Handle With Care

by Jodi Picoult

  I met his gaze.

  'You advised amniocentesis then, didn't you? And what was her response?'

  For the first time since I'd been handed that little blue folder, I felt the knot in my chest release. 'She was going to have Willow no matter what.'

  'Well, Dr Reece,' the lawyer said. 'That sure as hell doesn't sound to me like wrongful birth.'

  Charlotte

  I

  started lying all the time.

  At first it was just tiny white lies: responses to questions like 'Ma'am, are you okay?' when the dental receptionist called my name three times and I didn't hear her; or when a telemarketer phoned and I said that I was too busy to do a survey, when in fact I'd been sitting at the kitchen table staring into space. Then I began to lie in earnest. I'd cook a roast for dinner, completely forget it was in the oven, and tell Sean as he sawed through the blackened char that it clearly was the shoddy cut of meat the market had started stocking. I'd smile at neighbors and tell them, when they asked, that we were all doing well. And when your kindergarten teacher called me up and asked me to come to school because there had been an incident, I acted as if I had no idea what might have upset you in the first place.

  When I arrived, you were sitting in the empty classroom in a tiny chair beside Ms. Watkins's desk. The transition to public school had been less divine than I'd expected it to be. Yes, you had a full-time aide paid for by the state of New Hampshire, but I had to argue every last right for you - from the ability to go to the bathroom by yourself to the chance to interact in gym class when the play wasn't too strenuous and you weren't in danger of suffering a break. The good news was that this took my mind off the lawsuit. The bad news was that I wasn't allowed to stay and make sure you were doing all right. You were in a classroom with new kids who didn't know you - and who didn't know about OI. When I asked you after your first day what you did in school, you told me how you and Martha played with Cuisenaire rods, how you were on the same team for Capture the Flag. I'd been thrilled to hear about this new friend and asked if you wanted to invite her over to the house. 'I don't think she can, Mom,' you told me. 'She has to cook dinner for her family.'

  As far as I knew, the only friend you'd made in this class was your aide.

  Your eyes flickered toward me when I shook the teacher's hand, but you didn't speak. 'Hi, Willow,' I said, sitting down beside you. 'I hear you had a little trouble today.'

  'Do you want to tell your mom what happened, or should I?' Ms. Watkins asked.

  You folded your arms and shook your head.

  'Willow was invited to participate in some imaginary play with two children this morning.'

  My face lit up. 'But - that's terrific! Willow loves to pretend.' I turned to you. 'Were you being animals? Or doctors? Space explorers?'

  'They were playing house,' Ms. Watkins explained. 'Cassidy was role-playing the mom; Daniel was the dad--'

  'And they wanted me to be the baby,' you exploded. 'I'm not a baby.'

  'Willow's very sensitive about her size,' I explained. 'We like to say she's just space-efficient.'

  'Mom, they kept saying that because I was littlest I had to be the baby, but I didn't want to be the baby. I wanted to be the dad.'

  This, I could tell, was news to Ms. Watkins, too. 'The dad?' I said. 'How come you didn't want to be the mom?'

  'Because moms go into the bathroom and cry and turn on the water so no one can hear them.'

  Ms. Watkins looked at me. 'Mrs O'Keefe,' she said, 'why don't you and I talk for a moment outside?'

  For five whole minutes we drove in silence. 'It is not okay for you to trip Cassidy when she walks by you for snack.' Although I did have to give you some credit for ingenuity - there wasn't much you could do to hurt someone without also hurting yourself, and this was a pretty clever, if diabolical, tactic. 'The last thing you want, Willow, is for Ms. Watkins to think you're a troublemaker after one week of school.'

  I did not tell you that, when we had gone into the hall and Ms. Watkins asked if there was something going on at home that might lead to you acting out in school, I had flat-out lied. 'No,' I said, after pretending to think a minute. 'I can't imagine where she got that from. But then again, Willow's always had a remarkable imagination.'

  'Well?' I prompted, still waiting for some recognition from you that you'd crossed a line you shouldn't have. 'Do you have something you want to say?'

