Handle With Care

by Jodi Picoult

  The next morning I spent five hours on the phone with the insurance company. Ambulance trips were not covered by our policy; however, the hospital in Florida would not discharge anyone in a spica cast unless he or she was traveling by ambulance. It was a catch-22, but I was the only one who could see it, and it led to a conversation that felt like theater of the absurd. 'Let me get this straight,' I said to the fourth supervisor I'd spoken with that day. 'You're telling me I didn't have to take the ambulance; therefore you won't cover the cost.'

  'That's correct, ma'am.'

  On the couch, you were propped up on pillows, drawing stripes on your cast with markers. 'Can you tell me what the alternative was?' I asked.

  'Apparently you could have kept the patient in the hospital.'

  'You do understand this cast is going to stay on for months. Are you suggesting I keep my daughter hospitalized for that long?'

  'No, ma'am. Just until transportation could be arranged.'

  'But the only transportation the hospital would allow us to leave in was an ambulance!' I said. By now your leg looked like a candy cane. 'Would your policy have covered the additional stay?'

  'No, ma'am. The maximum number of nights allowed for injuries like these is--'

  'Yeah, we've been through that.' I sighed.

  'It seems to me,' the supervisor said tartly, 'that given the option of paying for additional nights in the hospital or an unauthorized ambulance trip, you don't have much to complain about.'

  I felt my cheeks flame. 'Well, it seems to me that you are an enormous ass!' I yelled, and I slammed down the phone. I turned around and saw you, marker trailing out of your hand, precariously close to the fabric of the couch cushions. You were twisted like a pretzel, your lower half in the cast still facing forward, your head leaning back over your shoulder so that you could see out the window.

  'Swear jar,' you murmured. You had a canning jar that you'd covered with iridescent gift wrap, and every time Sean swore in front of you, you netted a quarter. Just this month alone, you were up to forty-two dollars - you'd kept count the whole way home from Florida. I took a quarter out of my pocket and put it into the jar on the table nearby, but you weren't looking; your attention was still focused outside, on a frozen pond at the edge of the lawn, where Amelia was skating.

  Your sister had been ice skating since, well, since she was your age. She and Piper's daughter, Emma, took lessons together twice a week, and there was nothing you wanted more than to copy your sister. Skating, however, happened to be a sport you'd never, ever be allowed to try. Once, you'd broken your arm when you were pretending to skate on one foot across the kitchen linoleum in your socks.

  'Between my foul language and your dad's, you're going to have enough cold, hard cash to buy a plane ticket out of here pretty soon,' I joked, trying to distract you. 'Where to? Vegas?'

  You turned away from the window and looked at me. 'That would be dumb,' you said. 'I can't play Blackjack till I'm twenty-one.'

  Sean had taught you how. Also Hearts, Texas Hold 'Em, and Five-Card Stud. I'd been horrified, until I realized that playing Go Fish for hours at a time might officially qualify as torture. 'So the Caribbean, then?'

  As if you would ever travel unimpeded, as if you would ever take a vacation without thinking about this last one. 'I was thinking of buying some books. Like Dr Seuss stuff.'

  You read at a sixth-grade level, even though your peers were still sounding out the alphabet. It was one of the few perks of OI: when you had to be immobile, you'd pore over books, or get on the Internet. In fact, when Amelia wanted to rile you, she called you Wikipedia. 'Dr Seuss?' I said. 'Really?'

  'They're not for me. I thought we could ship them to that hospital in Florida. The only thing they had to read was Where's Spot? and that gets really old after the fifth or sixth time.'

  That left me speechless. All I wanted to do was forget about that stupid hospital, to curse the insurance nightmare it had led to and the fact that you would be stuck in the four-month hell of a spica cast - and there you were, already past the pity party. Just because you had every right to feel sorry for yourself didn't mean you ever took the opportunity to do so. In fact, sometimes I was sure that the reason people stared at you with your crutches and wheelchair had nothing to do with your disabilities, and everything to do with the fact that you had abilities they only dreamed of.

  The phone rang again - for the briefest of seconds I fantasized that it was the CEO of the health insurance company, calling to personally apologize. But it was Piper, checking in. 'Is this a good time?'

