The Pact

by Jodi Picoult

  "Yeah," Chris said. "Do you have any kids?"

  Jordan stopped dead. "Do I what?"

  "You heard me."

  "I don't see why that has anything to do with your case."

  "It doesn't," Chris admitted. "It's just that if you're going to know me inside out by the time this is all over, I thought I ought to know something about you."

  Jordan heard Selena snicker. "I have a son," he said. "He's thirteen. Now, if we're finished with the introductions, I want to get down to business. Today's agenda involves getting as much information as possible. We need you to sign release forms so that we can get your medical records. Are there any hospitalizations we should know about? Physical or mental disabilities that would make you incapable of physically pulling a trigger?"

  "The only time I've been hospitalized was after that night. For my head, and I cut that when I passed out." Chris bit his lip. "I've been hunting since I was eight."

  "Where did you get the gun that night?" Selena asked.

  "It was my father's. It was in the gun cabinet with all the hunting rifles and shotguns."

  "So you're accustomed to firearms."

  "Sure," Chris said.

  "Who loaded the revolver?"

  "I did."

  "Before you left your house?"

  "No." Chris stared at his hands.

  Jordan raked his hand through his hair. "Can you give me the names of people who would be able to describe your relationship with Emily?"

  "My parents," Chris said. "Her parents. I guess just about anyone at school."

  Selena looked up from her notepad. "What should I expect these people to tell us?"

  Chris shrugged. "That Emily and I were, you know, together."

  "Might these people also have noticed that Emily was suicidal?" Selena asked.

  "I don't know," Chris said. "She kept it pretty close to her chest."

  "We'll also need to show a jury that you were planning to kill yourself that night. Any counselors you spoke to? Mental health people you'd seen?"

  "I wanted to talk to you about that," Chris said, licking his dry lips. "There isn't anyone who's going to tell you I was planning on killing myself."

  "Maybe you mentioned it in a journal?" Selena suggested. "A note you wrote to Emily?"

  Chris shook his head. "The thing is, I wasn't." He cleared his throat. "Suicidal."

  Jordan briskly pushed the admission aside. "We'll talk about that later," he said, silently groaning. It was better, in Jordan's opinion, not to know any more than you needed to about a client's crime. That way you could proceed with your defense without violating any ethics. But once a client told you his story, that was the story. And if he took the stand he had to stick to it.

  Confused, Chris looked from Jordan to Selena. "Wait," he said, "don't you want me to tell you what really happened?"

  Jordan flipped his pad to a new, blank page. "Actually," he said, "I don't."

  THAT AFTERNOON, Chris got a cellmate.

  Shortly before dinner, he'd been curled up on his bunk, his thoughts pulled close around him, when an officer brought the man in. He was wearing a jumpsuit and sneakers, like everyone else, but there was something different about him. Something removed and standoffish. He nodded at Chris and climbed into the top bunk.

  Hector came to the cell door. "Get tired of seeing your own face, man?"

  "Get lost, Hector," the man sighed, without turning over.

  "Don't you be telling me to get lost, you--"

  "Chow," an officer called.

  As Hector left to get into his cell for lockdown, the man unfolded himself from the bunk and came down to accept his tray. Chris, on the bottom bunk, realized there was nowhere for the other guy to sit. If he crawled back into the top bunk, he'd have to eat lying down. "You, uh, can sit here," he said, glancing at the far end of his bunk.

  "Thanks." The man uncovered his tray. An unappetizing tricolored lump sat in the center. "Name's Steve Vernon."

  "Chris Harte."

  Steve nodded and began to eat. Chris noticed that Steve was not much older than he was. And seemed just as inclined to stay uninvolved.

  "Hey, Harte," Hector called from his own cell. "You better sleep with your eyes open tonight. Youngsters ain't safe around him."

  Chris's gaze flew to Steve, who was still methodically eating. This was the guy who'd killed a baby?

  Chris forced his attention back to his plate, trying to remember that a man was innocent until proven guilty. He was proof of that.

  All the same, Chris remembered the things Hector had said when they passed the isolation cell: Picked up his kid in the middle of the night, and went crazy, man. Shook him so hard to stop crying his neck snapped. Who knew what set someone like that off?

