Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

She hurried out the door, and Piper quickly rinsed her hands under the faucet. I could feel her a half step behind me as we walked toward the courtroom again, but her legs were longer, and eventually she caught up.

As we stepped in, side by side, a dozen camera flashes went off, and I could not see where I was headed. Marin pulled me forward by the wrist. I thought, although I could have imagined it, that I heard Piper whisper good-bye.

The judge entered, and we all sat down. “Madame Foreman,” he said, turning to the jury, “have you reached a verdict?”

The woman was small and birdlike, with glasses that made her eyes seem overly magnified. “Yes, Your Honor. In the case of O’Keefe versus Reece, we find for the plaintiff.”

Marin had told me 75 percent of all wrongful birth cases were found in favor of the defendant. I turned to her, and she grabbed my arm. “That’s you, Charlotte.”

“And,” the foreman said, “we award damages in the amount of eight million dollars.”

I remember falling back into my chair, and the gallery erupting. My fingers felt numb, and I had to work to breathe. I remember Sean and Amelia, climbing over the bar to hold me tight. I heard the uproar from a group of parents of special-needs kids who’d taken up residence in the back of the court during the trial, and the names they’d called me. I heard Marin telling a reporter that this was the biggest wrongful birth payout in New Hampshire history, and that justice had been done today. I looked through the crowd, trying to find Piper, but she was already gone.

Today, when I went to take you home from the hospital, I would tell you that this was finally over. I would tell you that you’d have everything you needed, for the rest of your life-and after mine ended. I’d tell you that I had won, that the verdict had been read out loud…although I didn’t really believe it.

After all, if I had won this lawsuit, why was my smile as hollow as a drum, and my chest too tight?

If I had won this lawsuit, why did it feel like I’d lost?

Weeping: the release of extra moisture.

In baking, just as in life, there are tears when something’s gone wrong. Meringues are only whipped egg whites and sugar; they are meant to be eaten right away. If you hesitate, water will seep between the filling and the meringue, and weeping-little beads that form on the snowy, white peaks-will occur. There are all sorts of theories on how to prevent this-from using only fresh egg whites to using superfine sugar, from adding cornstarch to precooking the meringue. Ask me, and I’ll tell you the only foolproof method:

Do not bake while your heart is breaking.

1 pie shell, blind-baked

1½ cups granulated sugar

6 tablespoons cornstarch

Pinch of salt

1 1/3 cups cold water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

5 egg yolks

½ cup fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Prepare the pie shell. Meanwhile, combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water in a nonreactive saucepan. Mix until there are no lumps, and whisk as the mixture gradually comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the butter.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Add a small amount of the hot liquid mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the egg mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, continuing to whisk as it thickens, approximately 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and zest.

6 large egg whites at room temperature

Pinch of cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

¾ cup sugar

On low speed, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until combined. Increase the speed and whip until they form stiff peaks. Beat in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Add the filling to the pie shell and top it with the meringue. Make sure you spread the meringue all the way to touch the edges of the crust. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Let the pie cool for about 2 hours, then refrigerate to prevent weeping.

Or just think happy thoughts.

March 2009

In school we have Hundred Day. It falls in late November, and we have to bring in a hundred of something, anything. When Amelia was in first grade, she brought in a hundred chocolate chips, but by the time she made it off the bus, she was down to fifty-three. Me, I brought a list of seventy-five bones I’ve broken and the names of twenty-five more that I haven’t.

A million is ten thousand hundreds. I can’t even think of ten thousand. Maybe there are that many trees in a forest or water molecules in a lake. Eight million is even more than that, and it is the number of dollars written on the big blue check that has been on our refrigerator for almost six months now.

My parents talk about that check a lot. They say that pretty soon the van will officially wheeze itself to death and we’ll have to use the money to buy a new one, but then they find a way to keep the old one running. They talk about how the registration deadline for camps for kids like me is coming up, and how they’ll have to send in a deposit. I have the brochures next to my bed. In them, there are kids in every color who have OI, like me. They all look happy.

Maybe that’s what happens to kids who go away somewhere. Amelia did, and when she came home, she had brown hair again and her own easel. She paints all the time-portraits of me while I’m sleeping, still lifes of coffee mugs and pears, landscapes in colors they’d never really be. I have to look really hard at her arms to see the silver scars, and even when she catches me looking, she hardly ever bothers to pull down her sleeves.

It was Saturday. My father was parked in front of the television, watch ing the Bruins. Amelia was outside somewhere, sketching. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, playing solitaire with the index cards of her recipes. She had over a hundred (if only she was in the first grade!), and she’d decided to put them together in a cookbook. It was a compromise, because she didn’t have to bake all the time anymore like she used to for Mr. DeVille. He still stocked her pies and tarts and macaroons when she went off on a tear in the kitchen, but now her big plan was to publish the book, and give all the money she made to the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation.

We didn’t need money, because ours was all tacked to the refrigerator.

“Hey,” my mother said, as I climbed onto a chair. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” The mail, fanned out on the table like a bright scarf, caught my eye.

“There’s something in there for you,” my mother said.

It was a card-and inside was a picture of Marin with a boy who was probably around Amelia’s age. He had buck teeth and skin the color of chocolate. His name was Anton, and she had adopted him two months ago.

We didn’t see Piper, and Amelia and Emma weren’t friends anymore. The sign in front of the building that used to be her office didn’t have her name on it now. It said GRETEL HANDELMAN, CHIROPRACTOR, instead. And then one Saturday morning my dad and I went out to get bagels, and there was Piper in line in front of us. My dad said hello and she asked how I was doing, but even though she was trying to smile, it looked all wrong, like a wire that was bent out of shape and wouldn’t ever really be straight again. She told my dad that she was working part-time at a women’s free health clinic in Boston, and that she was on her way there right now. Then she knocked over the cup full of straws at the cash register, and she was in such a hurry to leave that she forgot to pay until the girl who had brought her her coffee reminded her it wasn’t free.