by Jodi Picoult
“What if he brings them up first?”
“Zoe,” I begged, “please.”
And for about an hour, it seemed as if we might get through dinner without a major incident. Liddy served ham and roasted potatoes and a green bean casserole. She told us about the ornaments on her Christmas tree, a collection of antique ones that had come from her grandma. She asked Zoe if she liked to bake, and Zoe talked about some lemon refrigerator pie that her mother used to make when she was a kid. Reid and I talked college football.
When “Angels We Have Heard on High” played on the CD in the background, Liddy hummed along. “I taught this one to the kids this year for the pageant. Some of them had never heard it before.”
“The Christmas concert at the elementary school is apparently the holiday concert now,” Reid said. “A bunch of parents got together and complained, and now they won’t sing anything that has even faintly religious overtones.”
“That’s because it’s a public school,” Zoe said.
Reid cut a neat little triangle of his ham. “Freedom of worship. It’s right there in the Constitution.”
“So’s freedom of religion,” Zoe replied.
Reid grinned. “You try all you want, but you can’t take Christ out of Christmas, honey.”
“Zoe—” I interrupted.
“He brought it up,” Zoe replied.
“Maybe it’s time for the next course.” Liddy, always the peacemaker, jumped up and cleared the dinner plates, then disappeared into the kitchen.
“Let me apologize for my wife,” I said to Reid, but before I could finish the sentence, Zoe turned, furious.
“First of all, I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself. Second of all, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t have an opinion about—”
“You came here spoiling for a fight—” I argued.
“Then I’ll happily call a truce,” Reid interrupted, smiling uncomfortably. “It’s Christmas, Zoe. Let’s just agree to disagree. Stick to topics like the weather.”
“Who’s ready for dessert?” The swinging door to the kitchen opened, and Liddy stepped through, carrying a homemade cake. Written across the top in white icing it read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS.
“My God,” Zoe murmured.
Liddy smiled. “Mine, too!”
“I give up.” Zoe backed away from the table. “Liddy, Reid, thank you for a lovely dinner. I hope you have a great Christmas. Max? There’s no need for you to leave if you don’t want to. I’ll just meet you at home.” She smiled politely and headed toward the foyer to get her boots and her coat.
“What are you going to do, walk?” I called after her. Excusing myself quickly, I thanked Reid and kissed Liddy good-bye.
By the time I got outside, Zoe was already trudging down the street. The snow, unplowed, reached up to her knees. My truck barreled through it easily and stopped beside her. I leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in,” I snapped.
She thought twice, but she climbed into the cab of the truck.
For a few miles, I didn’t speak to her. I couldn’t. I was afraid I might actually explode. Then, when we hit the highway—which had been plowed—I turned to Zoe. “Did you ever think how humiliating that was for me? Is it really too much to ask for you to make it through one meal with my brother and his wife without being a sarcastic bitch?”
“Oh, that’s really nice, Max. So now I’m a bitch, because I don’t feel like being brainwashed by the Christian right.”
“It was a fucking family dinner, Zo. Not a revival meeting!”
She twisted toward me, the seat belt cutting against her throat. “I’m sorry I’m not more like Liddy,” Zoe said. “Maybe Santa could slip a lobotomy into my stocking tonight. That would help.”
“Why don’t you just shut the hell up? What has she ever done to you?”
“Nothing, because she doesn’t have a mind of her own,” Zoe said.
I’d had plenty of discussions with Liddy about whether people like Jack Nicholson and Jonathan Demme owed their success to B movies; about Psycho’s impact on film censorship. “You don’t know anything about her,” I argued. “She’s a . . . a . . .”
I swung the truck into our driveway, letting my voice trail off.
Zoe jumped out of the truck. It was snowing so hard now that there was a curtain of white behind her. “A saint?” she said. “Is that the word you’re looking for? Well, I can’t be one, Max. I’m just a flesh and blood woman, and apparently I even suck at that.”
