by Jodi Picoult
“Now?”
He turns, hiding the toy soldier in his fist. “Why not?”
“But it’s . . . it’s . . .” She shakes her head. “I’m putting Nathaniel to bed.”
“Do you need my help?”
He realizes after the words escape that she will take it the wrong way. Do you want help, he should have said. Predictably, Nina bristles. “I think after five years I can probably figure it out all by myself,” she says, and heads back toward the house, her flashlight leaping like a cricket.
Caleb hesitates, unsure whether he should follow her. In the end, he chooses not to. Instead he squints beneath the pinpricks of stars and puts the green soldier into the hollow made by the two sides of the wall. He sets bricks on either side, following the course. When this wall is finished, no one will know that this army man sleeps inside. No one but Caleb, that is, who will look at it a thousand times a day and know that at least one flawless memory of his son was saved.
• • •
Nathaniel lies in bed thinking about the time he took a baby chick home from school. Well, it wasn’t a chick exactly . . . it was an egg that Miss Lydia had put in the trash, as if they were all too dumb to count that there were now three eggs instead of four in the incubator. The other eggs, though, had turned into little yellow cotton balls that cheeped. So that day before his father picked him up, Nathaniel went into Miss Lydia’s office and slipped the egg out of the garbage can, into the sleeve of his shirt.
He’d slept with it under his pillow, sure if it had a little more time it would turn into a chick like the others had. But all it had come to were nightmares—of his father making an omelet in the morning, cracking the shell, and a live baby chick falling into the sizzling pan. His father had found the egg beside his bed three days later; it had tumbled to the floor. He hadn’t cleaned the mess up in time: Nathaniel could still remember the silvered dead eye, the knotted gray body, the thing that might have been a wing.
Nathaniel used to think the Creature he’d seen that morning—it wasn’t a chick, that was for sure—was the scariest something that could ever exist. Even now, from time to time when he blinks, it is there on the backs of his eyelids. He has stopped eating eggs, because he is afraid of what might be inside. An item that looks perfectly normal on the surface might only be disguised.
Nathaniel stares up at his ceiling. There are even scarier things; he knows that now.
The door to his bedroom opens wider, and someone steps in. Nathaniel is still thinking of the Creature, and the Other, and he can’t see around the bright hall light. He feels something sink onto the bed, curl around him, as if Nathaniel is the dead thing now and needs to grow a shell to hide inside.
“It’s okay,” his father’s voice says at his ear. “It’s only me.” His arms come around tight, keep him from trembling. Nathaniel closes his eyes, and for the first time since he’s gone to bed that night, he doesn’t see the chick at all.
• • •
The moment before we step into Dr. Robichaud’s office the next day, I have a sudden surge of hope. What if she looks at Nathaniel and decides she has misinterpreted his behavior? What if she apologizes, stamps our son’s record with red letters, MISTAKEN? But when we walk inside, there’s a new person joining us, and it is all I need to blow my fairy-tale ending sky high. In a place as small as York County, I couldn’t prosecute child molestation cases and not know Monica LaFlamme. I don’t have anything against her, specifically, just her agency. In our office we change the acronym of BCYF to suit us: TGDSW—Those God Damn Social Workers; or RTSM—Red Tape Society of Maine. The last case I’d worked with Monica had involved a boy diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder—a condition, ultimately, that prevented us from prosecuting his abuser.
She gets up, her hands extended, as if she is my best friend. “Nina . . . I am so, so sorry to hear about this.”
My eyes are flint; my heart is hard as a diamond. I do not fall for this touchy-feely bullshit in my profession; I’m sure as hell not going to fall for it in my personal life. “What can you do for me, Monica?” I ask bluntly.
The psychiatrist, I can tell, is shocked. Probably she’s never heard anyone talk back to the BCYF before. Probably she thinks she ought to put me on Prozac.
“Oh, Nina. I wish I could do more.”
“You always do,” I say, and that’s the point when Caleb interrupts.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced,” he mumbles, squeezing my arm in warning. He shakes hands with Monica and says hello to Dr. Robichaud, ushering Nathaniel inside to play.
