Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

“Me?” Edward’s eyes grow wide. “For what?”

“The fact that your father and I got divorced.”

Edward chokes on a laugh. “She blames me. For that ? I wasn’t even here.”

“She was eleven. You vanished without saying good-bye. Luke and I started fighting, obviously, because of what had happened-”

“What had happened,” Edward repeats softly.

“Anyway, as far as Cara sees it, you were the first step in a chain of events that split her family apart.”

In the forty-eight hours since I got the phone call from the hospital about Cara and the accident, I have held myself together. I have been strong because my daughter needed me to be strong. When the news you don’t want to hear is looming before you like Everest, two things can happen. Tragedy can run you through like a sword, or it can become your backbone. Either you fall apart and sob, or you say, Right. What’s next?

So maybe it is because I’m exhausted, but I finally let myself burst into tears. “And I know you’re feeling guilty, about being here, after everything that happened between you and your father. But you’re not the only one who’s feeling that way,” I say. “Because as horrible as this has been, I keep thinking it’s the first step in a chain of events that’s put this family back together.”

Edward doesn’t know what to do with a sobbing mother. He gets up and hands me the entire stack of napkins from the coffee amenities basket. He folds me into an awkward embrace. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he says, and as if by unspoken agreement we leave the family lounge side by side.

Neither one of us comments on the fact that I never did get the coffee I wanted.

In the wolf world, it’s in everyone’s best interests to fill a pack vacancy. For the family that’s lost one of its members-one that’s been killed or has gone missing-the ranks are suddenly depleted. A rival pack trying to overtake their territory will become an even bigger threat, and the defensive howl sung by the family will change to an inquiry instead: a higher-pitched question, an invitation to lone wolves in the area to join the pack and battle the rival together.

So what would make a lone wolf answer?

Imagine being all alone in the wild. You are another animal’s potential prey, a rival pack’s enemy. You know that most packs will be prowling between dusk and dawn, so instead you move around during the daytime-but that makes you vulnerable and more easily seen. You walk a precarious tightrope, urinating in streams to disguise your scent, so that you cannot be tracked and challenged. Every turn you make, every animal you meet, is a danger. The best chance of survival you have is to belong to a group.

There is safety in numbers, and security. You put your trust in another member of your family. You say: if you do what you can to keep me alive, I’ll do the same for you.

So my sister hates me because I ruined her childhood. If she understood the irony of that very statement, God, we’d have quite the laugh. Maybe one day, when we’re old and gray, we actually can laugh about it.

As if.

It’s always amazed me how, when you don’t offer an explanation, other people manage to read something between the lines. The note I left my mother, pinned to my pillow so that she’d find it after I split in the middle of the night, told her I loved her, that this wasn’t her fault. It said that I just couldn’t look my father in the eye anymore.

All of this was the truth.

“Thirsty?” a woman says, and I jump back when I realize that the soda fountain I’m standing in front of in the hospital cafeteria is spilling Coke all over my sneakers.

“God,” I mutter, releasing the lever. I glance around to find something to sop up the mess. But the napkins are rationed by the cashiers, some sort of ecofriendly initiative. I look over at the cashier, who narrows her eyes at me and shakes her head. “Luellen?” she yells out over her shoulder. “Call the custodian.”

“Here.” The woman beside me removes a packet of Kleenex from her purse and starts patting my soaked shirt, my pants. I try to take the ball of damp tissues from her, and we wind up bumping heads.

“Oh!”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m a little bit of a wreck.”

“I can see that.” She smiles; she’s got dimples. She’s probably about my age. She’s wearing a hospital ID tag, but no medical coat or scrubs. “Tell you what, the Coke’s on me.” Refilling another cup, she moves my banana and yogurt from my tray onto hers. I follow her into the seating area after she swipes her ID card to pay.

“Thanks.” I rub my hand across my forehead. “I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately. This is really nice of you.”

“This is really nice of you, Susan, ” she says.

“I’m Edward-”

“Nice to meet you, Edward. I was just correcting you, so you’d know my name for later.”

“Later?”

“When you call me…?”

This conversation is moving in crazy circles I can’t follow.

Immediately, Susan cringes. “Shoot. I should have known better. I swear my gut instinct is permanently disabled. This is creepy, right? Trying to hit on someone in a hospital cafeteria? For all I know you’re a patient or your wife’s upstairs having a baby but you looked so helpless and my parents met at a funeral so I always figure it’s worth taking the chance if you see someone you want to get to know better-”

“Wait-you were trying to hit on me?”

“Damn straight.”

For the first time during this conversation, I smile. “The thing is, I’m not.” Now it is her turn to look confused. “Straight, I mean. I bat for the other team,” I say.

Susan bursts out laughing. “Correction: my gut instinct isn’t just disabled, it’s irrevocably damaged. This might be a new single-girl career low for me.”

“I’m still flattered,” I say.

“And you got a free meal out of it. Might as well enjoy it while you’re here.” She gestures to the seat across from her. “So what brings you to Beresford Memorial?”

I hesitate, thinking about my father, still and silent, in the ICU. About my sister, who hates my guts, and who’s swathed like a fallen soldier from neck to waist in bandages.

“Relax. I’m not going to violate HIPAA with you. I just thought it might be nice to have a conversation partner for a few minutes. Unless there’s somewhere you need to be?”

I should be at my father’s bedside. This is the first time I’ve left it in twelve hours, and I only came to the cafeteria to get enough food to keep me going for another twelve. But instead, I sit down across from Susan. Five minutes, I promise myself. “No,” I tell her, the first in a series of lies. “I’m good.”

When I walk back into my father’s room, two policemen are waiting for me. I’m not even surprised. It’s just one more item on a long list of things I never expected. “Mr. Warren?” the first policeman asks.

It’s strange to be called that. In Thailand I was called Ajarn Warren- Head Teacher Warren -and even that felt uncomfortable, like an oversize shirt that didn’t fit. I’ve never actually known at what point a person becomes a grown-up and starts answering to titles like that, but I am pretty sure I’m not there yet.

“I’m Officer Whigby; this is Officer Dumont,” the cop says. “We’re sorry for your-” He catches himself, before he speaks the word loss out loud. “For what’s happened.”