The Pact

by Jodi Picoult

Gus looked out the picture window in the living room to the neat path that ran between their house and the Golds'. This time of year, it was gilded with pine needles and damp with frost. She saw a light on upstairs in Melanie's bedroom; then, she tiptoed up to check on Kate, who'd heard the news of Emily's death that afternoon. As she'd suspected, her daughter had fallen asleep crying.

  Gus flung her coat over her shoulders and ran down the path, letting herself into the Golds' kitchen. There was no sound, except for the loud ticking of a cuckoo clock. "Melanie?" she called. "It's me." She started upstairs, poking her head into the bedroom, the computer room. Emily's bedroom door was closed; Gus made the conscious decision not to check inside. Instead she knocked on the other shut door, the bathroom, and she slowly swung it open.

  Melanie was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. At Gus's entrance she glanced up, but did not register surprise.

  Now that she was there, Gus had no idea what to say. It seemed stupid, suddenly, to be the one to offer comfort when she was so closely tied to the pain. "Hi," Gus said softly. "How are you holding up?"

  Melanie shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "The funeral's Monday. We went to the mortuary."

  "That must have been awful."

  "I didn't pay attention," Melanie said. "I can't stand Michael right now."

  Gus nodded. "Yeah. James fought the doctor who wanted Chris signed into a psychiatric ward, because it's a blight on the family name."

  Melanie looked up at her. "Did you see this coming?" she asked, and Gus did not pretend to misunderstand.

  "No," Gus said, her voice breaking. "If I had, I would have told you. And I know you would have told me." She sank down on the edge of the bathtub. "What could have possibly been so awful?" she whispered. She was thinking the same things, she knew, that Melanie was: Chris and Emily had grown up with love, with wealth, with each other. What more could they have needed?

  Melanie grabbed the edge of the toilet paper and fed it through her fingers like a seam. "Michael brought this horrible outfit to have Em buried in," she said. "And I took it away. I wouldn't let him use it."

  Gus stood up, relieved by the thought of something to do. "We have to find her something, then," she said. She took Melanie's hand, tugging her upright, and led her to Emily's room. She turned the doorknob as if she wasn't scared to death of the memories that would come at her.

  But it was still simply, wonderfully, Emily's room. A teenager's shrine to Gap clothing and perfume oils and snapshots of Gus's own son. Melanie stood uncertainly in the center of the room, ready to bolt, while Gus ferreted through the closet. "How about that turquoise blouse she wore for the school picture?" Gus asked. "Her eyes looked so beautiful in it."

  "It's sleeveless," Melanie said absently. "She'd freeze to death." As Gus's hands stilled among the hangers, Melanie covered her mouth. "No," she moaned, her eyes brimming with tears.

  "Oh, Mel." Gus gathered her friend into her arms. "I loved her, too. We all did."

  Melanie pulled away and turned her back. "You know," Gus said hesitantly. "Maybe I could ask Chris. He would know better than either of us what she wore to make herself feel good."

  Melanie did not respond. What had the detective told the Golds? And more importantly, what did they believe? "You do know Chris loved her," Gus whispered. "You know he would have done anything for Em."

  When Melanie swung around, she looked completely unfamiliar. "What I know about Chris," she said, "is that he's still alive."

  THEN

  Summer 1984

  This time, Gus dreamed she was driving down Route 6. In the back of the Volvo, Chris was ramming an action figurine against the buttress of his car seat. Beside him, face obscured by the angle of the rearview mirror, was the baby. "Is she drinking her bottle?" Gus asked Chris, the big brother, the copilot.

  But before he could answer, a man knocked on the window. She smiled and rolled it down, ready to give directions.

  He waved a gun under her nose. "Get out of the car," he said.

  Shaking, Gus turned off the ignition. She stepped out of the car--they always told you to get out of the car--and she threw the keys as far as she could, to the middle of the next lane.

  "Bitch!" the man yelled, diving for the keys. Gus knew she had less than thirty seconds. Not enough time to unlatch both car seats, to drag both children out, to get them to safety.

  He was coming at her again. She had to make a choice. She scrambled for the rear door latch, sobbing. "Come on, come on," she cried, jiggling the latch on the infant seat and pulling the baby into her arms. She raced to the other side of the car, Chris's side, but the man was already revving up the engine and she watched, hugging one child, while the other was spirited away.