  'Not really,' I said. 'Why don't you call back in a few months?'

  'Is she in a lot of pain? Did you call Rosenblad?' Piper asked. 'Where's Sean?'

  'Yes, no, and I hope earning enough to cover the credit card bills for the vacation we didn't get to have.'

  'Well, listen, I'll pick up Amelia for skating tomorrow, when I take Emma. One less thing for you to worry about.'

  Worry about it? I hadn't even known Amelia had practice. It wasn't just on the bottom of the totem pole; it wasn't even on the totem pole.

  'What else do you need?' Piper asked. 'Groceries? Gas? Johnny Depp?'

  'I was going to say Xanax . . . but now I might take door number three.'

  'It figures. You're married to a guy who looks like Brad Pitt - with a better body - and you go for the long-haired artsy type.'

  'Grass is always greener, I guess.' Absently I watched you reach for the old laptop computer beside you and try to balance it on your lap. It kept toppling over, because of the angle of your cast, so I grabbed a throw pillow and set it on your lap as a table. 'Unfortunately, right now, my side of the fence is looking pretty grim,' I told her.

  'Oops, I've got to go. Apparently, my patient's crowning.'

  'If I had a dollar for every time I heard that one--'

  Piper laughed. 'Charlotte,' she said. 'Try taking down the fence.'

  I hung up. You were typing feverishly with two fingers. 'What are you doing?'

  'Setting up a Gmail account for Amelia's goldfish,' you said.

  'I highly doubt he needs one . . .'

  'That's why he asked me to do this, instead of you . . .'

  Take down the fence. 'Willow,' I announced, 'shut down the laptop. You and I are going skating.'

  'You're kidding.'

  'Nope.'

  'But you said--'

  'Willow, do you want to argue, or do you want to skate?' You beamed, a smile the likes of which I had not seen on you since before we left for Florida. I pulled on a sweater and my boots, then brought my winter coat in from the mudroom to cover your upper half. I wound blankets around your legs and hoisted you onto my hip. Without the cast, you were elfin, slight. With it, you weighed fifty-three pounds.

  The one thing a spica cast was good for - practically made for - was balancing you on my hip. You leaned away from me a little bit, but I could still wrap one arm around you and maneuver us through the foyer and down the front steps.

  When Amelia saw us coming, tortoise-slow, navigating hummocks of snow and patches of black ice, she stopped spinning. 'I'm going skating,' you sang, and Amelia's eyes flew to mine.

  'You heard her.'

  'You're taking her skating. Aren't you the one who wanted Dad to fill in the skating pond? You called it cruel and unusual punishment for Willow.'

  'I'm taking down the fence,' I said.

  'What fence?'

  I wrapped the blankets underneath your bottom and gently set you down on the ice. 'Amelia,' I said, 'this is the part where I need your help. I want you to watch her - don't take your eyes off her - while I go grab my skates.'

  I sprinted back to the house, stopping only at the threshold to make sure that Amelia was still staring at you, just like I'd left her. My skates were buried in a boot bin in the mudroom - I couldn't tell you the last time I'd used them. The laces knotted them together like lovers; I slung them over my shoulder and then hoisted the computer desk chair with its rollin
g casters into my arms. Outside, I tipped it over, so that the seat was balanced on my head. I thought of African women in their bright skirts, with baskets of fruit and bags of rice set squarely on their heads as they walked home to feed their families.

  When I got to the little pond, I set the chair on the ice. I adjusted the back and the arms so that they sloped and flared to accommodate your cast. Then I lifted you up and set you into the snug mesh seat.

  I sat down to lace up my skates. 'Hold on, Wiki,' Amelia said, and you grabbed the arms of the chair. She stood behind you and started to move across the ice. The blankets around your legs ballooned, and I called out to your sister to be careful. But Amelia already was. She was leaning over the back of the chair so that one arm held you close in the seat while she skated faster and faster. Then she quickly reversed direction, so that she was facing you, pulling the arms of the chair as she skated backward.