  I glanced in the rearview mirror for your response. You nodded, your eyes full of tears. 'Please don't get rid of me, Mommy.'

  If I hadn't been paused at a stoplight, I probably would have crashed into the car in front of me. Your narrow shoulders were shaking; your nose was running. 'I'll be better,' you said. 'I'll be perfect.'

  'Oh, Willow, honey. You are perfect.' I felt trapped by my seat belt, by the ten seconds it took for the light to change. As soon as it did, I pulled into the first side street I could. I turned off the ignition and slipped into the backseat to take you out of your car seat. It had been adapted, like your infant car bed - this was upright but foam lined the straps, because otherwise even braking could cause a fracture. I gently untangled you and rocked you in my arms.

  I had not talked to you about the lawsuit. I told myself that I was trying to keep you blissfully ignorant for as long as possible - much the same reason I hadn't told Ms. Watkins about it. But the longer I put off this conversation, the greater the likelihood you'd find out about it from a classmate, and I couldn't let that happen.

  Had I really been trying to protect you? Or had I just been protecting myself? Would this be the moment I'd point to, months from now, as the beginning of the unraveling between us: yes, we were sitting on Appleton Lane, under a sugar maple, the moment that my daughter started to hate me.

  'Willow,' I said, my throat suddenly so dry that I could not swallow. 'If anyone's been bad, it's me. Do you remember when we went to visit that lawyer after your breaks at Disney World?'

  'The man or the lady?'

  'The lady. She's going to help us.'

  You blinked. 'Help us do what?'

  I hesitated. How was I supposed to explain the legal system to a five-year-old? 'You know how there are rules?' I said. 'At home, and at school? What happens if someone breaks those rules?'

  'They get a time-out.'

  'Well, there are rules for grown-ups, too,' I said. 'Like, you can't hurt someone. And you can't take something that's not yours. And if you break the rules, you get punished. Lawyers can help you if someone breaks a rule and hurts you in the process. They make sure that the person who did something wrong takes responsibility.'

  'Like when Amelia stole my glitter nail polish and you made her buy me another one with her babysitting money?'

  'Exactly like that,' I said.

  Your eyes welled up again. 'I broke the rules in school and the lawyer's going to make me move out of the house,' you said.

  'No one is moving,' I said firmly. 'Especially not you. You didn't break the rules. Someone else did.'

  'Is it Daddy?' you asked. 'Is that why he doesn't want you to get a lawyer?'

  I stared at you. 'You heard us talking about that?'

  'I heard you yelling about it.'

  'It wasn't Daddy. And it wasn't Amelia.' I took a deep breath. 'It was Piper.'

  'Piper stole something from our house?'

  'This is where it gets complicated,' I said. 'She didn't steal a thing, like a television or a bracelet. She just didn't tell me something that she should have. Something very important.'

  You looked down at your lap. 'It was something about me, wasn't it?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'But it's nothing that would ever change the way I feel about you. There's only one Willow O'Keefe on this planet, and I was lucky enough to get her.' I kissed the top of your head, because I wasn't brave enough to look you in the eye. 'It's a funny thing, though,' I said, my voice knotting around a rope of tears. 'In order for this lawyer to help us, I have to play a game. I have to say things I don't really mean. Thi
ngs that might hurt if you heard them and didn't know I was really just acting.'

  Now I watched your face carefully to see if you were following me. 'Like when someone gets shot on TV but not in real life?' you said.

  'Right,' I said. They're fake bullets, so why do I still feel like I'm bleeding out? 'You're going to hear things, and maybe read things, and you'll think to yourself, My mom would never say that. And you'd be right. Because when I'm in court, talking to that lawyer, I'm pretending to be someone else, even though I look the same and my voice sounds the same. I might fool everyone else in the world, but I don't want to fool you.'

  You blinked up at me. 'Can we practice?'

  'What?'

  'So I can tell. If you're acting or not.'

  I drew in my breath. 'Okay,' I said. 'You were absolutely right to trip Cassidy today.'

  You stared at me fiercely. 'You're lying. I wish you weren't, but you're lying.'