  Chris's insides went to jelly. He set his plate down and started for the door of the cell, intending to head for the bathroom at the end of the hall. But it was lockdown for another half hour at least, and for the first time since his arrival, he did not have the cell to himself. He stared at the gray toilet, just inches from Steve Vernon's knee, and reddened with embarrassment. Dropping his pants, Chris sat down and tried not to think about what he was doing. He kept his arms crossed over his middle, his gaze on the floor.

  He finished and stood to find Steve in the upper bunk again, his half-cleaned plate on the lower bed. Vernon's face was turned away from the toilet, toward the bare wall, offering Chris as much dignity as possible.

  THE TELEPHONE RANG JUST AS Michael was getting ready to leave for a house call. "Hello?" he asked impatiently, his body already beginning to sweat beneath the weight of his winter jacket.

  "Oh, Mikey," said his cousin Phoebe, from California--the only person who ever called him Mikey. "I just wanted to call and tell you how very, very sorry I am."

  He had never liked Phoebe. She was his aunt's child; she must have been alerted by his own mother after the funeral, since Michael had done no calling around of his own to let relatives know of Emily's death. She wore her hair in Haight-Ashbury braids and had made a career out of throwing pots that were intentionally lopsided. When Michael spoke to her, which was infrequently at family gatherings, he was reminded of the time they'd been four, and she'd snickered when he wet his pants.

  "Phoebe," he said. "Thanks for calling."

  "Your mother told me," she added, which Michael found interesting: How could his mother pass along information that Michael could not yet accept? "I thought you might want to talk."

  To you? Michael almost asked, before he remembered himself. And then he recalled that Phoebe's common-law husband had hanged himself from a closet rod two years ago. "I know what it's like," Phoebe continued. "Suddenly discovering something you should have noticed a long time ago. They go on to this better place, you know, which is what they wanted all along. But you and me, we're still left behind with all the questions they couldn't answer."

  Michael remained silent. Was she still grieving, then, after two years? Was she suggesting that he had anything at all in common with her? He closed his eyes and felt himself shiver, in spite of his heavy coat. It wasn't true; it simply wasn't true. He had not known Phoebe's husband, but she couldn't have known him as well as he had known Emily.

  So well, Michael thought, that this would come out of the blue?

  He felt a stab of pain in his chest and realized that guilt came from all angles: from not being able to see his daughter's distress in the first place; from being so selfish that even now he focused on what Emily's suicide said about his parenting skills, and not about Emily herself.

  "What do I do?" he murmured, unaware he'd spoken aloud until he heard Phoebe's answer.

  "You survive," she said. "You do what they couldn't." On the other end of the telephone line, Phoebe sighed. "You know, Michael, I used to sit around looking for a way to make sense of what had happened, like there was some kind of answer I could find if I just looked hard enough. Then one day I realized that if there had been one, Dave would still be here. And I
wondered if this ... this feeling that I couldn't figure it all out ... was what Dave had been feeling, too." She cleared her throat. "I still don't get why he did it; and I don't like that he did it; but at least I understand a little better what was going through his head."

  Michael imagined Emily's stomach tied up in the same Gordian knots as his own, Emily's thoughts equally tangled. And he wished, for the millionth time, that he'd been vigilant enough to have spared her such pain.

  He murmured his thanks to Phoebe again and hung up the phone. Then, still wearing his shearling coat, he trudged upstairs in the empty house. He entered Emily's room and stretched out on the bed, staring in turn at the mirror, the schoolbooks, the discarded clothing, as he tried to see the world through his daughter's eyes.

  FRANCIS CASSAVETES HAD BEEN SENTENCED to six months in jail, but he was serving it on weekends. It was a common punishment for those who were employed and contributing to society--a judge would have them come into the jail on Friday and leave on Sunday, allowing them to work the rest of the days in between. Weekenders were visiting royalty in the jail, and spent most of their serving time taking bribes from inmates less fortunate in their sentencing. They smuggled in cigarettes, needles, Tylenol--anything--for a price.

