Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

Wade stands up beside me. His cologne smells like limes. “Your Honor, with all due respect,” he says, “we are talking about children. About pre-born children- ”

Across the aisle, Zoe’s attorney rises. “Objection, Your Honor. This is ludicrous. Can someone please tell Mr. Preston we’re not in Louisiana?”

Judge O’Neill points at Wade. “You! Sit down right now.”

“Your Honor,” Zoe’s lawyer says, “Max Baxter is using biology as a trump card to take three frozen embryos away from my client-who is one of the intended parents. She and her legal spouse intend to raise them in a healthy, loving family.”

“Where’s her legal spouse?” O’Neill asks. “I don’t see him sitting next to her.”

“My client is legally married to her spouse, Vanessa Shaw, in the state of Massachusetts.”

“Well, Ms. Moretti,” the judge replies, “she’s not legally married in Rhode Island. Now, let me get this straight-”

Behind me, I hear Vanessa stifle a snort. “But we’re not,” she murmurs.

“-You want the embryos.” He points at Zoe. “And you want them,” he says, pointing at me, and finally he points to Reid and Liddy. “And now they want them?”

“Actually, Your Honor,” Zoe’s lawyer says, “Max Baxter doesn’t want the embryos. He plans to give them away.”

Wade stands up. “To the contrary, Your Honor. Max wants his children to be raised in a traditional family, not a sexually deviant one.”

“A man seeking embryos to give away to somebody else,” the judge sums up. “Are you saying that’s a traditional type of thing to do? Because it sure isn’t where I come from.”

“If I may, Judge, this is a complicated case,” Zoe’s attorney says. “As far as I know, it’s a new area of the law that’s never been determined in Rhode Island. Today, though, we’re only convened because of the motion filed to implead Reid and Liddy Baxter, and I strenuously object to them becoming parties in this lawsuit. I have filed a memo today stating that, and, in fact, if you choose to allow prospective gestational carriers to implead this case, then Vanessa Shaw should also be a party, and I will file a motion immediately-”

“I object, Your Honor,” Wade argues. “You already said this is not a legal marriage, and now Ms. Moretti is raising a red herring that you already tossed out.”

The judge stares at him. “Mr. Preston, if you interrupt Ms. Moretti again, I am going to hold you in contempt of court. This is not a TV show; you’re not Pat Robertson. This is my courtroom, and I’m not about to let you turn it into the circus you’d like it to be. I’m retiring after this case, and so help me, I’m not going out in a religious catfight.” He bangs his gavel. “The motion to implead is denied. This case is between Max Baxter and Zoe Baxter, and it will proceed in the ordinary course. You, Mr. Benjamin, are welcome to call whomever you like as a witness, but I’m not impleading anyone. Not Reid and Liddy Baxter,” he says, and then he turns to the other lawyer. “And not Vanessa Shaw, so don’t file any motions requesting it.”

Finally, he turns to Wade. “And Mr. Preston. Word to the wise: think very carefully about what kind of grandstanding you plan to do. Because I’m not allowing you to run away with this court. I’m in charge here.”

He stands up and leaves the bench, and we jump up, too. Being in court isn’t that different from being in church. You rise, you fall, you look to the front of the room for guidance.

Zoe’s lawyer walks over to our table. “Angela,” Wade says. “I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you, but it’s a sin to lie.”

“Sorry that didn’t go as well for you as you’d hoped,” she replies.

“That went just fine, thank you very much.”

“Maybe that’s what you all think in Louisiana, but, believe me, here you just got slammed,” the lawyer says.

Wade leans on the books that were brought in by the paralegal. “The true colors of this judge will come out, darlin’,” he says. “And believe me… they’re not rainbow-striped.”

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The Mermaid (3:26)

Lucy is drawing a mermaid: her hair long and twisted, her tail curled into the corner of the thick manila paper. As I finish singing “Angel,” I put down my guitar, but Lucy keeps adding little touches-a ribbon of seaweed, the reflection of the sun. “You’re a good artist,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “I design my own tattoos.”

“Do you have any?”

“If I did, I’d be thrown out of my house,” Lucy says. “One year, six months, four days.”

“That’s when you’re getting your tattoo?”

She looks up at me. “That’s the minute I turn eighteen.”

After our drumming session, I had vowed never to make Lucy meet in the special needs classroom again. Instead, Vanessa tells me which spaces are unoccupied (the French class that’s on a field trip; the art class that has gone to the auditorium to watch a film). Today, for example, we are meeting in the health classroom. We’re surrounded by inspirational posters: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS.And CHOOSE BOOZE? YOU LOSE. And a pregnant teen in profile: NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN.

We have been working on lyric analysis. It’s something I’ve done before with the nursing home groups, because it gets people interacting with each other. Usually I start by telling them the name of a song-often one they don’t know-and ask them to guess what it will be about. Then I sing it, and ask for the words and phrases that stood out. We talk about their personal reactions to the lyrics, and, finally, I ask what emotions the song produced in them.

Because I didn’t think Lucy would want to verbally open up, I started having her draw her reactions to the lyrics. “It’s interesting that you drew a mermaid,” I said. “Angels aren’t usually pictured underwater.”

Immediately, Lucy bristles. “You said there wasn’t a right and a wrong way to do this.”

“There’s not.”

“I guess I could have drawn some of those totally depressing animals on the ASPCA commercial…”

It has been running a few years now: a montage of sad-eyed puppies and kittens, with this song playing in the background.

“You know, Sarah McLachlan said the song was about the keyboard player for the Smashing Pumpkins, who OD’d on heroin,” I say. I’d picked this song because I was hoping to get her talking about her previous suicide attempts.

“Duh. That’s why I drew a mermaid. She’s floating and drowning at the same time.”

Sometimes Lucy says things that just leave me speechless. I wonder how Vanessa and all the other school counselors could have ever thought she was distancing herself from the world. She’d drawn a bead on it, better than any of us.

“Have you ever felt like that?” I ask.

Lucy looks up. “Like OD’ing on heroin?”

“Among other things.”

She colors in the mermaid’s hair, ignoring the question. “If you could pick, how would you want to die?”

“In my sleep.”

“Everyone says that.” Lucy rolls her eyes. “If that wasn’t an option, then what?”

“This is a pretty morbid conversation-”

“So is talking about suicide.”

I nod, giving her that much. “Fast. Like an execution by firing squad. I wouldn’t want to feel anything.”

“A plane crash,” Lucy says. “You practically get vaporized.”

“Yeah, but imagine what it’s like the few minutes before, when you know you’re going down.” I used to actually have nightmares about plane crashes. That I wouldn’t be able to turn on my phone fast enough or get a signal so that I could leave Max a message telling him I loved him. I used to picture him sitting at the answering machine after my funeral, listening to the dead air and wondering what I was trying to say.