  "GUS. GUS!" She came awake sporadically, and tried to focus on her husband's face. "You were whimpering again."

  "You know," Gus said breathlessly, "they say that if you whimper in your sleep, you're screaming in your dream."

  "Same nightmare?"

  Gus nodded. "This time it was Chris."

  James hugged his arm around Gus and rubbed the skin of her enormous belly, feeling the bumps and ridges that would be knees, would be elbows. "This isn't good for you," he murmured.

  "I know." She was soaked in sweat; her heart was going a mile a minute. "Maybe I ... maybe I should see someone."

  "A psychiatrist?" James scoffed. "Come on, Gus. It's just a nightmare." He gentled his tone, adding, "Besides, we live in Bainbridge." He pressed his lips against her neck. "No one's going to carjack you. No one's going to steal our kids."

  Gus stared up at the ceiling. "How do you know?" she asked quietly. "How can you be so sure that your life is the one that's charmed?" Then she padded down the hall to her son's room. Chris slept sprawled across his bed, his body flung wide as a promise. He slept, Gus thought, with the conviction of someone who knows he is safe.

  THE SUMMER HAD BEEN unusually hot, something Gus attributed not to El Nino or to global warming but to Murphy's Law, since she happened to be in the middle of her second pregnancy. Every morning for the past two weeks, as the temperature had climbed to eighty-five degrees, Gus and Melanie had taken the children to Tally Pond, a town-run swimming hole.

  Chris and Emily were at the water's edge, their heads bent together, their bare limbs tangled and brown as cider. Gus watched Emily muddy her hands and hold them tenderly to Chris's face. "You're an Indian," Emily said, the streaks of her fingers leaving war paint on his cheeks.

  Chris bent down to the water and scooped up two palmfuls of mud. He slapped his hands onto Emily's bare chest, trailing dirt down over her belly. "You too," he said.

  "Uh-oh," Gus murmured. "Guess I ought to break that habit early."

  Melanie laughed. "Mauling girls, you mean? With any luck, by the time it matters, his objects of attention will choose to wear their bikini tops."

  Emily bounced back from Chris, squealed, and took off at a run down the narrow beach. Melanie watched them disappear behind a promontory. "I ought to go get them," she said.

  "Well, you'll certainly get there faster than I would," Gus agreed. She tilted her head back and dozed off until the sand trembled with the pounding of feet, and she blinked up to find Emily and Chris standing in front of her, absolutely naked.

  "We want to know why Emily has a giant," Chris announced.

  Behind them, Melanie came into view, holding the discarded bathing suits. "A giant?"

  Chris pointed to his penis. "Yeah," he said. "I have a penis, and she has a giant."

  Melanie smiled benignly. "I brought them back," she said. "You play wise woman."

  Gus cleared her throat. "Emily has a vagina," she said, "because Emily's a girl. Girls have vaginas, boys have penises." Emily and Chris looked at each other, speaking volumes.

  "Can she buy a penis?" Chris asked.

  "No," Gus said. "You get what you get. It's like Halloween candy."

  "But we want to be the same," Emily whined.

  "No, you don't,"
Gus and Mel said simultaneously. Melanie held out the bottom of Emily's bikini. "Now get dressed," she said. "You too, Chris."

  The children dutifully scrambled into their wet suits and wandered down to the sand city they'd built earlier that morning. Melanie looked at Gus. "Halloween candy?"

  Gus laughed. "Like you could have done better."

  Melanie sat back down. "At the wedding," she said, "we'll look back at this and laugh."

  CHARLIE, JAMES'S HUNTING DOG, had been sick for some time. The previous year, Michael had diagnosed an ulcer, and prescribed medicines like Tagamet and Zantac--human medicines that cost a fortune. He had to be fed small amounts of very bland food, and God forbid he should get near a trash can with bacon grease. But the illness ran in cycles--for months at a time, Charlie was fine; then he'd have a flare-up, and Gus would take him over to see Michael. She hid the receipts from James for the veterinary visits, because she knew that James would never have condoned spending five hundred dollars per winter on a dying dog. But Gus refused to see any other option.

