Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

But even those who are larger than life have people close to them-people who know that they leave the toilet seat up when they pee, or that they hate peanut butter, or that they crack their knuckles. And those of us who are close know that when the television cameras stop rolling, those legendary figures deflate into people who are simply life-size, people with zits and wrinkles, people with flaws.

I suppose that when Luke started hiring young girls to be wolf caretakers, it crossed my mind he might be sleeping with them. He wasn’t, after all, sleeping with me. But what I really thought was that he needed an entourage. He needed girls who were so enamored with the man he was on camera and in the news that they believed exactly what they saw. Then, Luke could start to believe it himself.

So to all those people who want to know what it was like to be married to someone like Luke?

It was like trying to embrace a shadow.

It was coming in second place, every time.

It doesn’t surprise me to find Cara stalking back and forth in front of the window of a conference room. “It’s a lie,” she says, the minute I walk in the door. “He didn’t do those things.”

Zirconia exchanges a glance with me. Of all those young women who couldn’t see past their hero worship of Luke Warren, the one with the starriest eyes was his own daughter. She loved him simply because he belonged to her, which-if I heard Luke right all those years-made her relationship with him the most similar to one between wolves in a pack.

“It’s possible your brother was making that up just to rattle you,” Zirconia says, “but I don’t think he’s that smart, frankly.” She looks up at me. “No offense.”

It’s beginning to fall into place, like a city after an earthquake. Some buildings are still standing; some are irreparable. And of course, there are casualties. I had always wondered at Luke’s vehement reaction to Edward’s homosexuality-it just didn’t make sense, given everything I knew about Luke-and that was because it never really happened. The only sexual exploits Edward had discussed that night had been his father’s.

I sit down on the edge of a table, watching my daughter fiercely tread a line back and forth. Her sling hugs her injured arm tight against her body; the other arm is wrapped tightly over it. “Cara,” I sigh, “everyone makes mistakes.”

I cannot believe that I am apologizing for Luke’s behavior. But-as Edward said-there is no limit to the lengths we’ll go to to protect our family. We will cross oceans, we will swallow pride.

“He loved us,” Cara says. Her eyes are the color of a bruise, her mouth a wound.

“He loved you, ” I correct. “He still does.” I reach out a hand, trapping her as she passes by. “I know that you ran to your dad when Joe and I were starting a family because you thought he was the safe haven; that with him, you’d be his only family, instead of just one kid out of a bunch. And I know how hard it must be for you to find out that he might not be the hero you thought he was. But whatever he did to me, Cara-that doesn’t change how he feels about you.”

“Men. You can’t live with them… and you can’t legally shoot them,” Zirconia says. “I tossed out my husband eight years ago and got a llama instead. Best decision I ever made.”

Ignoring her, I turn back to Cara. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter if your father isn’t perfect. Because to him, you are.”

Instead of comforting her, however, those words make Cara burst into tears. She folds herself into my arms. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I say.

Gently, I rub her back. Luke used to talk about one of his wolves, which was afraid of storms, how the pup would crawl under his shirt for comfort. But he never took the time to know that his own daughter used to do the same thing. That on nights when lightning cracked the yolk of the moon, nights when Luke was tending to a frightened wolf, Cara would climb into bed with me and wrap her arms around my back, a mollusk riding out the tide.

“There’s something else you should know,” I say. “Edward left because he wanted to protect you. He thought if he wasn’t here to tell us what he’d seen, you would never have to find out.”

Cara’s good arm tightens around my neck. “Mom,” she whispers. “I have to-”

There is a knock on the door, a deputy sheriff announcing that court is about to reconvene. “Cara,” Zirconia says, “do you still want to be the legal guardian for your father?”

She pulls away from me. “Yes.”

“Then I need you to get your head back in the game,” Zirconia says bluntly. “I need the court to see that you’re grown-up enough to love your father, no matter what. No matter if he was catting around on your mom, or if he needs to have a diaper changed every three hours, or if he spends the next decade in long-term care.”

I touch her arm. “Is this really what you want, Cara? It could be years before he recovers. He might never recover. I know your father would want you to go to college, to get a job, to have a family, to be happy. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”

She lifts her chin, her eyes still too bright. “He has a life ahead of him, too,” she says.

I have told Zirconia and Cara that I am stopping off at the restroom before heading back inside for Cara’s testimony, but instead I find myself walking out the double doors of the courthouse, veering left into the parking lot. I drive the twenty minutes to Beresford Memorial Hospital and take the elevator up to the ICU.

Luke lies still, with no visible change to his condition, except a bruise around his IV site that has bloomed from purple to a mottled ocher.

I pull up a chair and stare at him.

When he came out of the wild, before the reporters showed up and drew him into an orbit of fame, I did my best to help him transition into the human world. I let him sleep for thirty hours straight; I cooked his favorite foods; I scrubbed the dirt that had become caked to his skin off his back. I figured that if I pretended life had returned to normal, maybe he would come to believe it.

To that end, I dragged him on errands. I took him to pick Cara up at school and I brought him into the bank while I used the ATM. I drove him to the post office, and to the gas station.

I started to see that women flocked to Luke. Even when he was dozing in the car, I’d come out of the dry cleaner’s to find someone staring at him through the window. At Cara’s school, strange ladies in vans honked until he waved. I made fun of him for it. You’re irresistible, I told him. Just remember me when you acquire your harem.

I didn’t realize at the time that I was being prophetic. I thought: Who, of all these fawning women, would put up with what I do behind closed doors? A man who could only eat basic grains like farina and oatmeal without getting sick to his stomach, who turned the thermostat down at night until we all woke up shivering; a man whom I had actually found peeing around the perimeter of the backyard?

One day we went to the grocery store. In the produce aisle, a woman approached with two melons and asked Luke which one he thought was riper. I watched him smile and bend his head to the melons, so that his long hair fell over his face like a curtain. When he picked the fruit in her right hand, she nearly fainted.

One aisle over, a woman pushing a toddler in her grocery cart asked him to reach a box on the top shelf for her. Luke obliged, stretching to his full height and flexing his shoulders to get the item: denture cream, which I’m quite sure she had no intention of purchasing. It was, at the time, almost entertaining to see all these strangers drawn magnetically to my husband. I assumed it was some kind of reaction to his muscular build, his mane of hair, or some wolf pheromone. They know I can protect them, he said in all seriousness. That’s the attraction.