Handle With Care

by Jodi Picoult

  'You're wrong. This case is about what my doctor didn't do--'

  'Answer the question, Ms. O'Keefe--'

  'Specifically,' I said, 'she didn't give me a choice about ending the pregnancy. She should have known something was wrong from that very first ultrasound, and she should have--'

  'Ms. O'Keefe,' the lawyer yelled, 'answer the question!'

  I wilted against the chair and pressed my fingers to my temples. 'I can't,' I whispered. I looked down at the grain of the wood on the railing before me. 'I can't answer that question for you now, because now there is a Willow. A girl who likes pigtails but not braids, and who broke her femur this weekend, and who sleeps with a stuffed pig. A girl who's kept me awake at night for the past six and a half years wondering how to get through the next day without an emergency, and planning, as a backup, how to go from crisis to crisis to crisis.' I looked up at the lawyer. 'At eighteen weeks of pregnancy, at twenty-seven weeks of pregnancy, I didn't know Willow like I do today. So I can't answer your question now, Mr Booker. But the reality is, nobody gave me a chance to answer it back then.'

  'Ms. O'Keefe,' the lawyer said flatly. 'I'm going to ask you one last time. Would you have aborted your daughter?'

  I opened my mouth, and then I closed it.

  'Nothing further,' he said.

  Amelia

  T

  hat night, I ate dinner alone with my parents. You were sitting on the living room couch with a tray and Jeopardy! so that your leg could stay elevated. From the kitchen, I could hear the buzzer every now and then, and Alex Trebek's voice: Ooh, I'm sorry, that's incorrect. As if he really gave a damn.

  I sat between my mother and father, a conduit between two separate circuits. Amelia, can you pass the green beans to your mother? Amelia, pour your father a glass of lemonade. They weren't talking to each other, and they weren't eating - none of us were, really. 'So,' I said cheerfully. 'During fourth period, Jeff Congrew ordered a pizza into French class and the teacher didn't even notice.'

  'Are you going to tell me what happened today?' my father asked.

  My mother lowered her eyes. 'I really do not want to talk about it, Sean. It was bad enough getting through it.'

  The silence was a blanket so huge, it seemed to cover the entire table. 'Domino's delivered,' I said.

  My father cut two precise squares of his chicken. 'Well, if you won't tell me what happened, I guess I'll be able to read all about it tomorrow in the paper. Or maybe, hey, it'll be on the eleven o'clock news . . .'

  My mother's fork clattered against her plate. 'Do you think this is easy for me?'

  'Do you think this is easy for any of us?'

  'How could you?' my mother exploded. 'How could you act like everything was getting better between us and then . . . then this?'

  'The difference between you and me, Charlotte, is that I'm never acting.'

  'It was pepperoni,' I announced.

  They both turned to me. 'What?' my father said.

  'It's not important,' I muttered. Like me.

  You called out from the living room. 'Mom, I'm done.'

  So was I. I got up and scraped the contents of my plate, which was everything, into the trash. 'Amelia, aren't you forgetting to ask something?' my mother said.

  I stared at her dully. There were a thousand questions, sure, but I didn't want to hear the answers to any of them.

  'May I be excused?' my mother prompted.

  'Shouldn't you be asking Willow that?' I said sarcastically.

  As I passed you in the living room, you glanced up. 'Did Mom hear me?'

  'Not by a long shot,' I said, and I ran up the stairs.

  What was wrong with me? I had a decent life. I was healthy. I wasn't starving or maimed by a land mine or orphaned. Yet somehow, it wasn't enough. I had a hole in me, and everything I took for granted slipped through it like sand.

  I felt like I had swallowed yeast, like whatever evil was festering inside me had doubled in size. In the bathroom, I tried to throw up, but I hadn't eaten enough at dinner. I wanted to run barefoot till my feet bled; I wanted to scream, but I'd been silent for so long that I'd forgotten how.

  I wanted to cut.

  But.

  I had promised.

  I took the telephone handset off its cradle beside my mother's bed and carried it into the bathroom for privacy, since any minute now, you would hobble upstairs to get ready for bed. I had programmed Adam's number in. We hadn't spoken in a few days, because he'd broken his leg and had surgery - he'd IMed me from the hospital - but I was hoping he was home now. I needed him to be home now.

  He had given me his cell number - I was surely the only kid over age thirteen who didn't have one, but we couldn't afford it. It rang twice, and then I heard his voice, and I nearly burst into tears. 'Hey,' he said, 'I was just going to call you.'

  It was proof that there was someone in this world who thought I mattered. I felt like I'd just been pulled back from a cliff. 'Great minds think alike.'

  'Yeah,' he said, but his voice sounded thin and distant.