She slammed the passenger door and stomped to the house. Furious, I spun the wheels in reverse and tore down the street, skidding.
Between the fact that it was Christmas Eve and the heavy storm, it seemed like I was the only one on the roads. Nothing was open, not even McDonald’s. It was easy to imagine I was the last person left in this universe, because that’s sure as hell how it felt.
Other men were busy building bicycles and jungle gyms so that their kids could wake up on Christmas morning and get the surprise of a lifetime, but I couldn’t even manage to produce a kid.
I pulled into an empty shopping center lot and watched a plow go by. I remembered the first time Liddy had seen snow.
I reached for my cell phone and dialed my brother’s house, because I knew she would answer. I was just going to hear her say hello, and then hang up.
“Max?” she said, and I grimaced—I’d forgotten about caller ID.
“Hey,” I said.
“Is everything okay?”
It was ten at night, and we’d left in a major storm. Of course she was panicked.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” I said.
Do you know how you light up a room?
Do you ever think about me?
Then I heard Reid’s voice in the background. “Come on back to bed, honey. Who’s calling so late, anyway?”
And Liddy’s response: “It’s just Max.”
Just Max.
“What did you want to ask?” Liddy said.
I closed my eyes. “Did . . . I leave my scarf there?”
She called out to Reid. “Sugar? Did you see Max’s scarf?” There was some exchange I couldn’t quite make out. “Sorry, Max, we haven’t found it. But we’ll keep a lookout.”
A half hour later, I let myself into my apartment. The light over the stove was still on, and the little tree that Zoe had bought and decorated herself was glowing in the corner of the living room. She absolutely insisted on a live tree, even though it meant lugging it up two flights of stairs. This year she’d tied white satin bows to the boughs. She said each one was a wish she had for next year.
The only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you’re at the mercy of the universe for the first, and you’ve got some help with the second.
Zoe was asleep on the couch, curled beneath a blanket. She was wearing pajamas with snowflakes all over them. She looked like she’d been crying.
I kissed her, to wake her up. I’m sorry, she murmured against my lips. I shouldn’t have—
“I shouldn’t have, either,” I told her.
Still kissing her, I slipped my hands under the edge of her pajama top. Her skin was so hot it burned my palms. She dug her fingers into my hair and wrapped her legs around me. I sank to the floor and tugged her down with me. I knew every scar on her body, every freckle, every curve. They were markers on a road I’d been traveling forever.
I remember thinking our lovemaking that night was so intense, it should have left behind some kind of permanent record, like the beginnings of a baby, except it didn’t.
I remember that my dreams were full of wishes, although, when I woke up, I couldn’t remember a single one.
By the time Liddy gets to wherever she’s planning on going, my buzz has worn off and I’m pretty much pissed at myself and the world. Once Reid finds out that I was pulled over by a cop for drunk driving, he’ll tell Pastor Clive, who’ll tell Wade Preston, who’ll lecture me on how easy it is to l
ose a trial. When all I wanted, I swear, was to quit being thirsty.
I have been riding with my eyes closed because I’m also suddenly so tired I can barely keep upright. Liddy throws the truck into park. “We’re here,” she says.
We are in the lot in front of the storefront that houses the administrative offices of the Eternal Glory Church.
It’s after hours, and I know that Pastor Clive won’t be around, but that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. Alcohol has already messed up my own life, and here I am using it to mess up a whole bunch of other people’s lives, too. “Liddy,” I promise, “it won’t happen again . . .”
“Max.” She tosses me the keys to the church office, which she has because she is the head of the Sunday School program. “Shut up.”
Pastor Clive has set up a small chapel here, just in case someone needs to come in to pray at a time other than our weekly service at the school auditorium. It’s got a few rows of chairs, a lectern, and a picture of Jesus on the cross. I follow Liddy past the receptionist’s desk and the copy machine into the chapel. Instead of turning on the lights, she strikes a match and touches it to a candle that’s sitting on the lectern. The shadows make Jesus’s face look like Freddy Krueger’s.
