by Jodi Picoult
“Why aren’t you home yet?” Vanessa says.
I should tell her about Angela’s visit; I should tell her about Wade Preston. But when you love someone, you protect her. I may stand to lose my credibility, my reputation, my career, but then again, it’s my battle. This is my ex-husband, my former marriage’s embryos. The only reason Vanessa is even involved is because she had the misfortune of falling for me.
“I got tied up,” I say. “Tell me about the beehive lady.”
But Vanessa is having none of it. “What’s the matter? You sound like you’re crying.”
I close my eyes. “I’m getting a cold.”
It is the first time, I realize, I’ve ever lied to her.
It takes my mother and me two hours to swap all the furniture in my old bedroom and hers. She’s decided that she needs a new perspective, and what better way to start each day than to see something different when she opens her eyes?
“Plus,” she says, “your window opens to the west. I’m tired of waking up with the sun in my eyes.”
I glance around at the same bedding, the same bedroom set. “So basically you’re your own life coach?”
“How can I expect my clients to follow my advice if I don’t follow it myself?”
“And you really believe that relocating ten feet down the hall is going to revolutionize your life?”
“Beliefs are the roads we take to reach our dreams. Believe you can do something—or believe you can’t—and you’ll be right every time.”
I roll my eyes at her. I am pretty sure there was a self-help movement not too long ago that followed that mantra. I remember seeing a high school student on a newsmagazine who subscribed to the philosophy and then didn’t study for her SATs because, after all, she could visualize that perfect 2400. Needless to say, she wound up going to a community college and complaining on television about how it was really all a load of BS.
I look around the room at my mother’s same old bedding, same furniture. “Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of starting over when you’re doing it with stuff you’ve had forever?”
“Honestly, Zoe, you are such a downer sometimes.” My mother sighs. “I’m more than happy to give you a little life coaching, free of charge.”
“I’ll take a rain check, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” She slides down, her back pressed to the wall, while I collapse across the mattress. When I look up, I see a freckling of glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling.
“I’d forgotten about those,” I say.
After my father died, I became obsessed with ghosts. I desperately wanted my father to be one, in the hope that I might find him sitting on the edge of my bed when I woke up in the middle of the night, or feel him whisper a shiver across the nape of my neck. To this end, I borrowed books from the library on paranormal activity; I tried to conduct séances in my bedroom; I sneaked downstairs late at night and watched horror movies when I should have been sleeping. My teacher noticed, and told my mother I might need help. The psychiatrist I’d been seeing sporadically after my father’s death agreed it could be an issue to address.
My mother didn’t. She figured if I wanted my father to be a spirit, I must have had a valid reason.
One night at dinner she said, “I don’t think he’s a ghost. I think he’s a star, looking down on us.”
“That’s dumb. A star’s just a ball of gas,” I scoffed.
“And a ghost is . . . ?” my mother pointed out. “Ask any scientist—they’ll tell you that new stars are born every minute.”
“People who die don’t become stars.”
“Some Native Americans would disagree with you, there.”
I considered this. “Where do stars go during the day?”
“That’s the thing,” my mother said, “they’re still there. They’re watching us, even when we’re too busy to be watching them.”
While I was at school the next day, my mother hot-glued little plastic stars on my ceiling. That night, we both lay down on the bed and covered ourselves with my blanket. I didn’t sneak out of bed to watch a scary movie. Instead, I fell asleep with my mother’s arms around me.
Now, I look at her. “Do you think I would have turned out differently if Dad had been around when I was growing up?”
“Well, sure,” my mother says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “But I think he’d be pretty proud of the outcome all the same.”
After Angela left, I’d stopped off at my house. I’d gotten on the Internet and downloaded the podcast of Joe Hoffman’s radio program, where I listened to him and Wade Preston rattle off statistics: children raised by homosexual parents were more likely to try a homosexual relationship themselves; children of homosexual parents were embarrassed to let their friends find out about their home lives; lesbian mothers feminized their sons and masculinized their daughters.
“My lawsuit was on Joe Hoffman’s radio show,” I say.
“I know,” my mother says. “I heard it.”
“You listen to him?”
“Religiously . . . pun intended. I tune in when I’m on the treadmill. I’ve found that, when I’m angry, I walk faster.” She laughs. “I save Rush for my abdominal crunches.”
“But what if he has a point? What if we have a boy? I don’t know anything about raising one. I don’t know about dinosaurs or construction equipment or how to play catch . . .”
“Honey, babies don’t come with instruction booklets. You’d learn the same way we all do—you’d read up on dinosaurs; you’d Google backhoes and skidders. And you don’t need a penis to go buy a baseball glove.” My mother shakes her head. “Don’t you dare let anyone tell you what you can and cannot be, Zoe.”
“You have to admit, things would have been easier if Dad was here,” I say.
“Yes. I actually agree with Wade Preston in one respect: every child should be raised by a married couple.” She smiles broadly. “That’s why same-sex marriage should be legal.”
“When did you become such a gay activist?”
