by Jodi Picoult
An armadillo can walk underwater.
Minnows have teeth in their throats.
A shrimp can swim backward.
You would think I’d have been scared. But I could hear my mother, telling me a story before I went to bed, about a coyote who wanted to capture the sun. He climbed the tallest tree, and he put it in a jar and brought it home. That jar, though, it couldn’t hold something so strong, and it burst. See, Wills? my mother had said. You are filled with light.
There was glass above me, and the runny eye of the sun in the sky, and I beat my fists against it. It was like the ice had sealed itself on top of me again, and I couldn’t push through. I was so numb, I had stopped shivering.
As the water filled my nose and mouth, as the sun got tinier and tinier, I closed my eyes and curled my fists around the things I knew for sure:
That a scallop has thirty-five eyes, all blue.
That a tuna will suffocate if it ever stops swimming.
That I was loved.
That this time, it was not me who broke.
Recipe: (1) a set of instructions for preparing a dish; (2) something likely to lead to a certain outcome.
Follow these rules, and you will get what you want: it’s the easiest prescription in the world. And yet, you can observe a recipe down to the letter, and it will not make a difference when the end product sits in front of you and you realize it’s not what you wanted.
For a long time, I could only see you sinking. I pictured you, with your skin pale blue and your hair streaming out behind you like a mermaid’s. I would wake up screaming, beating the mattress with my hands, as if I could reach through the ice and drag you to safety.
But that wasn’t you, no more than the skeleton you’d been given was you. You were more than that, lighter. You were the steam that fogged the mirror in the morning when Sean dragged me out of bed and forced me to take a shower. You were the crystals painting my car windshield after a night’s frost. You were the heat rising off the pavement like a ghost in the middle of the summer. You never left me.
I do not have the money anymore. It was yours, after all. I slipped the check into the silk lining of the coffin when I kissed you good-bye for the last time.
Here are the things I know for sure:
When you think you’re right, you are most likely wrong.
Things that break—be they bones, hearts, or promises—can be put back together but will never really be whole.
And, in spite of what I said, you can miss a person you’ve never known.
I learn this over and over again, every day I spend without you.
WILLOW’S SABAYON, WITH CLOUDS
SABAYON
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream, whipped
1/2 cup light rum or Grand Marnier
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a double boiler. Once they are completely mixed, fold in the whipped cream. Remove from the heat, pass through a sieve, and add the rum.
CLOUDS
5 egg whites
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups milk or water
Place the egg whites and salt in a mixing bowl; on low speed, mix until smooth. Gradually increase the speed and sprinkle in the sugar. Beat until the whites hold a soft peak—this is meringue, the cloud I imagine you resting on nowadays. Meanwhile, simmer the milk or water. Take a spoonful of the meringue and gently drop it into the simmering liquid. Cook the meringue for 2 to 3 minutes and, with a slotted spoon, turn it over and continue cooking for another 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the poached meringue to a paper towel. The clouds are fragile.
SPUN SUGAR
Cooking spray
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon corn syrup
Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray, wiping any excess off with a paper towel.
Place the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan and cook over low heat. Stir occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil, until a candy thermometer registers 310 degrees F (hard-crack stage). Remove from the heat and cool slightly. Let the syrup stand to thicken, about 1 minute.
Dip a fork into the sugar syrup and wave it back and forth over the baking sheet to paint long threads. The syrup will begin hardening almost immediately. With practice you can form the strands into lace, swirls, the letters of your name.
To serve, spoon some of the sabayon sauce into a shallow bowl or onto a large plate and top with 2 poached meringues. Gently place a few threads of spun sugar around the meringue, not on top, or it will deflate.
The outcome of this recipe is a work of art, if you can make it through the complicated preparation. Above all else: handle everything with care. This dessert, like you, is gone before you know it. This dessert, like you, is impossibly sweet.
This dessert fills me, when I miss you the most.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Willow’s trivia came, in part, from The Book of Useless Information, edited by Noel Botham and the Useless Information Society (New York: Perigee, 2006).
If you’d like to learn more about osteogenesis imperfecta or to make a donation, please visit www.oif.org.
Handle with Care
JODI PICOULT
A Readers Club Guide
INTRODUCTION
Another heart-wrenching, controversial novel by Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care introduces Willow, a smart and charming five-year-old who was born with a brittle bone disease called osteogenesis imperfecta. Over her lifetime, Willow will have hundreds of broken bones. Her mother, Charlotte, will do anything to give Willow the best life possible—even if she has to say under oath that Willow should never have been born. In pursuing a wrongful birth suit against her obstetrician (and best friend for nearly a decade), Charlotte is willing to put everything on the line in hopes of gaining the financial means necessary to take care of her daughter. Picoult constructs an emotionally complex novel, weaving tender and poignant moments into a difficult story of suffering and sacrifice. Charged with thought-provoking questions about medical ethics, morality, parenting, and honesty, Handle with Care asks just how far we would go to care for the ones we love.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Charlotte and Sean are faced with a very difficult decision when presented with the option of suing for wrongful birth. How did you feel about the lawsuit? The matter is complicated in many aspects, but especially because of Charlotte’s close friendship with Piper, her ob-gyn. How might the O’Keefes have considered and entered into the lawsuit if they had not had a personal relationship with Piper? Would your own reaction to it have changed?
