Franklin, his stuffed turtle, more tightly. The closed doors of the courtroom sigh open, and a man who looks like a policeman but isn't one waves them inside. Nathaniel moves hesitantly down the rolled red tongue of carpet. The room is not as spooky as it was last night in the dark, but he still has the feeling that he is walking into the belly of a whale. His heart begins to tap as fast as rain on a windshield, and he holds his hand up to his chest to keep everyone else from hearing, too.