Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

I think Zazi knows what’s up, too. He goes into his crate without any fight and curls up and sleeps for the entire ride back to Redmond’s Trading Post. This time when I drive up to the trailer, Walter comes out to greet me. His face is as open as a landscape; he’s waiting for the good news, for the story of how my father suddenly returned to the world of the living. But I can’t speak around the truth that’s jammed like a cork in my throat, so instead I help him haul the crate out of my car, and carry it down to the enclosure where Zazi’s companion is keeping watch along the perimeter of the fence. When Walter releases Zazi, the two wolves slip between the army of trees standing at attention at the back of the pen. I watch Walter lock the first gate to the enclosure, and then walk to the second gate. He’s holding the leash and harness in his hands. “So,” he prompts.

“Walter,” I say finally, testing the size and shape of these words in my mouth, “whatever happens, you’ll still have a job. I’ll make sure of it. My dad would want to know someone he trusts will still take care of the animals.”

“He’ll be back here in no time, telling me what I’m doing wrong,” Walter says.

“Yeah,” I say. “No doubt.”

We both know we’re lying.

I tell him I have to get back to the hospital, but instead of leaving Redmond’s right away, I stop to watch the animatronic dinosaurs. I dust snow off a cast-iron bench and wait the twelve minutes to the hour, so that I can hear the T. rex come to life. Just like earlier, he cannot thrash his tail the way he should, because of the snowdrifts.

In my sneakers and my jeans, I jump the fence so that I am knee-deep in the snow. I start clearing it out with my bare hands. It only takes a few seconds before my fingers are red and numb, before the snow melts into my socks. I smack the green plastic tail of the T. rex, trying to dislodge the ice, but it stays stuck. “Come on,” I yell, striking it a second time. “Move!”

My voice echoes, bouncing off the empty buildings. But I manage to do something, because the tail begins to sweep back and forth as the fake T. rex goes after the same fake raptor once again. I stand for a second, watching, with my hands tucked under my armpits to warm them up. I let myself pretend that the T. rex might actually reach the fraction of an inch that’s necessary to finally get his prey, that instead of his going through the motions there will be progress. I let myself pretend that I have, successfully, turned back time.

A lot can happen in six days. As the Israelis will tell you, you can fight a war. You can drive across the United States. Some people believe six days is all it took for God to create a universe.

I’m here to tell you that a lot might not happen in six days, too.

For example, a man who’s suffered a severe head trauma might not get any worse, or any better.

For four nights now, I’ve left behind the hospital room to go to my father’s home, where I pour a bowl of stale cereal and watch Nick at Nite. I don’t sleep in his bed; I don’t really sleep at all. I sit on the couch and listen to endless episodes of That ’70s Show.

It’s weird, walking out of the hospital every night during a vigil. The whole day has somehow passed me by, and the stars reflect on the snow that’s fallen while I was unaware. My life is moving forward in a weird empty narrative, missing one key character, whose current life is a continuous loop. I bring back things I think my father would want to find at the hospital if he were to awaken: a hairbrush, a book, a piece of mail-but this only makes the house feel even emptier when I’m in it, as if I’m slowly liquidating its contents.

After the wolf debacle, when I got back to the hospital, I went to Cara’s room. I wanted to show her the letter I’d found in Dad’s file drawer. But this time there was a team of physical therapists in there talking about shoulder rehab and testing her range of motion, which had her in tears. Whatever I had to say to her, I decided, could still wait.

Now, the next morning, as I am headed to her room, I am ambushed by Trina the social worker. “Oh good,” she says. “You heard?”

“Heard what?” There are a hundred red flags waving in my mind.

“I was just headed downstairs to get you. We’re having a family meeting in your sister’s room.”

“Family meeting?” I say. “Did she put you up to this?”

“She didn’t put me up to anything, Edward,” Trina says. “It’s a meeting to share medical information about your father with both of you at the same time. I suggested we do it in Cara’s room because it would be more comfortable for her than being transported to a conference room.”

I follow Trina into the room and find a handful of nurses I’ve seen going in and out of my father’s room and some I haven’t; Dr. Saint-Clare; a neurology resident; and Dr. Zhao from the ICU. There’s also a chaplain, or that’s who I am assuming he is, since he’s wearing a white collar. For a moment I think this is a setup, that my father has already died and this is the way they thought best to tell us.

“Mrs. Ng,” Trina says, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.”

My mother just blinks. “What about Cara?”

“Unfortunately, this meeting is for Mr. Warren’s next of kin,” the social worker explains.

Before my mother can go, Cara grabs her sleeve. “Don’t leave,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be alone for this.”

“Oh, baby,” my mother says. She smooths Cara’s hair back from her face.

I step into the room and maneuver around everyone until I am standing beside my mother. “You won’t be,” I tell Cara, and I reach for her hand.

I have a sudden jolt of memory: I am crossing the street so that I can walk my little sister into school. I don’t let go of her hand until I know both her feet are firmly planted on the opposite sidewalk. You have your lunch? I ask, and she nods. I can tell she wants me to hang around because it’s cool to be the only fifth grader talking to a senior, but I hurry back to my car. She never knows it, but I don’t drive off until I see her walk through the double doors of the school, just to be safe.

“Well,” Dr. Saint-Clare says. “Let’s get started. We’re here today to update you on your father’s medical condition.” He nods to the resident, who sets a laptop on Cara’s bed so we can all see the scanned images. “As you know, he was brought into the hospital six days ago with a diffuse traumatic brain injury. These are the CT scans we took when he was first brought into the ICU.” He points to one side of the image, which looks muddy, swirled, an abstract painting. “Imagine that the nose would be here, and the ear here. We’re looking up from the bottom. All this white area? That’s blood, around the brain and in the ventricles of the brain. This large mass is the temporal lobe hematoma.”

He clicks the mouse pad so that a second scan appears beside the first. “This is a normal brain,” he says, and he really doesn’t have to say anything else. There are clear, wide black expanses in this brain. There are strong lines and edges. It looks tidy, organized, recognizable.

It looks completely different from the scan of my father’s brain.

It’s hard for me to understand that this fuzzy snapshot is the sum total of my father’s personality and thoughts and movements. I squint at it, wondering which compartment houses the animal instincts he developed in the wild. I wonder where language is stored-the nonverbal movements he used to communicate with his wolves, and the words he forgot to say to us when we were younger: that he loved us, that he missed us.