“Ms. LaFlamme is the caseworker assigned to Nathaniel,” the psychiatrist explains. “I thought it might be helpful for you to meet her; have her answer some of your questions.”
“Here’s one,” I start. “How do I go about getting BCYF uninvolved?”
Dr. Robichaud looks nervously at Caleb, then at me. “Legally—”
“Thank you, but legally, I pretty much know the routine. See, that was a trick question. The answer is that the BCYF is already uninvolved. They never get involved.” I’m babbling, I can’t help it. Seeing Monica here is too strange, like work and home have tunneled through the same wormhole in time. “I give you a name and tell you what he did . . . and then you can go do your job?”
“Well,” Monica says, her voice as smooth as caramel. I have always hated caramel. “It’s true, Nina, that a victim has to give an ID before we—”
A victim. She has reduced Nathaniel to any of a hundred cases I have prosecuted over the years. To any of a hundred lousy outcomes. That is why, I realize, seeing Monica LaFlamme in Dr. Robichaud’s office has turned me inside out. It means Nathaniel has already been given a number and a file in a system that I know is bound to fail him.
“This is my son,” I say through clenched teeth. “I don’t care what procedure calls for. I don’t care if you don’t have an ID; if you don’t get one for months or years. Take the whole population of Maine, then, and rule them out one by one. But start, Monica. Jesus Christ. Start.”
By the time I finish speaking, the others are staring at me as if I’ve grown another head. I glance at Nathaniel—playing with blocks, although none of these good people convened on his behalf are watching, for God’s sake—and walk out the door.
Dr. Robichaud catches up to me in the parking lot. Her heels click on the pavement, and I smell a cigarette being lit. “Want one?”
“Don’t smoke. But thanks.”
We are leaning against a car that isn’t mine. A black Camaro festooned with fuzzy dice. The door is unlocked. If I get in and drive away, can I steal that person’s life, too?
“You sound a little . . . frazzled,” Dr. Robichaud says.
I have to laugh at that. “Is Understatement 101 a course in med school?”
“Of course. It’s the prereq for Lying Through One’s Teeth.” Dr. Robichaud takes a final drag and crushes out her cigarette beneath her pump. “I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but in Nathaniel’s case, time isn’t your enemy.”
She doesn’t know that. She hadn’t even met Nathaniel a week ago. She doesn’t look at him every morning and remember, in sharp counterpoint, the little boy who used to ask so many questions—why birds on electrical wires don’t get electrocuted, why fire is blue in the center, who invented dental floss—that I once, stupidly, wished for peace and quiet.
“He’ll come back to you, Nina,” Dr. Robichaud says quietly.
I squint into the sun. “At what price?”
She doesn’t have an answer for that. “Nathaniel’s mind is protecting him now. He isn’t in pain. He isn’t thinking about what happened nearly as much as you are.” Hesitating, she extends an olive branch. “I could refer you to an adult psychiatrist, who might be able to prescribe something.”
“I don’t want any drugs.”
“Maybe you’d like someone to talk to, then.”
“Yes,” I say, turning to face her. “My son.”
&nbs
p; • • •
I look at the book once more to check. Then I pat my lap with one hand, and snap my fingers. “Dog,” I say, and as if I’ve cued it, our retriever comes running.
Nathaniel’s lips curve as I shove the dog away. “No, Mason. Not now.” He turns in a circle beneath the wrought-iron table, settles on my feet. A cool October wind sends leaves parachuting our way—crimson and ocher and gold. They catch in Nathaniel’s hair, bookmark themselves in the pages of the sign language manual.
Slowly, Nathaniel’s hands creep out from beneath his thighs. He points to himself, then extends his arms, palms upright. Curling his fingers in, he draws his hands close. I want. He pats his lap, tries to snap his fingers.
“You want the dog?” I say. “You want Mason?”
Nathaniel’s face goes several shades sunnier. He nods, his mouth gaping wide in a grin. This is his first whole sentence in nearly a week.