  You tilted your head back and closed your eyes as Amelia spun you in a circle. Amelia's dark curls streamed out from beneath her striped wool cap; your laugh fluted across the ice like a bright banner. 'Mom,' you called out. 'Look at us!'

  I stood up, my ankles wobbling. 'Wait for me,' I said, growing steadier with every step.

  Sean

  O

  n my first day back at work, I came into the locker room to find a Wanted poster hanging near my dry-cleaned uniform. Written across the photo of my face, in bright red marker, was the word APPREHENDED. 'Very funny,' I muttered, and I ripped down the flyer.

  'Sean O'Keefe!' said one of the guys, pretending to hold a microphone in his hand as he held it up to another cop. 'You've just won the Super Bowl. What are you going to do next?'

  Two fists, pumped in the air. 'I'm going to Disney World!'

  The rest of the guys cracked up. 'Hey, your travel agent called,' one said. 'She's booked your tickets to Gitmo for your next vacation.'

  My captain hushed them all up and came to stand in front of me. 'Seriously, Sean, you know we're just pulling your chain. How's Willow?'

  'She's okay.'

  'Well, if there's anything we can do . . . ,' the captain said, and he let the rest of his sentence fade like smoke.

  I scowled, pretending that this didn't bother me, that I was in on the joke instead of being the laughingstock. 'Don't you guys have something constructive to do? What do you think this is, the Lake Buena Vista PD?'

  At that, everyone howled with laughter and dribbled out of the locker room, leaving me alone to dress. I smacked my fist into the metal frame of my locker, and it jumped open. A piece of paper fluttered out - my face again, with Mickey Mouse ears superimposed on my head. And on the bottom: 'It's a Small World After All.'

  Instead of getting dressed, I navigated the hallways of the department to the dispatch office and yanked a telephone book from a stack kept on a shelf. I looked for the ad until I found the name I was looking for, the one I'd seen on countless late-night television commercials: 'Robert Ramirez, Plaintiff's Attorney: Because you deserve the best.'

  I do, I thought. And so does my family.

  So I dialed the number. 'Yes,' I said. 'I'd like to make an appointment.'

  I was the designated night watchman. After you girls were fast asleep and Charlotte was showered and climbing into bed, it was my job to turn off the lights, lock the doors, do one last pass through the house. With you in your cast, your makeshift bed was the living room couch. I almost turned off the kitchen night-light before I remembered, and then I came closer and pulled the blanket up to your chin and kissed your forehead.

  Upstairs, I checked on Amelia and then went into our room. Charlotte was standing in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around herself, brushing her teeth. Her hair was still wet. I stepped up behind her and put my hands on her shoulders, twirled a curl around one of my fingers. 'I love the way your hair does that,' I said, watching it spring back into the same spiral it had been a minute before. 'It's got a memory of its own.'

  'Mind of its own is more like it,' she said, shaking out her hair before she bent down to rinse out her mouth. When she straightened back up again, I kissed her.

  'Minty fresh,' I said.

  She laughed. 'Did I miss something? Are we filming a Crest commercial?'

  In the mirror, our eyes met. I've always wondered whether she sees what I do when I look at her. Or for that matter, whether she notices the fact that my hair's gotten thinner on the top. 'What do you want?' she asked.

  'How do you know I want something?'

  'Because I've been married to you for seven years?'

  I followed her into the bedroom and watched as she dropped the towel and pulled on an oversize T-shirt to sleep in. I know you wouldn't want to hear this - what kid does? - but that was another thing that I loved about your mother. Even after seven years, she still sort of ducked when she changed in front of me, as if I did not know every inch of her by heart.

  'I need you and Willow to come somewhere with me tomorrow,' I said. 'A lawyer's office.'

  Charlotte sank onto the mattress. 'For what?'

  I struggled to put into words the feelings that were my explanation. 'The way we were treated. The arrest. I can't just let them get away with it.'

  She stared at me. 'I thought you were the one who wanted to just get home and get on with our lives.'

