by Jodi Picoult
Eric clasps his hands behind his back. "Delia," he asks after a moment, "why aren't we married?"
I blink at him; this is not from our script. The question surprises the prosecutor as much as it surprises me; she objects.
"Your Honor," Eric says, "I'd like a little leeway. It's not irrelevant."
The judge frowns. "You can answer the question, Ms. Hopkins."
Suddenly I understand what Eric is trying to do, and what he wants me to say. I wait for him to face me, so that I can tell him, silently, that I am not willing to let him sacrifice himself to save my father.
Eric takes a step closer and places his hand on the rail of the witness box. "It's okay," he whispers. "Tell them."
So I swallow hard. "We aren't married ... because you are an alcoholic."
The words are hinged, rusty; I have worked so hard to not say them out loud. You might tell yourself that candor is the foundation of a relationship, but even that would be untrue. You are far more likely to lie to yourself, or your loved one, if you think it will keep the pain at bay.
This is something my father understood, too.
"When I drank, I was pretty awful, wasn't I?" Eric asks.
I bow my head.
"Isn't it true that I'd disappoint you, tell you I was going to be somewhere, and then completely forget to meet you; tell you I was going to run an errand for you and then not go?"
"Yes," I say softly.
"Isn't it true that I would drink until I passed out, and you'd have to drag me to bed?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it true that I would go off on rampages, get angry over the stupidest things, and then blame you for what went wrong?"
"Yes," I murmur.
"Isn't it true that I could never finish something I started? And that I'd make promises that we both knew I'd never keep? Isn't it true that I'd drink to perk up, to calm down, to celebrate, to commiserate? Isn't it true that I'd drink to be sociable, or to have a private moment?"
The first tear is always the hottest. I wipe it away, and still it sears my skin.
"Isn't it true," Eric continues, "you were afraid to be with me, because you never really knew what I would be like? You'd make excuses for me, and clean up my messes, and tell me that next time, you'd help make sure this didn't happen?"
Yes.
"You enabled my drinking, by making it easier for me to get drunk without consequence ... no pain, no shame. No matter how bad I got, you were there for me, right?"
I wipe my eyes. "I guess so."
"But then ... you found out that we were going to have a baby ... and you did something pretty remarkable. What was that?"
"I left," I whisper.
"You didn't do it to punish me, did you."
By now, I am crying hard. "I did it because I didn't want my child to see her father like that. I did it because if she grew up knowing you that way she would have hated you, too."
"You hated me?" Eric repeats, taken aback.
I nod. "Almost as much as I loved you."
The jury is so focused on our exchange that all the air in the room goes still, but I notice only Eric. He offers me a Kleenex; then smooths my hair away from my face, his hand lingering on my cheek. "I don't drink anymore, do I, Dee?"
"You've been sober for more than five years. Since before Sophie was born."
"What if I fell off the wagon tomorrow?" he asks.
"Don't say that. You wouldn't, Eric--"
"What if you knew I was drinking again, and I had Sophie with me? What if I was taking care of her?"
I close my eyes and try to forget that he has even thrown these words into the open, where they might breed and multiply and become fact.
"Would you enable me again, Dee?" Eric asks. "Would you get Sophie in on the act, so that she could make excuses for her alcoholic parent?"
"I'd take her away from you. I'd take her, and I'd run."
"Because you love me?" Eric asks, hoarse.
"No." I stare at him. "Because I love her."
Eric turns to the judge. "Nothing further," he says.
I start to rise from the witness stand, my legs unsteady, but Emma Wasserstein is already approaching me. "I don't understand, Ms. Hopkins," she says. "What is it about an alcoholic's behavior that might make you worry about your daughter's safety?"
I look at her as if she's crazy. "Alcoholics are unreliable. You can't trust them. They hurt other people without even thinking about what they're doing."
"Sounds kind of like a kidnapper, huh?" Emma turns to the judge. "The prosecution rests," she says, and she sits back down.