2. During the filming of a day in Willow’s life, Charlotte purposely asks Willow’s physical therapist to try some exercises that she knows Willow isn’t ready for yet, and Willow begins to cry in pain. Charlotte rushes to her daughter’s side, blaming the physical therapist, and when she asks if they got that on film, Marin—Charlotte’s lawyer—is angry at Charlotte for exploiting her daughter. Do you agree with Marin that Charlotte exploits Willow? Charlotte believes she is doing everything out of love for Willow, to win the case that will get her the care she needs, but does this take it too far? Where can we draw the line?
3. Breaking is a theme in Handle with Care: bones break, hearts break, friendships break, families break. Consider examples from the book and discuss why you think certain breaks can or cannot be mended. Is there anything in the book that represents the unbreakable?
4. The author inserts recipes throughout the book that highlight certain baking techniques, such as tempering, blind baking, and weeping. How do these recipes provide further insight into the story and into Charlotte’s character in particular?
5. Throughout the story, the question is raised of what it means to be a mother. For Charlotte, it means doing anything in her power to provide the best life for Willow, but at the same time, her other daughter’s suffering goes unnoticed as she develops bulimia
and begins cutting herself. For Marin, the question of what it means to be a mother addresses the issues of her adoption. Is a mother someone who gives birth to you and gives you away, or the woman who raises you? Discuss the different ideas about mothering that the author presents in this book. At what moments do certain characters fail or succeed at being a mother?
6. The term wrongful birth suggests that some people should never have been born. If abortion had been legal when Marin was conceived, she likely would not have been born. Willow’s severe disability, had Charlotte known about it early enough, could have been cause for abortion. How do we determine what kind of life is worth living? Who has the right to say whether a pregnancy should be brought to term?
7. Discuss the roles that honesty and deception play in this novel. How do the characters lie to themselves? To each other? Is it sometimes better not to know the truth?
8. Charlotte is confident that the potential end of her lawsuit will justify the means, but Sean can’t handle the idea that the means may leave Willow thinking she is unloved or unwanted. Clearly, they both love their daughter, but express it in drastically different ways. What do each of their approaches say about love? Do Charlotte’s actions speak louder than Sean’s words?
9. What message does the trial verdict send? Do you agree with the jury’s decision?
10. How do you think Amelia’s testimony affects the outcome of the case?
11. We follow Marin through the search for her birth mother, and what she eventually finds out about the circumstances surrounding her conception are truly devastating to her. Why do you think she thanks her birth mother for this information? Discuss Marin’s reaction to what she learns.
12. Why do you think the O’Keefes never cash their $8 million check? How do you feel about what they end up doing with it?
13. How do you feel about the ending? Why do you think the author chose to write it this way?
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB
1. Try baking some of Charlotte’s recipes for your book club meeting. Discuss the different baking techniques you used; were you able to relate to Charlotte’s experience of making these treats?
2. Learn more about osteogenesis imperfecta by visiting www.oif.org.
3. Visit www.jodipicoult.com to view book trailers, see what Jodi’s up to, and find out about upcoming signings and appearances.
A CONVERSATION WITH JODI PICOULT
Q: What led you to OI as the topic for this book? Did the idea of a wrongful birth suit come first or second? Talk about the research required for writing this novel.
A: The seed for Handle with Care began with an article I read about wrongful birth—a mother in New York who had sued her ob-gyn after her son was born with severe chromosomal abnormalities and won a multimillion-dollar settlement. It was clear from the article that she loved this child dearly—but that in order to give him a better lifestyle, she needed to tell the world she would have aborted the fetus if given the chance. That moral conundrum got me thinking: what if her child had not been profoundly mentally disabled, but just physically disabled? What if her child could hear her in court, saying that she wished he’d never been born?
That led me to osteogenesis imperfecta. Also known as brittle bone disorder, it is a genetic bone disease characterized by fragile bones that break easily. It’s caused by a mutation on a gene that affects the body’s production of collagen in bones. It affects between twenty-five thousand and fifty thousand Americans—the range is large, because mild cases of OI often go undiagnosed. There are eight types of OI, ranging from lethal at birth to mild with few symptoms. A person with severe OI might experience hundreds of fractures and have a reduced life span. Other symptoms include short stature (people with severe OI are approximately three feet tall), hearing loss, curvature of the spine, respiratory failure, and loose joints and muscles. Physically, it’s a very difficult condition—but mentally, people who have OI are one hundred percent normal. Many kids with OI are even brighter than their able-bodied friends, because they do so much reading after a break, when they can’t run around.
