The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  I let the comment roll off my back. In the months since Katie had been interviewed by the forensic psychiatrists, I had marched along with my insanity defense, although I knew it upset her. In her mind, she hadn’t killed that baby, so an inability to recall the murder had nothing to do with insanity. Every time I asked her for her assistance—with lines of questioning, with the sequence of events of that horrible night—she turned away. Her skittishness about the defense had turned her into a wild card, which made me even more grateful I hadn’t decided to go with reasonable doubt. For an insanity defense, Katie would never have to take the stand.

  “Katie,” I said patiently. “I’ve been in a lot more courts than you have. You’re going to have to believe me.”

  She stabbed a leaf onto the end of the stick. “You don’t believe me.”

  But how could I? Her story, since the beginning of this farce, had changed several times. Either I could make the jury think that was due to dissociation, or they would simply assume she’d been lying. Intentionally, I speared a leaf through the midpoint, instead of the stem. “No,” Katie said, reaching for it. “You’re doing it wrong. Watch.”

  With relief, I settled down into letting her be the expert. With any luck, even without help from Katie I would have enough testimony from Dr. Polacci to get her acquitted. We worked side by side in silence, the dust motes rising in the glow that filtered through the shed’s walls. When our baskets were almost empty, I looked up. “You want to pick some more?”

  “Only if you want to,” Katie answered, deferring—as the Amish always did—to someone else’s opinion.

  The door to the shed flew open, the sun backlighting a tall man in a suit. It had to be Coop; although he usually dressed casually when he visited Katie, occasionally he drove straight from the office—and at any rate, he was the only male I could think of who’d be wearing anything other than suspendered trousers. I stood, a smile on my face as he walked inside.

  “You,” Stephen said, grinning, “are one tough woman to find.”

  For a moment I could not move. Then I set down the stick and managed to find my voice. “What are you doing here?”

  He laughed. “Well, that’s not quite the hello I was thinking of during the drive, but I can see you’re meeting with a client.” Stephen offered his hand to Katie. “Hi there,” he said. “Stephen Chatham.” Glancing around the shed, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Is this some kind of occupational therapy?”

  I could barely grasp the fact that Stephen was here. “It’s a cash crop,” I said finally.

  All the while, Katie was darting glances at me, wisely remaining silent. I could not look at Stephen without imagining Coop standing beside him. Stephen didn’t have Coop’s pale green eyes. Stephen looked too polished. Stephen’s smile seemed practiced, instead of a flag unfurled.

  “You know, I’m actually quite busy,” I hedged.

  “The only case I see you actively working on involves ten-packs of Marlboro Lights. Which is why you ought to thank me. I’m guessing that access to law libraries in Amish country is limited at best, so I took the liberty of pulling some verdicts for you to look over.” He reached into a portfolio and extracted a thick sheaf of papers. “Three neonaticides that walked under Pennsylvania law. One of which, believe it or not, was an insanity defense.”

  “How did you know I noticed up insanity?”

  Stephen shrugged. “This case is generating a lot of buzz, Ellie. Word gets around.”

  I was about to respond when Katie suddenly pushed between us, running from the shed without a backward glance.

  * * *

  Sarah invited Stephen to dinner, but he didn’t want to accept the invitation. “Let me take you out,” he suggested. “We can go to one of those homey Amish places in town, if you want.”

  As if, leaving this household, the first thing I’d want to do is eat the same thing all over again. “They’re not Amish,” I said, just to be fractious. “Anyone who’s truly Plain wouldn’t advertise their religion on the sign.”

  “Well, then, there’s always McDonald’s.”

  I glanced into the kitchen, where Sarah and Katie were hard at work preparing dinner—a chore that I’d be helping with, had Stephen not arrived. Sarah peered over her shoulder at us, caught my eye, and turned away quickly in embarrassment.

  Folding my arms across my chest, I said, “How come you can’t eat here?”

  “I just thought that you’d—”

  “Well, you thought wrong, Stephen. I’d actually prefer to have dinner with the Fishers.” I could not say why, but it was important to me that Sarah and Katie know I’d rather be with them than Stephen. That they understand I wasn’t pining to get away as quickly as possible.

  Somehow, over the past few months, these people had become my friends.

  Stephen held up his hands, crying peace. “Whatever you want, Ellie. Dinner with Ma and Pa Kettle will be just fine.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Stephen. Maybe they dress differently and pray more often than you do, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t hear you being an idiot.”

  Stephen sobered quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I only figured after—what, four months here? You might be anxious for a little intellectual banter.” He took my hand, tugging me out of the range of the doorway, so that Sarah and Katie couldn’t see us. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Truth is, I wanted you all to myself.”

  I saw him coming closer to kiss me and froze—a deer in the headlights, unable to stop what was about to happen. Stephen’s mouth was warm on mine, his hands crossing the map of my back, but my mind was running. After eight years, how could being in Stephen’s arms feel less comfortable than being in Coop’s?

  With a small, tight smile, I flattened my hands against Stephen’s chest. “Not now,” I whispered. “Why don’t you walk around the farm while I help with supper?”

  An hour later, when the family gathered at the table, all my doubts about Stephen were laid to rest. He bowed his head solemnly at the silent prayer; he used his charm on Sarah until she couldn’t pass him a serving dish without blushing the color of a plum; he talked about silage as if the subject interested him even more than the law. I should have known that this would be fine: the Fishers were generous and friendly; Stephen was a consummate actor. By the time Sarah served the main course—a pot roast, chicken pie, and turkey stroganoff—I had relaxed enough to take my first bite of food.

  Katie was telling a hilarious story about the time the cows got out of the barn in the middle of a snowstorm when there was a knock at the door. Elam went to open it, but before the older man could get there, the visitor let himself in. “Hey,” Coop said, shrugging out of his coat. “Am I too late for dessert?”

  Like me, he’d become an adopted member of the Fisher family. After the first month, even Aaron stopped objecting with mutinous silence when Sarah graciously offered him dinner on the days he met with Katie or visited me. His eyes lit on mine and warmed—that was all the contact we allowed each other, in front of others. Then he saw Stephen sitting next to me.

  Stephen was already getting to his feet, one hand on my shoulder and the other extended. “Stephen Chatham,” he said, smiling quizzically. “Have we met?”

  “John Cooper. And yes, I think we have,” Coop said, so smoothly I could have kissed him right then and there. “At the opera.”

  “Symphony,” I murmured.

  Both men looked at me.

  “Coop’s taken Katie on as a patient,” I explained.

  “Coop,” Stephen repeated slowly, and I saw him making the synaptic connections: the abbreviated nickname, the snapshots jammed into the back of my college yearbook, the conversations we’d had under a blanket of darkness about our past lovers, when we were still safe and secure in each other’s arms. “That’s right. You knew Ellie from Penn.”

  Coop looked at me reluctantly, as if he didn’t trust himself to control whatever emotions might play across his face. “Yeah. It