Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

“I know you’re upset,” she says.

“Upset? My brother lied to everyone so that he could kill my father. Yeah, I’m a little upset.” I swipe a hand across my eyes. “My dad stopped breathing. What’s that going to do to his recovery?”

She hesitates. “Dr. Saint-Clare will let us know as soon as he can if there was any damage. I know that you have to be without oxygen for about ten minutes for it to lead to brain death, if that’s any comfort.”

“What if my brother tries this again?”

“First of all, he won’t have the opportunity,” Trina says. “The hospital will press charges for assault; Abby’s having him brought down to the police station right now. And second of all, even though Edward’s the one legally capable of making a decision about your father, we never would have scheduled a DCD if we didn’t believe you’d given your consent. I’m sorry, Cara. The donor coordinator told me that Edward had your permission, but someone should have asked you directly. I can assure you that won’t happen again.”

I don’t believe a word she’s saying. If Edward found a way to snow them once, he can find a way to snow them again.

“I want to see my father,” I insist.

“I’m sure you do,” Trina says. “But let’s give the doctors some time to make sure he’s all right.”

My father taught me that wolves can read emotion and illness the way humans read headlines. They know when a woman is pregnant before she does and will treat her more gently; they single out the visitor who suffers from depression and try to engage him. Already the medical community has learned that canines can actually sniff out an invisible illness, like heart disease or cancer. In other words, you cannot fool a wolf.

But you sure as hell can fool a human.

I stare down at my lap, widening my eyes until they tear up, and then I look up at Trina. “I want my mom,” I say, making my voice small and wounded.

“She’s probably downstairs talking to the hospital attorneys,” Trina says. “I’ll get her. Why don’t you just wait here?”

So I do, counting to three hundred, until I’m sure Trina is gone from the ICU hallway. Then I peek my head out the lounge door and start walking calmly to the staircase. I know, from my father’s prior visit to the hospital for stitches in his arm, that the ER doors are on a completely different side of the hospital, and that’s where I’m headed. To an exit where I won’t run into my mother, my brother, or anyone else who might stop me.

I’m not thinking about what I’m going to do, once I’m outside in my street clothes without a winter coat or a phone or transportation.

I’m not thinking about the fact that I haven’t technically been discharged yet, either.

I’m just thinking that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that someone’s got to keep my brother from doing this again.

Really, I ought to become a professional liar. Apparently, I have a gift: I have now managed to fool the cops, my mother, a social worker, and a woman at the Starbucks right down the street from the hospital. I told her that my boyfriend and I had a fight and he drove off in his car, leaving me without my coat and my purse and my phone-and did she have a phone I could borrow so I could call my mom to come get me? Having my arm wrapped like the broken wing of a bird helps with the sympathy votes. Not only did the lady give me her cell but she also bought me a hot chocolate and a poppy-seed muffin.

I don’t call my mother. Instead, I call Mariah. The way I see it, she owes me big-time. If she hadn’t been stalking some loser, I never would have been at that party in Bethlehem. If I hadn’t been at the party in Bethlehem, I wouldn’t have been drinking. And my father wouldn’t have had to come get me. And, well, you know the rest.

Mariah is in French class when I call her. I hear her whisper, “Hang on,” and then, over the drone of Madame Gallenaut conjugating the verb essayer, Mariah says, “May I go to the bathroom?”

J’essaie.

Tu essaies.

I try. You try.

“En français,” Madame says.

“Puis-je aller aux toilettes?”

There is a flurry of static, and then Mariah’s voice. “Cara?” she says. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” I tell her. “Things are totally messed up. I need you to come pick me up at the Starbucks that’s on the corner before the turnoff to the hospital.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Long story. I need you to come now .”

“But I’m in the middle of French. I have a free period fifth-”

I hesitate, deploying the big guns: “I would do it for you,” I say, the same words Mariah used to convince me to go to that party in Bethlehem in the first place.

There is a beat of silence. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she answers.

“Mariah,” I say. “Fill up the gas tank.”

The county attorney’s office looks nothing like the way law offices look on TV. It’s got crappy furniture and a secretary punching away at a computer so old it probably still runs BASIC. There’s a framed poster of Machu Picchu on the wall, and also two photographs-one of a serene Obama, and one with Danny Boyle shaking Governor Lynch’s hand. A rubbery plant is dying in the corner.

Mariah’s waiting in the parking lot in her car. She wasn’t thrilled about a road trip to North Haverhill, but she drove me all the same, and she even helped me figure out a ruse to get me into the county attorney’s office. “Danny Boyle,” she’d said. “Sounds like he ought to be dancing on a Lucky Charms box.”

That had gotten me thinking-someone whose name sounded like he had relatives in Killarney, and who built his political platform on saving unborn babies was most likely a devout Catholic. I couldn’t be sure, but it was a decent guess. And every Catholic kid I knew in my school seemed to have a thousand cousins.

So I approach the secretary’s desk and wait for her to finish her phone call. “Thanks, Margot,” she says. “Yes, it’s the Fox News segment about his recent conviction. DVD format would be great.”

When she hangs up, I try to give my most pathetic smile. After all, I’m standing there in a freaking arm sling. “Can I help you?” the secretary asks.

“Is Uncle Danny in?” I say. “It’s kind of an emergency.”

“Dear, did he know you were coming? Because he’s quite busy right now-”

I tighten my voice to the knife edge of hysteria. “Didn’t my uncle tell you I had a really bad car accident? And I just got into this huge fight with my mom and she told me I can’t drive again until I’m forty and I have to pay off the insurance premium and I might as well find someone else to fund my college education and oh, God, can’t I just please talk to Uncle Danny right now?” I start crying.

Seriously, I am becoming an Oscar contender.

The secretary blinks at the onslaught of words, then recovers and gets up to comfort me, gently patting me on my good shoulder. “You just go right on back to his office, honey,” she says. “I’ll buzz him and tell him his niece is here.”

When I knock on the door that says DANIEL BOYLE, COUNTY ATTORNEY in gold lettering on glass, he tells me to come in. He’s sitting behind a big desk stacked with files. His hair gleams, black like the wing of a crow, and his eyes look like he hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep lately. He stands up, assessing me as I walk through the door.

“You’re not as tall as you look on TV,” I blurt out.

“And you don’t look like any of my nieces,” he replies. “Look, kid, I don’t have time to help you do your extra-credit project in Civitas. Paula can give you a packet about local government on your way out-”