  'Good girl. Ms. Watkins needs to pluck her unibrow.'

  A smile fluted across your face. 'That's a trick question, but you're still lying, because even if she really does look like there's a caterpillar between her eyes, that's something Amelia would say out loud but not you.'

  I burst out laughing. 'Honestly, Willow.'

  'True!'

  'But I didn't say anything yet!'

  'You don't have to say I love you to say I love you,' you said with a shrug. 'All you have to do is say my name and I know.'

  'How?'

  When I looked down at you, I was struck by how much of myself I could see in the shape of your eyes, in the light of your smile. 'Say Cassidy,' you instructed.

  'Cassidy.'

  'Say . . . Ursula.'

  'Ursula,' I parroted.

  'Now . . . ,' and you pointed to your own chest.

  'Willow.'

  'Can't you hear it?' you said. 'When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.'

  'Willow,' I repeated, feeling the pillow of the consonants and the swing of the vowels. Were you right? Could it drown out everything else I would have to say? 'Willow, Willow, Willow,' I sang; a lullaby, a parachute, as if I could cushion you even now from whatever blows were coming.

  Marin

  October 2007

  Y

  ou have never seen anything like the amount of time and dead trees that go into a civil lawsuit. Once, during a suit brought against a priest for sexual assault, I had sat through a deposition of a psychiatrist that went on for three days. The first question was: What is psychology? The second: What is sociology? The third: Who was Freud? The expert was getting paid $350 an hour and wanted to make damn sure he took his time. I think we lost three stenographers to carpal tunnel syndrome before we finally got his answers on record.

  It was eight months since I'd first met with Charlotte O'Keefe and her husband, and we were still in the learning phase. Basically, it involved the clients going about their everyday lives and, every now and then, getting a call from me saying that I needed this document or that information. Sean was promoted to lieutenant. Willow started full-day kindergarten. And Charlotte spent the seven hours that Willow was in school waiting for the phone to ring, in case her daughter had another break.

  Part of getting ready for the depositions involved questionnaires called interrogatories that help lawyers like me see the strengths and weaknesses of the case, and whether or not it should settle. Discovery is aptly named: you are meant to find out if your case is a loser, and where the black holes are, before you're sucked into them.

  Piper Reece's interrogatory had landed in my inbox this morning. I'd heard, through the grapevine, that she had taken a leave of absence from her practice and had her mentor come out of retirement to cover for her.

  This entire lawsuit was predicated on the assumption that she had not told Charlotte about her baby's medical condition early on - had not given her information that might have led to terminating the pregnancy. And there was a little piece of me that wondered if it had been an oversight on the obstetrician's part or a subconscious slip. Were there obstetricians who - instead of recommending abortions - suggested adoption? Had one of them taken care of my own mother?

  I had finally received my nonidentifying letter from Maisie in the Hillsborough County Court Records Office. Dear Ms. Gates, the letter had read.

  The following information has been compiled from the court record of your adoption. Information in the record indicates the birth mother's obstetrician contacted his attorney seeking advice for a patient who was considering adoption. The attorney was aware of the Gateses' interest in adopting. The attorney met with the birth parents after you were born and made arrangements for the adoption.

  You were born in a Nashua hospital at 5:34 p.m. on January 3, 1973. You were discharged from the hospital on January 5, 1973, into the care of Arthur and Yvonne Gates. Their adoption of you became final on July 28, 1973, in Hillsborough County Court.

  Information recorded on the original birth certificate indicates the birth mother was seventeen when she gave birth to you. She was a Hillsborough County resident at the time. She was Caucasian, and her occupation was Student. The birth father was not identified on the birth certificate. At the time of the adoption, she was living in Epping, NH. The adoption petition identifies your religious affiliation as Roman Catholic. The birth mother and maternal grandmother signed a consent to your adoption.

  Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any additional assistance.

  Sincerely, Maisie Donovan I realized that the point of the nonidentifying letter was to give information that wasn't specific - but there were so many other things I wanted to know instead. Had my father and mother broken up during the pregnancy? Had my mother been scared, in that hospital by herself? Had she held me even once, or just let the nurse take me away?

