The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “Don’t tell me,” Sam says.

  Oliver takes a picture out of his wallet, one of Rebecca and me. It’s not even a good one. “If anyone out there has seen my wife or this little girl, please call in,” Oliver says.

  I have grabbed Sam’s hand; I didn’t even notice myself doing it. “That’s Oliver. That’s my husband.”

  Oliver stares at me, painfully honest. I wonder how much he can see. I wonder if he knows what I have done. “I love you,” Oliver says to me, just me. “I don’t care if the whole world knows.”

  62 JOLEY

  After the news broadcast, Sam takes off. He says he has something to do; he doesn’t mention what it is. He doesn’t say anything to my sister.

  “Come on,” I say, taking her hand. “Help me make dinner.” She follows me into the kitchen, weak, easily led. She sits down on a ladderback chair.

  “Oh, Joley,” she sighs. “What have I done?”

  I take carrots and lettuce from the refrigerator. I’m not gourmet, but salads are easy. “You tell me.“

  She looks up, her eyes wild. “Maybe we can run away. If we leave now we’ll be gone by the time Oliver gets here.”

  “You can’t drag Rebecca away again. It’s not healthy. She’s just a kid.”

  “I’m not talking about Rebecca,” Jane mutters. “I’m talking about Sam.”

  I drop several carrots I have been peeling in the sink. “You knew Oliver would come to find you. You told me that yourself. And you didn’t want to talk about what would happen when he got here.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’re right. Maybe if we don’t think about him, he’ll disappear.” I throw the vegetable peeler into the sink. “All right, then, let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about Sam.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Sam,” Jane says.

  “Look at me.” She will not.

  “What’s going on?” When I spoke to Sam earlier, he gave me the runaround. I first heard from Rebecca, who came running to me in the morning, crying. Uncle Joley, she sobbed, I hate her. I hate her.

  “Nothing,” Jane says. Then she sighs. “I’m not going to lie to you. You know what’s going on. Everyone knows what’s going on.”

  “You tell me,” I say. I want to hear it from her.

  I am expecting her to tell me she slept with Sam. But instead she tilts her head, and says, “Sam’s the person I was supposed to fall in love with.”

  “Then what is Oliver?”

  Jane looks at me and blinks quickly. “Extra baggage.”

  “You’ve been with Sam for five days. How can you come to a conclusion in five lousy days?” He doesn’t know you, I think. I’ve been by your side for thirty years. I’m the one to whom you are tied.

  “Remember what I said to you when we first got here?”

  “That Sam was a stubborn pig.”

  “Besides that,” Jane says, smiling. “I did say that, didn’t I? Well, I also said that I’d know what I was looking for when it hit me. I said that all I needed in my life was an instant of time when I could honestly say I was on top of the world, and not be lying. This is it.”

  “You also said that if you got those five terrific minutes you’d go back to Oliver. You’d live the life you started with and you’d never complain.”

  “But that was before. How do you know my five minutes are up? I said I’d go back when it was over. But it’s not over yet. Not by a long shot, Joley.”

  I start to tell her about Rebecca, and what happened this morning. I tell her because it gets me off the hook; it keeps me from thinking about Jane and Sam, together. Rebecca came up to me, and told me what she had seen. She said, Does this mean my parents are getting a divorce? Does this mean I’m never going to go home?

  I watched her standing in front of me, and I knew how she felt. I remembered what it was like to crawl into the safety of Jane’s bed, under the covers, and listen to the screaming going on downstairs between my mother and father. Nothing seemed so loud, or so awful, if I had Jane’s arms around me.

  Even my father started to go to Jane’s room at night. At first I thought it was for the same security that I went there for. I figured everyone has something he is afraid of, something he needs to forget about, even Daddy. I began to piece together the differences slowly, and by the time I understood, Jane stopped letting me come into her room. It was right at the time when she started to change; when Jane sprouted breasts and I began to notice the hair under her arms and vined on her legs. She wouldn’t let me in the room when she was dressing. She wouldn’t let me under the covers. Instead we would sit primly on the bedspread and play Hearts.

  It killed me when she went to college. She left me home alone. She’d visit, almost every weekend, but it wasn’t the same. I always expected that she’d come back to me, but instead, she married Oliver Jones.

  What I told Rebecca this morning is that Jane was always meant to be a mother. Look at how young she started taking care of me. But right now Rebecca would have to be the logical one. “Your mother will come around,” I told her, but she winced as I said it. She wanted to know how long it would take. She wanted to know how many people would have to be hurt. Most of all she asked why Jane was the one who got to make the final decision.

  What decision? I asked Rebecca.

  To throw it all away, she cried. Can’t you see that’s what she’s trying to do?

  I tell my sister all this, and she nervously winds her hair around her finger.

  “I don’t get it, Joley. You spend your whole life as my biggest cheerleader. You’re always there to tell me I’m not paying enough attention to myself; that I deserve better. So after fifteen years I finally take your stupid advice and you tell me I’d better slow down. Make up your mind,” she says. “I’m not going to lie to Rebecca. I’m going to tell her everything; I’m just not going to do it today. Give me a little time. I’ve never asked for anything my whole life. I’ve given and given and given. So can’t I just get this one small thing?”

  “No,” I say, too quickly, and Jane explodes.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come to me. I’ve always wanted you to come to me.”

  “I can’t hear you,” Jane says irritably.

  I clear my throat. “I said I wanted you to come to me.”

  She throws her hands up. “I did come to you. I traveled three thousand miles to come to you. And all I’ve gotten is a lecture.”

  The day that Jane married Oliver, the day that she kissed me on the cheek and told me she was happier than she’d ever been, something happened to me. Quite concretely I felt my chest swell and then contract, and that’s when I understood that you can clearly feel a broken heart. I turned away without saying anything to her, but she didn’t notice, engulfed in a flood of guests. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let myself get hurt like this again.

  I have never stopped looking after Jane, but I have kept my distance. Almost immediately after she got married I started to travel, bouncing from college to college and then across the United States, into Mexico, to Bangladesh, Morocco, Asia. I put as many miles between us as I could allow, assuming this was the easiest way. I have always wanted the best for her because she means so much to me. So, when all this was beginning with Sam, I gave my blessing. I wanted him to have her. If it could not be me.

  She puts her arms around me, and for a minute I’m back where I used to be, where love could be tucked in a pillow fold. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  I used to think about dying and being cremated. I wanted my ashes placed in a leather pouch and I wanted Jane to wear it around her neck. I used to imagine her pulling on layers of clothing in the winter, turtlenecks and sweaters and bulky down parkas, knowing that I was the thing that came closest to her heart.

  This is the most it will ever be, I think. “Don’t worry about me.” I smile at her. “I’ve always had trouble adjusting to your boyfriends.”

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