Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

“There’s only one catch,” Adina said. “It’s not ordinary in New Hampshire for a father to get physical possession of a child, especially in a case where the child has special needs and the mother has been a stay-at-home caretaker the child’s whole life. So how are you going to convince a judge that you’re the better parent?”

I met the lawyer’s eye. “I’m not the one who started a wrongful birth lawsuit,” I said.

After I walked out of the attorney’s office, the world seemed different. The road looked too clear, the colors too jarring. It was like getting a pair of glasses that were overcorrected, and I felt myself moving more carefully.

At a stoplight, I looked out the window and saw a young woman crossing the street with a cup of coffee in her hand. She caught my eye and smiled. In the past, I would have looked away, embarrassed-but now? Were you allowed to smile back, to look, to acknowledge other women, if you’d taken the first steps to ending your marriage?

I had two hours before my shift started, and I headed toward Aubuchon Hardware. The irony didn’t escape me-I was shopping at a home improvement mecca, although I didn’t currently have a home. But while staying in the house this weekend, I’d noticed that the ramp I’d built for your wheelchair three years ago was rotting out in one spot where we had some standing water this spring. My plan was to build you a new one today, so you’d see it when you returned from your conference.

The way I figured it, I’d need three or four sheets of three-quarter-inch pressure-treated plywood, plus a stretch of indoor-outdoor carpeting to give traction under the wheels of your chair. I headed for the service desk to try to estimate the cost. “You’re talking about $34.10 a sheet,” the employee said, and I found myself backpedaling through the math. If the wood alone cost over a hundred bucks, I’d have to work more overtime, and that wasn’t even counting the cost of the carpet material. The more hours I spent at work, the less I would have with you girls. The more money I spent on the ramp, the less I’d have for another night’s motel room.

“Sean?”

Piper Reece was standing three feet away.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, but before I could answer, she held up her hands, revealing a packet of wire connectors and a GFCI receptacle. “I’m replacing one. I’ve been pretty handy lately, but this is the first time I’ve fooled around with electricity.” She laughed nervously. “I keep seeing the headline: ‘Woman Found Electrocuted in Her Own Kitchen. Counter was not clean at the time of death.’ It’s supposed to be easy, right? Like, the chances of being zapped during a do-it-yourself project can’t be nearly as high as the chances of getting into a car accident on your way to the hardware store, right?” She shook her head and blushed. “I’m babbling.”

I’ve got to go . The words were in my mouth, smooth and round like cherry pits, but what came out was this: “I could help you.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid ass. That’s what I kept telling myself I was, once the back of my truck was loaded with three sheets of pressure-treated plywood and carpeting and I was headed to Piper Reece’s house. There was no real explanation for why I hadn’t simply turned my back and walked away from her except for this: in all the years I’d known Piper, I’d never seen her as anything but confident and self-assured-to the point where she was too sharp, too arrogant. Today, though, she’d been completely flustered.

I liked her better this way.

I knew the way to her house, of course. When I pulled onto her street, I experienced the slightest panic-would Rob be home? I didn’t think I could handle both of them at once. But his car was gone, and as I turned off the engine, I took a deep breath. Five minutes, I told myself. Install the freaking GFCI and get out of there.

Piper was waiting at the front door. “This is really so nice of you,” she said as I stepped inside.

The hallway hadn’t always been this color. And when I walked into it, I saw that the kitchen had been remodeled. “You’ve had some work done in here.”

“Actually, I did it myself,” Piper admitted. “I’ve had a lot more time lately.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over us like a shroud. “Well. Everything looks completely different.”

She stared at me. “Everything is completely different.”

I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “So the first thing you have to do is cut off the power at the circuit box,” I said. “I’m guessing that’s in the basement?”

She led me downstairs, and I switched off the breaker. Then I walked into the kitchen. “Which one is it?” I asked, and Piper pointed.

“Sean? How are you doing?”

I deliberately pretended to hear her incorrectly. “Just taking out the busted one,” I said. “Look, it’s that easy, once you unscrew it. And then you have to take all the white wires and pigtail them together into one of these little caps. After that, you take the new GFCI and use your screwdriver to connect the pigtail over here-see where it says ‘white line’?”

Piper leaned closer. Her breath smelled of coffee and remorse. “Yes.”

“Do the same thing with the black wires, and connect them to the terminal that says ‘hot line.’ And last of all, you connect the grounding wire to the green screw and stuff it all back into the box.” With the screwdriver, I reattached the cover plate and turned to her. “Simple.”

“Nothing’s simple,” she said, and she stared at me. “But you know that. Like, for example, crossing over to the dark side.”

I put the screwdriver down gently. “It’s all the dark side, Piper.”

“Well, still. I feel like I owe you a thank-you.”

I shrugged, looking away. “I’m really sorry this all happened to you.”

“I’m really sorry it happened to you, ” Piper answered.

I cleared my throat, took a step backward. “You probably want to go down and throw the breaker, so you can test the outlet.”

“That’s all right,” Piper said, and she offered me a shy smile. “I think it’s going to work.”

Okay, let me just tell you that it’s not easy to keep a secret in close quarters. My house was bad enough, but have you ever noticed how thin the walls of a hotel bathroom are? I mean, you can hear everything -which meant that when I needed to make myself sick, I had to do it in the big public restrooms in the lobby, which required sitting in a stall until I could peek left and right and not see any other pairs of shoes.

After I’d gotten up this morning and found a note from Mom, I’d gone downstairs to eat and then found you in the kids’ area. “Amelia,” you said when you saw me. “Aren’t those cool?” You were pointing to little colored rods that some of the kids had affixed to the wheels of their chairs. They made an annoying clicking sound when you pushed, which to be honest would get awfully old awfully quick, but-to be fair-they were pretty awesome when they glowed in the dark.

I could practically see you taking mental notes as you sized up the other kids with OI. Who had which color wheelchair, who put stickers on their walkers, which girls could walk and which ones had to use a chair, which kids could eat by themselves and which needed help being fed. You were placing yourself in the mix, figuring out where you fit in and how independent you were by comparison. “So what’s on the docket for this morning?” I asked. “And where’s Mom?”

“I don’t know-I guess at one of the other meetings,” you said, and then you beamed at me. “We’re going swimming. I’ve already got on my bathing suit.”