  I wondered if my adoptive parents, who had raised me decidedly Protestant, had known I was born Catholic.

  I wondered if Piper Reece had figured that, if Charlotte O'Keefe didn't want to raise a child like Willow, someone else might be more than happy to have the chance.

  Clearing my head, I picked up the interrogatory she'd filled out and flipped through the pages to read her side of the story. My questions had begun generically and then gotten more medically specific at the end of the document. The first one, in fact, had been a complete softball: When did you first meet Charlotte O'Keefe?

  I scanned the answer and blinked, certain I'd read that wrong.

  Picking up the phone, I called Charlotte. 'Hello?' she said, breathless.

  'It's Marin Gates,' I said. 'We need to talk about the interrogatories.'

  'Oh! I'm so glad you called. There must be a mistake, because we got one with Amelia's name on it.'

  'That's not a mistake,' I explained. 'She's listed as one of our witnesses.'

  'Amelia? No, that's impossible. There is no way she's testifying in court,' Charlotte said.

  'She can describe the quality of life in your family, and how OI has affected her. She can talk about the trip to Disney World, and how traumatic it was to be taken out of your custody and put in a foster home--'

  'I don't want her having to relive that--'

  'She'll be a year older by the time the trial starts,' I said. 'And she may not need to be called as a witness. She's listed just in case, as protocol.'

  'Maybe I shouldn't even tell her, then,' Charlotte murmured, which reminded me why I had called in the first place.

  'I need to talk to you about Piper Reece's interrogatory,' I said. 'On it, I asked her when she first met you, and she said that you had been best friends for eight years.'

  There was a silence on the other end of the line.

  'Best friends?'

  'Well,' Charlotte said. 'Yes.'

  'I've been your lawyer for eight months,' I said. 'We've met half a dozen times in person and talked three times that much on the phone. And you never thought it might be the tiniest bit important to give me that l
ittle detail?'

  'It has nothing to do with the case, does it?'

  'You lied to me, Charlotte!' I said. 'That has a hell of a lot to do with the case!'

  'You didn't ask me if I was friends with Piper,' Charlotte argued. 'I didn't lie.'

  'It's a lie of omission.'

  I picked up Piper's interrogatory and read out loud. "In all of the years we've been friends, I never had any indication that Charlotte felt this way about her prenatal care. In fact, we had been shopping together with our daughters a week before I got served with what I feel is a baseless lawsuit. You can imagine how shocked I was." You went shopping with this woman the week before you sued her? Do you have any idea how cold-blooded that's going to look to a jury?'

  'What else did she say? Is she doing all right?'

  'She's not working. She hasn't worked for two months,' I said.

  'Oh,' Charlotte said, her voice small.

  'Look, I'm a lawyer. I'm well aware that my job requires destroying the lives of people. But you apparently have a personal connection to this woman, in addition to a professional one. It's not going to make you sympathetic.'

  'Neither is telling a court that I didn't want Willow,' Charlotte said.

  Well, I couldn't argue with that.

  'You may get what you want out of this lawsuit, but it's going to come at a great cost.'

  'You mean everyone's going to think I'm a bitch,' Charlotte said. 'For screwing my best friend. And for using my child's illness to get money. I'm not stupid, Marin. I know what they're going to say.'

  'Is that going to be a problem?'

  Charlotte hesitated. 'No,' she said firmly. 'No, it's not.'

  She'd already confessed to having problems getting her husband on board with this lawsuit. Now I'd found out that she had a hidden history with the defendant. What you didn't tell someone was just as debilitating as what you did; I only had to look as far as my stupid nonidentifying letter to feel it firsthand.

  'Charlotte,' I said, 'no more secrets.'

  The purpose of a deposition is to find out what happens to a person when he or she is thrown into the trenches of a courtroom. Conducted by the opposing party's lawyer, it involves trying to impeach a potential witness's credibility based on statements in the interrogatories. The more honest - and unflappable - a person is, the better your case begins to look.