  I tried to remember how he had tasted. I hated that I had to pretend I knew, when in reality, it had already faded, like a rose you press into a dictionary under the Qs, hoping you can call back summer at any time, but then in December it's nothing more than crumbling, brown bits of dried flower. Sometimes at night I'd whisper to myself, pretending that the words came out in the low, soft curve of Adam's voice: I love you, Amelia. You're the one for me. And then I'd open my lips the tiniest bit and pretend that he was a ghost, and that I could feel him sinking into me, onto my tongue, down my throat, into my belly, the only meal that could fill me.

  'How's the leg?'

  'Hurts like hell,' Adam said.

  I curled the phone closer. 'I really miss you. It's crazy here. The trial started, and there were reporters all over the front lawn. My parents are certifiable, I swear--'

  'Amelia.' The word sounded like a ball being dropped from the Empire State Building. 'I wanted to talk to you because, um, this isn't working out. This long-distance thing--'

  I felt a pang between my ribs. 'Don't.'

  'Don't what?'

  'Don't say it,' I whispered.

  'I just . . . I mean, we might never even see each other again.'

  I felt a hook snag at the bottom of my heart, drawing it down. 'I could come visit,' I said, my voice small.

  'Yeah, and then what? Push me around in a wheelchair? Like I'm some kind of charity case?'

  'I would never--'

  'Just go get yourself some football player - that's what girls like you want, right? Not some guy who bumps into a fucking table and snaps his leg in half--'

  By now I was crying. 'That doesn't matter--'

  'Yes it does, Amelia. But you don't understand. You'll never understand. Having a sister who's got OI doesn't make you an expert.'

  My face was flaming. I hung up the phone before Adam could say anything else and held my palms to my cheeks. 'But I love you,' I said, although I knew he couldn't hear me.

  First the tears came. Then the fury: I picked up the phone and hurled it against the bathtub wall. I grabbed the shower curtain and pulled it down in one good yank.

  But I wasn't mad at Adam; I was angry at myself.

  It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you'd be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you're going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn't be there. Either that, or you'd confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.

  I told myself that if I didn't care, this wouldn't have hurt so much - surely that proved I was alive and human and all those touchyfeely things, for once and for all. But that wasn't a relief, not when I felt like a skyscraper with dynamite on every floor.

  That's why
I reached into the tub and turned on the water: so that I would drown out my sobs, so that when I grabbed the razor blade I'd hidden in the box of tampons and drew it over my skin like a violin's bow, no one would hear the song of my shame.

  This past summer, my mother ran out of sugar and drove to the local convenience store mid-recipe, leaving us alone for twenty minutes - which is not that long a period of time, you'd think. But it was long enough to start a fight with you about which TV show we should watch; it was long enough to yell There's a reason Mom wishes you were dead; it was long enough to watch your face crumple and feel my conscience kick in.

  'Wiki,' I'd said, 'I didn't really mean it.'

  'Just shut up, Amelia--'

  'Stop being such a baby--'

  'Well, you stop being such a dickhead!'

  That word, on your lips - it was enough to stop me in my tracks. 'Where did you hear that ?'

  'From you, you stupid jerk,' you said.

  Just then, a bird smacked into the window so loudly that we both jumped.

  'What was that?' you asked, standing on the couch cushions to get a better look.

  I climbed up next to you, careful, because I always had to be. The bird was little and brown, a swallow or a sparrow, I could never tell the difference. It was sprawled on the grass.

  'Is it dead?' you asked.

  'Well, how would I know that?'

  'Don't you think we ought to check?'

  So we went outside and trudged halfway around the house. Big surprise, the bird was still exactly where it had been moments before. I squatted down and tried to see if its chest was moving at all.

  Nada.

  'We need to bury it,' you said soberly. 'We can't just leave it out here.'

  'Why? Things die all the time in nature--'

  'But this one was our fault. The bird probably heard us yelling and that's why it flew into the window.'

  I highly doubted that the bird heard us at all, but I wasn't going to argue with you.

  'Where's the shovel?' you asked.

  'I don't know.' I thought for a moment. 'Hang on,' I said, and I ran into the house. I took the big metal mixing spoon Mom had in her bowl and carried it outside. There was still batter on it, but maybe that would be okay, like sending Egyptian mummies off to the afterlife with food and gold and their pets.

  I dug a small hole in the ground about six inches away from where the bird was. I didn't want to touch it - that totally creeped me out - so I sort of flicked it into the hole with the edge of the spoon. 'Now what?' I asked, looking up at you.

  'Now we have to say a prayer,' you said.

  'Like a Hail Mary? What makes you think the bird was Catholic?'

  'We could sing a Christmas carol,' you suggested. 'That's not really religious. It's just pretty.'

  'How about instead we say something nice about birds?'

  You agreed to that. 'They come in rainbow colors,' you said.

  'They fly well,' I added. Until about ten minutes ago, anyway. 'And they make nice music.'

  'And birds remind me of chicken and chicken tastes really great,' you said.

  'Okay, that's good enough.' I shoveled the soil on top of the dead bird, and then you crouched down and made a pattern on the top with bits of grass, like sprinkles on a cake. We walked side by side into the house again.

  'Amelia? You can watch whatever you want on TV.'