  'Yeah, and you know what that meant for me today? The whole department thinks I'm some huge joke. I'm always going to be the cop who managed to get arrested. All I've got in my job is my reputation. And they ruined that.' I sat down beside Charlotte, hesitating. I championed the truth every day, but I didn't always like speaking it, especially when it meant saying something that left me bare. 'They took my family away. I was in that cell, thinking about you and Amelia and Willow, and all I wanted to do was hurt someone. All I wanted to do was turn into the person they already thought I was.'

  Charlotte lifted her gaze to mine. 'Who's "they"?'

  I threaded my fingers through hers. 'Well,' I said, 'that's what I hope the lawyer will tell us.'

  The waiting room walls of the law offices of Robert Ramirez were papered with the canceled settlement checks that he'd won for former clients. I paced with my hands clasped behind my back, leaning in to read a few. 'Pay to the Order of $350,000.' '$1.2 million.' '$890,000.' Amelia was hovering over the coffee machine, a nifty little thing that let you put in a single cup and push a button to get the flavor you wanted. 'Mom,' she asked, 'can I have some?'

  'No,' Charlotte said. She was sitting next to you on the couch, trying to keep your cast from sliding off the stiff leather.

  'But they have tea. And cocoa.'

  'No means no, Amelia!'

  The secretary stood up behind her desk. 'Mr Ramirez is ready to see you now.'

  I pulled you onto my hip, and we all followed the secretary down the hall to a conference room enclosed by walls of frosted glass. The secretary held the door open, but even so, I had to tilt you sideways to get your legs through the clearing. I kept my eyes on Ramirez; I wanted to watch his reaction when he saw you. 'Mr O'Keefe,' he said, and he held out a hand.

  I shook it. 'This is my wife, Charlotte, and my girls, Amelia and Willow.'

  'Ladies,' Ramirez said, and then he turned to his secretary. 'Briony, why don't you get the crayons and a couple of coloring books?'

  From behind me, I heard Amelia snort - I knew she was thinking that this guy didn't have a clue, that coloring books were for little kids, not ones who were already wearing training bras.

  'The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Periwinkle Blue,' you said.

  Ramirez raised his brows. 'Good to know,' he replied, and then he gestured toward a woman standing nearby. 'I'd like to introduce you to my associate, Marin Gates.'

  She looked the part. With black hair pulled back in a clip and a navy suit, she could have been pretty, but there was something off about her. Her mouth, I decided. She looked like she'd just spit out something that tasted awful.

  'I've invited Marin
to sit in on this meeting,' Ramirez said. 'Please, take a seat.'

  Before we could, though, the secretary reappeared with the coloring books. She handed them to Charlotte, black-and-white pamphlets that said ROBERT RAMIREZ, ESQUIRE across the top in block letters. 'Oh, look,' your mother said, shooting a withering glance in my direction. 'Who knew they'd invented personal injury coloring books?'

  Ramirez grinned. 'The Internet is a wondrous place.'

  The seats in the conference room were too narrow to accommodate your spica cast. After three abortive attempts to sit you down, I finally hauled you back onto my hip again and faced the lawyer.

  'How can we help you, Mr O'Keefe?' he asked.

  'It's Sergeant O'Keefe, actually,' I corrected. 'I work on the Bankton, New Hampshire, police force; I have for the past nineteen years. My family and I just got back from Disney World, and that's what brought me here today. I've never been treated so poorly in my whole life. I mean, what's more normal than a trip to Disney World, right? But no, instead, my wife and I wind up arrested, my kids are taken away from me and put into protective custody, my youngest daughter is alone by herself in a hospital, scared out of her mind . . .' I drew in my breath. 'Privacy's a fundamental right, and the privacy of my family was violated beyond belief.'

  Marin Gates cleared her throat. 'I can see that you're still very upset, Officer O'Keefe. We're going to try to help you . . . but we need you to back up a bit and slow down. Why did you go to Disney World?'

  So I told her. I told her about your OI, and the ice cream, and how you fell. I told her about the men in black suits who led us out of the theme park and arranged for the ambulance, as if the sooner they got rid of us the better. I told her about the woman who'd taken Amelia away from us, about the interrogations that went on for hours at the police station, about the way no one there believed me. I told her about the jokes that had been made about me at my own station.