by Jodi Picoult
She was not ready to take down all the evidence that Emily had lived here, slept here, breathed here only weeks before. But there were some things in this room that she could no longer stand seeing.
Melanie began by plucking the photos of Chris from the edge of the mirror. He loves me, he loves me not, she thought. She collected the pictures into a pile and put them on the bed, then unwrapped Chris's sweatshirt from the pillow and rolled it into a ball. She peeled the tape carefully from a caricature of Emily and Chris that had been stuck to the closet door and added it to the cache on the bed. Then, satisfied, she looked around for something in which to put it all.
If Melanie hadn't been reaching for one of the empty shoeboxes in the back of Emily's closet, she never would have noticed that there was a hole in the plaster. But she was down on her hands and knees, groping, when she felt her hand go through the wall.
Thinking of rats and bugs and bats, she was relieved when the only object her fingers closed around was solid and immobile. She withdrew a clothbound book which fell open to reveal the familiar, neat loops of Emily's handwriting.
"I didn't know she still kept one," Melanie murmured. When Em had been younger, she'd had a diary, but it had been years since Melanie had seen her writing in it. Flipping to the last page and then back to the first, she realized that this journal was recent. It went back almost a year and a half. And as far forward as the day before Emily's death.
Feeling decidedly uncomfortable, Melanie began to read. Many of the entries were mundane, but certain sentences leaped out at her:
Sometimes it's like I'm kissing my brother, but how do I tell him that?
I have to look at Chris's face to figure out what I'm supposed to be feeling, and then I spend the rest of the night wondering why I don't.
I had that dream again, the one that makes me feel dirty.
What dream? Melanie skipped back a few pages, and then forward. And before she could find another reference to that dream, she found herself reading about the night her daughter had lost her virginity.
Emily had made love for the first time at the same spot where she was murdered.
Melanie read the whole book through, losing track of time. Her hands relaxed, and the journal fluttered to the last page; to the entry made the day Emily had died.
If I tell him, he will marry me. It's that simple.
She was talking about the baby. It was clear, even without the specific word on the page. As of the time she'd written this, on November 7, Emily hadn't told Chris she was pregnant. Just as she hadn't told her parents.
Barrie Delaney's whole case against Chris was based on this baby, on the premise that he planned to kill Emily to get rid of it. But how could he get rid of a child he knew nothing about?
Melanie closed the journal, feeling ill. Her mind still trembled with revenge, so full with justice that she did not even notice that in her journal, Emily had not said good-bye.
She gathered the photos of Chris that she'd pulled from the mirror and knotted them in the belly of his sweatshirt. Then she walked downstairs, the book tucked beneath her arm, the sweatshirt clutched in her hand. She went to the formal living room, the one nobody really lived in, which held the house's only fireplace.
They'd used it maybe four times in their whole history of owning the house. With a wood stove in the kitchen, the fireplace seemed extraneous, especially in a room filled with uncomfortable Queen Anne furniture bequeathed from some forgotten relative. Melanie knelt down and scattered the photos across the iron grate, then bunched the sweatshirt on top of it. She retrieved a pack of matches from the kitchen and lit the fire, watching the flames lick at the pictures of Chris before burrowing into the weave of the sweatshirt and erupting in a high blue peak. Then she threw the journal onto the grate, her arms crossed tightly as the binding began to curl and the pages became ash.
"Melanie?"
Coming home from work, Michael's footsteps circuited the house, finally stopping at the small, unused living room. He stared at the fireplace, still smoldering, and then at his wife. "What are you doing?"
Melanie shrugged. "I was cold," she said.
THEN
September 1997
In his right hand, Coach Krull held a banana. In his left hand was a condom.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said dispassionately, "take your marks."
There was a general wave of ripping as the class, grouped in twos, opened their own individual Trojans. Emily had to use her teeth to get the wrapper open. From the next desk over, a boy watched her bite at foil. "Ouch," he winced.
