Jodie Picoult - Plain Truth

“What I told you,” Adam gently corrected, “is that the ones who come back have an emotional connection to the world. Sometimes it’s pain, sometimes it’s anger . . . but Katie, sometimes it’s just love.” His words rose softly between them. “Sometimes they stay because they don’t want to leave someone behind.”

She remained perfectly still as Adam bent toward her. She waited for him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He stopped just a breath away, fighting for the willpower to keep from touching her.

Katie knew he would be leaving the next day, knew that he moved in a world that would never be her own. She placed her palms on his cheeks. “Will you haunt me?” she whispered, and met his lips halfway.

Katie was cleaning the tack used by the mules and by Nugget when a voice startled her.

“They made you pick up my chores,” Jacob said sadly. “I never even thought to ask you about it.”

Her hand at her throat, she whirled around. “Jacob!”

He opened his arms, and she flew into them. “Does Mam know-”

“No,” he said, cutting her off. “And let’s keep it that way.” He hugged her tightly and then held her at arm’s length. “Katie, what’s happened?”

She buried her face against his chest again. He smelled of pine and ink, and was so solid, so strong for her. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I thought I did, but now I can’t be sure.”

She felt Jacob distance himself again, and then his eyes dipped down to her apron. “You had . . . a baby,” he said uneasily, then swallowed. “You were pregnant when you last saw me.”

She nodded and bit her lower lip. “Are you awful mad about it?”

He slid his hand down her arm and squeezed her hand. “I’m not mad,” he said, sitting down on the edge of a wagon. “I’m sorry.”

Katie sat beside him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I am too,” she whispered.

Mary Esch came visiting on Sunday, wearing Rollerblades and bearing a Frisbee. Ellie could have run up and hugged the girl. It was just what Katie needed in light of these newfound recollections about the baby-a moment to just be a teenager again, without any responsibilities. While Ellie washed the dishes from lunch, Mary and Katie ran around the front yard, their skirts belling as they leaped into the air to snatch the neon disc.

Hot and winded, the girls collapsed on the grass outside the kitchen window, which Ellie had opened to catch the faint breeze. She could hear snatches of conversation drifting up over the rush of the faucet: “. . . seen the fly that landed on Bishop Ephram’s nose,” “. . . asked about you,” “. . . not so lonely, not really.”

Mary closed her eyes and rubbed the cold glass of a root beer bottle against her forehead. “I think it’s hotter than any summer I ever remember,” she said.

“No.” Katie smiled. “You just put things out of your mind when they’re not right in front of you, is all.”

“Still, it’s awful hot.” She put down the bottle and fluted her skirt over her bare toes, unsure of what else to say.

“Mary, has it got so bad that all we can talk about is the weather?” Katie said quietly. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask?”

Mary looked into her lap. “Is it awful, being shunned?”

Katie shrugged. “It’s not so bad. The mealtimes are tough, but I have Ellie with me, and my Mam tries to make it all work out okay.”

“And your Dat?”

“My Dat isn’t so good at trying to make it all work out,” she admitted. “But that’s how he is.” She took her friend’s hand. “In six weeks, it’ll all go back to being the way it was.”

If anything, this made Mary look even more upset. “I don’t know about that, Katie.”

“Well, sure you do. I’ve made my things right. Even if Bishop Ephram asks me to step down at communion time, I won’t have to be under the bann.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mary murmured. “It’s the way others might act.”

Katie slowly turned. “If they can’t forgive my sin, they shouldn’t be my friends.”

“For some people, it’s going to be harder to pretend nothing happened.”

“It’s the good Christian thing to do,” Katie said.

“Ja, but it’s hard to be Christian when it was your girl,” Mary answered quietly. She fiddled with the strings of her kapp. “Katie, I think Samuel might want to see someone else.”

Katie felt the air go out of her, like a pillow punched in the middle. “Who told you that?”

Mary did not answer. But the red burn in her friend’s cheeks, the obvious discomfort at bringing up the very private notion of a beau, made Katie realize exactly what had happened. “Mary Esch,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t want to! I pushed him away after he tried to kiss me!”

Katie got to her feet, so angry she was shaking. “Some friend you are!”

“I am, Katie. I came here so you wouldn’t have to hear it from someone else.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

Mary nodded slowly, sadly. She pulled her socks from the bellies of her Rollerblades and buckled the skates onto her feet. Gliding smoothly out of the driveway, she did not look back.

Katie held her elbows tight at her sides. Any movement, she thought, and she might fly apart in a thousand different pieces. She heard the screen door open and slam, but she remained staring over the fields, where Samuel was working with her father.

“I heard,” Ellie said, touching her shoulder from behind. “I’m sorry.”

Katie tried to keep her eyes wide, so wide that the tears in them couldn’t quite trickle over the edges. But then she turned and threw herself into Ellie’s arms. “It’s not supposed to be like this,” she cried. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“Ssh. I know.”

“You don’t know,” Katie sobbed.

Ellie’s hand fell, cool, on the back of her neck. “You’d be surprised.”

Katie desperately wanted Dr. Polacci to like her. Ellie had said that the psychiatrist was being paid a great deal of money to come to the farm and meet with her. She knew that Ellie believed whatever Dr. Polacci had to say would be extremely useful when it came time for trial. She also knew that ever since she had told Dr. Cooper about the pregnancy, he and Ellie had been too stiff with each other, and Katie thought it was all somehow tied together.

The psychiatrist had puffy black hair and a face like the moon and a wide ocean of body. Everything about her urged Katie to jump, knowing that no matter how she landed, she’d be safe.

She smiled nervously at Dr. Polacci. They were sitting in the living room, alone. Ellie had fought to be there, but Dr. Polacci suggested that her presence might keep Katie silent. “I’m someone she confides in,” Ellie had argued.

“You’re one more person to confess in front of,” the psychiatrist answered.

They talked in front of her like she was stupid, or a pet dog-like she had no opinion whatsoever about what was happening to her. In the end, Ellie had left. Dr. Polacci had made it clear that she was here to help Katie get acquitted. She’d said that Katie should tell her the truth, because she surely didn’t want to go to jail. Well, Dr. Polacci was right on that count. So pretty much, Katie had spent the past hour telling her everything that she had told Dr. Cooper. She was careful about her choice of words-she wanted the most precise recollection. She wanted Dr. Polacci to go back to Ellie and say, “Katie’s not crazy; it’s all right for the judge to let her go.”

“Katie,” Dr. Polacci asked now, drawing her attention, “what was going through your mind when you went to bed?”

“Just that I felt bad. And I wanted to go to sleep so that I could wake up and be better.”