The Jodi Picoult Collection #4 Read online

  She arched her brows. “Haven’t you ever just looked at something and known how it’s going to taste?”

  She did say something, didn’t she? Not someone?

  I’ve never cheated on Charlotte. I’ve never even thought about cheating on Charlotte. God knows, I come across enough young women in my career to have the opportunity, if I wanted to take advantage. To be honest, Charlotte was all I’d ever wanted—even after eight years. But the woman I’d married—the one who had promised to buy vanilla ice cream for me in her wedding vows, even though it was a poor substitute for chocolate—was not the same one I saw these days in our house. That woman was single-minded and distant, so focused on what she might get that she couldn’t even see what she had.

  “My name’s Sean,” I said, facing the woman.

  “Taffy Lloyd,” she said, and she took a sip of her martini. “Like the candy. The Taffy part, not the Lloyd.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t I know you?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’d remember meeting you before—”

  “No, I know it. I never forget a face—” She broke off, snapping her fingers. “You were in the newspaper,” she said. “You’ve got a little girl who’s really sick, right? How’s she doing?”

  I lifted my beer, wondering if she could hear my heart pounding as loud as I could. She recognized me from that article? If this woman did, how many others would? “She’s doing all right,” I said tersely, finishing my beer in another long swallow. “In fact, I’ve got to get home to her.” The hell with driving; I’d walk.

  I started to get up from my stool but was stopped by her voice. “I heard you’re not suing anymore.”

  Slowly, I turned. “That wasn’t in the newspaper.”

  Suddenly, she didn’t look ditzy at all. Her eyes were a piercing blue, and they were fixed on mine. “Why did you want out?”

  Was she a reporter? Was this a trap? I felt my guard rising, too late. “I’m just trying to do what’s best for Willow,” I muttered, shrugging into my jacket, cursing when my sleeve got tangled.

  Taffy Lloyd set a business card down on the bar in front of me. “What’s best for Willow,” she said, “is for this lawsuit not to happen.” With a nod, she swung her leopard coat over her shoulder and walked out the door, leaving behind most of her martini.

  I picked up the card and traced my finger over the raised black lettering:

  Taffy Lloyd, Legal Investigator

  Booker, Hood & Coates

  I drove. I drove routes I took in my police cruiser, great figure eights that looped closer and closer to the center of Bankton. I watched falling stars and drove where I thought they’d landed. I drove until I could barely keep my eyes open, until it was after midnight.

  I let myself into the house on a whisper and, in the dark, fumbled my way into the laundry room to get the sheets and pillowcase for the couch. Suddenly, I was exhausted, so tired I couldn’t even stand. I sank down on the sofa and buried my face in my hands.

  What I couldn’t understand was how this had gone so far, so fast. One minute I was storming out of the lawyer’s office; the next, Charlotte had set up another appointment. I couldn’t forbid her to do that—but to be honest, I had never figured she’d carry through with a lawsuit. Charlotte wasn’t the type to take a risk. But that’s where I’d messed up: This wasn’t about Charlotte, in her mind. This was about you.

  “Daddy?”

  I looked up to find you standing in front of me, your bare feet white as a ghost’s. “What are you doing up?” I said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I got thirsty.”

  I walked into the kitchen, with you padding along behind me. You were favoring your right leg—although another father might simply have wondered if his daughter was still half asleep, I was thinking of microfractures and hip displacements. I poured you a glass of water from the tap and leaned against the counter as you drank it. “Okay,” I said, hoisting you into my arms, because I couldn’t bear to watch you navigate the stairs. “It’s way past your bedtime.”

  Your arms laced around my neck. “Daddy, how come you don’t sleep in your bed anymore?”

  I paused, halfway up the steps. “I like the couch. It’s more comfortable.”

  I crept into your bedroom, careful not to disturb Amelia, who was softly snoring in the bed beside yours. I tucked you under the covers. “I bet if I wasn’t like this,” you said, “if my bones weren’t all messed up—you’d still be sleeping upstairs.”

  In the dark, I could see the shine of your eyes, the apple curve of your cheek. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer. “Go to sleep,” I said. “It’s too late to talk about this.”

  Suddenly, just like that, as if someone had spliced a future frame into a movie, I could see who you would become when you grew up. That stubborn resolve, the quiet acceptance of someone resigned to fighting an uphill battle—well, the person you resembled most at that moment was your mother.

  Instead of going downstairs, I slipped into the master bedroom. Charlotte was sleeping on her right side, facing the empty side of the bed. I sat down gingerly on the edge of the mattress, trying not to move it as I stretched out on top of the covers. I rolled onto my side, so that I was mirroring Charlotte.

  Being here, in my own bed, with my own wife, felt inevitable and uncomfortable at the same time—like getting to the end of a jigsaw puzzle and forcing the last piece into place, even though the edges don’t match up the way they ought to. I stared at Charlotte’s hand, curled into a fist against the covers, as if she was still ready to come up swinging even when she was unconscious. When I touched the edge of her wrist, her fingers opened like a rose. When I glanced up, I found her staring at me. “Am I dreaming?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I said, and her hand closed around mine.

  I watched Charlotte as she drifted back to sleep, trying to pinpoint the divide between when she was here with me and when she was spirited away, but it happened too quickly for me to measure. Gently I slipped my hand from hers. I hoped, for a moment when she woke up, she’d remember that I’d been here. I hoped that it would make up for what I was about to do.

  • • •

  There was a guy in the department whose wife had had breast cancer a few years ago. In solidarity, a bunch of us had shaved our heads when she went through chemo; we all did what we could to support George through his personal hell. And then his wife recovered, and everyone celebrated, and a week later, she told him she wanted a divorce. At the time, I thought it was the most callous thing a woman could possibly do: ditch the guy who’s stood beside you through thick and thin. But now, I was starting to see that what looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.

  I didn’t like being here—it was like having a bad flashback. Reaching out for a napkin underneath a pitcher in the center of the massive polished table, I mopped at my forehead. What I really wanted to do was admit that this was a mistake and run. Jump out the window, maybe.

  But before I could act on that sane thought, the door opened. In walked a man with prematurely silver hair—had I not noticed that the first time around?—followed by a blond woman wearing stylish glasses and a suit buttoned nearly to the throat. My jaw dropped; Taffy Lloyd cleaned up remarkably well. I nodded silently at her, and then at Guy Booker—the lawyer who’d made a fool out of me in this very office months ago. “I came to ask you what I can do,” I said.

  Booker looked at his investigator. “I’m not sure I understand what that means, Lieutenant O’Keefe . . .”

  “It means,” I said, “I’m on your side now.”

  Marin

  What do you say to the mother you’ve never met?

  Since Maisie had contacted me saying she had a valid address for my birth mother, I had drafted hundreds of letters. That was t