I sit down beside her and wait for her to pray out loud. That’s what we do at Eternal Glory. Pastor Clive carries on a conversation with Jesus and we all listen.
Tonight, though, Liddy folds her hands in her lap, as if she’s waiting for me to speak.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” I ask.
Liddy looks up at the cross behind the lectern. “You know what my favorite passage in the Bible is? The beginning of John 20. When Mary Magdalene was grieving after Jesus’s death. He wasn’t Jesus to her, you know, he was her friend and her teacher and someone she really cared about. She came to the tomb, because she just wanted to be close to his body, if that was all that was left of him. But she got there, and his body was gone, too. Can you imagine how lonely she felt? So she started crying, and a stranger asked her what was wrong—and then said her name, and that’s when she realized it was actually Jesus talking to her.” Liddy glances at me. “There are lots of times I’ve been sure God’s left me. But then it turns out I was just looking in the wrong place.”
I don’t know what I’m more ashamed of: the fact that I am a failure in the eyes of Jesus, or in the eyes of Liddy.
“God’s not at the bottom of that bottle. Judge O’Neill, he’ll be watching everything we do. Me and Reid, and you.” Liddy closes her eyes. “I want to have your baby, Max.”
I feel electricity run through me.
Dear God, I pray silently, let me see myself as You do. Remind me that none of us are perfect until we look into Your face.
But I am staring at Liddy’s.
“If it’s a boy,” she says, “I’m going to name him Max.”
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” Liddy turns toward me. “Did you ever want something so bad you think that hoping is going to jinx it?”
In all the spaces between the words, I hear ones she hasn’t spoken out loud. So I grasp the back of her head, and I lean forward and kiss her.
God is love. I’ve heard Pastor Clive say that a thousand times, but now, I understand.
Liddy’s arms come up between us, and with more force than I would have expected her to have, she shoves me backward. My chair screeches across the floor. Her cheeks are bright red, and she’s covering her mouth with one hand.
“Liddy,” I say, my heart sinking, “I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t have to apologize, Max.” Suddenly there is a wall between us. I may not be able to see it, but I can feel it. “It’s just the alcohol, acting out.” She blows out the candle. “We should go.”
Liddy leaves the chapel, but I stay behind. For at least another minute, I wait, completely in the dark.
After my car wreck, when I let Jesus into my heart, I also let Clive Lincoln into my life. We met in his office, and we talked about why I drank.
I told him that it felt like a hole inside me, and I was trying to fill it up.
He said that hole was quicksand, and I was sinking fast.
He asked me to list all the things that made that hole bigger.
Being broke, I said.
Being drunk.
Losing clients.
Losing Zoe.
Losing a baby.
Then he began to talk about what could patch that hole in me.
God. Friends. Family.
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the floor. “Thank goodness for Reid.”
But Pastor Clive, he can hear when you don’t mean what you say, and he leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t the first time Reid’s bailed you out, is it?”
“No.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“How do you think it makes me feel?” I exploded. “Like a total fuckup. Like everything comes so easy to Reid, and me, I’m always drowning.”
“That’s because Reid’s given himself over to Jesus. He’s letting someone else lead him over the rapids, Max, and you—you’re still trying to swim upstream.”
I smirked. “So I just let go, and God takes care of it?”
“Why not? You sure as heck haven’t been doing a bang-up job lately, yourself.” Pastor Clive walked behind my chair. “Tell Jesus what you want. What does Reid have that you wish you could have, too?”
“I’m not going to talk out loud to Jesus—”
“Do you think He can’t read your thoughts anyway?”
“Fine.” I sighed. “I’m jealous of my brother. I wish I had his house. His bank account. Even his faith, I guess.”
