Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

Zirconia nods, visibly moved. “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to light a special candle for your dad right now, so that it’s like he’s here with us.”

She rummages through a cabinet and comes out with a Yankee Candle. She sets it down between us on the table and lights it. The room smells like a pine forest, all of a sudden, and it takes me by surprise, because that’s what my dad always smells like, coming in from the outdoors.

“Now that we have the goal in sight, we have to begin to chip away at the obstacles,” Zirconia says. “And the biggest problem is that you’re seventeen.”

“My mom says she’ll sign anything,” I tell her.

“Unfortunately, to the state of New Hampshire, you’re still a minor, and minors aren’t allowed to make medical decisions for someone incapacitated.”

“It’s just a number. First of all, in three months, I’ll be eighteen. And besides, I’ve been taking care of myself and my dad for years.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not how the law sees it. So what could I say to the court that would help them decide to override the legal technicalities?”

“I’ve lived with my dad for four years,” I say. “We’ve made every decision together. I drive. I go to school. I babysit to make money. I do the grocery shopping, and I’m listed on my dad’s bank account. I pay all the bills, and I take care of the business questions that come in about his TV series and answer his fan mail. The only thing I can’t do is vote.”

“To be honest,” Zirconia says, “there haven’t been a wealth of wonderful candidates anyway in the past twelve years.” She looks up at me. “What was this about drinking?”

“I don’t. Drink, I mean. But I did, the night of the crash.”

Zirconia steeples her hands in front of her face. “How much?”

“One beer.”

“One?”

I pick at the cuticle on my thumb. “Three.”

Zirconia raises her brows. “So you’ve basically lied to everyone about that.” She waves her arms in a circular motion. “This is a circle of truth. Whatever you say to me from now on better be exactly what happened. If it didn’t happen that way, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Okay,” I say, ducking my head.

“Those are the two sticking points that your brother’s lawyer is going to use against you,” Zirconia says.

“There’s plenty that makes him an unfit guardian,” I point out. “Starting with a murder charge.”

“Which has been vacated,” Zirconia replies, “so it’s like it never happened.”

We speak for another three hours, talking about my dad, and how he lived his life, and all the names on the Internet I’ve found of people who recovered when given a second chance. Zirconia writes notes on a recycled paper napkin and then on the back of an old Southwest Airlines e-ticket that is tucked into her skirt pocket. She stops only once, to make banana-soy shakes for the twins, who are watching a movie in my mother’s van.

Finally, she puts down her pen. “I’m going to give you some homework,” she says. “I want you to go to your dad’s hospital room and lay your head on his chest. Then tell me what thoughts come to you.”

I promise her I will, even though it is way too New Age for me. We talk about the logistics of court on Thursday; where I have to go, where I will meet her. It isn’t until she’s walking me through the questions she’s going to ask me on the stand that it suddenly hits me: This is happening. I’m standing up against my brother in court, in the hope that I will win guardianship for my father.

Zirconia is watching me carefully. “It just got real,” she hypothesizes.

“Yeah.” My heart is racing. “Can I ask you something?”

I am afraid to phrase the question out loud, but I have to, because there’s no one else I can pose it to. And she did say she was my advocate, my helper, and God knows I need help. So I whisper the words that have been cycling around my heart, squeezing when I least expect it. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

“The right thing,” Zirconia repeats, turning the words over in her mouth as if they are hard candy. “I once talked with a mastiff that had passed. The vet said it was remarkable he lived as long as he did; given the medical tests, he should have died three years earlier. The mastiff’s owner was a little old woman, lived by herself. When he started to talk to me from the other side, he said he was so tired. It had been exhausting work, staying alive for the lady all that time. But he couldn’t let himself go because he knew he’d be leaving her alone.”

Zirconia looks at me. “I think that you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not whether your dad would want to die. It’s whether your dad would want to leave this world without knowing that someone was going to be here to take care of you.”

Until she hands me a clean napkin, I’m not even aware that I’m crying.

When I get to my father’s hospital room, Edward is there.

For a moment, we both stare at each other. Part of me understands that now that he’s not in jail, he would of course be back here; the other part of me wonders how he could possibly have the nerve to walk through the ICU after the stunt he pulled. His eyes darken, and for a second I think he’s going to cross the tiny space and throttle me for getting him into all that trouble, but my mother steps between us. “Edward,” she says, “why don’t you and I grab dinner while your sister has some private time with your dad?”

Edward nods tightly and walks past me without saying a word.

I’d like to tell you that my father opened his eyes just then and rasped my name and that I got my happy ending, but that’s not true. He is still lying the way he had been lying a day ago, when I last saw him; if anything, he looks even more sunken and transparent, as if he were already an illusion.

Maybe I am kidding myself. Maybe I am the only person who can look at my father and see a miracle. But I have to. Because otherwise, what he said to me that night would be true.

Thinking of Zirconia, I crawl onto the bed and lie down. I curl up against my dad, who is still warm and solid and familiar. This makes my throat prickle like a cactus. Underneath my ear his heart is beating.

How am I supposed to believe he’s not coming back, when I can feel that?

When my father rescued the pups that Mestawe rejected-the brothers of little Miguen, who died on the way to the vet-he had to somehow teach them to act like a family without the help of their biological mother. There was Kina, the shy one; and Kita, the smart one; and then Nodah, the burly tough guy. But for all of Nodah’s bravery, he was terrified of lightning. Anytime a storm came, he would start freaking out, and the only way to calm him was for my dad to pick him up and cradle him against his chest. It was easy, of course, when he was a four-week-old. It was a little more challenging when he was fully grown. I used to laugh, watching this brute of a wolf clamber up my father to hear his heartbeat.

It turns out that it’s not so funny anymore; not now, when I’m in the middle of the storm.

I close my eyes and picture my father, back when he was the nanny for these pups, when I used to stand at the fence and watch him. You have to teach them to play? I said. Don’t they already know how to do that?

My dad would stick his bum in the air, front half crouched in a prey bow-from that position a wolf could spring six feet in all directions. Every time the tussles and tumbling got too rough for the wolves, he’d collapse into this prey bow and everyone would stop and mimic him. A family can have a mock fight, my father said, but they need to know when it’s time to stop.