Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

With a crash, Coop burst into the bathroom, wild-eyed and frightened. “What? What is it?”

The tears kept coming; unstoppable, overwhelming. “Make that thirteen babies,” I said, a smile unraveling across my face. “I think this one might be staying.”

It wasn’t until George Callahan had gone through a bottle pack of Zantac that he realized this case was literally eating him alive. His sure thing, it turned out, was not necessarily so sure. He wondered which juror was hanging up the others-the fellow with the Claddagh tattoo? The mother of four? He wondered if he had enough time to run to the pharmacy after lunch, or if he’d be called in for the verdict the minute he got on the highway. He wondered if Ellie Hathaway had lost three nights of sleep, too.

“Well,” Lizzie Munro said, pushing away her plate. “That’s the first time I’ve ever packed away more than you have.”

George grimaced. “Turns out my stomach’s more delicate than I thought.”

“Well, if you’d asked-which I might point out you didn’t-I could have told you that people around here would have trouble convicting someone Amish.”

“Why?”

Lizzie lifted one shoulder. “They’re sort of like angels-in-residence. If you admit that one of them’s a murderer, the whole world’s going to hell in a handbasket.”

“They’re not acquitting her so quickly, either.” He blotted his mouth with a napkin. “Ledbetter said the jury had requested the transcripts of the two psychiatrists.”

“Now, that’s interesting. If they’re quibbling over state of mind, it almost implies that they think she did something wrong.”

George snorted. “I’m sure Ellie Hathaway would put a different spin on it.”

“Ellie Hathaway isn’t spinning much of anything right now. Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“She’s sick. Got taken into the hospital.” Lizzie shrugged. “The news around the water cooler is that it had something to do with complications of pregnancy.”

“Pregnant? Ellie Hathaway’s pregnant?” He shook his head. “God, she’s about as nurturing as a black widow spider.”

“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

Ellie had been promoted from reclining in the bedroom to reclining on the living room couch. She had been allowed to walk only once, when Coop had taken her to the obstetrician to be given a clean but guarded bill of health. Now Coop was back at his office with a suicidal client, having left Sarah in charge to watch over her like a hawk. But Sarah had gone out to get a chicken for dinner-making Ellie, for the first time, happy about her status as an invalid.

Ellie closed her eyes, but she was certain that if she slept another hour she was going to go into a coma. She was trying to decide which argument to use on Coop to convince him that she should be allowed to be vertical-fetal circulation just slightly edging out bedsores-when Katie skulked by the doorway, trying not to be seen.

“Oh, no you don’t. Get back here,” Ellie ordered.

Katie slipped into the room. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah. I need you to break me out of here.”

Katie’s eyes widened. “But Dr. Cooper-”

“-doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to be lying around for two entire days.” Ellie reached for her hand, and tugged so that Katie was sitting down beside her. “I don’t want to go climb Everest,” she begged. “Just a little walk. Outside.”

Katie looked toward the kitchen.

“Your mom’s at the chicken coop. Please.”

She nodded quickly, then helped Ellie from the couch. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Really. You can call my doctor and ask her.” Grinning, Ellie added, “Well, you could if you had a phone.”

Katie slid her arm around Ellie’s waist and took tentative steps with her through the kitchen and out the back door. Ellie quickened the pace as they passed the small patch of the vegetable garden, stepping over the pumpkin vines spread like the arms of an octopus. At the pond, she sank onto the bench beneath the oak tree, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, feeling better than she had in days.

“Can we go back now?” Katie asked miserably.

“I just got here. You want me to rest before I hike all the way home, don’t you?”

She glanced toward the house. “I want to get you back before anyone notices you’re gone.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you brought me out here if you don’t.”

“Not a soul,” Katie said.

Ellie tipped back her head and closed her eyes, letting the sun wash over her face and throat. “Well, then, here we are. Partners in crime.”

“Partners in crime,” Katie echoed softly.

At the thin, sad note in her voice, Ellie blinked. “Oh, Katie. I didn’t mean-”

“Shhh.” Katie held up her hand, rising slowly off the seat as she stared at the pond. A flock of wood ducks, hidden among the dry marsh grass at the edges, suddenly startled and took to flight, sending up a spray of mist that illuminated the surface of the water. The late sun prismed through, and for a moment Katie could see her sister spinning in the midst of it, a hologram ballerina unaware of her audience.

This is what she would miss if she were put in jail. This home, this pond, this connection.

Hannah turned, and in her arms was a small package. She turned again, and the package shifted . . . so that a tiny pink arm slipped from the swaddling.

The mist settled, the nasal holler of the ducks receding in the distance. Katie sat down beside Ellie, who suddenly looked much paler than she was before. “Please,” Katie whispered. “Don’t let them send me away.”

• • •

Out of deference to Aaron, Jacob parked his car a half mile from his father’s farm. He’d known guys who’d bought cars during their Rumspringa, fellows who’d parked them behind tobacco sheds while their dads pretended not to notice. Jacob, though, he’d never had a car. Not until he’d left for good.

Walking up the drive felt strange, too. He absently rubbed the scar on his chin that he’d gotten when he’d been roller-skating and had pitched over a rut in the pavement. The rut was still there. He’d bet that his roller skates were, too, up in the attic with whatever old clothes and hats had not been passed along to younger cousins.

His heart was so loud in his ears by the time he reached the barn door that he had to stop and breathe deeply just to get the courage to go further. The problem was, he’d become Sod so long ago that thinking Plain came less and less easily. It had taken Katie’s trial-where he, of all people, was cast as the expert on Amish life-to make him realize that the Plain side of him had been there all along. Although he lived in a different world, he still saw it with the eyes of one who’d grown up separate and apart; he judged it with a set of values that had been ingrained long ago.

One of the first truths you learned when you were Plain was that actions spoke louder than words.

In the English world, people sent condolences and wrote e-mail and exchanged valentines. In the Amish world, sympathy came in the form of a visit, love was a look of satisfaction cast across the dinner table, help was hands-on. All this time, Jacob had been waiting for an apology from his father, when that wasn’t his father’s means of currency.

He slid open the heavy door of the barn and walked inside. Dust motes circled in the air, and the heady scent of hay and sweet grain was so familiar that Jacob froze for a moment and simply closed his eyes, remembering. The cows, chained at their stanchions, shuffled at his entrance and rolled their heavy heads in his direction.