Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

You laughed, and began to smack the plastic surface, too. The sound brought Charlotte into the room. “You look like hell,” I said. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Gee, Piper, it’s really great to see you, too…”

“Is Amelia ready?”

“For what?”

“Skating?”

She smacked her forehead. “I totally forgot. Amelia!” she yelled, and then to me: “We just got home from the lawyer’s.”

“And? Is Sean still on a rampage to sue the world?”

Instead of answering, she rapped her hand against the beach ball. She didn’t like it when I ragged on Sean. Your mother was my best friend in the world, but your father could drive me crazy. He got an idea in his head, and that was the end of that-you couldn’t budge him. The world was utterly black-and-white for Sean, and I guess I’ve always been the kind of person who prefers a splash of color.

“Guess what, Piper,” you interrupted. “I went skating, too.”

I glanced at Charlotte, who nodded. She was usually terrified about the pond in the backyard and its constant temptation; I couldn’t wait to hear the details of this story. “I suppose if you forgot about skating, you forgot about the bake sale, too?”

Charlotte winced. “What did you make?”

“I made brownies,” I told her. “In the shape of skates. With frosting for the laces and blades. Get it? Ice skates with frosting?”

“You made brownies?” Charlotte said, and I followed her as she headed toward the kitchen.

“From scratch. The rest of the moms already blacklisted me because I missed the spring show for a medical conference. I’m trying to atone.”

“So you whipped these up when? While you were stitching an epi siotomy? After being on call for thirty-six hours?” Charlotte opened her pantry and rummaged through the shelves, finally grabbing a package of Chips Ahoy! and spilling them onto a serving platter. “Honestly, Piper, do you always have to be so damn perfect?”

With a fork, she was attacking the edges of the cookies. “Whoa. Who peed in your Cheerios?”

“Well, what do you expect? You waltz in here and tell me I look like crap, and then you make me feel completely inadequate-”

“You’re a pastry chef, Charlotte. You could bake circles around-What on earth are you doing?”

“Making them look homemade,” Charlotte said. “Because I’m not a pastry chef, not anymore. Not for a long time.”

When I’d first met Charlotte, she had just been named the finest pastry chef in New Hampshire. I’d actually read about her in a magazine that lauded her ability to take unlikely ingredients and come up with the most remarkable confections. She used to never come empty-handed to my house-she’d bring cupcakes with spun-sugar icing, pies with berries that burst like fireworks, puddings that acted like balms. Her soufflés were as light as summer clouds; her chocolate fondant could wipe your mind clean of whatever obstacles had littered your day. She told me that, when she baked, she could feel herself coming back to center, that everything else fell away, and she remembered who she was supposed to be. I’d been jealous. I had a vocation-and I was a damn good doctor-but Charlotte had a calling. She dreamed of opening a patisserie, of writing her own bestselling cookbook. In fact, I never imagined she would find anything she loved more than baking, until you came along.

I moved the platter away. “Charlotte. Are you okay?”

“Let’s see. I was arrested last weekend; my daughter’s in a body cast; I don’t even have time to take a shower-yup, I’m just fantastic.” She turned to the doorway and the staircase upstairs. “Amelia! Let’s go!”

“Emma’s gone selectively deaf, too,” I said. “I swear she ignores me on purpose. Yesterday, I asked her eight times to clear the kitchen counter-”

“You know what,” Charlotte said wearily. “I really don’t care about the problems you’re having with your daughter.”

No sooner had my jaw dropped-I had always been Charlotte’s confidante, not her punching bag-than she shook her head and apologized. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

Just then the older girls clattered down the stairs and skidded past us in a flurry of whispers and giggles. I put my hand on Charlotte’s arm. “Just so you know,” I said firmly. “You’re the most devoted mother I’ve ever met. You’ve given up your whole life to take care of Willow.”

She ducked her head and nodded before looking up at me. “Do you remember her first ultrasound?”

I thought for a second, and then I grinned. “We saw her sucking her thumb. I didn’t even have to point it out to you and Sean; it was clear as day.”

“Right,” your mother repeated. “Clear as day.”

March 2007

What if it was someone’s fault?

The idea was just the germ of a seed, carried in the hollow beneath my breastbone when we left the law offices. Even when I was lying awake next to Sean, I heard it as a drumbeat in my blood: what if, what if, what if. For five years now I had loved you, hovered over you, held you when you had a break. I had gotten exactly what I so desperately wished for: a beautiful baby. So how could I admit to anyone-much less myself-that you were not only the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me…but also the most exhausting, the most overwhelming?

I would listen to people complain about their kids being impolite or surly or even getting into trouble with the law, and I’d be jealous. When those kids turned eighteen, they’d be on their own, making their own mistakes and being held accountable. But you were not the kind of child I could let fly in the world. After all, what if you fell?

And what would happen to you when I wasn’t around to catch you anymore?

After one week went by and then another, I began to realize that the law offices of Robert Ramirez were just as disgusted by a woman who would harbor these secret thoughts as I was. Instead, I threw myself into making you happy. I played Scrabble until I knew all the two-letter words by heart; I watched programs on Animal Planet until I had memorized the scripts. By now, your father had settled back into his work routine; Amelia had gone back to school.

This morning, you and I were squeezed into the downstairs bathroom. I faced you, my arms under yours, balancing you over the toilet so that you could pee. “The bags,” you said. “They’re getting in the way!”

With one hand, I adjusted the trash bags that were wrapped around your legs while I grunted under the weight of you. It had taken a series of failed attempts to figure out how one went to the bathroom while wearing a spica cast-another little tidbit the doctors don’t share. From parents on online forums I had learned to wedge plastic garbage bags under the lip of the cast where it had been left open, a liner of sorts so that the plaster edge would stay dry and clean. Needless to say, a trip to the bathroom for you took about thirty minutes, and after a few accidents, you’d gotten very good at predicting when you had to go, instead of waiting till the last minute.

“Forty thousand people get hurt by toilets every year,” you said.

I gritted my teeth. “For God’s sake, Willow, just concentrate before you make it forty thousand and one.”

“Okay, I’m done.”

With another balancing act, I passed you the roll of toilet tissue and let you reach between your legs. “Good work,” I said, leaning down to flush and then gingerly backing out of the narrow bathroom door. But my sneaker caught on the edge of the rug, and I felt myself going down. I twisted so that I’d land first, so that my body would cushion your blow.