“I’m not. I’m a Zoe activist. If you’d told me you were vegan, I can’t say I’d stop eating meat, but I’d fight for your right to not eat it. If you’d told me you were becoming a nun, I can’t promise you I’d convert, but I’d read the Bible so I could talk to you about it. But you’re gay, so instead I know that the American Psychological Association says children raised by gay parents describe themselves as straight in the same proportion as those raised in heterosexual households. I know there’s no scientific basis for saying gay people are any less capable than straight parents. As a matter of fact, there are certain bonuses that come with being raised by two mommies or two daddies: compassion, for one. Plus, girls play and dress in ways that break gender stereotypes, and boys tend to be more affectionate, more nurturing, and less promiscuous. And probably because they’ve dealt with questions all their lives, kids raised by gay parents are better at adjusting in general.”
My jaw drops. “Where did you learn all that?”
“On the Internet. Because when I’m not listening to Joe Hoffman, I’m researching what I’m going to say when I finally back Wade Preston into a corner.”
No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it’s not gender that makes a family; it’s love. You don’t need a mother and a father; you don’t necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who’s got your back.
I imagine my mother going after Wade Preston, and I smile. “I hope I’m around to watch that.”
My mother squeezes my hand. She looks up at the stars on the ceiling. “Where else would you be?” she asks.
I lean over Lucy from behind and place the guitar in her arms. “Cradle it like a baby,” I say, “with your left hand supporting the neck.”
“Like this?” She turns in her seat, so that she is looking up at me.
“Let’s hope when you babysit you don’t strangle the kids quite like that . . .”
She lets up on her choke hold on the neck of t
he guitar. “Oh.”
“Now put your left index finger on the fifth string, second fret. Put your left middle finger on the fourth string, second fret.”
“My fingers are getting all tangled—”
“Playing the guitar’s like Twister for your hands. Take your pick between your right thumb and forefinger. Press down on the strings with your left hand, and with your right, gently drag that pick over the sound hole.”
A chord fills the small confines of the nurse’s office, the space we are occupying for our session today. Lucy looks up, glowing. “I did it!”
“That’s an E minor. It’s the first chord I learned, too.” I watch her play it a few more times. “You’ve got a really good sense of music,” I say.
Lucy bends over my guitar. “Must be genetic. My family’s really big on making a ‘joyful noise.’”
I forget, most of the time, that Lucy’s family attends Max’s church. Vanessa had told me months ago, when Lucy and I started working together. Most likely, they know Max and Wade Preston. They just haven’t done the math yet to realize their precious daughter is spending time with the Devil Incarnate.
“Can I play a song?” Lucy asks, excited.
“Well, with one more chord you can learn ‘A Horse with No Name.’” I take the guitar from her and settle it in my lap, then play the E minor, followed by a D add6 add9.
“Wait,” Lucy says. She covers my hand with her own, so that her fingers match the places where mine sit on the guitar. Then she lifts my hand off the neck of the instrument, and spins my wedding band. “That’s really pretty,” Lucy says.
“Thanks.”
“I never noticed it before. Is it your wedding ring?”
I wrap my arms around the guitar. Why is a question that should be so simple to answer not simple at all? “We’re not here to talk about me.”
“But I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know if you’re married or if you’ve got kids or if you’re a serial killer . . .”
When she says the word kids, my stomach does a flip. “I’m not a serial killer.”
“Well, that’s a comfort.”
“Look, Lucy. I don’t want to waste our time together by—”
“It’s not wasting time if I’m the one who asks, is it?”
This much I know about Lucy: she is unstoppable. Once she gets an idea in her head, she won’t let go. It’s why she picks up so quickly on any musical challenge I toss her, from lyric analysis to learning how to play an instrument. I’ve often thought that this was why she was so disconnected from the world when we first met—not because she didn’t care but because she cared too much; whenever she engaged, it was bound to exhaust her.
This I also know about Lucy: Although I don’t think she’s particularly conservative, her family is. And in this case, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. If she accidentally reveals to her mother that I’m married to Vanessa, I have no doubt our therapy sessions will come to a grinding halt. I couldn’t stand knowing that my own situation in some way negatively affected hers.
“I don’t understand why this is such a state secret,” she says.
I shrug. “You wouldn’t ask the school psychologist about her personal life, would you?”
“The school psychologist isn’t my friend.”
“I’m not your friend,” I correct. “I’m your music therapist.”
Immediately, she pulls away from me. Her eyes shutter.
“Lucy, you don’t understand—”
“Oh, believe me, I understand,” she says. “I’m your fucking dissertation. Your little Frankenstein experiment. You walk out of here and go home and you don’t give a shit about me. I’m just business, to you. It’s okay. I totally get it.”
I sigh. “I know it feels hurtful to you, but my job, Lucy, is to talk about you. To focus on you. Of course I care about you, and of course I think about you when we’re not meeting. But ultimately I need you to see me as your music therapist, not your buddy.”
Lucy pivots her seat, staring blankly out the window. For the next forty minutes, she doesn’t react when I play, sing, or ask her what she wants to listen to on my iPod. When the bell finally rings, she bolts like a mustang who’s chewed through her tethers. She’s halfway out the door when I tell her I will see her Friday, but I am not sure she hears me at all.
