Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

“He’ll have a chance to do that,” she says. “Down at the police station.”

On cue, the sliding doors of the hospital entrance open and two officers walk in. “We’ll need the nurse’s statement, too,” one of the cops says, while the other one handcuffs my son. “Edward Warren, you’re being arrested for simple assault. You have the right to remain silent-”

“Assault?” I gasp. “He didn’t hurt anyone!”

The hospital lawyer looks at me. “He shoved a nurse. And you and I both know that’s not all he did.”

“Mom,” Edward says, “it’s okay.”

Sometimes I think I have spent my entire life being torn in two directions: I wanted a career, but I also wanted a family. I loved the way Luke’s wildness could barely be contained inside his skin, but that didn’t necessarily make him the best husband, the best father. I want to be a good parent to Cara, but I have two little children now who demand my complete attention.

I love my daughter. But I also love my son.

I stand rooted to the floor as the security guards and the hospital lawyer leave, as the police lead Edward into a day so bright I have to squint, and even then I lose sight of him too fast.

The automatic doors whisper like gossip as they close. I rummage in my purse and find my phone, so that I can call my husband. “Joe,” I say when he answers. “I need your help.”

An alpha female can choose a specific prey animal from a herd of hundreds by the smell it leaves behind. A moose with a scratch on its foreleg will leave behind the scent of pus with every footstep. The alpha reads this as vulnerability, and she can track it as if each footfall were a visible bread crumb. She can sniff at the tufts of grass the moose has fed upon and know, from the scent of its teeth, how old the animal is. Long before she ever comes into contact with this moose, she already knows volumes about it.

Eventually she stops focusing on the ground and instead breathes deeply into the air. The dust coming off the moose’s coat leaves particles in the wind, so even from miles away, she will know this is still the same animal. She will start to run, her hunters keeping stride, and when she reaches the herd, she will hold herself back-she’s far too valuable to put herself in danger-and signal a plan of attack to the others. There is a gland on a wolf’s spinal area near the tail. To get a hunter to move right, the alpha will lift her tail up to the left, letting out a directional scent that her hunter can read. If she wants the hunter to speed up, she’ll circle her tail. If she wants her hunter to slow down, she’ll drop her tail. Through these tail postures, and her scent, she communicates with her team, directing them. Even if another moose is closer, the hunters will not strike until their leader gives them the signal, and even then, they will only take the animal she’s pointed out.

An alpha will put two wolves in front of the moose’s shoulders, and then listen for its heart rate. The moose may stamp or snort or throw its rack around to show how mighty a foe it is, but it can’t affect its own adrenal system. When the alpha cues a third hunter to the back of the moose, and its heart skips a beat, she may instruct her team to terrorize it. This may take hours; it may take weeks.

It’s not that wolves are cruel. It’s that the alpha also knows, for example, that to the east is a rival pack that’s bigger and stronger than her own. If this moose gets frightened, adrenaline will saturate its system-it’s the emotional price of death. If her pack can then feed off that moose, those rivals to the east will smell the adrenaline in the urine and scat her pack leaves to mark the boundaries of the territory. And suddenly, her pack is less vulnerable. The wolves to the east would never come steal the food or kill the offspring of a pack whose scent is redolent with emotion, power, dominance.

In other words, what looks cruel and heartless from one angle might, from another, actually be the only way to protect your family.

Suffice it to say I was not the most popular kid in middle school. I was the quiet one, the brainiac who always got A’s, the boy you only struck up a conversation with if you needed the answer to number 4 on your homework. At recess, I was more likely to be found in the shade reading than dunking on the basketball court. That was long before I discovered the benefits of circuit training, so my biceps back then were about as thick as rigatoni noodles. And obviously, I didn’t stare after girls with skirts so short that their panties peeked out from behind-but every now and then, when no one was looking, I stared after the guys who were staring.

I had friends, but they were like me-kids who would far rather spend their days blending into the scenery than being noticed, because being noticed usually meant being the punch line to some popular kid’s joke. Which is why, on my thirteenth birthday, I know I did the right thing, even though it wound up netting me a week of detention and a month of being grounded.

We were lining up to head to the cafeteria for lunch, and had to wait for other classes to march out first. I had this part of the day down to an art; I was never at the front of the line (popular kid territory) or the back of the line (troublemaker territory), because either spot would make me an easy target. Instead I sandwiched myself in the middle, between a girl who wore a full-body brace for her scoliosis and another girl who’d recently transferred from Guatemala and hardly spoke English. In other words, I was very busy making myself invisible when something awful happened: my teacher, who was old and sweet and fairly deaf, decided to pass the time by drawing attention to the fact that it was my birthday.

“Did you all know that today is Edward’s thirteenth birthday?” Mrs. Stansbury said. “Let’s sing to him while we’re waiting. Happy birthday to you…”

I turned crimson. We weren’t five, after all. We were eighth graders. Having the class sing to you went out of vogue about the same time we stopped believing in the tooth fairy.

“Please stop,” I whispered.

“You going to do something special to celebrate?” my teacher continued.

“Yeah,” said one kid, loud enough for me to hear but not for the teacher to notice. “He’s going to have a gay old time, right, Eddie?”

Everyone laughed, except for the girl from Guatemala, who probably didn’t understand.

Mrs. Stansbury peered into the hallway to see if it was our turn yet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “How old are you now,” she started singing. “How old are you now! How old are you, Ed-waaaaard…”

I balled my hands into fists, and shouted, “Shut up !”

That Mrs. Stansbury heard.

So did the principal, moments later. And my parents. I was punished for being rude to a teacher, who was only trying to be nice to me by making me feel special on my birthday.

A month after my dad grounded me (as he put it in wolf terms, a subordinate would never act that way to a pack leader), he asked me if I’d learned anything. I made sure not to answer. Because I’d have done exactly the same thing all over again.

This is just my way of pointing out that we people who leap without looking are not stupid. We know damn well we might be headed for a fall. But we also know that, sometimes, it’s the only way out.

The interrogation room is freezing cold. I’d cynically assume it’s a secret police tactic to get people talking, if not for the fact that the officers have been really kind-bringing me coffee and a slice of sponge cake from the staff room. Many of them are fans of my dad’s, from the TV show; I happily trade on his fame for food. I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate; this tastes like manna.