Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

“Some might say you were too far away to make a decision,” Joe counters.

I nod. “I know. But there’s one thing I’ve realized since I’ve been here. You think, when you leave, that everything stops. That the world is frozen and waiting for you. But nothing stands still. Buildings get torn down. People get into accidents. Little girls grow up.” I turn to Cara. “When you were little, you used to go to the town pool in the summer and do belly flops off the diving board. You wanted me to grade you, like they did at the Olympics. Half the time I was busy reading and I’d just make up a number, and if it was too low, you’d beg me for an instant replay. The thing is, when you get older, there are no instant replays. You either get it right or you screw it up and you have to live with what you’ve done. I hadn’t seen my father in six years and I always thought that, eventually, we’d talk. I thought he’d say he was sorry or maybe I would, but it would be like those Hallmark movies where everything gets tied up nice and neat in the end. I can’t get back those six years, yet at any moment I could have been the one to pick up the phone and call my father and say, Hi, it’s me. ” I reach into my pocket, feel that slip of fortune. “He trusted me once, when I was fifteen. I want him to know that, no matter what, even though I left, he can still trust me. I want him to know I’m sorry things worked out the way they did between us. I may never get a chance to tell him that to his face. This is the only way I know how.”

Suddenly I remember what happened afterward in his office, when I signed the contract. The pen rolled out of my hand as if it had burned my fingers. My father picked up the whisky I’d left in my glass and drained it. You, he said, are an old soul. You’ll do better at this than I ever did.

I held on to that compliment, that treasure, the way an oyster cradles a pearl, completely forgetting the pain that made it possible.

“Make no mistake,” Joe says to me, before the cross-examination begins. “Zirconia Notch may look like she grows ganja in her herb garden and weaves sweaters out of her own hair, but she’s a piranha. She used to work for Danny Boyle, and he picks his attorneys based on how fast they can draw blood.”

So as Cara’s attorney walks closer to me with a smile, I grip the seat of the witness chair, preparing for battle.

“Isn’t it true,” she says, “that you’re trying to convince this court that, at age fifteen, you were mature enough to be appointed by your father to make a decision about his health? Yet now you’re arguing that your sister-who is seventeen and three-quarters-shouldn’t be allowed to do the same thing?”

“My dad was the one who made that choice. I didn’t ask for it,” I reply.

“Are you aware that Cara manages all your father’s finances and pays his bills?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” I say. “That’s what I did when I was her age.”

“You haven’t seen your father in six years, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it possible that he did execute another document-perhaps naming Cara as the guardian for his health care decisions-and you’re not aware of it? Or perhaps you did find one… and threw it away?”

Joe stands up. “Objection! No foundation…”

“Withdrawn,” Zirconia Notch says, but it gets me wondering. What if my father did appoint Cara, or someone else, and we just haven’t found that piece of paper yet? What if he changed his mind-and I was too far away to know? I don’t believe it’s murder if you turn off life support in accordance with someone’s wishes. But what if it turns out that’s not what he wanted?

“Would you describe yourself as impulsive, Edward?”

“No.”

“Really? You leave home after a heated argument? That’s not normal behavior.”

Joe spreads his hands. “Your Honor? Was there a question somewhere in that value judgment?”

“Sustained,” the judge says.

Zirconia doesn’t miss a beat. “Would you describe yourself as someone who likes to be in control of things?”

“Just my own destiny,” I reply.

“What about your father’s destiny?” she drills. “You’re trying to take control of that right now, aren’t you?”

“He asked me to,” I say, my voice tightening. “And he made his wishes pretty public: he signed up to be an organ donor.”

“You know this how?”

“It says so on his driver’s license.”

“Are you aware that in New Hampshire, in order to be an organ donor, you don’t just need a little sticker on your license? That you need to sign up with an online registry as well?”

“Well-”

“And did you know that your father did not sign up on that online registry?”

“No.”

“Do you think that’s because maybe he changed his mind?”

“Objection,” Joe calls. “Speculative.”

The judge frowns. “I’ll allow it. Mr. Warren, answer the question.”

I look at the lawyer. “I think it’s because he didn’t know he had to take that step.”

“And you’d know how he thinks because, for the past six years, you two have been so close,” Zirconia says. “Why, I bet you had long conversations into the night about all sorts of heartfelt matters. Oh, wait, that’s right. You weren’t here .”

“I’m here now,” I say.

“Right. Which is why, after talking to the doctors, you were ready to take whatever measures were necessary to end your father’s life?”

“I was told by the doctors and the social worker that I should stop thinking about what I want, and think instead about what my dad would want.”

“Why didn’t you discuss that with your sister?”

“I tried, but she got hysterical every time I brought up our father’s condition.”

“How many times did you try to discuss this with Cara?”

“A couple.”

Zirconia Notch raises a brow. “How many?”

“Once,” I admit.

“You realize Cara was in a massive motor vehicle accident?” she says.

“Of course.”

“You know she was seriously injured?”

“Yes.”

“You know that she’d just had major surgery?”

I sigh. “Yes.”

“And that she was on painkillers and very fragile when you spoke with her?”

“She told me she couldn’t do this anymore,” I argue. “That she wanted it to be over.”

“And by this you assumed she meant your father’s life? Even though she’d been vehemently opposed to turning off life support minutes before?”

“I assumed she meant the whole situation. It was too hard for her to hear, to process, all of it. That’s why I told her I’d take care of everything.”

“And by ‘taking care of everything’ you meant making a unilateral decision to terminate your father’s life.”

“It’s what he would want,” I insist.

“But be honest, Edward, this is really about what you want, isn’t it?” Zirconia hammers.

“No.” I can feel a headache starting in my temples.

“Really? Because you scheduled a termination of life support for your father without telling your sister that you’d scheduled it. Moments before it happened, you still hadn’t told your sister. And even when the hospital administration realized what you were up to and shut down the procedure,” she says, “and even in spite of the fact that Cara was right there begging you to stop, you pushed people out of the way and did what you wanted to do all along: kill your father.”

“That’s not true,” I say, getting flustered.

“Were you or were you not indicted for second-degree murder, Mr. Warren?”

“Objection!” Joe says.