  I turned to you. 'I don't wish you were dead,' I admitted.

  When we sat down on the couch again, you curled up against my side, like you used to when you were a toddler.

  What I wanted to say to you, but didn't, was this: Don't use me as your model. I'm the last person you should look up to.

  For weeks after we buried that dumb bird, every time it rained, I would not sit near that window. Even now, I wouldn't walk near that part of the yard. I was afraid that I'd hear something crunch and I'd look down and find the broken bones of the skeleton, the brittle wings, the chiseled beak. I was smart enough to look away, so that I'd never have to see what might surface.

  People always want to know what it feels like, so I'll tell you: there's a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you've done something you shouldn't have, and yet you've gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it's truly dazzling - that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And - God - the sweet release, that's the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that's tied to a little kid's hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don't belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights.

  When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don't ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it's a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you've let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it's summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it was really that easy.

  I once saw a movie where a girl got her throat slashed, and instead of a scream, there was this low sigh - like it didn't hurt, like it was just a chance to finally let go. I knew that feeling was coming, so I waited a moment between my second and third cuts. I watched the blood welling on my thigh and I tried to hold off as long as I could before I drew the razor across the skin again.

  'Amelia?'

  Your voice. I looked up, panicked. 'What are you doing in here?' I said, folding my legs up, so that you couldn't get a better glimpse of what you'd probably already seen. 'Haven't you ever heard of privacy?'

  You were teetering on your crutches. 'I just wanted to get my toothbrush, and the door wasn't locked.'

  'Yes it was,' I argued. But maybe I was wrong? I had been so focused on calling Adam, maybe I had forgotten. I fixed my meanest stare on you. 'Get out!' I yelled.

  You hobbled back to our room, leaving the door open. I quickly lowered my legs and pressed a wad of toilet paper against the cuts I'd made. Usually I waited until they stopped bleeding before I left the bathroom, but I just pulled up my jeans with that strategically placed padding and went into our bedroom. I stared at you, practically daring you to say something to me about what you'd seen, so that I could scream at you again, but you were sitting on the bed, reading. You didn't say anything to me at all.

  I always hated when my scars started to fade, because as long as I could still see them, I knew why I was hurting. I wondered if you felt the same way, once your bones healed.

  I lay back on my pillows. My thigh throbbed.

  'Amelia?' you said. 'Will you tuck me in?'

  'Where's Mom and Dad?' You didn't really have to answer that - even if they were physically downstairs, they were so far removed from us that they might as well have been on the moon.

  I could still remember the first night I hadn't needed my parents to tuck me in. I might have been about your age, in fact. Before that night, there had been a routine - lamps off, sheets cozied tight, kiss on the forehead - and monsters in the drawers of my desk and hiding behind books on the shelf. And then one day, I just put down the book I'd been reading and closed my eyes. Had my parents been proud of this newly self-sufficient kid? Or had they felt like they'd lost something they couldn't even name?

  'Well, did you brush your teeth?' I asked, but then I remembered you had been trying to do just that when I was busy cutting. 'Oh, forget your teeth. One night won't make a diffe
rence.' I got out of bed and awkwardly leaned over yours. 'Good night,' I said, and then I bobbed down like a pelican, fishing, and pecked your forehead.

  'Mom tells me a story.'

  'Then get Mom to tuck you in,' I said, throwing myself back on my own mattress. 'I don't have any stories.'

  You were quiet for a second. 'We could make one up together.'

  'Whatever floats your boat,' I sighed.

  'Once upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn't.' You looked at me. 'Your turn.'

  I rolled my eyes. 'The strong sister went outside into the rain and realized the reason she was strong was because she was made out of iron, but it was raining and she rusted. The end.'

  'No, because the sister who wasn't strong went outside when it was raining, and hugged her really tight until the sun came out again.'

  When we were little, we'd sometimes sleep in the same bed. It never started out that way, but in the middle of the night I'd wake up and find you vined around me. You gravitated toward warmth; me, I liked to seek out the cold spots in my sheets. I'd spend hours trying to move away from you in the little twin bed, but I never even thought of moving you back into your own. Polar north can't get away from a magnet; the magnet finds it, no matter what.

  'Then what happened?' I whispered, but you had already drifted off to sleep, and I was left to dream my own ending.

  Sean

  B

  y unspoken arrangement, I slept on the couch that night. Except 'sleep' was too optimistic an outcome. I basically tossed and turned. The one time I did nod off, I had a nightmare that I was on the witness stand and looked at Charlotte, and when I started to respond to Guy Booker's question, black gnats poured out of my mouth.

  Whatever wall Charlotte and I had broken down last night had been reconstructed twice as high and twice as thick. It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?

  I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over.

  Had I ever really told her that?

  I threw off the blanket and sat up, rubbing my hands down my face. Wearing just my boxers and a police department tee, I padded upstairs and slipped into our bedroom. I sat down on the bed. 'Charlotte,' I whispered, but there was no response.