Jodi Picoult - Sing You Home

Wade Preston wears a pinkie ring.

“You certainly have had your fair share of health complications, Ms. Baxter,” he says. “One might say it’s almost Job-like.”

“Objection,” Angela says. “One might not say that.”

“Sustained. Counsel will refrain from personal commentary,” Judge O’Neill says.

“Many have been life-threatening, isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” I say.

“So there’s a chance that, if this court awards you the pre-born children, you might not even be around to see them grow up, right?”

“Right now, I am completely cancer-free. My chance of recurrence is less than two percent.” I smile at him. “I’m healthy as a horse, Mr. Preston.”

“You do understand that, if the court somehow awards you and your lesbian lover these pre-born children, there’s no guarantee a pregnancy will occur?”

“I understand that better than anyone,” I say. “But I also understand that this is my last chance to have a biological child.”

“You now live with Vanessa Shaw in her home, is that correct?”

“Yes. We’re married.”

“Not in the state of Rhode Island,” Wade Preston says.

I fix my gaze on him. “All I know is that the state of Massachusetts gave me a marriage certificate.”

“How long have you been together?”

“About five months.”

He raises his brows. “That’s not very long.”

“I guess I knew something good as soon as I saw it.” I shrug. “And I wanted to be with her forever.”

“You felt the same way when you married Max Baxter, didn’t you?”

First blood. “I wasn’t the one who wanted a divorce. Max left me.”

“Just like Vanessa could leave you?”

“I don’t think that will happen,” I say.

“But you don’t know, do you?”

“Anything’s possible. Reid and Liddy could get a divorce.” As I say the words, I glance at Liddy in the gallery. Her face drains of color.

I don’t know what the story is between her and Max, but there is one. I could feel threads between them, invisible as they were, during her testimony, as if I’d walked through a spiderweb stretched across an open doorway. And then her words downstairs in the snack room: Max isn’t trying to hurt you. As if she’d discussed this with him.

Max couldn’t be in love with her.

She’s as different from me as a person could possibly be.

At that thought, I have to smile a little. Max could clearly say the same thing about Vanessa.

Even if Max has a crush on his sister-in-law, I can’t imagine it going anyplace. Liddy is far too caught up in being the perfect wife, the ideal church lady. And as far as I can tell, there’s no wiggle room for a fall from grace.

“Ms. Baxter?” Wade Preston says impatiently, and I realize I have completely missed his question.

“I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?”

“I said that you resent Reid and Liddy for the life they lead, don’t you?”

“I don’t resent them. We just place importance on very different things.”

“So you’re not jealous of their wealth?”

“No. Money isn’t everything.”

“Then you resent the fact that they’re such good role models?”

I smother a laugh. “Actually, I don’t think they are. I think they buy what they want-including these embryos. I think they use their Bible to judge people like me. Neither of which are qualities I’d want to pass down to a child.”

“You don’t go to church on a regular basis, do you, Ms. Baxter?”

“Objection,” Angela says. “Perhaps we need a visual.” She takes two legal books and smacks one down in front of her. “Church.” She moves the second book to the opposite edge of the defense table. “State.” Then she looks up at the judge. “See all the nice room in between.”

“Cute, Counselor. Please answer the question, Ms. Baxter,” the judge says.

“No.”

“You don’t think much of people who go to church, do you?”

“I think everyone should be entitled to believe what they want. Which includes not believing at all,” I add.

Vanessa doesn’t believe in God. I think her mother’s attempts to pray away the gay in her closed the door on organized religion. We’ve talked about it, in the folds of the night. How she doesn’t really care much about an afterlife, as long as she gets what she needs in her present one; how there’s an evolutionary component to helping people that has nothing to do with a Golden Rule; how even though I can’t subscribe to an organized religion, I also can’t say with certainty that I don’t believe in some higher power. I’m not sure if this is because I actually still cling to the vestiges of religion, or because I’m too afraid to admit out loud that I might not believe in God.

Atheism, I realize, is the new gay. The thing you hope no one finds out about you-because of all the negative assumptions that are sure to follow.

“So you wouldn’t plan to raise these pre-born children with any religion?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m going to raise a child to be loved and to show love; to be self-respecting and open-minded and tolerant of everyone. If I can find the right religious group to support that, then maybe we will join it.”

“Ms. Baxter, are you familiar with the case of Burrows v. Brady?”

“Objection!” Angela says. “Counsel is referencing a custody case, and this is a property issue.”

“Overruled,” Judge O’Neill says. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Preston?”

“In Burrows v. Brady, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that, when parents are divorced, each parent who has custody has the right to raise the child in the faith they think is in the child’s best interests. Moreover, Pettinato v. Pettinato said that the moral character of each potential custodial parent must be considered-”

“Is counsel trying to tell the court how to do its job,” Angela asks, “or does he actually have a question for my client?”

“Yes,” Wade replies. “I do have a question. You testified, Ms. Baxter, that you went through several in vitro procedures, all of which resulted in disaster?”

“Objection-”

“I’ll rephrase. You did not actually carry a baby to term, did you?”

“No,” I say.

“In fact you had two miscarriages?”

“Yes.”

“And then a stillbirth?”

I look into my lap. “Yes.”

“It’s your testimony today that you’ve always wanted a child, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Your Honor.” Angela sighs. “All this has been asked and answered.”

“Why then, Ms. Baxter, did you murder your own child in 1989?”

“What?” I say, stunned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about-”

But I do. And his next words confirm it: “Did you or did you not have a voluntary abortion when you were nineteen years old?”

“Objection!” Angela is out of her seat immediately. “This is irrelevant and occurred prior to my client’s marriage, and I move that it be stricken immediately from the record-”

“It’s completely relevant. It informs her desire to have a baby now. She’s trying to make up for past sins.”

“Objection!”

My hands have gone numb.

A woman stands up in the gallery. “Baby killer!” she yells, and that is the hairline crack it takes to break the dam. There is shouting-by the Westboro contingent and by the Eternal Glory congregants. The judge calls for order, and about twenty observers are hauled through the double doors of the courtroom. I imagine Vanessa watching on the other side. I wonder what she’s thinking.

“Mr. Preston, you may continue your line of questioning, but without the editorial comments,” Judge O’Neill says. “And as for the gallery, if there is one more disruption, I will turn this into a closed session.”