Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

“Can you state your name for the record?” Wade asks.

“Reid Baxter.”

“And where do you live, Mr. Baxter?”

“Newport. One-forty Ocean Drive.”

“What is your relationship to the plaintiff, Max Baxter?”

Reid smiles. “I’m his big brother.”

“Are you married, Mr. Baxter?”

“To my lovely bride of eleven years, Liddy.”

“Got any children?” Wade asks.

“God hasn’t blessed us with children,” he says. “Though-I confess-it’s not for want of trying.”

“Tell me a little about your home,” Wade asks.

“It’s a forty-five-hundred-square-foot house on the ocean. There are four bedrooms, three and a half baths. We’ve got a basketball hoop and a huge yard. The only things missing are kids.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a portfolio manager with Monroe, Flatt & Cohen,” Reid says. “I’ve worked for them for seventeen years, and I’m a senior partner. I manage, invest, and reinvest other people’s money in order to preserve and increase their wealth.”

“What’s your net worth, Mr. Baxter?”

Reid looks modestly into his lap. “A bit over four million dollars.”

Holy shit.

I knew my brother was well off, but four million dollars?

At the very best, the most I could offer a kid was a partnership in a crappy landscaping business and all my knowledge about how to grow roses in a difficult climate. Not exactly a trust fund.

“Does your wife, Liddy, work, too?” Wade asks.

“She does volunteer work in various organizations. She’s the Sunday School coordinator for our church; she serves meals at a local homeless shelter; she’s involved with the Newport Hospital Women’s League. She’s on the board of the Preservation Society as well. But it’s always been our plan for her to be a stay-at-home mom, so that she could be the one raising our children.”

“Do you consider yourself a religious man?” Wade asks.

“I do,” Reid says.

“What church do you attend, Mr. Baxter?”

“The Eternal Glory Church. I’ve been a member for fifteen years.”

“Do you hold any offices or positions within the church’s hierarchy?”

“I’m the treasurer,” Reid replies.

“Do you and your wife attend church on a regular basis?”

He nods. “Every Sunday.”

“Do you consider yourself a born-again Christian?”

“If you mean, have I accepted Jesus as my personal savior, then yes,” Reid says.

“I’d like to direct your attention to the plaintiff in this case, Max Baxter.” Wade gestures at me. “How would you describe your relationship with him?”

Reid thinks for a minute. “Blessed,” he says. “It is so incredible to have my little brother back in my life, and on a path that’s good for him.”

In my first memory, I am about three years old, and jealous of Reid’s secret club. It was located in his tree house, a special hideaway where he could escape with his school friends. I was too young to climb up into it, or so I was told repeatedly by my parents and by Reid, who didn’t want some pesky little brother tagging along. I used to dream at night about what the inside of that tree house looked like. I pictured psychedelic walls, stockpiles of candy, MAD magazines. One day, even though I knew I’d get in trouble, I climbed up into the tree house while Reid was still at school. To my surprise, it was just rough wood, with some spots where he and his buddies had drawn in crayon. There was a newspaper on the floor and a few busted caps from a cap gun.

I thought it was the most magical place I’d ever seen-but then again, that’s pretty much what anyone thinks about the things that are off-limits. So I hid, even though I heard my mom calling my name over and over. When Reid came home from school, like usual, he climbed up the ladder to the tree house before he even went into the house.

What are you doing here? he asked, just as my mother’s voice rang out, and a minute later, her head popped up through the little trapdoor.

How did Max get up here? she cried. He’s not big enough to climb that tree…

It’s okay, Reid said. I helped him.

I didn’t know why he was lying for me. I didn’t know why he wasn’t mad about me being in his tree house.

My mother bought it, although she said that she would come back to help me climb down because the last thing she needed was a trip to the emergency room. Then Reid looked at me. If you want to be part of the club, you have to play by the rules.

I make all the rules, he said.

I think my whole life, all I’ve wanted is to be part of whatever club my brother belongs to.

Wade is still questioning him when I focus my attention again. “How long have you known Zoe Baxter?”

“She sang at my wedding to Liddy. That was the first time we met, and she went on to date my brother.”

“How did you two get along?” Wade asks.

Reid smiles sheepishly. “Let’s just say we have different philosophies of life.”

“Did you see Zoe often during her marriage to your brother?” Wade continues.

“Not more than a couple of times each year.”

“Did you have knowledge of their fertility problems?”

“Yes,” Reid says. “In fact, at one point my brother even came to me for help.”

I feel my pulse start to race. I had not been present at Wade’s sessions with Reid, the ones where he instructed him on what to say in response to these questions. If I had, I’d have known what was about to come.

“We met for lunch,” Reid explains. “I knew that he and Zoe had done in vitro a couple of times, and Max told me that not only was it taking a huge emotional toll on them as a couple… but it was taking an enormous financial toll on them as well.” He looks up at me. “Max had told Zoe that he’d find a way to pay for a fifth cycle of IVF, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t remortgage his house, because he was a renter. He’d already sold off some of his business equipment. He needed ten thousand dollars to give the clinic, and he didn’t know where else to go.”

I do not look at her, but I can feel Zoe’s hot glare on my cheek. I never told her about this lunch. I never told her anything, except that I’d find a way for her to have that baby, no matter what.

“What did you do, Mr. Baxter?”

“What any brother would have done,” Reid says. “I wrote him a check.”

Angela Moretti asks for a recess. Mostly because I think she’s afraid that Zoe is about to come at me with her claws bared.

It wasn’t like I was trying to lie to her, or hide the fact that Reid gave us the money for that last fresh cycle we did at the clinic. But we were buried in debt; I couldn’t put another ten thousand on a credit card or find any other way to leverage the cost. I also couldn’t stand the thought of telling her we’d run out of money. What kind of loser would that have made me?

I just wanted to make her happy. I didn’t want her thinking about what we’d owe if and when we ever had that baby.

It’s not like Reid ever asked me for the money back, either. I think we both knew it wasn’t a loan, more like a donation. What he said to me, as he scrawled his name across the bottom of the check, was I know if the situation were reversed, Max, you’d do anything you could to help me.

When Zoe comes back to the courtroom, she doesn’t make eye contact with me. She stares straight ahead at a spot to the right of the judge, while her lawyer gets up to cross-examine Reid. “So you’re buying a baby,” Angela Moretti begins.

“No. That money was a gift.”

“But you did give your brother ten thousand dollars, which was used to create those embryos whose custody you’re now seeking, correct?”