Heather Burns, a friend of Emily's and her partner for this ridiculous Health Education class, giggled. "He's right," she whispered. "You're not supposed to use your teeth."
Emily blushed furiously, thanking God for the millionth time that Heather, and not Chris, was her partner. It was bad enough doing this, but doing it with him would be that much more embarrassing.
Health Education was mandatory for seniors, although most of them had been rolling their own condoms down actual penises for several years by the time they entered the class. The fact that high school coaches--like Coach Krull of the swim team--served as teachers made it even less palatable. To a letter, all the coaches were fat and male, pushing fifty. Whatever wisdom they could offer to teens regarding sex could only be taken with a grain of salt. In fact the only saving grace of the class was seeing Coach Krull stammer over the word menstruation.
The coach lifted a whistle to his lips and blew, and there was a flurry of caressing hands as thirty condoms were rolled down thirty bananas. Furrowing her brow, trying very hard not to think of Chris, Emily stroked her hand down the yellow skin of the banana and worked out the wrinkles on the condom.
"Hey! My banana broke!" a boy shouted.
Someone else snickered. "That happen to you a lot, McMurray?"
Emily snapped the condom into place at the base of the banana. "Done," she sighed.
Heather leaped to her feet. "We won!" she shrieked.
Everyone else's eyes turned to them. Coach Krull ambled down the aisle and stopped in front of their desks. "Let's see, now. We've got a nice space at the top, like we ought to. And the condom isn't bunched up on one side ... and it fits snugly at the bottom. Ladies," he said, "my congratulations."
"Well," said McMurray, eating his banana, "now we know why Heather Burns."
The class snickered at his joke. "Keep wishing, Joey," Heather said, tossing her hair. Coach Krull presented Emily and Heather with SKOR candy bars. Emily wondered if that was supposed to be a joke.
"In real life," Coach Krull said, "putting on a condom isn't a race." He grinned, adding, "Although it probably feels like one." He picked up a banana peel from the floor and looped it into the trash can. "If used correctly--correctly--we know it's the best way barring abstinence to prevent an STD or AIDS," he said, "but seventy-five-percent effectiveness isn't a great form of birth control. At least not for those twenty-five women out of a hundred who wind up pregnant. So if that's your method of choice, consider a backup plan."
As Coach Krull talked, Heather unwrapped her candy bar and took a bite. Emily caught her friend's eye and smiled faintly. "Ouch," she mouthed.
WITH HER HEART POUNDING, Emily locked the door to the bathroom and drew the cardboard box out from beneath her shirt. She rubbed at the spots on her stomach where the sharp edges had dug in and then set the box on the sink counter and stared at it.
Remove test stick from kit. Make sure you read all directions before beginning test.
With trembling hands Emily extracted the foil packet. The test kit was a long, narrow piece of plastic with a squared-off swab at the end and two small windows cut out higher up.
Hold swab end of stick in urine stream for ten seconds.
Who could pee for ten seconds?
Place test stick in holder and wait for three minutes. You will know the test is working when you see the blue "control" line appear in the first window. If you see a bl
ue line appear in the second window, no matter how faint, you are pregnant. If there is no blue line in the second window, you are not pregnant.
Emily wiggled down her jeans and sat on the toilet, positioning the stick between her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to go slowly, but counted only to four before her bladder ran dry. Then she took the stick, beads of urine still beaded on the plastic, and set it in the provided plastic spoon rest.
Three minutes was a very long time.
She watched the control line appear in the first window, and thought, We were always careful.
Then she heard Coach Krull's voice: Seventy-five-percent effectiveness isn't a great form of birth control, at least not for those twenty-five women out of a hundred who wind up pregnant.
The second line came thin as a hairline fracture, and carried just as much pain. Emily doubled over, her hand unconsciously curled over her stomach, as she stared up at the packaging of the only test she'd ever wanted to fail.