At the sound of his name, the dog lifts his shaggy head and pokes his nose into Nathaniel’s belly. “Well, you asked for it!” I laugh. By the time Nathaniel has managed to push Mason away, his cheeks are flushed with pride. We have not learned much—the signs for want, and more, and drink, and dog. But we have made a start.
I reach for Nathaniel’s tiny hand, one I have fashioned into all the letters of the American Sign Language alphabet this afternoon . . . although soft, small fingers don’t stay tangled that well in knots. Folding down his middle and fourth fingers so that all the others are still extended, I help him make the combined I, L, Y that signifies I love you.
Suddenly Mason leaps up, nearly crashing over the table, and bounds to the gate to greet Caleb. “What’s going on?” he asks, one glance taking in the thick manual, the rigid set of Nathaniel’s hand.
“We,” I say, pointedly moving my index finger from shoulder to shoulder, “are working.” I make two fists—S handshapes—and tap one on the other, to simulate hard labor.
“We,” Caleb announces, grabbing the book from the table to tuck it under his arm, “are not deaf.”
Caleb is not in favor of Nathaniel learning American Sign Language. He thinks if we give Nathaniel such a tool, he might never have the incentive to speak again. I think that Caleb hasn’t spent enough time trying to divine what his son wants to eat for breakfast. “Watch this,” I urge, and nod at Nathaniel, trying to get him to do his sentence again. “He’s so smart, Caleb.”
“I know he is. It’s not him I’m worried about.” He grabs my elbow. “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
We move inside and close the slider, so that Nathaniel cannot hear. “How many words do you think you have to teach him before you can start using this language to ask him who did it?” Caleb says.
Bright spots of color rise to my cheeks. Have I been that transparent? “All I want, all Dr. Robichaud wants, is to give Nathaniel a chance to communicate. Because being like this is frustrating him. Today I taught him to say ‘I want the dog.’ Maybe you’d like to explain to me how that’s going to lead to a conviction. Maybe you’d like to explain to your son why you’re so dead set on taking away the only method he has to express himself.”
Caleb spreads his splayed hands like an umpire. It is the sign for don’t, although I am sure he does not know this. “I can’t fight with you, Nina. You’re too good at it.” He opens the door and kneels down in front of Nathaniel. “You know, it’s an awfully nice day to be sitting here, studying. You could play on the swings, if you want—”
Play: two Y handshapes, caught at the pinkies to shake. “—or build a road in your sandbox . . .”
Build: U handshapes, stacking one on top of the other over and over.
“ . . . and you don’t have to say anything, Nathaniel, if you’re not ready. Not even with words that you make with your hands.” Caleb smiles at Nathaniel. “Okay?” When Nathaniel nods, Caleb picks him up, swinging him high over his head to sit on his shoulders. “What do you say we go pick the crab apples in the woods?” he asks. “I’ll be your ladder.”
Just before he breaks the edge of our property, Nathaniel twists on his father’s shoulders. It’s hard to see from this distance, but it seems that he’s holding up a hand. To wave? I start to wave back, and then realize that his fingers are making that I, L, Y combination, then reconfiguring into what looks like a peace sign.
It may not be technically right, but I can understand Nathaniel, loud and clear.
I love you, too.
• • •
Myrna Oliphant, the secretary shared by all five assistant district attorneys in Alfred, is a woman nearly as wide as she is high. Her sensible shoes squeak when she walks, she smells of Brylcreem, and she can allegedly type an astounding hundred words a minute, although no one has ever actually seen her do it. Peter and I always joke that we see more of Myrna’s back than her front, since she seems to have a sixth sense about disappearing the moment any of us need her.
So when I walk into my office eight days after Nathaniel stops speaking, and she comes right up to me, I know everything’s wrong. “Nina,” she says, tsking. “Nina.” She puts her hand to her throat—there are real tears in her eyes. “If there’s anything . . .”
“Thank you,” I say, humbled. It does not surprise me that she knows what has happened; I told Peter and I’m sure he filled everyone else in on the relevant details. The only sick days I’ve ever used have been when Nathaniel had strep or chicken pox; in a way my absence from work now has been no different, except that this illness is more insidious. “But you know, right now, I just need to get things taken care of here, so that I can go back home.”