  When Francis entered the maximum security pod, he cupped Hector's face in his hands. "Am I your man?" he said. He pushed past Hector, heading toward the john.

  Francis returned, his hand fisted around something. "You owe me double for this, Hector. Fucking things made me bleed."

  Chris watched as Hector's hand brushed Francis's and a small, white tube winked in the transfer. He turned and walked back into his cell.

  Steve folded down a corner of the magazine he was reading. "Francis brought him cigarettes again?"

  "I guess," Chris said.

  Steve shook his head. "Hector ought to ask for a nicotine patch, instead," he muttered. "Probably easier for Francis to smuggle in, too."

  "How does he?" Chris asked, curious. "Smuggle them in?"

  "Used to hide them in his mouth, I hear. But he got caught, so now he's using a different opening." When Chris continued to stare at him blankly, Steve shook his head. "How many holes have you got?" he asked pointedly.

  Chris turned bright red. Steve rolled away and opened his magazine again. "Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered. "How the hell did you get in here?"

  AS SOON AS CHRIS ENTERED the room with its long, scarred tables and collection of inmates and relatives, he saw his mother. She threw her arms around him as he reached her. "Chris," she sighed, smoothing his hair the way she had when he was a little boy. "You're okay?"

  The officer gently tapped his mother on the shoulder. "Ma'am," he said, "you'll have to let go now." Startled, Gus released her son and sat down. Chris settled across from her. There was no Plexiglas window between them, but that did not mean there wasn't a barrier.

  He could have told his mother that in the superintendent's rule book--a binder big as a dictionary--it was decreed that a visit could begin with a brief embrace or kiss (not open-mouthed) and end the same way. In this same binder were the rules against possession of cigarettes, against use of profanity, against pushing another inmate. Such slight infractions in the real world were, in jail, a felony. The punishment was time added to one's sentence.

  Gus reached across the table and took Chris's hand. For the first time, he noticed that his father was there too. James sat with his chair back a bit, as if he was afraid to come in contact with the table. It brought him nearly up against an inmate with a tattoo of a spiderweb on his left cheek.

  "It is so good to see you," his mother said.

  Chris nodded, ducked his head. If he said what he wanted to--that he needed to go home, that he'd never seen anything more beautiful than her, right now, all his life--he would burst into tears and he could not afford to do that. God only knew who was listening, how it would be held against him.

  "We brought you some money," Gus said, holding out an envelope stuffed with bills. "If you need more you can call us." She handed the envelope to Chris, who immediately signaled an officer, and asked him to put it in his prison account.

  "So," his mother said.

  "So."

  She looked into her lap, and he almost felt pity. There was nothing to talk about, really. He had spent all week sitting in a maximum security pod at the county jail, and his parents would not consider that sanctioned conversation.

  "You'll get a chance next week to be moved to the medium level, no?"

  James's voice startled him. "Yeah," Chris said. "I have to petition the classification board."

  A silence fell. "The swim team won its meet against Littleton yesterday," Gus said.

  "Oh?" Chris tried to sound like he gave a damn. "Who swam my race?"

  "I'm not sure. Robert Ric--Rich--something."

  "Richardson." Chris scuffed his sneaker against the floor. "Probably had a crappy time."

  He listened to his mother tell him about the history assignment Kate had received, for which she'd be dressing up as a colonial woman. He listened to her talk of the movies that were playing at the local theater and of her trip to the AAA to find the quickest route between Bainbridge and Grafton. And he realized that this was how they would fill these visiting hours for the next nine months--not with Chris discussing horrors he did not even want his parents to know of, but with his mother painting for him the world he had left behind.

  His attention was captured as his mother cleared her throat. "So," she said. "Have you met anyone?"

  Chris snorted. "This isn't the Christmas social," he said, and immediately realized his mistake when his mother, red-faced, looked into her lap. He was amazed for an instant at how alone he really was: unable to blend in with the inmates because of who he had been; unable to blend in with his parents because of who he currently was.

  James glared at his son. "Apologize," he said tersely. "Your mother is having a very difficult time with this."