THE MUSCLES OF CHRIS'S BACK gleamed with exertion, and his shoulders blocked Emily's view of the moon as he reared over her. She raised her hips to him, with the uncharitable thought that maybe he could drive the thing out of her, but Chris interpreted this gesture as passion and began to stroke, slow and deep inside her. Her head turned to the side, she could feel him, a battering ram. She felt his hand slip between them--he hated it when she didn't come, too--and she clamped her legs together before she could remember to relax. "Sssh," he said, so far in her now she could feel an unbearable pressure, as if this person inside her was pushing Chris out of its space.
Suddenly Chris convulsed, and--as she always did when he came apart--she laced her arms and legs tight and held him close. He lay heavily, a stone on her heart, squeezing the air from her lungs, and almost, with it, her secret.
THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD OFFICE was conveniently on a bus line that linked Bainbridge with several less affluent communities to the south and east. The waiting room boasted a mix of ethnicities, some single women and some with partners, some with swollen bellies and some crying into their hands, but no one had the look of Emily herself: a rich girl from a bedroom community where things like this did not happen.
"Emily?" The counselor, a nurse practitioner named Stephanie Newell, was calling her back inside. Gathering her coat, Emily followed the nurse into a small, homey room. "Well," Stephanie said, sitting across from Emily. "You are pregnant. Approximately six weeks, from the looks of things." She paused, searching Emily's face. "I take it this isn't welcome news."
"Not exactly," Emily whispered.
It had not been real, until now. There was always the margin for error with the home pregnancy test, or the possibility that it had all been nothing more than a bad dream. But this--a stranger telling her it was true--was incontrovertible proof.
"Have you told the father?"
Emily noticed, in a hazy, detached way, that no one was using the word baby. "Pregnant," sure. "Father," yes. But just in case, she assumed, there was no need to put a face to something you might not keep. "No," she said tightly.
"It's your choice," Stephanie said gently, "but it's easier to go through something like this--no matter which option--with someone beside you."
"I won't be telling him," Emily said, her voice firm, realizing as the words came that they were true. "He's not in the picture."
"He isn't," Stephanie pressed, "or you don't want him to be?"
Emily turned to the nurse. "I can't have this baby," she said flatly. "I'm going to college next year."
Stephanie nodded, nonjudgmental. "We offer abortion as one option," she said. "It costs three hundred twenty-five dollars and you have to pay up front."
Emily blanched. She figured there would be a cost, but that was an awful lot. She'd have to ask her parents ... or Chris ... and that was impossible.
She rucked the edge of her shirt up and twisted it between her hands. She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone's expectations, in fact, that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big farce. She was not perfect, far from it, and what you saw on the outside was not what you really were getting. Deep down, she was dirty, and this was the kind of thing that happened to girls like her.
"Three hundred twenty-five dollars," she repeated. "All right."
IN THE END, it was easy. She initially thought of going to Chris and asking him to help her get the money, but he would ask what it was for, and even if she told him it wasn't something she could talk about, he'd figure it out. There were not many things a seventeen-year-old would need so much cash for, and quick.
So Emily set her clock radio to go off in the middle of the night. She crept downstairs and fumbled in her mother's purse for the checkbook. Ripping off number 688, she made the check out to cash for the total amount, easily forging Melanie's signature. Her mother used her checks only to pay bills, and that was just once a month. By the time Melanie was going crazy trying to remember what check number 688 had been for, the entire procedure would probably be over.
The next day after school, Emily asked Chris to drive her to the bank. She had to cash a check for her mother, she said. The teller knew her; in Bainbridge, everyone knew everyone. And Emily had gone home $325 richer.
THE NIGHT BEFORE EMILY was scheduled to have the abortion, she and Chris went to the beach at the edge of the lake. For September, it was balmy--Indian summer, the night flung across the sky like sheer gauze, bringing darkness but no weight. Emily could not settle or concentrate; her skin felt too small for her body, and she was convinced she could feel the thing growing inside her. Desperate to push it out of her mind, she threw herself at Chris, kissing him with a fury, so that at one point he leaned back and looked at her quizzically. "What?" she demanded, but he just shook his head. "Nothing," he murmured. "You just don't seem like you."
