The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  I tell them where the net was caught. I tell them we used a grappling hook to cut it away. 1 tell them about the whale that came up to Marble and stroked her gently, and I let them know such tenderness is often exhibited among humpbacks. I tell them everything they want to know and then finally someone asks the question I have been waiting to hear.

  “Dr. Jones,” the man says, “was this a case of being in the right place at the right time? Or did you come here expressly to help the whale?”

  “I didn’t know about the whale until I heard of its plight through the efforts of you good folks. I’m in Massachusetts on a different sort of rescue mission. I have been traveling across the country looking for my wife Jane and my daughter Rebecca. I have reason to believe that they are in Massachusetts; unfortunately, it is a very big state and I don’t know where. If you’ll indulge me, I was hoping you’d allow me to send a message to them.”

  I pause long enough to let the cameras start rolling again. I clear my throat and look as honestly as one can into the blind eye of a TV camera. “Jane,” I say, and I realize that it comes out sounding like a question. “I need you. I hope you can see this, and I hope you and Rebecca are all right. I can’t stand being without you. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but I came to save this whale because I knew you’d hear about it on the news and I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to remember how it used to be—we postponed our honeymoon because of a whale, don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember how we cheered and hugged each other when we saw it swimming again, miles off the coast? Well, I saved a whale today. And I want you to know it wasn’t any fun without you. If you’re watching this, I hope you’ll let me know where you are. Call the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies—they’ll know how to get in touch with me.”

  A reporter interrupts. “Do you have a picture?”

  I nod and pull my wallet out of my pocket. I open to a photo taken of Jane and Rebecca less than a year ago. “Can you get this?” I hold it up towards the cameras. “If anyone out there has seen my wife, or this little girl, please call in.” I stare at the grey cataract eyes of the television cameras. Jane’s eyes are grey too, I think, surprised that I can still picture them so vividly. “I love you,” I say. “I don’t care if the whole world knows.”

  58 JANE

  For a long time I watch the different digits materialize on the face of the clock beside the bed. I wait until it says 1:23, and then I stand up and walk around this borrowed bedroom. There’s no moon tonight, so there is no natural light. It is only through the practice of several nights that I do not bump into the dresser, the post of the bed, the rocking chair, as I make my way out the door.

  I hold my breath as I walk down the hall. When I pass Rebecca’s bedroom, I press my ear against the door and I listen to her steady, even breathing. Satisfied by this small thing, I amass enough courage to walk seven steps farther down the hallway, to his room.

  Having practiced for twenty minutes on the doorknob of my own bedroom, I find it easy to let myself inside without making a sound. When I open the door, a slice of light from the hall spills onto the floor of his room, illuminating a runway that leads to the foot of the bed. From where I stand, I can see the tangled sheets and blankets.

  I take a deep breath and I sit on the edge of the mattress but all I hear is the sound of my own throat pounding. “I know you’re awake,” I say. “I know you can’t sleep either.” Jane, I tell myself, you are not leaving until you say what you’ve planned to say. “I’ve never been with anyone but Oliver, my whole life,” I say, turning the words over and over in my mouth. “I’ve never even kissed anyone but him. Really kissed. Well, you know, except for this afternoon.” I spread my fingers out in front of me, wondering if there is something there for me to touch. “I’m not saying that today was your fault. I’m not saying there’s anyone to blame. I’m just telling you I don’t know if I’m any good at this.” I wonder why there is no response. What if he hasn’t been thinking these things at all? “Are you awake?” I ask, leaning into the night, and then the air closes in from behind me.

  It envelopes me and wraps itself so tight that I start to scream, until I feel the hand press against my lips and I try to bite it but that’s no use, and it pushes me down against the bed, rolling me onto my back and pinning me by my shoulders and this entire time I am trying to scream, and then my eyes clear and inches away from me is Sam.

  He relaxes his hold on my mouth. “What are you doing?” I whisper, hoarse. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I was in the bathroom. I stopped there on the way to your room.”

  “You did?” I sit up on the edge of the bed, and he is still holding my hands. Our fingers rest, entwined, on top of my leg.

  “And by the way,” Sam says, “I think you are very good at this.”

  I look down at my lap. “Oh, how much did you hear?”

  “All of it. I was waiting at the door, listening. You can’t get mad at me for eavesdropping, either, because you thought I was over there.” He points to the lump of blankets and pillows that have been balled into the center of the bed. Then he takes one of my hands and turns it over in his own, rubbing the warm skin of my palm with his thumb. “So what are you doing in my room?” He leans close.

  I sink down into his pillows. “I’m waiting for the guilt. I figure if the guilt comes, then I can punish myself and feel better. I keep waiting, you know, and I think about you, but no matter what I don’t feel guilty. So then I start to believe that I’m not the person I thought I was at all. And then I figure if I’m awful, I don’t deserve to be thinking about you.” I sigh. “You must think I’m crazy.”

  Sam laughs. “Want to know why I was headed to your room? To talk about marriage. Honest to God, I was. I wanted you to know that you were driving me nuts, because here I was thinking about things that I shouldn’t be, knowing you’ve got a family and all. And the worst part of it is: I believe in marriage. I haven’t gotten married because I haven’t found the right woman. My whole life I’ve been waiting for something to just click, you know. And tonight I was lying here, thinking about what you might have looked like the day you got hitched to Oliver Jones, and it all just connected for me. Don’t you get it? He’s taken the woman that I’m supposed to marry.”

  “When I got married, you were the same age as Rebecca. You were just a kid.”

  Sam lies down on his side so that he is facing me. He is wearing a T-shirt and polka-dotted boxer shorts, and when he sees me looking at them he reaches for a sheet and wraps it around his hips. “I’m not a kid now,” he says.

  He reaches his hand towards my face, and traces the length of my cheek and chin with his finger. Then he grabs my hand and holds it to his own cheek. He runs it over the coarse field of stubble, over the break of his jawbone and the soft, dry line of his lips. Then he lets go.

  But I don’t pull my hand away. I keep my fingers against his mouth as it opens to kiss them. I run them lightly over Sam’s eyelids, feeling his eyes moving wild behind. I comb over his lashes and down the bridge of his nose. I explore him as if I have never seen anything of the kind.

  He doesn’t move as I slide the palms of my hands over his shoulders and his arms, over the indentation where his muscles join, into the hollow of his elbow. He lets me trace the sinews of his strong forearms, turn his hands over in my own, feel for the callouses and cuts. He helps me pull his shirt over his head and when I throw it, it lands on the night table.

  If I keep it like this, like an exploration, then I have nothing to be afraid of. It is only if I move to a different level, to intimacy, that I will have to worry. Sex has never been mystical for me. The earth doesn’t move, and I don’t hear angels, or bells, or all those other things. I am always a little too self-conscious. With skeletons such as mine in the closet, I never expected making love to be magic. The way I saw it, I had done something extraordinary: I had pushed the worst memories out of my mind. The first time was the hardest for me, and ha