Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

Nodah , who was a bully, sometimes shoved Kita out of the way to get to the good stuff-the heart, the liver. When that happened, I’d go off and have a fake fight with Kina for a few minutes, and then I’d come back with my blood racing and my adrenaline levels raised. Just like that, Nodah would back down and do what I told him to do.

I taught them their own language: that a high-pitched whimper is encouraging, that a low whimper is calming. That a growl is a warning, and an uff, uff sound means danger.

But the hardest lesson I had to teach them was the order of importance. If a pack is in danger, they protect the alpha at all costs. Anyone else can be replaced, but if you lose the alpha, the pack will likely break apart. So after digging rendezvous holes-deep holes they could run to and hide in if danger came in the form of a bear or a human or any other threat-I would play tag, biting at their legs and hindquarters as if a predator was in pursuit. I directed them toward the RV holes, so they’d learn that the only way to get away from me was to burrow. But I had to make sure they always let Kita in first. Compared to this future alpha, Nodah and Kina were nonessential.

It killed me, every time. Because as much as I wanted to be a wolf, I was only human. And what parent chooses one child at the expense of another?

Zirconia Notch lives on a sustainable farm so high up in the state of New Hampshire it’s practically Canada. There are goats and llamas milling free-range in her yard when my mother drives in, which delights her, because it means that she can let the twins pat the animals to kill time while I’m meeting with my brand-new lawyer.

She told me on the phone that she doesn’t do much with her law degree these days; instead, she’s got a new profession: a medium to pets that have passed. It wasn’t until five years ago that she realized she had this gift, when the spirit of her neighbors’ dead Labrador came to her in the middle of the night and started barking. Sure enough, the neighbors’ house was on fire. Had Zirconia not roused them, it could have been a disaster.

When I walk into the house, I smell incense. A window with twenty-five tiny panes has a jelly jar in each cubicle, filled with what looks like water with food coloring mixed in. The result is a cross between a rainbow and what I always imagined Romeo and Juliet ’s apothecary shop to look like, when I read the play in tenth grade. There is a curtain of crystal beads hanging in the doorway, but if I stand at a certain angle, I can see Zirconia sitting with a client at a table draped with purple lace and strewn with heather. Zirconia has long white hair and a tattoo of a sweet pea vine that wraps around her neck and disappears into her collar. She’s wearing a furry, sleeveless vest that looks like it started its life on the back of one of the llamas in the yard, and she’s holding a pet’s rope chew toy. “Nibbles wants you to know that she didn’t mean to soil the Oriental rug,” Zirconia says, her eyes shut, her body swaying just the tiniest bit. “And that she is with your grandma Jane-”

“June?” the client says.

“Yes. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the dialect in a bark…”

“Can you tell her we miss her? Every day?”

Zirconia purses her lips. “She doesn’t believe you. Hang on… I’m getting a name.” Zirconia opens her eyes. “She’s talking about a bitch named Juanita.”

“Juanita’s our Chihuahua puppy,” the client gasps. “I guess technically she’s a bitch, but she hasn’t replaced Nibbles. No other dog could do that.”

Zirconia holds a hand to her temple and squints. “Nibbles is gone now,” she says. She sets down the chew toy.

The woman sitting across from her is frantic. “But you have to get a message back to her! Tell her we love her!”

“Trust me.” Zirconia touches the client’s hand. “She knows.” Briskly she gets to her feet, spying me in the mudroom through the crystal curtain. “That’s three hundred dollars,” she says. “I take personal checks.”

As Zirconia leads the client into the mudroom to get her coat, I see that she’s wearing hot pink tights under her black skirt. “You must be Cara,” she says. “Come right in.” She gives a parting hug to the other woman. “If Nibbles comes through during any other readings, I have your phone number.”

The crystal beads sing as I walk through them. “So,” Zirconia says. “You found your way here.”

I take a seat. “My mom did. She’s outside with my half brother and half sister.”

“Does she want to come in? I can make her some tea. Read the leaves for her.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s okay out there,” I say.

Zirconia disappears through another crystal curtain and returns with two steaming cups of what seems to be dishwater with tobacco at the bottom. “Thanks for agreeing to represent me, Ms. Notch.”

“Zirconia. Or better yet, Z.” She shrugs. “I was born in a yurt at the base of Franconia Notch. My parents thought about naming me Diamond-for its strength and beauty-but they were afraid it sounded too much like a madam in the Wild West, so they went for the next best thing.”

A cat, which I’d thought was a statue on the mantel, suddenly yowls and jumps onto the middle of the table, getting its claws tangled in the lace. Zirconia absently extracts it as she continues talking. “I know you’re probably wondering why Danny Boyle recommended me, given that I cherry-pick my cases. I’ll tell you, I never thought I’d become a lawyer. I wanted to fight The Man. But then I realized I’d get farther if I fought The Man from the inside. You hear me?”

She talks like someone who smoked way too much dope in the sixties. I nod. “Loud and clear,” I say, and I wonder what the heck Danny Boyle was thinking.

“Turns out that I was really gifted at prosecution. I like to think it’s because my chakras are aligned, and let me tell you, there wasn’t a single person in the county attorney’s office who could make the same claim. I had a higher conviction rate than Danny Boyle.”

“So why aren’t you still a prosecutor?”

She strokes the cat twice and releases him onto the floor, where he races through the crystal curtain. “Because one day I woke up and questioned being in a profession that, by definition, suggests you’d never be proficient. I mean, how long did I have to practice law before I got it right?”

I laugh, and take a sip of the tea. To my surprise, it tastes decent.

“A lot of people would tell you that a pet medium is a colossal hack. I would have told you that myself, before my first experience with contact from the other side.” She shrugs. “Who am I to question a talent that brings closure to so many grieving families? I’ll be honest with you-it’s a blessing, and a curse.”

I admit I was pretty skeptical of Zirconia when she told me what she did for a living now. And sure, maybe every dead dog wants to apologize to its owner for taking a whiz on the nice rug in the house… but then again, how would she have known that this family’s new dog was named Juanita? I’m not saying I’m a believer, but I will admit it gave me pause.

“Now, Cara,” Zirconia says, “I’m your advocate. That’s what lawyers used to be called, you know, and I hold true to the definition. I want to know what you want the outcome to be, and then I want to figure out how I can advocate for you to get there.” She leans forward, her hair falling down her back like a glacial avalanche.

“I just want my dad to get better,” I tell her. It’s what I told that guardian yesterday, too, but this time I have a lump in my throat. I think it’s because I feel like I’ve been an army of one, and all of a sudden, there’s someone fighting next to me.