"Who do I seem like?" she asked.
Chris smiled. "My wildest dream," he said, and buried his hands in her hair. And then all of a sudden he had pulled Emily on top of him, her legs falling open on either side of his hips. "Sit up," Chris urged, and she did, only to feel him slipping inside her with the change of position.
It was too soon. Emily immediately braced her hands on Chris's shoulders, leaning back in an effort to rear away. "Oh, that's good," Chris murmured, his head turned to the side. Emily froze, and then urged by Chris's palms on her hips, moved tentatively. "You look like a centaur," he said, and--surprised--she laughed.
The movement drove Chris even deeper inside her, making the whole thing worse. They were joking around, just like they used to. They might as well have been wrestling, as they had when they were children, practically siblings. But they weren't wrestling, and they weren't siblings, so it was all right to have sex. Wasn't it?
Emily squeezed her eyes shut, scattering her thoughts. "That would make you the horse," she said, slightly queasy.
Chris flexed his buttocks. "Giddyap," he said, and bucked beneath her so that the moon rippled over her shoulder, lying light on her breast.
Afterward, she lay on her side, her head pillowed by Chris's arm and his hand resting on her hip, spooning. This was the part she waited to get to, the part worth suffering through the sex. She had curled up against Chris a million times in her life. Afterward, it was like it had always been, with nothing embarrassing between them.
"Sand," he suddenly whispered, "is greatly overrated."
She smiled faintly. "Oh?"
"My ass is rubbed raw," he admitted.
Emily grinned. "Serves you right," she said.
"Serves me right? I was doing the chivalrous thing, letting you be on top." He splayed his palm over her stomach.
Abruptly, Emily sat up, grabbed the nearest piece of clothing--Chris's shirt--and wrapped herself in it to walk along the edge of the lake.
Did Chris have a right to know? Would she be lying, if she did no
t say anything at all?
If she did tell him, they'd get married. The problem was, she wasn't sure she wanted that.
She told herself that it wasn't fair to Chris, who thought he'd be getting a girl who'd never been touched by another man.
But a small, nagging throb at the back of her thoughts said that it wasn't fair to her, either. If she sometimes went home after making love with Chris and vomited for hours; if she sometimes couldn't bear his hands roaming under her bra and panties because it felt more like incest than excitement--could she really spend her whole life married to him?
Emily tossed a pebble into the lake, breaking the smooth surface. It was a strange feeling, knowing that her life would always be intertwined with Chris's--God, it had been since the day she was born--and yet realizing that she was still secretly hoping for an out. Everyone expected Chris and Emily to be together forever, but forever had always seemed a long way off.
She pressed her hand to her stomach. Forever had a real time line, now.
Emily supposed then, that the answer was yes. She could marry Chris. The alternative would be explaining that she cared about him like a sister, like a friend, not necessarily like a wife. And she would see his face whiten, feel his heart crumble in her hands.
She did not love Chris enough to marry him, but she loved him too much to tell him that.
Emily blinked at the surface of the lake, rippling deep and ringed with the sounds of crickets. She imagined how easy it would be to walk into that lake, her feet slipping along the silty bottom, until the black water covered her head and weighted down her lungs, sinking her like a stone.
She felt Chris walk up behind her and gently slip his arm around her shoulders. "What are you thinking about?"
"Drowning," she said softly. "Walking in there until it was over my head. Very peaceful."
"Jesus," Chris said, clearly startled. "I don't think it would be peaceful at all. I think you'd start thrashing around and try to get to the surface--"
"You would," Emily said. "Because you're a swimmer."
"And you?"
She turned in his arms, and laid her head on his chest. "I would just let go," she said.
