The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  The strange thing: her face, after she hit me. She was in greater pain than I. You could see it in her eyes—like she had been violated in some way that broke her own image.

  We report here the first recordings of complete humpback whale songs on the high-latitude feeding grounds in the North Atlantic, along with evidence to suggest that a) whales apparently start singing before migration and b) singing on the high-latitude feeding grounds is common in autumn. Our observations and recordings were made near Stellwagen Bank, Massachusetts, an elongate region of shallows lying north of Cape Cod in the southern Gulf of Maine. Each year this area is occupied by a seasonally returning population of humpback whales (Mayo, 1982,3) that feeds in the region (Hain et al, 1981).

  The last time it was autumn. It was late September when she left and took the child. After the crash, when I saw her at the hospital, she looked broken, that’s the turn of phrase, like tempered glass that has been splintered. Who would have believed it: happening again. But this husband kept his promise. Oliver Jones did not hit her. She gave herself reason to leave. What was it—run it back through your mind like a cassette, get to the point where the outbreak occurred: the sting, my laughter. Then come the words, the affirmation of the past she tries to run from: like father like daughter like father like daughter.

  We described song structure using established terminology: briefly, humpback whale songs are composed of a sequence of discrete themes that are repeated in a predicable order; each sequence of themes is considered a song; and all songs sung by a single whale without a break longer than one minute make up a song session (Jones, 1970).

  I know her past and it has remained largely unspoken, but the truth is the truth. Like father, like daughter—I surprise myself—it sounds malicious. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. She strikes me, I strike her. Is it possible one can physically move a person with one’s words?

  Preliminary analysis of the recordings from the three days in autumn of 1988 shows that all three contain complete humpback whale songs. Comparisons with songs from March, the end of the winter season, show that the November songs closely resemble the song from the end of the winter season before, which agrees with the hypothesis (Jones, 1983) that songs change primarily when they are being sung and not during the quiet summer.

  Picture this: Oliver Jones, sitting on the steps in his sumptuous San Diego home, trying to write an article for a professional journal and being distracted by headlights that pass by Oliver Jones, deserted by his family for reasons he cannot comprehend. Oliver Jones, defending himself from a crazed wife with the power of language. With a single sentence fragment. Oliver Jones. Scientist. Researcher. Betrayer. What a life she has had. Is there any one thing Jane could say to me that could compel me to leave?

  Because we have considerable data about many of the seasonally resident individuals in the Gulf of Maine study area and a collection of humpback whale songs from the western North Atlantic wintering grounds dating back to 1952, these studies should help illuminate the function of the high-latitude feeding ground songs and their relationship to those on the wintering grounds. With further study we hope to determine how much singing occurs on the feeding grounds, who the singers are, and in what context they sing.

  This time she must come home. She must so that I can tell her that I know why she left. That it is possible I was the one at fault. And if she does not come home I will go and find her. Tracking is what this scientist built his name upon.

  9 JANE

  Instead of fighting when we were growing up, Joley and I went through a ritual of saving each other. I was the one who lied for him when he first ran away from home and surfaced again in Alaska, working for an oil rigger. I was the one who bailed him out of jail in Santa Fe, when he had assaulted a traffic cop. When research in college convinced him the Holy Grail was buried in Mexico, I drove him to Guadalajara. I talked him out of swimming the English Channel; I answered all his calls, his letters. During all the time Joley tried to find a corner of this world in which he felt comfortable, I was the one who kept track of him.

  And in return, he has been my biggest fan. He believed in me with such faith that at times I began to believe in myself too.

  Rebecca is inside the 7-Eleven, getting something to eat. I told her to be sparing, because the bottom line is, we don’t have a lot of cash, and there’s only so far we can go on Oliver’s credit cards before he cancels them. The operator makes a collect call to Stow, Massachusetts, which is accepted by someone named Hadley. The man who has answered has a voice as smooth as syrup. “Jane,” he says. “Joley’s mentioned you before.”

  “Oh,” I say, unsure how to respond. “Good.”

  He goes out to find Joley, who is in the field. I hold the receiver away from my ear and count the holes in the mouthpiece.

  “Jane!” This welcome, this big hello. I pull the receiver close.

  “Hi, Joley,” I say, and there is absolute silence. I panic, and press the buttons—numbers one and nine and six—wondering if I have been disconnected.

  “Tell me what’s the matter,” my brother says, and if it had been anyone else but Joley I would have asked him how he knew.

  “It’s Oliver,” I begin, and then I shake my head. “No, it’s me. I left Oliver. I took Rebecca and I left and I’m in a 7-Eleven in La Jolla and I haven’t the first idea what to do or where to go.”

  Three thousand miles away, Joley sighs. “Why did you leave?”

  I try to think of a joke, or a witty way to say it. It’s already a punch line, I think, and in spite of myself I smile. “Joley, I hit him. I hit Oliver.”

  “You hit Oliver—”

  “Yes!” I whisper, trying to quiet him, as if the entire nation between us can hear.

  Joley laughs. “He probably deserved it.”

  “That’s not the point.” I see Rebecca come up to the counter inside the 7-Eleven, carrying Yodels.

  “So who are you running from?”

  My hands start to shake, so I tuck the phone into the crook of my neck. I don’t say anything, and I hope that he will fill in the answer for me.

  “I need to see you,” Joley says, serious. “I need to see you to help you. Can you get to Massachusetts?”

  “I don’t think so.” I mean it. Joley has traveled the whole world, its caverns, rolling oceans, and its boundaries, but I have never been far from suburbia on the East or the West Coast. I have lived in two pockets disconnected from a whole. I have no idea where Wyoming is, or Iowa, or if it takes days or weeks to travel across the country. I haven’t the slightest sense of direction when it comes to things like this.

  “Listen to me. Take Highway Eight east to Gila Bend, Arizona. Rebecca can help you, she’s a quick kid. In the morning, go to the post office in town and ask for a letter in your name. I’ll write and tell you where to go next, and I won’t give you more than one step at a time, and Jane?”

  “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were listening. It’s all right,” he says, and his voice caresses. “I’m here, and I’m going to write you cross-country.”

  Rebecca comes outside to the phone booth and offers me a Yodel. “I don’t know, Joley. I don’t have faith in the U.S. Postal Service.”

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  No, and because he hasn’t, I start to cry. “Talk to me,” I say.

  So my brother begins to talk, endless and lovely and interconnected. “Rebecca will love it here. It’s an orchard, a hundred acres. And Sam won’t mind that you’re coming—he owns the place—awfully young for a controlling farmer but his parents have retired to Florida. I’ve learned a lot from Sam.” I motion to Rebecca to come closer, and when she does I hold the phone between us so that she can hear. “We grow Prairie Spys, Cortlands, Imperials, Lobos, McIntosh, Regents, Delicious, Empire, Northern Spy, Prima, Priscillas, Yellow Delicious, Winesaps. At night when you go to bed, you hear the bleating of sheep. In the morning when you lean out your wind