Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

I didn’t like being here-it was like having a bad flashback. Reaching out for a napkin underneath a pitcher in the center of the massive polished table, I mopped at my forehead. What I really wanted to do was admit that this was a mistake and run. Jump out the window, maybe.

But before I could act on that sane thought, the door opened. In walked a man with prematurely silver hair-had I not noticed that the first time around?-followed by a blond woman wearing stylish glasses and a suit buttoned nearly to the throat. My jaw dropped; Taffy Lloyd cleaned up remarkably well. I nodded silently at her, and then at Guy Booker-the lawyer who’d made a fool out of me in this very office months ago. “I came to ask you what I can do,” I said.

Booker looked at his investigator. “I’m not sure I understand what that means, Lieutenant O’Keefe…”

“It means,” I said, “I’m on your side now.”

What do you say to the mother you’ve never met?

Since Maisie had contacted me saying she had a valid address for my birth mother, I had drafted hundreds of letters. That was the way it worked: even though Maisie apparently had located my birth mother, I wasn’t allowed to contact her directly. Instead, I was supposed to write a letter to my mother and mail it to Maisie , who would play middleman. She’d contact my mother and say she had a very important personal matter to discuss and would leave a phone number. Presumably, when my birth mother heard this, she would know what the personal matter was and would call in. Once Maisie verified that the woman was indeed my birth mother, she’d either read aloud or mail the letter I’d written.

Maisie had sent me a list of guidelines, which were supposed to help me write the letter:

This is your introduction to the birth parent for whom you have been searching. This person is virtually a stranger to you, so your letter will serve as a first impression. In order to not overwhelm your birth parent, it is recommended that your letter be no more than two pages. As long as your handwriting is legible, it is more appreciated to receive a handwritten letter, since that gives a sense of your personality to the recipient.

You should decide whether you want this first contact to be nonidentifying. If you want to use your name, please understand this makes it possible for the other party to locate you. You may want to wait until you get to know the other party before releasing your address or phone number.

The letter should contain general information about you-age, education, occupation, talents or hobbies, marital status, and whether or not you have children. Including photographs of yourself and your family is much preferred. You may wish to explain why you are searching for your birth parent at this time.

If your background includes any difficult information, this is not the time to share it. Negative adoption information-such as having been placed with an abusive family-is not appropriate. It’s better to share this information later, once a relationship has developed. Many birth parents report feelings of guilt over the decision to give a child up for adoption and fear that their decision, which was made for your benefit, might not have turned out as well as they’d wished. If negative information is shared at the outset, that information may overshadow all positive aspects of developing a rapport with you in the future.

If you feel grateful to your birth parent for the decision she made, you may briefly share this. If you desire information about family medical history, you may mention this. You may want to consider waiting to ask about the birth father. This may be a painful subject at first.

To reassure the birth parent that you want a mutually beneficial relationship, you may include a statement that you’d like to phone or meet but will respect her need for time to determine her comfort level regarding this.

I had read Maisie’s guidelines so often I could practically recite them verbatim. It seemed to me that the really instructive information was missing. How much do you share to illustrate what you’re really like but not to turn someone off? If I told her I was a Democrat, for instance, and she turned out to be a Republican, would she throw my letter in the trash? Should I mention how I’d marched to raise funds for AIDS research and that I advocated same-sex marriage? And this didn’t even take into account the decision I had to make when it came to putting my letter down in black and white. I wanted to send a card-it felt like I was trying harder, as opposed to just a scribbled missive on a legal pad. But the cards I had spotlighted images as different as Picasso, Mary Engelbreit, and Mapplethorpe. The Picasso seemed too common; the Engelbreit, too Mary Sunshine; but Mapplethorpe-well, what if she hated him on principle? Get over it, Marin, I told myself. There aren’t any naked bodies on the card; it’s a damn flower .

Now all I had to do was come up with the content to go inside.

Briony pushed open the door to my office, and I hastily stuffed my notes into a folder. Maybe it wasn’t entirely PC to use my work time to feed my personal obsession, but the more involved I became with the O’Keefe case, the harder it was to put my birth mother out of my mind. Silly as it sounded, approaching her made me feel like I was saving my soul. If I had to represent a woman who wished she’d gotten rid of her child, then the least I could do was find my own mother and praise her for thinking differently.

The secretary tossed a manila envelope onto my desk. “Delivery from the devil,” she said, and I glanced down to see the return address: Booker, Hood & Coates.

I ripped it open and read the amended list of interrogatories.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I murmured, and stood up to get my coat. It was time to make a house call to Charlotte O’Keefe.

A girl with blue hair answered the door, and I stared at her for a full five seconds before I recognized Charlotte’s older daughter, Amelia. “Whatever you’re selling,” she said, “we don’t need it.”

“Amelia, right?” I forced a smile. “I’m Marin Gates. Your mom’s lawyer.”

She scrutinized me. “Whatever. She’s not here right now. She left me to babysit.”

From inside the house: “I’m not a baby!”

Amelia flicked her eyes toward me again. “What I meant to say is that she left me to invalid sit.”

Suddenly your face poked around the doorframe. “Hi,” you said, and you smiled. You were missing a tooth in front.

I thought: The jury will love you .

Then I hated myself for thinking that.

“Did you want to leave a message?” Amelia asked.

Well, I couldn’t very well tell her that her father had become a defense witness. “I was hoping to talk to your mother in person.”

Amelia shrugged. “We’re not supposed to let in strangers.”

“She’s not a stranger,” you said, and you reached out and pulled me over the threshold.

I didn’t have a lot of experience with kids, and at the rate I was going, I might never, but there was something about your hand in mine, soft as a rabbit’s foot and maybe just as lucky. I let myself be led to the couch in the living room and looked around at the machine-made Oriental rug, the dusty face of the television, the battered cardboard boxes of games stacked high on the fireplace hearth. Monopoly was in full swing from the looks of it; there was a board in play set on the coffee table in front of the couch. “You can take over for me,” Amelia said, her arms folded. “I’m more of a communist than a capitalist anyway.”

She vanished up the stairs, leaving me staring down at the game board. “Did you know which street gets landed on the most?” you asked.