  That summer, however, Charlie developed a new problem. He drank constantly--from the toilet, from Chris's bathwater, from mud puddles. He urinated on rugs and bed quilts, although he'd been house-trained for six years. Michael had told Gus that it was probably diabetes. It was not common in springer spaniels; it was not fatal. But it was tricky and difficult to control. And every morning, she'd have to give him a shot of insulin.

  Saturday afternoons, Gus took Charlie next door to the Golds' and let Michael examine him. Every week they discussed the lack of improvement; the option of putting the dog to sleep. "He's a sick dog," Michael had told her. "I'm not going to think badly of you if you make that decision."

  The third Saturday in August, Gus walked the path between her house and the Golds', Charlie circling about her heels. Chris was with her, and Emily--they'd been playing over at the Harte household that morning. They tumbled up the side steps in a tornado of paws and feet, the children rushing into the kitchen and Charlie bulleting between Melanie's legs as she held open the door. "Still peeing?" Gus nodded. "Charlie!" Melanie yelled, "get back here!"

  But before the dog could soil a carpet or sprint upstairs, Michael appeared with Charlie heeled at his side. "How do you do that?" Gus laughed. "I can't even get him to sit."

  "Years and years of practice," Michael answered, grinning. "You ready?"

  Gus turned to Melanie. "Keep an eye on Chris?"

  "I think Em's doing that. What time are we supposed to be at your place tonight?"

  "Seven," Gus said. "We can get the kids to sleep and then act like we don't have any."

  Michael patted Gus's stomach. "Which should be exceptionally easy for you, with your girlish figure."

  "If you weren't my dog's vet," Gus said, "I'd sock you for that."

  They walked off toward the small office Michael had furnished over the garage, laughing and talking, oblivious to the fact that until they were out of sight Melanie watched them and the ease that fit over their shoulders like a weathered old flannel blanket.

  JAMES CAME UP BEHIND Gus in the mirror as she fastened her left earring. "How old am I?" he asked, skimming his hand over his hair.

  "Thirty-two," she said.

  James's eyes widened. "I am not," he insisted. "I'm thirty-one."

  Gus smiled. "You were born in 1952. Do the math."

  "Oh, my God. I thought I was thirty-one." He watched his wife laugh. "It's a big deal," he said. "You know how sometimes you wake up thinking it's Friday, and it's really only Tuesday? Well, I just lost a whole year."

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang. "Daddy," Chris said, bouncing into the bedroom in his Batman pajamas. "Em's here. Em's here."

  "Go let her in," Gus said. "Tell Melanie we'll be right down."

  James's eyes met hers in the mirror. "Did I tell you how nice you look tonight?" he murmured.

  Gus grinned. "That's only because I'm hidden from the waist down in this mirror."

  "Even so," James whispered, and he kissed her neck.

  "And did I tell you," Gus said, "that I love all thirty-one years of you?"

  "Thirty-two."

  "Oh." Gus frowned. "In that case, forget it." She smiled wide and pushed back, standing splendid in a pumpkin silk caftan. "You coming?" she asked, and when James nodded, she turned off the bedroom light and started down the stairs.

  IN THE MIDDLE OF the dinner party, the dog got sick.

  They had just finished eating. The men had gone upstairs to tuck Chris and Emily into the king-size bed in the master bedroom. James was coming down the stairs when he heard a cough, followed by an unmistakable hawking sound.

  He walked down the hallway to find Charlie vomiting on the antique kilim carpet, standing in a spreading puddle of his own urine. "Goddammit," he muttered, hearing the others just footsteps behind him. He grabbed Charlie's collar to yank him outside.

  "It's not his fault," Gus said softly. Melanie was already on her hands and knees, cleaning up with a dishtowel.

  "I know it's not," James tersely responded. "But that doesn't make it any easier." He turned to Michael, who was watching from a distance, his hands in his pockets. "You can't do anything?"

  "No," Michael said. "Not without putting the dog into insulin shock."

  "Marvelous," James said, scuffing his foot on the carpet. "Great."

  Gus took the dishtowel from Melanie, who stood up slowly. "Maybe we should go," she said. Michael nodded, and as Gus and James tried to save their antique carpet, the Golds headed upstairs. They found their daughter lost in a sea of sheets with Chris, their hair crisscrossing the same pillow in streaks of gold and copper. Gently disentangling her, Michael lifted Emily into his arms and carried her down the stairs.

