Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

There was still an unleashed fury to Matt; his fists were curled at his sides. Josie reached for one, unfurled his hand, threaded their fingers together. “Can I say something without making you mad?” she asked.

This was rhetorical, Josie knew: Matt was already angry. It was the flip side to the passion that made her feel as if she’d gone electric inside-just directed, negatively, at someone weak.

When he didn’t answer, Josie forged ahead. “I don’t get why you have to pick on Peter Houghton.”

“The homo was the one who started it,” Matt argued. “You heard what he said.”

“Well, yeah,” Josie said. “After you pushed him down the steps.”

Matt stopped walking. “Since when did you become his guardian angel?”

He was staring in a way that cut her to the quick. Josie shivered. “I’m not,” she said quickly, and she took a deep breath. “I just…I don’t like the way you treat kids who aren’t like us, all right? Just because you don’t want to hang out with losers doesn’t mean you have to torture them, does it?”

“Yeah, it does,” Matt said. “Because if there isn’t a them, there can’t be an us.” His eyes narrowed. “You should know that better than anyone.”

Josie felt herself go numb. She didn’t know whether Matt was bringing up Peter’s little math chart, or worse, her history as Peter’s friend in earlier grades-but she didn’t want to find out, either. This was her biggest fear, after all: that the in crowd would realize she’d been out all the time.

She wouldn’t tell Mr. Cargrew what Peter had said. She wouldn’t even acknowledge him again, if he came up to her. And she wouldn’t lie to herself, either, and pretend she was any less awful than Matt when he mocked Peter or beat him up. You did what you had to, to cement your place in the pecking order. And the best way to stay on top was to step on someone else to get there.

“So,” Matt said, “are you coming with me?”

She wondered if Peter was still crying. If his nose was broken. If that was the worst of it.

“Yes,” Josie said, and she followed Matt without looking back.

Lincoln, Massachusetts, was a suburb of Boston that had once been farmland and that now was a hodgepodge of massive homes with ridiculously high real estate values. Josie stared out the window at the scenery that might have been hers to grow up with, under different circumstances: the stone walls that snaked around properties, the “historic property” badges worn by houses that were nearly two hundred years old, the small ice cream stand that smelled like fresh milk. She wondered whether Logan Rourke would suggest that they take a ride down to the Dairy Joy and share a sundae. Maybe he would walk right up to the counter and order butter pecan without even having to ask her what her favorite flavor was; maybe that’s what a father could spin out of instinct.

Matt was driving lazily, his wrist canted over the steering wheel. Just sixteen, he had his driver’s license and was ready and willing to go anywhere-to get a quart of milk for his mother, to drop off the dry cleaning, to squire Josie home after school. For him, it wasn’t the destination that was important, it was the journey-which was why Josie had asked him to take her to see her father.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she had an alternative. She couldn’t very well ask her mother to do it, given that her mother didn’t even know Josie had been looking for Logan Rourke. She could have probably figured out how to take a bus to Boston, but reaching a home in the suburbs was more complicated than that. So in the end, she decided to tell Matt the whole truth-that she had never known her father, and that she’d found him in a newspaper, because he was running for public office.

Logan Rourke’s driveway was not as grandiose as some of the others they’d passed, but it was immaculate. The lawn had been trimmed to a half inch; a spray of wildflowers craned their necks around the iron base of the mailbox. Hanging from a tree branch overhead was the house number: 59.

Josie felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. When she’d been on the field hockey team last year, that had been her jersey number.

It was a sign.

Matt pulled into the driveway. There were two cars-a Lexus and a Jeep-and also a toddler’s ride-on fire truck. Josie could not take her eyes off it. Somehow, she hadn’t imagined that Logan Rourke might have other children. “You want me to come in with you?” Matt asked.

Josie shook her head. “I’m okay.”

As she walked up to the front door, she began to wonder what on earth she’d been thinking. You couldn’t just drop in on some guy who was a public figure, could you? Surely there would be a Secret Service agent or something; an attack dog.

As if she’d cued it, a bark rang out. Josie turned in the direction of the sound to find a tiny little Yorkie with a pink bow on its head making a beeline for her feet.

The front door opened. “Titania, leave the postman al-” Logan Rourke broke off when he noticed Josie standing in front of him. “You’re not the postman.”

He was taller than she’d imagined, and he looked just like he did in the Globe-white hair, Roman nose, rangy build. But his eyes were the same color as hers, so electric that Josie couldn’t look away. She wondered if this had been her mother’s downfall, too.

“You’re Alex’s daughter,” he said.

“Well,” Josie replied. “And yours.”

Through the open doorway, Josie heard the shriek of a child still dizzy and delighted from being chased. A woman’s voice: “Logan, who is it?”

He reached back and closed the door so that Josie couldn’t see into his life any more. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, although in all fairness Josie imagined it was a little off-putting to be confronted by the daughter you’d abandoned before birth. “What are you doing here?”

Wasn’t that obvious? “I wanted to meet you. I thought you might want to meet me.”

He drew a deep breath. “This really isn’t a good time.”

Josie glanced back at the driveway, where Matt was still parked. “I can wait.”

“Look…it’s just that…I’m running for political office. Right now, this is a complication I can’t afford-”

Josie tripped over that one word. She was a complication?

She watched Logan Rourke take out his wallet and peel three hundred-dollar bills away from the rest. “Here,” he said, pushing it into her hand. “Will this do it?”

Josie tried to breathe, but someone had driven a stake through her chest. She realized that this was blood money; that her own father thought she’d come here to blackmail him.

“After the election,” he said, “maybe we could have lunch.”

The bills were crisp in her palm, the kind that had just come into circulation. Josie had a sudden memory of being little and accompanying her mother to the bank: how her mother would let her count the twenties to make sure the teller had gotten the withdrawal amount right; how fresh money always smelled of ink and good fortune.

Logan Rourke wasn’t her father, not any more than the guy who’d taken their coins at the toll booth or any other stranger. You could share DNA with someone and still have nothing in common with them.

Josie realized, fleetingly, that she had already learned that lesson from her mother.

“Well,” Logan Rourke said, and he started toward the door again. He hesitated with his hand on the knob. “I…I don’t know your name.”

Josie swallowed. “Margaret,” she said, so that she would be just as much of a lie to him as he was to her.

“Margaret, then,” he answered, and he slipped back inside.

On the way to the car, Josie opened her fingers like a flower. She watched the bills fall to the ground near a plant that looked, like everything else here, as if it was thriving.