Handle With Care Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Also by Jodi Picoult

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part One

  Amelia

  Sean

  Charlotte

  Sean

  Marin

  Piper

  Charlotte

  Part Two

  Charlotte

  Piper

  Amelia

  Marin

  Sean

  Charlotte

  Sean

  Amelia

  Marin

  Piper

  Sean

  Amelia

  Piper

  Charlotte

  Marin

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Part Three

  Charlotte

  Sean

  Marin

  Sean

  Amelia

  Piper

  Marin

  Charlotte

  Sean

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Marin

  Sean

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Piper

  Marin

  Charlotte

  Part Four

  Marin

  Charlotte

  Piper

  Marin

  Sean

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Sean

  Marin

  Piper

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Sean

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Amelia

  Piper

  Sean

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Piper

  Charlotte

  Marin

  Amelia

  Sean

  Amelia

  Marin

  Amelia

  Charlotte

  Piper

  Charlotte

  Willow

  Author's Note

  Reading Guide

  ALSO BY JODI PICOULT

  Songs of the Humpback Whale

  Mercy

  The Pact

  Keeping Faith

  Plain Truth

  Salem Falls

  Perfect Match

  Second Glance

  My Sister's Keeper

  Vanishing Acts

  The Tenth Circle

  Nineteen Minutes

  Change of Heart

  COMING SOON

  Picture Perfect

  Harvesting the Heart

  HANDLE WITH CARE

  Jodi Picoult

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  First published in America in 2009 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Copyright (c) Jodi Picoult 2009

  The right of Jodi Picoult to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 452 7

  Book ISBN 978 0 340 97901 3

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  A division of Hodder Headline

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Marjorie Rose, Who makes flowers bloom onstage, Provides me with goss half a world away, And knows you're never fully dressed without a green bag

  BFFAA

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It may be a cliche to say I didn't do this alone, but it's also true. First and foremost, I want to thank the parents of kids with OI who invited me into their lives for a little while - and the kids themselves, who made me laugh and reminded me daily that strength is far more than a physical measure of stamina: Laurie Blaisdell and Rachel, Taryn Macliver and Matthew, Tony and Stacey Moss and Hope, Amy Phelps and Jonathan. Thanks to my cracker-jack medical team: Mark Brezinski, David Toub, John Femino, E. Rebecca Schirrer, Emily Baker, Michele Lauria, Karen George, Steve Sargent; and my legal eagles: Jen Sternick, Lise Iwon, Chris Keating, Jennifer Sargent. I owe Debbie Bernstein for sharing her story about being adopted (and letting me steal huge parts of it). I am likewise indebted to Donna Branca, for revisiting memories that are painful and for being gracious and honest when I asked questions. Thanks to Jeff Fleury, Nick Giaccone, and Frank Moran for helping me create Sean's life as a police officer. For other expertise in their fields, thanks to Michael Goldman (who also let me use his fantastic T-shirt slogan), Steve Alspach, Stefanie Ryan, Kathy Hemenway, Jan Scheiner, Fonsaca Malyan, Kevin Lavigne, Ellen Wilber, Sindy Buzzell, and Fred Clow. It would be a gross oversight not to highlight the involvement that Atria Books has in making my books such successes; I am grateful to Carolyn Reidy, Judith Curr, David Brown, Kathleen Schmidt, Mellony Torres, Sarah Branham, Laura Stern, Gary Urda, Lisa Keim, Christine Duplessis, Michael Selleck, the whole of the fabulous sales force, and everyone else who has worked so hard to make my books leap off the shelves into the arms and hearts of readers. A special thanks goes to Camille McDuffie, my secret weapon/publicist extraordinaire. To Emily Bestler, who always makes me feel like a star (and makes sure everyone else seems to think I'm one, too). To Laura Gross, with whom I celebrated my twentieth anniversary this year - and who is the other half of a partnership I rank right up there with my marriage. To Jane Picoult, my mom, who believed I could do this long before anyone else, and who laughs and cries in all the right places.

  In the interests of accuracy, I should state that, although there was an OI convention in Omaha, I've changed the date. Also, I've slightly amended the way juries are picked in New Hampshire - it's not by individual, as I've written, but it's a lot more interesting to read that way!

  I have two special thank-yous. The first is to Katie Desmond, the sister I never had, who created the recipes I've attributed here to Charlotte O'Keefe. If you're ever lucky enough to be invited to her house for dinner, don't walk, run. The second is to Kara Sheridan, who is one of the most inspirational women I've ever met: she's a scholar studying body image and self-esteem for disabled teens. She's an athlete - a swimmer who's broken records. She's about to get married to a wonderful, adorable guy. And - oh, by the way, she also has Type III osteogenesis imperfecta. Thanks, Kara, for showing the world that barriers were meant to be broken, that no one can be defined by a disability, and that nothing's ever impossible.

  Finally, I have to thank once again Kyle, Jake, and Sammy, for giving me something wonderful to come home to; and Tim, who is my happy ending.

  And did you get what

  you wanted from this life, even so?

  I did.

  And what did you want?

  To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

  - Raymond Carver, 'Late Fragment'

  PROLOGUE

  Charlotte

  February 14, 2002

  T

  hings break all the time. Glass, and dishes, and fingernails. Cars and contracts and potato chips. You can break a record, a horse, a dollar. You can b