Jodie Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

“You’re a lawyer, then?” Lacy said, glancing up from her notes.

“A public defender.” Alex’s chin came up a notch, as if she was ready for Lacy to make a deprecating comment about her affiliation with the bad guys.

“That must be awfully demanding work,” Lacy said. “Does your office know you’re pregnant?”

Alex shook her head. “It’s not an issue,” she said flatly. “I won’t be taking a maternity leave.”

“You might change your mind as-”

“I’m not keeping this baby,” Alex announced.

Lacy sat back in her chair. “All right.” It was not her place to judge a mother for the decision to give up a child. “We can talk about different options, then,” Lacy said. At eleven weeks, Alex could still terminate the pregnancy if she wished.

“I was going to have an abortion,” Alex said, as if she’d read Lacy’s mind. “But I missed my appointment.” She glanced up. “Twice.”

Lacy knew you could be solidly pro-choice but unwilling or unable to make that decision for yourself-that’s exactly where the choice part kicked in. “Well, then,” she said, “I can give you information about adoption, if you haven’t already contacted any agencies yourself.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out folders-adoption agencies affiliated with a variety of religions, attorneys who specialized in private adoptions. Alex took the pamphlets and held them like a hand of playing cards. “For now, though, we can just focus on you and how you’re doing.”

“I’m great,” Alex answered smoothly. “I’m not sick, I’m not tired.” She looked at her watch. “I am, however, going to be late for an appointment.”

Lacy could tell that Alex was a coper-someone who was used to being in control in all facets of her life. “It’s okay to slow down when you’re pregnant. Your body might need that.”

“I know how to take care of myself.”

“What about letting someone else do it once in a while?”

A shadow of irritation crossed over Alex’s face. “Look, I don’t need a therapy session. Honestly. I appreciate the concern, but-”

“Does your partner support your decision to give the baby up?” Lacy asked.

Alex turned her face away for a moment. Before Lacy could find the right words to draw her back, however, Alex did it herself. “There is no partner,” she said coolly.

The last time Alex’s body had taken over, had done what her mind told her not to do, she had conceived this baby. It had started innocently enough-Logan Rourke, her trial advocacy professor, calling her into his office to tell her that she commanded the courtroom with competence; Logan saying that no juror would be able to take his eyes off her-and that neither could he. Alex had thought Logan was Clarence Darrow and F. Lee Bailey and God rolled up into one. Prestige and power could make a man so attractive it took one’s breath away; it turned Logan into what she’d been looking for her whole life.

She believed him when he told her he hadn’t seen a student with as quick a mind as Alex in his ten years of teaching. She believed him when he told her that his marriage was over in all but name. And she believed him the night he drove her home from the campus, framed her face between his hands, and told her she was the reason he got up in the morning.

Law was a study of detail and fact, not emotion. Alex’s cardinal mistake had been forgetting this when she became involved with Logan. She found herself postponing plans, waiting for his call, which sometimes came and sometimes didn’t. She pretended that she did not see him flirting with the first-year law students who looked at him the way she used to. And when she got pregnant, she convinced herself that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together.

Logan had told her to get rid of it. She’d scheduled an abortion, only to forget to write the date and time on her calendar. She rescheduled, but realized too late that her appointment conflicted with a final exam. After that, she’d gone to Logan. It’s a sign, she’d said.

Maybe, he told her, but it doesn’t mean what you’re thinking. Be reasonable, Logan had said. A single mother will never make it as a trial attorney. She’d have to choose between her career and this baby.

What he really meant was that she’d have to choose between having the baby and having him.

The woman looked familiar from behind, in that way that people sometimes do when you see them out of context: your grocery clerk standing in line at the bank, your postman sitting across the aisle of the movie theater. Alex stared for another second, and then realized it was the infant throwing her off. She strode across the hallway of the courthouse toward the town clerk, where Lacy Houghton stood paying a parking ticket.

“Need a lawyer?” Alex asked.

Lacy looked up, the baby carrier balanced in the crook of her arm. It took a moment to place the face-she hadn’t seen Alex since her initial visit nearly a month ago. “Oh, hello!” she said, smiling.

“What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“Oh, I’m posting bail for my ex…” Lacy waited for Alex’s eyes to widen, and then laughed. “Just kidding. I got a parking ticket.”

Alex found herself staring down at the face of Lacy’s son. He wore a blue cap that tied underneath his chin, and his cheeks spilled over the edges of the fleece. He had a runny nose, and when he noticed Alex looking at him, he offered her a cavernous smile.

“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?” Lacy said.

She slapped ten dollars down on top of her parking ticket and fed it through the open mouth of the payment window, then hefted the baby bucket a little higher into the crook of her arm and walked out of the court building to a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. Lacy stopped to give a ten-dollar bill to a bum sitting outside the courthouse, and Alex rolled her eyes-she’d actually seen this particular fellow heading over to the closest bar yesterday when she left work.

In the coffee shop, Alex watched Lacy effortlessly unpeel layers of clothing from her baby and lift him out of his seat onto her lap. As she talked, she draped a blanket over her shoulder and started to nurse Peter. “Is it hard?” Alex blurted out.

“Nursing?”

“Not just that,” Alex said. “Everything.”

“It’s definitely an acquired skill.” Lacy lifted the baby onto her shoulder. His booted feet kicked against her chest, as if he was already trying to put distance between them. “Compared to your day job, motherhood is probably a piece of cake.”

It made Alex think, immediately, of Logan Rourke, who had laughed at her when she said she was taking a job with the public defender’s office. You won’t last a week, he’d told her. You’re too soft for that.

She sometimes wondered if she was a good public defender because of skill or because she had been so determined to show Logan that he was wrong. In any case, Alex had cultivated a persona on the job, one that was there to give offenders an equal voice in the legal system, without letting clients get under her skin.

She’d already made that mistake with Logan.

“Did you get a chance to contact any of the adoption agencies?” Lacy asked.

Alex had not even taken the pamphlets she’d been given. For all she knew, they were still sitting on the counter of the examination room.

“I put in a few calls,” Alex lied. She had it on her To Do list at work. It was just that something else always got in the way.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Lacy said, and Alex nodded slowly-she did not like personal questions. “What made you decide to give the baby up?”

Had she ever really made that decision? Or had it been made for her?