On the last good day, my father got up before me. He was downstairs making pancakes for Sophie's breakfast by the time I came downstairs. On the last good day, we ran out of coffee and my father wrote it on a list we kept stuck to the fridge. I did a wash.
On the last good day, I yelled at my father because he forgot to feed Greta. I folded his clean socks. I laughed at a joke he told me, something about an asparagus that went into a bar, which I no longer remember.
On the last good day he went to work for three hours and then came home and put on the History Channel. The program was about the Airstream RV. When it first came out, no one quite knew what to make of the silver bullet, so the company sent a caravan of them on a promotional tour across Africa and Egypt. The native tribes came up to the RVs and poked at them with spears. They prayed for the beasts to leave.
On the last good day, my father didn't fall asleep while he was watching this show. He turned to me and said words that at the time were only words, not the life lessons they've since exploded into. "It just goes to show you," my father told me, on the last good day, "the world's only as big as what you know."
Andrew
During the long drive east, the states all bled into one another and leagues of insects committed suicide against the front grille of the car. We would stop at gas stations and load up on Hostess cherry pies and Coca-Cola. We'd listen to the blur of words on the Spanish-speaking radio stations.
Every now and then, I would reach behind me blindly into the backseat where you were sitting, just to let you know I was there. "High-five," I'd say. But you never slapped my palm in response. Instead, you'd slip your fine-boned, fairy hand into mine; as if you were trying to say Yes, I accept your invitation to this dance.
It takes Irving Baumschnagel seven minutes to walk from the front row of the gallery to the witness stand, mostly because he is too stubborn to accept the help of a bailiff to steady him. Eric leans toward me, watching his unsteady progress. "You're sure he can do this for us?"
Irving is one of the seniors from Wexton Farms that Eric's putting on the stand as a character witness. "He's much sharper than he looks."
Eric sighs. "Mr. Baumschnagel," he says, rising to his feet. "How long have you known Mr. Hopkins?"
"Almost thirty years," Irving says proudly. "We were on the planning committee together in Wexton. He got the senior center up and running just about the time I was ready to start using it."
"How does he contribute to the community?"
"He always puts other people first. He sticks up for causes that most people would rather forget," Irving says. "Like old people. Or poor families--we have our share in Wexton. Where most folks in town would prefer to pretend they don't exist, Andrew will run food and clothing drives."
"Do you know Delia Hopkins?" Eric asks.
"Sure."
"In your opinion, what lessons did Delia learn from her father?"
"Well, that's easy," Irving says. "Just look at what she chose to do for a living: search and rescue. I doubt she would have picked that if she hadn't seen her father putting other people first his whole life."
"Thank you, Mr. Baumschnagel," Eric says, and he sits back down beside me.
Rising, the prosecutor crosses her arms. "You said that the defendant spent his life putting other people first?"
"That's right."
"Would it be fair to say that he
considered other people's feelings?"
"Absolutely," says Irving.
"That he was capable of figuring out who needed help?"
"Yes."
"Who needed a break?"
"Sure."
"Who needed an opportunity to change his or her life?"
"He'd find that opportunity for you, if you needed it," Irving insists.
"Would it be fair to say, Mr. Baumschnagel, that the defendant was willing to give a person a second chance?"
"No question about it."
"Well then," the prosecutor muses. "I guess he really had become a different man."
*
Daddy, you would say, look at my braids. Look at the worst bug bite ever. Look at my handstand, my eggroll dive, my finger painting. Look at my splinter, my spelling list, my somersault, the toad I found. Look at the present I made you, the grade I got, the acceptance letter. Look at the diploma, the ultrasound, your granddaughter.
I couldn't possibly remember all the things you've asked me to look at. I just remember that you asked.
The amazing thing about Abigail Nguyen is that she doesn't look more than a few years older than she did when Bethany was part of her nursery school class. She is tiny and composed, and sits on the witness stand with her hands folded neatly in her lap as she answers Eric's questions. "She was a bright, sweet kid. But after her parents separated, there were times she'd come in and I just knew she hadn't had breakfast. She'd wear the same clothes to school three days in a row. Or her hair would be in knots, because no one had bothered to brush it."
