Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

“You may proceed, Ms. Weeks,” the judge says.

Dara raises the glass. “Strength,” she says, her voice rich and full. “Wisdom. Tolerance. Justice.”

It should seem precious, wacky, New Age. Instead, it’s riveting. Who among us, no matter what we believe personally, would stand against those principles?

She tilts the glass and drinks every last drop. Then Dara glances at Judge O’Neill. “There. Was that really so bad?”

Angela walks toward the witness stand. She refills Dara’s glass-not out of habit but because she knows it will keep everyone thinking what words are being said in front of that water that might alter it, much the way having a toddler in the room acts as a deterrent for lewd conversation. “Can you state your name and address for the record?”

“Dara Weeks. I live at 5901 Renfrew Heights, Wilmington.”

“How old are you?”

Blanching, she looks at Angela. “I really have to tell you that?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Sixty-five. But I feel fifty.”

“How far away do you live from your daughter and Vanessa Shaw?”

“Ten minutes,” Dara says.

“Do you have any grandchildren?”

“Not yet. But…” She knocks the wood of the witness stand.

“I take it you’re looking forward to the prospect, then?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m going to be the best grandmother who ever lived.”

Angela crosses in front of the stand. “Ms. Weeks, do you know Vanessa Shaw?”

“I do. She’s married to my daughter.”

“What do you think of their relationship?”

“I think,” Dara says, “she makes my daughter very happy, and that’s what has always mattered most to me.”

“Has your daughter always been happy in her relationships?”

“No. She was miserable after the stillbirth, and during her divorce. Like a zombie. I’d go over to her place, and she’d still be wearing the same clothes I left her in the day before. She didn’t eat. She didn’t clean. She didn’t work. She didn’t play guitar. She just slept. Even when she was awake, she seemed to be sleeping.”

“When did that start to change for her?”

“She began to work with a student at Vanessa’s school. Gradually, she and Vanessa went to lunch, to movies, to art festivals and flea markets. I was just so glad Zoe had someone to talk to.”

“At some point did you learn that Zoe and Vanessa were more than just friends?”

Dara nods. “One day they came over and Zoe said she had something important to tell me. She was in love with Vanessa.”

“What was your reaction?”

“I was confused. I mean, I knew Vanessa had become her best friend-but now Zoe was telling me she wanted to move in with her and that she was a lesbian.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Like I’d been hit with a pickax.” Dara hesitates. “I don’t have anything against gay people, but I never thought of my daughter as gay. I thought about the grandchildren I wouldn’t have, about what my friends would say behind my back. But I realized that I wasn’t upset because of who Zoe fell in love with. I was upset because, as a mother, I would never have picked this path for her. No parent wants her child to have to struggle her whole life against people with small minds.”

“How do you feel now about your daughter’s relationship?”

“All I can see, whenever I’m with her, is how happy Vanessa makes her. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. But without Romeo,” Dara adds. “And with a much happier ending.”

“Do you have any qualms about them raising children?”

“I couldn’t imagine a better home for a child.”

Angela turns. “Ms. Weeks, if it were up to you, would you rather see Zoe’s children parented by Max or Vanessa?”

“Objection,” Wade Preston says. “Speculative.”

“Now, now, Mr. Preston,” the judge replies. “Not in front of the water. I’m going to allow it.”

Dara looks over at Max, sitting at the plaintiff’s table. “That’s not my question to answer. But I can tell you this: Max walked away from my daughter.” She turns to me. “Vanessa,” she says, “won’t let go.”

After her testimony, Dara sits down in the seat I’ve saved beside me. She grips my hand. “How did I do?” she whispers.

“You were a pro,” I tell her, and it’s true. Wade Preston had nothing of merit to use during his cross-examination. It felt like he was spinning his wheels, grasping at straws.

“I practiced. I was up all night aligning my chakras.”

“And it shows,” I reply, although I have no idea what she’s talking about. I look at Dara-her magnetic bracelet, her medicine-bag pouch necklace, her healing crystals. Sometimes I wonder how Zoe grew up the way she did.

Then again, you could say the same thing about me.

“I wish my mom could have met you,” I whisper back to her, when what I really mean is, I wish my mother had had a heart even half as big as yours.

Dr. Anne Fourchette, the director of the fertility clinic, arrives with a milk crate full of files-Zoe’s and Max’s medical records, which have been copied for the lawyers and are handed out by the clerk of the court. Her silver hair brushes the collar of her black suit, and a pair of zebra-striped reading glasses hangs from a chain around her neck. “I’ve known the Baxters since 2005,” she says. “They began trying to have a baby back then.”

“Did your clinic assist them with that?” Angela asks.

“Yes,” Dr. Fourchette says, “we provided IVF services.”

“Can you describe the process for a couple that comes in for IVF treatments?”

“We begin by doing a medical workup-lots of testing to determine the causes for the infertility. Based on those causes, we chart a course of treatment. In the Baxters’ case, both Max and Zoe had fertility issues. For this reason we had to inject Max’s sperm individually into Zoe’s eggs. For her part, Zoe was on hormone therapy for weeks that allowed her to produce multiple eggs, which were harvested at a very precise time and fertilized with Max’s sperm. For example, during their first cycle, Zoe produced fifteen eggs, eight were successfully fertilized, and of those eight that were fertilized, two looked good enough to be transferred and another three looked good enough to be frozen for a future cycle.”

“What do you mean, ‘looked good enough’?”

“Some embryos just look a little more uniform, more regular than others.”

“Maybe someone’s playing them beautiful music or whispering words of gratitude,” Preston mutters. I glance over, but he’s poking through the medical file.

“Our policy is to only transfer two embryos per patient, three if she’s older, because we don’t want her winding up with multiples like the Octomom. If there are additional embryos that look good enough for future use, we freeze them.”

“What do you do with the ones that aren’t ‘good’?”

“They are discarded,” the doctor says.

“How?” Angela asks.

“Since they are medical waste, they’re incinerated.”

“What happened during Zoe’s last fresh cycle?”

Dr. Fourchette slides her glasses onto her nose. “She became pregnant at forty and carried the fetus to twenty-eight weeks, at which point it was delivered stillborn.”

“Were there embryos remaining after that procedure?”

“Yes, three. They were frozen.”

“Where are those embryos now?”

“They’re at my clinic,” the doctor says.

“Are they viable?”

“We won’t know until we thaw them,” she replies. “They could be.”

“Following that last procedure,” Angela asks, “when was the last time you saw Zoe?”

“She came to the clinic asking to use the embryos. I explained that, according to our policy, we could not release the embryos to her without her ex-husband’s signed consent.”