Speaking it so baldly made me feel like shit. My brother had never done anything but help me, and here I was coveting everything he had. I felt ugly, like I had peeled off a layer of skin to find an infection underneath.
And God, all I wanted to do was heal.
I might have cried then; I don’t remember. I do know it was the first time I really saw myself for the person I was: someone too proud to admit his flaws.
I left one thing off the list, though, when I was talking to Pastor Clive. I never said I wanted Reid’s wife.
I kept that secret.
On purpose.
I apologize at least fifty more times to Liddy on the way home, but she stays cool, tight-lipped. “I’m sorry,” I say again, as she pulls into the driveway.
“For what?” Liddy asks. “Nothing happened.”
She opens the front door and lifts my arm over her neck, so that it looks like she’s supporting me. “Follow my lead,” she says.
I’m still a little unsteady on my feet, so I let her drag me inside. Reid is standing in the foyer. “Thank God. Where did you find him?”
“Throwing up on the side of the road,” Liddy answers. “He’s got a nasty case of food poisoning, according to the ER.”
“Man, little brother, what did you eat?” Reid asks, wrapping an arm around me so that he can take some of my weight. I pretend to stumble, and let him pull me downstairs to the guest room in the basement. After Reid lays me down on the bed, Liddy takes off my shoes. Her hands are warm on my ankles.
Even in the dark, the ceiling’s spinning. Or maybe that’s just the ceiling fan. “The doctor says he’ll be able to sleep it off,” Liddy says. Through slitted eyes, I notice that my brother has his arm around her.
“I’ll call Pastor Clive, tell him Max got back safely,” Reid says, and he leaves.
Pastor Clive was looking for me, too? A fresh wave of guilt floods over me. Meanwhile Liddy steps into the closet and reaches onto the top shelf. She shakes out a blanket and covers me. I consider apologizing again, but then on second thought, I pretend to be asleep.
The bed sinks under Liddy’s weight. She is sitting close enough to touch me, and I hold my breath until I feel her hand brush my hair away from my f
ace.
Her voice is a whisper, and I have to strain to hear it.
She’s praying. I listen to the rise and fall of her words, and pretend that, instead of asking God for help, she is asking God for me.
The morning of the first time we are scheduled to appear in the courtroom, Wade Preston shows up at Reid’s front door holding a suit. “I have one,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he says, “but do you have the right one, Max? First impressions, they’re critical. You don’t have a chance for a do-over.”
“I was just going to wear my black one,” I say. It’s the only suit I own; I got it from Eternal Glory’s goodwill closet. It’s been good enough for me to wear to church on Sundays, anyway, or when I’m out doing mission work for Pastor Clive.
The one Preston’s brought is charcoal gray. There is also a crisply pressed white shirt and a blue tie. “I was going to wear a red tie,” I say. “I borrowed it from Reid.”
“Absolutely not. You don’t want to stand out. You want to look humble, stable, solid as a rock. You want to look the way you will when you go to the kindergarten parent-teacher conference.”
“But Reid will be going to that—”
Wade waves me away. “Don’t be obtuse, Max. You know what I mean. A red tie says, Notice me.”
I pause. Wade is wearing the most perfectly tailored suit I’ve ever seen. His initials are embroidered on the French cuff of his shirt. He’s got a pocket square made of silk. “You’re wearing a red tie,” I say.
“My point exactly,” Wade replies. “Now go get dressed.”
An hour later, we are crammed at one of the tables in the front of the courtroom: Liddy, Reid, Ben Benjamin, Wade, and me. I haven’t spoken to Liddy all morning. She’s probably the one person who could calm me down, but every time I try, Wade remembers something else he needs to tell me about my behavior in court: Sit up straight, don’t fidget, don’t make faces at the judge. Don’t react to anything the other side says, no matter how much it upsets you. From what he’s said, you’d think I was about to have my stage debut instead of just sitting through a legal motion.
My tie is choking me, but every time I yank at it, Wade or Reid tells me to quit.