"Did you talk to Bethany about this?"
"Yes," she says. "She usually told me that Mommy was sleeping, so she made herself breakfast or did her own hair."
"How did Bethany get to school?"
"Her mother drove her."
"Did anything about Elise Matthews ever strike you as disturbing?"
"Sometimes she looked ... a little worse for the wear. And often she smelled like she'd been drinking."
"Mrs. Nguyen," Eric says, "did you speak to Bethany's father about this?"
"Yes. I distinctly remember one occasion when Elise Matthews didn't come to pick Bethany up after school--we let her stay for the afternoon session, too, and then we called her father at work."
"What was his reaction?"
She glances at me. "He was extremely upset and angry with his wife's behavior. He said he'd take care of it."
"What happened after that?" Eric asks.
"Bethany attended class for three more months. And then one day," the teacher says, "she disappeared."
I would carry you on my shoulders so you could see better. I used to think to myself, I will do whatever it takes to be able to carry you forever. I will join a gym. I will lift weights. I will never let on that you've grown too big for this, that you've gotten too heavy.
It never occurred to me that one day you might ask to walk on your own.
"So," the prosecutor says. "She just up and vanished?"
"Yes," Mrs. Nguyen says.
"It's not in the child's best interests to have their education interrupted, is it?"
"No."
"Now, Mrs. Nguyen, you said you saw a three-year-old child come to school with unbrushed hair, is that right?"
"Yes."
"You testified that she was sometimes hungry."
"Yes."
"You said that she'd wear the same clothes to school three days in a row."
"Yes."
The prosecutor shrugs. "Doesn't that describe just about any four-year-old child, at some point?"
"Yes, but this wasn't a onetime occurrence."
"As a teacher, have you ever been in contact with the Department of Children Protective Services?"
"Unfortunately, yes. We're required by law to report abuse. The minute we believe a child is in extreme danger, we make the call."
"And yet you didn't report Elise Matthews, did you?" Emma points out. "Nothing further."
Your favorite toys, as a child, were animals. Stuffed and beanbag, enormous and minuscule--it didn't matter, as long as you could arrange them around the house in some sort of complicated scenario. You weren't the kind of kid who wanted to play "vet." Instead, you'd pretend that you were a rescue worker intent on making your way up Everest to rescue a stranded mountain lion, but halfway up one of your sled dogs would break its leg, and it was up to you to do field surgery before continuing on to save the wildcat. You would steal bandages from the first-aid kit at the senior center and erect a triage center under the dining room table; the mountain lion was a stuffed cat hiding under the couch in the den; in the bathroom you had tweezers and toothpicks in your surgical suite. I used to watch you. I used to wonder if you were just a natural expert at reinventing the world, or if I'd somehow made you that way.
The whole way back to jail I feel the elements of my body resisting; a magnetic pole that has become so similar to the one it's approaching it cannot help but be repelled. But almost immediately, a detention officer comes to tell me I've got a visitor. I expect Eric, coming to practice tomorrow's testimony with me until it runs like a well-oiled machine, but instead of being escorted to a conference room for attorneys and their clients, I'm led to a central booth. It isn't until I am nearly face-to-face with her that I realize Elise has come to see me.
Her dark hair is a waterfall. She has writing on the inside of her palm and up her left arm. "Some things never change," I say softly, and point.
She glances down. "Oh. Well. I needed a cheat sheet on the stand." When she smiles at me, the little cubicle I am trapped in swells with heat. "It's good to see you. I just wish it was under different circumstances."
"I'd settle for a different venue," I say.
She bows her head, and when she looks up, her face is flushed. "It sounds like you've had a very good life in Wexton. All those senior citizens ... they adore you."
"A poor substitute," I joke, but it falls flat. I look from the crooked part of her hair to the eyetooth that's twisted the tiniest bit--the little flaws that made her more striking instead of less so. Why had she never been able to understand that?