“Yes, yes.” Myrna clears her throat, going professional. “Your messages, of course, Peter’s been taking care of. And Wallace is expecting you.” She heads back to her desk, but hesitates a moment, remembering. “I put a note up at the church,” she says, and that’s when I remember she, too, is a member of the congregation at St. Anne’s. There is a small roped square on the News and Notes bulletin board, where people can request that a Hail Mary or Our Father be said for family members or friends in need. Myrna smiles at me. “Maybe God’s listening to those prayers even now.”
“Maybe.” I do not say what I’m thinking: And where was God when it happened?
My office is just the way I left it. I sit gingerly in my swivel chair, push the papers around on my desk, scan my phone messages. It is good to come back to a place that looks, and is, exactly the way I’ve remembered it in my mind.
A knock. Peter comes in, then shuts the door behind him. “I don’t know what to say,” he admits.
“Then don’t say anything. Just come in and sit down.”
Peter sprawls in the chair on the other side of my desk. “Are you sure, Nina? I mean, is it possible that the psychiatrist is jumping to conclusions?”
“I saw the same behaviors she did. And I jumped to the same conclusions.” I look up at him. “A specialist found physical proof of penetration, Peter.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Peter clasps his hands between his knees, at a loss. “What can I do for you, Nina?”
“You’ve been doing it. Thanks.” I smile at him. “Whose brain matter was it, in the car?”
Peter’s eyes are soft on my face. “Who the hell cares? You shouldn’t be thinking about that. You shouldn’t even be here.”
I am torn between confiding in him, and ruining his good impression of me. “But Peter,” I admit quietly, “it’s easier.”
There is a long moment of silence. And then: “Best year,” Peter dares.
I grab the lifeline. That’s simple—I was promoted, and had Nathaniel, within months of each other. “1996. Best victim?”
“Polly Purebred, from the Underdog cartoon.” Peter glances up as our boss, Wally Moffett, comes into my office. “Hey, chief,” he says to Wally, and then to me, “Best friend?” Peter gets up, heads for the door. “The answer is me. Whatever, whenever. Remember that.”
“Good man,” Wally says, as Peter leaves. Wally is the
standard-issue district attorney: lean as a shark, with a full head of hair and a mouthful of capped movie-star teeth that could win him reelection all by themselves. He’s also an excellent lawyer; he can cut to the heart before you realize the first incision has even been made. “Needless to say, this job is here when you’re ready,” Wally begins, “but I’ll personally bar the door if you plan on coming back anytime soon.”
“Thanks, Wally.”
“I’m sorry as hell, Nina.”
“Yeah.” I glance down at my blotter. There’s a calendar underneath it. No pictures of Nathaniel are on my desk—a long habit I kept from District Court, when the scum of the earth would come in to plead their cases in my office. I didn’t want them to know I had a family. I didn’t want that to come back and haunt me.
“Can I . . . can I try the case?”
The question is so small, it takes a moment to realize I’ve asked it. The pity in Wally’s eyes makes me drop my own gaze to my lap. “You know you can’t, Nina. Not that I’d rather have anyone else lock this sick fuck up. But no one in our office can do it. It’s a conflict of interest.”
I nod, but I still can’t speak. I wanted that, I wanted it so badly.
“I’ve already called the district attorney’s office in Portland. There’s a guy up there who’s good.” Wally smiles crookedly. “Almost as good as you are, even. I told them what was going on, and that we might need to borrow Tom LaCroix.”
There are tears in my eyes when I thank Wallace. For him to have gone out on a limb like this—before we even have a perp to prosecute—is extraordinary.
“We take care of our own,” Wally assures me. “Whoever did this is going to pay.”
It is a line I’ve used myself, to appease frantic parents. But I know, even as I say it, that there will be an equal cost extracted from their child. Still, because it is my job, and because I usually have no case without a testifying witness, I tell the parents I’d do anything to get that monster into jail. I tell the parents that in their shoes I’d do whatever it takes, including putting their children on the stand.