  Gus was waiting by the front door. "I'll call you," she said.

  "Do that," Melanie answered, smiling sadly and holding open the door.

  Michael stayed just a moment longer. He shifted the damp, warm weight of his child in his arms. "It may be time, Gus," he said.

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry about this."

  "No," Michael said. "I am."

  THIS TIME THE CARJACKER'S FACE had a canine snout, and black receding gums. "Get out of the car," he said, and Gus scrambled, deliberately thinking as she threw the keys that this time they had to go farther, had to go faster.

  She yanked the rear door wide, worked the sadist's latch on the infant seat, grabbed the baby from the car. "Unhook yourself!" she shouted to Chris, who was trying, although his little fingers couldn't manage it. "Unhook yourself!"

  She ran to his side of the car. The carjacker slid into the driver's seat, pointing the gun right at her. There was a scratch at Gus's wrist. She looked down in her arms at the baby and realized that all along she'd been holding Charlie.

  JAMES GOT OUT OF BED before the sun rose and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Amazing, how cool it could be up here before the fog lifted. He ate a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, deliberately keeping his mind a wide, blank page, then walked down the basement stairs.

  Charlie, who could always sense him before anyone else could, was leaping around in his wire cage. "Hey, buddy," James said, freeing the latch. "You want to go out? You want to go hunting?" The dog's eyes rolled, his pink tongue lolling in delight. He squatted and peed on the cement floor.

  James swallowed, then fished in his pocket for the key to the gun case. He took out the .22 he was saving for Chris, when he got old enough to hunt squirrels and rabbits. With a silicone cloth, James rubbed down the smooth wooden shaft, the bright barrel. He took a pair of bullets and buried them in the pocket of his jeans.

  The dog sprinted out the front door ahead of James, in his element. Charlie sniffed at the ground, pounced on a fat brown toad. He doubled back in circles, tracing his own scent.

  "This way," James said, whistling, leading the dog deeper into the wooded acreage at the rear of the property. He loaded the bullets into the gun and watched Charlie weaving through the thick und
erbrush, thinking to flush up a pheasant or partridge, as he'd been bred to do. He saw the dog stop, cock his head, look skyward.

  Tears slowly running down his face, James stepped behind the dog, so quiet and so familiar that Charlie did not even turn around, and lifting the rifle, he shot the dog in the back of the head.

  "HI," GUS SAID, coming into the kitchen. "You're up early."

  James was washing his hands in the sink. He did not glance up. "Look," he said, "the dog died."

  Gus paused, halfway across the kitchen. She leaned against the counter, tears immediately in her eyes. "It must have been the insulin. Michael said--"

  "It wasn't," James said, still avoiding her gaze. "I took him out this morning. Hunting."

  If Gus thought it odd that they would have gone hunting months before any major New England wildlife was in season, she did not say so. "Was it a seizure?" she asked, frowning.

  "It wasn't a seizure. It--Gus, I did it."

  She brought her hand up to her throat. "You did what," she whispered.

  "I killed him, dammit," James said. "All right? I don't feel good about it. And I wasn't angry because of the rug. I wanted to just help him. To get rid of the pain for him."

  "So you shot him?"

  "What would you have done?"

  "I would have taken him to Michael," Gus said, her voice hitching.

  "So he could give Charlie a shot? And you could hold him and watch him die? This was more humane," James said. "He was my dog. I was the one who had to take care of it." He crossed the room and looked down at his wife. "What?" he challenged.

  Gus shook her head. "I don't know you," she said, and she ran out of the house.

  "WHAT KIND OF PERSON," Gus asked, her hands shaking on her coffee mug, "shoots his own dog?"

  Melanie stared across her kitchen table. "It wasn't malicious," she said, but her heart wasn't in it. It was not until a few moments before, when her best friend had run through the side door sobbing, that Melanie realized how much she valued her husband's commitment to heal.

  "He doesn't kill his patients, does he?" Gus sputtered, as if she had been reading Melanie's mind. "And what am I supposed to say to Chris?"

  "Tell him that Charlie died, and that he feels better now."