“Stop fidgeting,” Vanessa whispers as I sit beside Angela Moretti, waiting for the judge to walk into the courtroom and rule on Wade Preston’s motion to appoint a guardian ad litem.
“I can’t help it,” I mutter.
Vanessa is sitting directly behind our table. My mother, beside her, pipes up. “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.”
Vanessa looks at her. “Who said that?”
“I just did.”
“But were you quoting anyone?”
“Myself,” she says proudly.
“I’m going to tell it to one of my AP students. He actually had his car detailed to read HARVARD OR BUST.”
I am distracted by the arrival of Max and his attorneys. Wade Preston walks down the aisle of the courtroom first, followed by Ben Benjamin, and then Reid. A few steps behind is Max, wearing another new suit that his brother must have purchased for him. His hair is too long, curling over his ears. I used to make fun of him when it got like that, used to say he was rocking a Carol Brady look.
If there’s a physical component to falling in love—the butterflies in your stomach, the roller coaster of your soul—then there’s an equal physical component to falling out of love. It feels like your lungs are sieves, so you can’t get enough air. Your insides freeze solid. Your heart becomes a tiny, bitter pearl, a chemical reaction to one irritating grain of truth.
The last person in the entourage is Liddy. She’s channeling Jackie Kennedy today. “Is she OCD?” Vanessa whispers. “Or are the gloves a fashion statement?”
Before I can respond, a harried paralegal rushes down the aisle with a hand truck and begins to stack reference books in front of Wade Preston, just like the other day. Even if it’s all for show, it’s working. I’m totally intimidated.
“Hey, Zoe,” Angela says, not looking up from the notes she’s writing down. “Did you know that the postal service almost put Wade Preston’s face on a stamp? But they gave up when people couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.”
In a flurry of black robes, Judge O’Neill enters. “You know, Mr. Preston, you don’t earn rewards mileage for coming to court more often.” He flips through the motion before him. “Am I misreading this, Counselor, or are you asking for a guardian ad litem to be appointed for a child that does not and may never exist?”
“Your Honor,” Preston says, getting to his feet, “the important thing is that we’re talking about a child. You even just said so, yourself. And once this pre-born child comes into being, the outcome of your decision is going to determine where he or she is raised. To that end, I think you should have some input from a qualified professional who can interview the potential families and prospective parents and give you the tools to make that decision.”
The judge peers over his glasses at Angela. “Ms. Moretti, something tells me you might have a different point of view.”
“Your Honor, a guardian ad litem’s responsibilities include interviewing the child at the center of the disagreement. How do you interview an embryo?”
Wade Preston shakes his head. “No one’s suggesting that the GAL talk to a petri dish, Judge. But we feel that talking to the potential parents will give a good indication of which lifestyle might be more fitting for a child.”
“Straw,” I whisper.
Distracted, Angela leans closer to me. “What?”
I shake my head, silent. The embryos are kept in straws, not petri dishes. If Preston had done his homework, he would have known that. But this isn’t about being thorough, or accurate, for him. It’s about being the ringmaster of a circus.
“With
all due respect, Your Honor, the law in Rhode Island is clear,” Angela counters. “When we discuss what’s in the best interests of children during a custody battle, we are talking about children that are already alive. What Mr. Preston is trying to do is elevate the status of frozen embryos to something they’re not in this state—namely, humans.”
The judge turns to Wade Preston. “You raise an interesting point, Mr. Preston. I’m not sure I wouldn’t appreciate exploring that concept further, but Ms. Moretti is right on the law. The appointment of a guardian ad litem presumes the existence of a minor child, so I am going to have to deny your motion. However, as concerns this court, it’s in our best interests to protect innocent victims. To that end, I will hear from all the witnesses and take on the role of a guardian ad litem myself.” He glances up. “Are we ready to set a date for trial?”
“Your Honor,” Angela says, “my client is forty-one years old, her spouse is nearly thirty-five. The embryos have been cryo-preserved for over a year now. We’d like this resolved as soon as possible to ensure the best chances for a viable pregnancy.”
“It seems that Ms. Moretti and I actually agree for once,” Wade Preston adds. “Although the reason we want this brought to trial quickly is because these children deserve to be put into a loving, traditional Christian home as soon as possible.”
“There’s a third reason for this to be scheduled in a timely fashion,” Judge O’Neill says. “I’m retiring at the end of June, and I damn well don’t intend to leave this mess for someone else to clean up. We’ll set the trial date for fifteen days from now. I trust both sides will be fully prepared?”
After the judge leaves for chambers, I turn to Angela. “That’s good, right? We won the motion?”
But she is less enthusiastic than I would have expected. “Technically,” she admits. “But I don’t like what he said about ‘innocent victims.’ Feels slanted to me.”
We stop speaking as Wade Preston approaches and hands a piece of paper to Angela. “Your witness list,” she says, looking it over. “Aren’t you proactive?”
