The Jodi Picoult Collection #4 Read online

  A little boy raised his hand. “Do you know Simon Cowell?”

  “No,” I said, grinning. “Anyone else?”

  “Is Willow a movie star?”

  I glanced at Charlotte, who was standing just behind me, with the videographer I’d hired to film A Day in the Life of Willow, to be aired for the jury. “No,” I said. “She’s still just your friend.”

  “Ooh! Ooh! Me!” A classically pretty destined-to-be-cheerleader girl pumped her hand like a piston until I pointed to her. “If I pretend to be Willow’s friend today, will I be on Entertainment Tonight?”

  The teacher stepped forward. “No, Sapphire. And you shouldn’t have to pretend to be anyone’s friend in here. We’re all friends, right?”

  “Yes, Ms. Watkins,” the class intoned.

  Sapphire? That girl’s name was really Sapphire? I’d looked at the masking tape above the wooden cubbies when we first came in—names like Flint and Frisco and Cassidy. Did no one name their kids Tommy or Elizabeth anymore?

  I wondered, not for the first time, if my birth mother had picked out names for me. If she’d called me Sarah or Abigail, a secret between the two of us that was overturned, like fresh earth, when my adoptive parents came and started my life over.

  You were using your wheelchair today, which meant kids had to move out of the way to accommodate you if you approached with your aide to work at the art table or use Cuisenaire rods. “This is so strange,” Charlotte said softly. “I never get to watch her during school. I feel like I’ve been admitted to the inner sanctum.”

  I had hired the camera crew to film one entire day with you. Although you were verbal enough to hold your own as a witness during this trial, putting you on the stand would not have been humane. I couldn’t bring myself to have you in the courtroom when your mother was testifying out loud about wanting to terminate her pregnancy.

  We’d shown up on your doorstep at six a.m., in time to watch Charlotte come into your room to rouse you and Amelia. “Oh, my God, this sucks,” Amelia had groaned when she opened her eyes and saw the videographer. “The whole world’s going to see my bed hair.”

  She had jumped up and run to the bathroom, but with you, it took more time. Every transition was careful—from the bed to the walker, from the walker to the bathroom, from the bathroom back to the bedroom to get dressed. Because mornings were the most painful for you—the curse of sleeping on a healing fracture—Charlotte had given you pain medication thirty minutes before we arrived, then let it start working to ease the soreness in your arm while you dozed for a while before she helped you get out of bed. Charlotte picked out a sweatshirt that zippered up the front so that you wouldn’t have to raise your arms to slip it over your head—your latest cast had been removed only a week ago and your upper arm was still stiff. “Besides your arm, what hurts today?” Charlotte asked.

  You seemed to do a mental inventory. “My hip,” you said.

  “Like yesterday, or worse?”

  “The same.”

  “Do you want to walk?” Charlotte asked, but you shook your head.

  “The walker makes my arm ache,” you said.

  “Then I’ll get the chair.”

  “No! I don’t want to use the chair—”

  “Willow, you don’t have a choice. I’m not going to carry you around all day.”

  “But I hate the chair—”

  “Then you’ll just have to work hard so you get out of it faster, right?”

  Charlotte explained, on camera, that you were caught between a rock and a hard place—the arm injury, an old wound, was still healing, but the hip pain was new. The adaptive equipment—a walker to help you stand with support—meant putting pressure on your arm, which you could do for only short periods of time, and which left instead only the dreaded folding manual wheelchair. You hadn’t been fitted for a new one since you were two; at age six, you were nearly twice that size and complained of back and muscle pain after a full day’s use—but insurance wouldn’t upgrade your chair until you were seven.

  I had expected a flurry of morning activity, made even more overwhelming by all of your needs, but Charlotte moved methodically—letting Amelia run around trying to find lost homework while she brushed your hair and fixed it in two braids, cooked scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, and loaded you into the car along with the walker, the thirty-pound wheelchair, a standing table, and the braces—to use during physical therapy. You couldn’t take the bus—jarring over bumps could cause microfractures—so Charlotte drove you instead, dropping Amelia off at the middle school on the way.

  I followed you in my own van. “What’s the big deal?” the cameraman asked when we were alone in the car. “She’s just small and disabled, so what?”

  “She also can snap a bone if you hit the brakes,” I said. But there was a part of me that knew the cameraman was right. A jury watching Charlotte tie her daughter’s shoes and strap her into a car seat like an infant would think your life was no worse than any baby’s. What we needed was something more dramatic—a fall or, better yet, a fracture.

  My God, what kind of person was I, wishing a six-year-old would get hurt?

  At the school, Charlotte lugged the equipment out of the van and set it in a corner of the classroom. There was a quick powwow with the teacher and your aide, Charlotte explaining which injuries were bothering you today. Meanwhile, you sat in your chair near the cubbies as children funneled around you to hang up their jackets and take off their boots. Your shoelace had come untied, and although you tried to lean over to fix it, your foreshortened arms couldn’t quite span the distance. A little girl bent down to help you. “I just learned how to tie them,” she said, matter-of-fact, and she looped the laces and knotted them. As she bounced off, you watched her. “I know how to tie my own shoes,” you said, but your voice had an edge to it.

  When it was time for snack, your aide had to lift you up to wash your hands, because the sink was too tall to accommodate your wheelchair. Five children jockeyed to sit next to you. But you got only about three minutes to eat because you were scheduled for physical therapy. That day alone, I’d learned, we’d be filming you at PT, OT, speech therapy, and visiting a prosthetic specialist. It made me wonder when or if you ever got to just be a kindergartner.

  “How do you think it’s going so far?” Charlotte asked as we walked down the hall to the physical therapy room, trailing you and your wheelchair and your aide. “Do you think it will be enough for a jury?”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “That’s my job.”

  The physical therapy room was adjacent to the gymnasium. Inside, on the gleaming floor, a teacher was setting a line of kickballs down. There was a wall of glass, through which you could watch what was going on in the gym. It seemed cruel to me. Was it supposed to inspire a kid like you to work harder? Or just depress the hell out of you?

  Twice a week, you had PT with Molly in school. Once a week, you were taken to her office. She was a skinny redhead with a surprisingly low voice. “How’s the hip?”

  “It still hurts,” you told her.

  “Like I’d rather die than walk, Molly, hurts? Or just ouch, it hurts?”

  You laughed. “Ouch.”

  “Good. Then show me your stuff.”

  She lifted you out of your chair and set you upright on the floor. I held my breath—I hadn’t seen you moving without a walker—and you began to shuffle your feet in tiny hiccups. Your right foot lifted off the floor, your left one dragged, until you paused at the edge of a red mat. It was only an inch thick, but it took you ten whole seconds to lift your left leg enough to gain the clearance.

  She bounced a large red ball to the middle of the mat. “You want to start with this today?”

  “Yes,” you said, and your face lit up.

  “Your wish is my command,” Molly said, and she sat you down on the ball. “Show me how far you can reach with your left hand.”

  You reached across your body, putting an S curve into your spine. Even giving