The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  But it is when they get upstairs that things begin to get interesting. My parents’ bedroom is directly over the living room where I am watching TV. I can hear shouting. Then I hear very distinctly the thud of something being dropped. And something else. I jump up and throw my baseball cap down on the couch. I tiptoe up the stairs, hoping I can catch the tail end of this.

  “I’ve had it,” my mother shouts. She has a big cardboard box, the kind my father keeps his research files in. She lifts it with all her strength—she’s not so big—and chucks it into the hall. I think she sees me on the staircase, so I duck. Then my father walks out into the hall. He takes the box my mother has thrown and rights it. He lifts it by its handles and sets it back inside the door.

  For reasons I don’t understand, my mother is faster than my father. A wall of cartons builds up so quickly that I cannot see much of anything at all. They have blocked off the access to their bedroom. “Jane,” my father says. “That’s enough.”

  I cannot see what my mother is doing. This makes me angry. So many days of the year I put up with them ignoring each other; the moments they connect, even fighting, are so rare. Anything, to watch them together. So I creep to the second floor of the house and shove the cartons a certain way. I push and rearrange them gently so that I don’t make too much noise but I create a peephole. I see my father standing in a pile of loose papers and graphs. He looks helpless. He moves his hands in front of him, as if he can still catch them falling.

  Then he grabs my mother’s shoulders. I think maybe he is hurting her. She struggles back and forth, and with a force I didn’t realize she had, she breaks away.

  My mother lifts one of the cartons still out there and holds it over the banister. She rattles it like a maraca.

  My father comes charging out of the bedroom. “Don’t,” he warns. Then the carton breaks. Slow-motion, I can see white bones in Ziploc bags, sharp strands of baleen, ribbons of charts and observation logs, all falling. Just like that, I stop breathing.

  This is when, out of the blue, I remember the plane crash.

  My father hit my mother once, when I was a baby. And she took me and flew to the East Coast. That’s how the story goes. My father insisted she bring me back, so she put me on a plane headed to San Diego. But the plane crashed. I tell it like this, matter-of-fact, because I do not remember it. I was, as I say, a baby. What I know of the crash I have learned from reading newspaper articles, many years later.

  I don’t think about this crash much—it was a long time ago—but I believe that it has crossed my mind now for a reason. Maybe it is the thing that gets me to stand up and turn away. Maybe it is the reason I walk into my bedroom and pull out clothes and underwear, stuffing them into a small bag. Don’t get me wrong, I have no master plan. I keep my face turned away from my parents when I run out of my room and into the bathroom. I grab some dirty clothes of my mother’s from the hamper, and then I run down the stairs. My heart is pounding. All I want to do is get away. I hear my father say, “You bitch.”

  When I was around twelve I thought about running away. I suppose all kids do at some point. I got as far as our backyard. I hid underneath the black vinyl cover of the barbeque, but it took my parents four and a half hours to find me. My father had to come home early from work. It was a big deal when my mother lifted up the vinyl cover. She hugged me and told me I had scared her half to death. What would I do without you? she said, over and over. What would I do without you?

  Sneakers. I grab mine from the living room, my mother’s from the hall closet. They are what she calls her “weekend shoes.” So I am packed. Now what do I do?

  When the plane crashed, I was brought to a hospital in Des Moines. I was in the pediatrics ward, of course, and all I can really remember is that the nurses wore smocks with smiley faces. And hair nets with Ernie and Bert on them. I didn’t know where my parents were, and all I really wanted was to see them. It took a while, but they came. They came in together, I remember. They were holding each other’s hands, and that made me so happy. The last time I had seen them my mother was crying, and my father was yelling very loud. It had been very scary, the crash. But it was what had to be done. It brought my parents together again.

  Just as I am thinking about this, I hear the sting of a slap. It’s a sound you can recognize from any other, if you have heard it before. It brings tears to my eyes.

  I slide the front door open on its hinges. I run to my mother’s car, parked at the edge of the driveway. She has a clunky old station wagon that has been around forever. I perch on the edge of the passenger seat. They say history repeats, don’t they?

  My mother comes out of the house like a lost soul. She is looking into the sky and she is wearing nothing but her underwear. As if it is a magnet, she is being drawn towards this car. I am sure she doesn’t see me. She holds some clothes in her left hand. When she gets into the car she slides them on the seat between us. She has red welts on her wrists from where he grabbed her. I don’t know where he hit her this time. I put my hand over hers; she jumps in her seat. “I have everything,” I say. My voice sounds too high and thin. My mother is looking at me as if she is trying to place the face. She whispers my name, and sinks back against the seat. So do I. I take a deep breath; wonder how long it will be before I see my father again.

  72 JANE

  The human body can withstand so much. I have read accounts of people who have survived extreme cold, brutality, bludgeoning, terrible burns. I have read the testimonies of these survivors. They all make it sound so simple, really, the ability to keep on living.

  We all stand on the upper part of the driveway, where the gravel is a little thin. Sam has just carried Rebecca to the car. Oliver is standing a respectable distance away. Joley stands in front of me, holding my hands, trying to get me to look at him. Hadley is not here, and I cannot forgive myself.

  It is a beautiful day by any other account. It’s cool and dry, with a see-through sky. All the apple trees have fruit. I don’t know where the birds have gone.

  Joley smiles at me and tells me for the hundredth time to stop crying. He lifts my chin. “Well,” he says, “under any other circumstance, I’d say, ‘Come back soon.’”

  My brother. “Call me,” I say. I don’t know how to tell him the things I really want to say. That I couldn’t have lived through this without him. That I want to thank him, in spite of the way this has turned out.

  “Tomorrow,” Joley says, “go to the post office in Chevy Chase, Maryland. There are two. You want the one in the center of town.” He makes me laugh. “That’s better.” I don’t mean to, but just knowing Sam is in the foreground, my eyes dart over to his. Joley hugs me one last time. “This is my going-away present,” he whispers. He takes several steps towards Oliver. “Hey, I don’t think you’ve had a chance to see the greenhouse here, have you?” He claps his arm around Oliver’s shoulders, and pushes him, forcefully, down towards the barn. Oliver turns around once or twice, reluctant to leave us like this. But Joley isn’t about to let him off the hook.

  So then it is just Sam and I. We move a few feet closer but we do not touch. That would be dangerous. “I’ve packed something for you,” he says, swallowing. “In the back seat.”

  I nod. If I try to speak, it’s all going to come out wrong. How can he look at me? I have killed his best friend; I have broken all my promises. I am leaving. I can feel my throat swelling up at the bottom. Sam smiles at me; he tries. “I know we said we weren’t going to do this. I know it’s just going to make it worse. But I can’t help it.” And he leans forward, wraps his arms tight across my back, and kisses me.

  You don’t know what it is like to touch him like that, our skin pressed together at the thighs, the shoulders, the cheeks. Everywhere Sam is, I feel a shock. When he pushes me away, I am gasping. “Oh, no,” I say. He holds me at a distance, and that is supposed to be the end.

  I have to stop shaking before I remember where I am. The little MG we bought in Montana is sitting next to