  "And if I don't?" Chris shot back. "What are you going to do to me? Throw me in prison?"

  "Christopher," James warned, but Gus cut him off by placing her hand on his arm. "It's all right," she soothed. "He's upset." She reached across the table and took Chris's hand.

  He remembered, just like that, being a toddler: how she would tell him that they were in a parking lot, or a busy street, then reach down to grasp his fingers. He remembered the smell of rubber on asphalt and the lumbering tug of machinery rolling past, and how safe he had felt in spite of it, as long as he could feel her hand covering his. "Mom," Chris said, his voice breaking, "don't do this to me." Before he could cry he stood, summoning an officer.

  "Wait!" Gus exclaimed. "We still have twenty minutes left!"

  "To do what?" Chris said softly. "Sit here, and wish we weren't?" He leaned across the table and awkwardly embraced her.

  "You call us, Chris," Gus whispered. "And I'll see you Tuesday night."

  Those were the next visiting hours scheduled for the maximum security division. "Tuesday," Chris confirmed. Then he turned to his father. "But ... I don't want you to come."

  THAT AFTERNOON THE TEMPERATURE dropped to zero. The exercise courtyard was empty, the weather having driven everyone else away. Chris stepped outside, his breath fogging a path before him. He walked around the courtyard once and noticed Steve Vernon leaning against the brick wall.

  "Two guys went over that last year," Steve said, nodding toward the high corner where the razor wire met the brick building. "Officer went to close the door to the exercise room, and bam, they were gone."

  "Did they get away?"

  Steve shook his head. "Caught them two hours later, right on Route Ten."

  Chris smiled. Anyone dumb enough to stay on the main thoroughfare after skipping out of jail deserved to be caught. "Do you ever think of doing that?" Chris asked. "Jumping the fence?"

  Steve exhaled through his nose, a white cloud. "No."

  "No?"

  "Nothing out there for me t
o run back to," he said.

  Chris swung his head around. "How come you were in isolation?"

  "I didn't want to be around the other guys."

  "Are you really in here because you shook your kid to death?"

  Steve's eyes narrowed the slightest bit, but held Chris's. "Are you really in here," he said evenly, "because you killed your girlfriend?"

  Chris immediately thought of Jordan McAfee's warning: that the jail was full of snitches. He looked away, stamped his feet, and blew on his hands to warm them up. "Cold," he stated.

  "Yeah."

  "You want to go in?" Steve shook his head. Chris leaned back against the brick wall, aware of the body heat of the man beside him. "I'm not ready yet either," he said.

  JUST AFTER DINNER, there was a shakedown.

  It happened once a month, at the decree of the superintendent: The officers would canvass the cells, tossing mattresses and pillows, sticking their hands into spare clothing and discarded shoes in hopes of finding something incriminating. Chris and Steve stood outside the bars, watching their small square of privacy being violated.

  The officer, a fat man, suddenly stood up, clutching something in his hand. He pointed to the sneakers on the floor--Chris had been sleeping, barefoot, when they entered. "Whose are these?"

  "Mine," Chris said. "Why?"

  The officer unrolled his sausage fingers, one by one. In the middle of his palm was a fat, white cigarette.

  "That's not mine," Chris said, clearly stunned.

  The officer looked from Chris to Steve. "Save it for the DR," he said.

  As the guard left, Chris righted his bed and crawled back into the bunk. "Hey," Steve said, shaking his shoulder. "I didn't plant it."

  "Go away."

  "I'm just telling you."

  Chris buried his head beneath his pillow, but not before seeing the flash of Hector's grin as he passed by the cell.

  IN THE EIGHTEEN HOURS that passed between the finding of the cigarette and Chris's official disciplinary review, he fit together all the pieces of the puzzle. Hector had parted with one of his precious bootleg prizes because he could kill two birds with one stone: test Chris, the newcomer, for his loyalties; and fuck over Steve, the baby killer. If Chris ratted out Hector, he'd regret it for some time. If he pinned the blame instead on Steve--who, as his cellmate, would have the best opportunity to plant a cigarette in Chris's sneaker--Chris would align himself with Hector's crowd.