For research, I tried to walk a brief way in the shoes of a parent whose child has OI, by visiting multiple families with kids who were afflicted by the disorder. The first girl I met with OI, Rachel, had Type I—a milder form—but had suffered nearly fifty breaks in her eight years because her parents wanted her to live as normal a life as possible. Rather than having her walk on her knees or restrict her activities, they allowed her to do what she wanted . . . knowing that it would lead to broken bones. I remember asking Rachel what it felt like when that happened. “It feels like lightning under my skin,” she said, and I realized then that the pain these kids feel is just what you or I would feel if we broke a bone—it just happens much more frequently for them. From Rachel, I moved on to meetings with kids who had Type III OI—the most severe type you can get that isn’t lethal at birth. I remember the flash in five-year-old Hope’s eyes when the waitress at the restaurant mistook her for a toddler, due to her size; the pain in Jonathan’s mom’s voice when she talked about how she used to think about just leaving him and running away, because she was so afraid she’d be the one to cause another break. During my visit with Matthew, his mom asked me to take him out of his car seat—and I panicked. What if I was the one who snapped a bone this time? This, I realized, was what these parents went through on a daily basis.
The kids I met who had OI were all sweet, bright, engaging, adorable—and much more than the sum of their disabilities. This was best illustrated in the case of a young woman who became my technical advisor for Handle with Care. Kara Sheridan is a Paralympian who swam in Athens for Team USA in 2004; she is currently a PhD student in clinical psychology and is busy planning her wedding. She also has Type III OI. When I asked her what she wished people would know about OI, she said it’s a challenging and painful condition, but it doesn’t mandate a tragic life. The moments she’s cherished the most have come about because of her condition, and are just as important a part of OI as the medical difficulties. She also pointed out that no child has OI alone—it affects families, friends, and loved ones by default.
Many people shy away from a child in a wheelchair—but when you spend time with kids who have OI, you are not struck by how different they are from able-bodied children, you’re struck by how similar they are. They giggle, they flirt, they tease their brothers. They tell knock-knock jokes and whine about long car rides and hate broccoli. But they also know about things regular kids don’t: splints and braces and pamidronate infusions and spinal rodding. And when you watch them interacting with their parents, you realize that these mothers and fathers are just like the rest of us: willing to do whatever it takes to give their child the best life possible.
Even if that means lying to a judge and jury.
And suddenly, it’s a lot harder to tell whether that’s blatantly wrong . . . or impossibly right.
Q: The characters in your books are always layered and complex, as are the issues that plague them. How do you create a character like Charlotte whom readers can love and hate at the same time?
A: Well, for me, it’s a lot harder to create a flat character who’s either all villain or all hero. Most of us are a combination, aren’t we? Charlotte’s the best kind of character—one who is doing something that looks unpalatable, but is doing it for all the right reasons. In this way she reminds me a bit of Nina Frost from Perfect Match. You want to hate her—but can you really say that if it were you, you wouldn’t at least think about doing the same thing she does? Charlotte’s tragic flaw, in my opinion, is that she is so single-minded in her pursuit of making Willow’s life easier that she neglects the rest of her support system—her friends and her family.
Q: How did you choose the recipes that appear throughout the book? Do you believe in the significance they hold for Charlotte? Are you a baker yourself?
A: Before I got married, I was lucky enough to have a roommate who became one of my best friends. Now Katie
works at the Smithsonian organizing special events—but prior to that, she went to culinary school. When I knew that I wanted Charlotte to be a baker, I turned to her and asked for help. Charlotte, as a baker, would believe that the sum of the ingredients is so much more than its parts—this is true for her when it comes to Willow, too, who is so much more than a litany of moments when she broke a bone or had a surgery or was sidelined to recuperate. I do bake (too much, if you ask my husband, who is constantly cursing me for a pan of brownies cooling on the stove that he is compelled to eat)—and often I have been struck by the metaphorical language of baking. I wanted Charlotte’s cookbook to be a collection of these terms, with accompanying recipes. So one day I emailed Katie a list—words like weeping, hardball, blind baking—and asked her to create recipes that might involve each term. I have to admit that rarely is my fact-checking process so delicious . . . I got to bake, and road test, every recipe in the book.
Q: During the course of the trial, Amelia develops an eating disorder and starts cutting herself. Did you see this as the natural progression for her character? While conducting your research, did you find that these types of behaviors in siblings of disabled children were common?
A: While doing research with a child psychiatrist about adolescent bulimics, I learned that cutting is very common for those girls. Apparently, bulimia involves a lot of self-hatred . . . and cutting figures into that. Siblings of disabled children aren’t always like Amelia, thank goodness—I’d hope that their families would do a better job of including them than the O’Keefes do. For Amelia, the difficulty of having a sibling with a disability is compounded by the fact that she feels she’s failed her sister (in Disney World, for example) and that there are very high stakes in the household for being a child who isn’t perfect (which would be Amelia’s interpretation of her mother’s lawsuit).