"You're still so goddamned beautiful," I murmur. "In twenty-eight years, you know, I still haven't met anyone else who talks back to characters in the middle of a movie. Or who stops using punctuation because it's cramping the style of the alphabet."
"Well, I learned a little from you, too, Charlie," Elise says. "A very wise pharmacist once told me that there are certain elements you can't mix together, because even though it seems like they'd be perfect together, they're lethal. Bleach and ammonia, for example. Or you and me."
"Elise--"
"I loved you so much," she whispers.
"I know," I say quietly. "I just wished you'd loved yourself a little more."
"Do you ever think about him?" Elise asks. "The baby?"
I nod slowly. "I wonder how much would have been different, if he'd--"
"Don't say it." There are tears in her eyes. "Let's do it this way, Charlie, all right? Let's pick just one sentence out of all of the ones we should have said--the best, most important sentence--and let's say just that."
This is my old Elise--whimsical, loopy--the one I couldn't help but fall for. And because I know she is sinking in the quicksand of regret, just like me, I nod. "Okay. But I go first." I try to remember what it was like to be loved by someone who did not know limits, and had not yet been ruined by that. "I forgive you," I whisper; a gift.
"Oh, Charlie," Elise says, and she gives me one right back. "She turned out absolutely perfect."
In the blue light of the cell, I make a mental list of the best moments of my life. They aren't the milestones you'd imagine; they are the tiniest seconds, the flashes of time. You writing a note for the tooth fairy, asking if you had to go to college to be one. Waking up to find you curled up in bed beside me. You asking if I'd made the pancakes from scrap. You fishing, and then refusing to touch whatever you caught. You reaching into my po
cket for quarters to feed the downtown meter. You doing cartwheels on the front lawn, looking like a long-legged spider. You spinning cotton candy and getting the sugar all over your hair. Pulling back the curtain of the magic box so you could step inside in your tiny sequined suit. Drawing it aside, so we could all see you reappear.
The amazing thing is, I could sit here for hours and still not run out of the best moments of my life. There are twenty-eight years' worth of them.
From up here, it's different. There's a flimsy railing between me and the rest of the courtroom--this witness stand--but that doesn't keep their eyes from striking me like hammers. "It was the Saturday before Father's Day," I say, looking right at Eric. "Beth was excited, because she'd made me some card with a tie on it at nursery school. When I picked her up, she practically flew out to the car. We had a barbecue and went to the zoo. But then she remembered that she'd forgotten her blanket, the one she slept with. I told her we'd swing by the house and pick it up."
"When you got there, what did you see?"
"There was no answer when I knocked. I went around to the side windows and saw Elise passed out in a puddle of her own vomit in the entryway. Dog feces and urine were all over the floor. And broken glass."
I see Emma Wasserstein lean back as Elise taps her on the shoulder. The two women whisper for a moment.
"What did you do next?" Eric asks, bringing me back to focus.
"I thought about going in, and cleaning her up, like I'd done a thousand times before. And like a thousand times before, Beth would watch me do it. And one day, she'd be the one taking care of her mother." I shook my head. "I just couldn't do it anymore."
"There had to have been an alternative," Eric says, playing Devil's Advocate.
"I'd already given her an ultimatum. After our second baby was stillborn, she started drinking so heavily that I couldn't make excuses for her anymore, and I got her to enroll in a treatment program. She dried out, for a month's time, and then she was drinking more than ever. Eventually I filed for divorce, but that only took me out of the situation. Not my daughter."
"Why didn't you contact the authorities?"
"Back then no one believed a father could do as good a job raising a kid as a mother ... even an alcoholic one. I was afraid if I asked the court for more time with Beth, I'd lose all visitation rights with her." I look down at the ground. "They weren't too sympathetic to fathers who had prior convictions; as it was, the only reason I'd gotten as much time with Beth as I had was because Elise hadn't contested it."
