Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

I spit out the toothpaste, wipe my mouth. “I’m not going to.”

Reid looks uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other. His hands are in his trouser pockets. He barely even looks like the man I know-the one who is always in control of a situation, the one whose charm is matched only by his brains. I realize, with a start, that, although Reid is a golden boy who seems to do everything right the first time around, I’ve just found something he’s not good at.

Gratitude.

He’ll give you the shirt off his back, but when it comes to accepting some good old-fashioned assistance for himself, he is at a loss.

“I don’t know what to say,” Reid admits.

When we were little, Reid made up a secret language, with a vocabulary book and everything. Then he taught it to me. At the dinner table, he’d say, Mumu rabba wollabang, and I would burst out laughing. My mother and father would just look at each other, baffled, because they didn’t know that Reid had just said that the meat loaf smelled like monkey butt. It drove my parents crazy, the way we could communicate outside the boundaries of normal conversation.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him. “I already know.”

Reid nods, and pulls me into an embrace. He’s fighting tears, I can tell by his breathing. “I love you, little brother,” he murmurs.

I close my eyes. I believe in you. I’m praying for you. I want to help you. Reid has said many things to me over the years, but it’s only now that I realize how long I’ve waited to hear him say this.

“I already know that, too,” I reply.

Mrs. O’Connor’s made doughnuts. She does it the old-fashioned way, frying them up, and sprinkling a little bit of sugar over them. I always look for her name on the church office bulletin board sign-up sheet, to see when she’s bringing a snack to the fellowship coffee after the service. You can bet I’m the first one out of the auditorium sanctuary, so that I get to that platter before the Sunday School kids do.

I’ve loaded up my plate with more than is my fair share when I hear Pastor Clive’s voice. “Max,” he says, “I should have known we’d find you here.”

I turn around, a doughnut already stuffing my mouth. The pastor is standing next to a newcomer, or at least I think he is a newcomer. He’s taller than Pastor Clive and has black hair slicked back with some kind of oil or mousse. His tie is the same color as his pocket square-pinkish, like smoked salmon. I have never seen teeth so white in my life.

“Ah,” he says, reaching for my hand. “The infamous Max Baxter.”

Infamous? What have I done now?

“Max,” the pastor says, “this is Wade Preston. Maybe you recognize him from TV?”

I shake my head. “Sorry.”

Wade laughs big and loud. “Gotta get me a better publicist! I’m an old friend of Clive’s. We went to seminary together.”

He has a Southern accent that makes his words sound like they’re swimming underwater. “So you’re a pastor, too?”

“I’m a lawyer and a good Christian,” Wade says. “As much as that sounds like an oxymoron.”

“Wade’s being modest,” Pastor Clive explains. “He’s a voice for the pre-born. In fact, he’s made it his life’s mission to ensure their rights and to protect them. He’s very interested in your case, Max.”

What case?

I don’t realize I’ve said that out loud until Wade Preston answers. “Clive tells me you’re going to file to keep your lesbian ex-wife from getting her hands on your child.”

I look at Pastor Clive, and then around the room to see if Reid and Liddy have entered yet, but I’m on my own here.

“What you need to know, Max, is that you’re not alone,” Wade says. “It’s the gay-by boom: homosexuals are trying to pervert the notion of a family as being anything other than a mother and a father in a loving Christian household. My goal is to do for adoptions what the Defense of Marriage Act does for the sanctity of that sacrament-namely, to keep innocent children from being victimized.” He puts his arm around my shoulders, steering me away from a clot of church hens who have come to the coffee urn. “You know how I found Jesus, Max? I was ten years old and stuck in summer school because I failed fourth grade. And my teacher, Mrs. Percival, asked if anyone wanted to stay with her during recess to pray. Well, let me tell you, I couldn’t have cared less about religion at the time. All I wanted was to be the teacher’s pet so that I could be the first one in line for snack that day, because we got served cookies, and there were never enough chocolate ones to go around, and the vanilla ones tasted like-pardon my French-ass. I figured I’d say a few silly prayers with her and I’d cut to the front of that snack line.

“Sure enough, I listened to her Jesus-this and Jesus-that. I pretended to go along with it, but the whole time I was thinking of those cookies. When it came time for snack, Mrs. Percival let me be the line leader. I raced to the snack table, but I might as well have been flying there, I was so light on my feet. And I looked at the tray, and there wasn’t a single chocolate cookie on it.”

I glance down at my plate of doughnuts.

“Here’s the incredible part, Max. I picked up one of those vanilla cookies, which were probably baked out of cardboard and donkey crap, and I took a big ol’ bite, and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. It tasted like chocolate and Christmas morning and winning the World Series, all wrapped up into one little dollop of dough. And that’s the moment I realized that Jesus was with me, even when I didn’t expect it.”

“You got saved over a cookie?” I ask.

“Yes, I did. And you know how I know for sure? Because since that moment in Mrs. Percival’s remedial summer class, I have been in a car accident that killed every other passenger but myself. I’ve survived spinal meningitis. I’ve graduated at the top of my law school class at Ole Miss. I’ve sailed through life, Max, and I am smart enough to know I’m not the captain of my own ship, if you get my drift. And because God’s been looking out for me, I believe it’s my Christian duty to look out for those who can’t look out for themselves. I’ve been admitted to practice law in nineteen states,” Wade says. “I’m active with the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption program-you’ve heard of it?”

Only because Pastor Clive told Reid and Liddy about it, after the last miscarriage. It’s a Christian adoption agency that starts before the baby is born and lets people who’ve been through IVF match their extra embryos with families who need them.

“What I’m trying to tell you,” he says smoothly, “is that I’ve got the experience local counsel might not have. There are men all over the country-men like you-who try to do everything right and who still find themselves in this horrible situation. You’ve been saved. Now it’s up to you to save your children.” He looks directly into my eyes. “And I’m here to help.”

I don’t know what to say. I got a voice mail on my phone from Zoe yesterday. She just wanted to know if I’d signed the paper yet. If I wanted to talk more, meet for coffee, ask her any questions.

I kept her message. Not because of what she was asking but because of her voice. She wasn’t singing, but there was a rise and fall to her words that made me think of music.

The thing is, I’ve already fucked up again. I don’t really want to tell Zoe I’ve come to a decision, but I have to. And something tells me she’ll be about as thrilled to have her babies raised by Liddy and Reid as I am to have mine raised by two dykes.

Wade Preston reaches into the pocket inside his suit jacket and pulls out his card. “Why don’t we meet next week?” he suggests. “We have a lot to discuss to get this ball rolling.” As Pastor Clive leads him away to meet some of the other congregants, he flashes that million-dollar smile at me again.