Handle With Care

  Four hours later, the jury had still not returned a verdict. Sean had driven to the hospital to check on you and had just called to say he was on his way back, had there been any news? Amelia was writing haikus on the white board in the conference room: Help, I'm clearly trapped

  Behind this very white board.

  Please do not erase.

  The rule for today

  Is that there are no more rules.

  Guess you're out of luck.

  I headed to the bathroom for the third time since court had adjourned. I didn't have to go, but I ran the water in the sink and splashed some on my face. I kept telling myself this was not such a big deal, but that was a lie. You did not drag your family to the verge of dissolution for nothing; to have gone through this with nothing to show would have been disastrous. If I had entered into this lawsuit to assuage my conscience, how could I reconcile an outcome where I left feeling even more guilty?

  I patted my face dry and dabbed at my sweater, where it had gotten wet. I tossed the toweling into the trash just as there was a flush in one of the stalls. The door opened as I stepped away from the sink, and I inadvertently smacked it back against the person who was trying to exit. 'Sorry,' I said, and then I realized that the woman standing in front of me was Piper.

  'You know, Charlotte,' she said softly, 'so am I.'

  I looked at her, silent. Of all the things to notice, I realized that she didn't smell the way she used to. She'd changed her perfume or her shampoo.

  'So you admit it,' I said. 'That you made a mistake.'

  Piper shook her head. 'No, I didn't. Not professionally, anyway. But on a personal level, well . . . I'm sorry that this is how things have turned out between us. And I'm sorry that you didn't get the healthy baby you wanted.'

  'Do you realize,' I replied, 'in all the years after Willow was born, you never said that to me?'

  'You should have told me you were waiting to hear it,' Piper said.

  'I shouldn't have had to.'

  I tried not to remember how Piper and I had huddled together in the bleachers at the skating rink, reading the classified ads and trying to match up personal ads with each other. How we would take walks, pushing you in a stroller, punctuating the cold air with so many star-bursts of conversation that three miles passed in no time at all. I tried not to remember that I had thought of her as the sister I'd never had, that I'd hoped you and Amelia would grow up just as close.

  I tried not to remember, but I would.

  Suddenly the door of the bathroom opened. 'There you are,' Marin sighed. 'The jury's back.'

  She hurried out the door, and Piper quickly rinsed her hands under the faucet. I could feel her a half step behind me as we walked toward the courtroom again, but her legs were longer, and eventually she caught up.

  As we stepped in, side by side, a dozen camera flashes went off, and I could not see where I was headed. Marin pulled me forward by the wrist. I thought, although I could have imagined it, that I heard Piper whisper good-bye.

  The judge entered, and we all sat down. 'Madame Foreman,' he said, turning to the jury, 'have you reached a verdict?'

  The woman was small and birdlike, with glasses that made her eyes seem overly magnified. 'Yes, Your Honor. In the case of O'Keefe versus Reece, we find for the plaintiff.'

  Marin had told me 75 percent of all wrongful birth cases were found in favor of the defendant. I turned to her, and she grabbed my arm. 'That's you, Charlotte.'

  'And,' the foreman said, 'we award damages in the amount of eight million dollars.'

  I remember falling back into my chair, and the gallery erupting. My fingers felt numb, and I had to work to breathe. I remember Sean and Amelia, climbing over the bar to hold me tight. I heard the uproar from a group of parents of special-needs kids who'd taken up residence in the back of the court during the trial, and the names they'd called me. I heard Marin telling a reporter that this was the biggest wrongful birth payout in New Hampshire history, and that justice had been done today. I looked through the crowd, trying to find Piper, but she was already gone.

  Today, when I went to take you home from the hospital, I would tell you that this was finally over. I would tell you that you'd have everything you needed, for the rest of your life - and after mine ended. I'd tell you that I had won, that the verdict had been read out loud . . . although I didn't really believe it.

  After all, if I had won this lawsuit, why was my smile as hollow as a drum, and my chest too tight?

  If I had won this lawsuit, why did it feel like I'd lost?

  Weeping: the release of extra moisture.

  In baking, just as in life, there are tears when something's gone wrong. Meringues are only whipped egg whites and sugar; they are meant to be eaten right away. If you hesitate, water will seep between the filling and the meringue, and weeping - little beads that form on the snowy, white peaks - will occur. There are all sorts of theories on how to prevent this - from using only fresh egg whites to using superfine sugar, from adding cornstarch to precooking the meringue. Ask me, and I'll tell you the only foolproof method: Do not bake while your heart is breaking.

  * * *

  LEMON MERINGUE PIE

  1 pie shell, blind-baked

  FILLING

  11/2 cups granulated sugar 6 tablespoons cornstarch

  Pinch of salt

  11/3 cups cold water

  2 tablespoons unsalted butter

  5 egg yolks

  1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

  1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

  Prepare the pie shell. Meanwhile, combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water in a nonreactive saucepan. Mix until there are no lumps, and whisk as the mixture gradually comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the butter.

  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Add a small amount of the hot liquid mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the egg mixture to the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, continuing to whisk as it thickens, approximately 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and zest.

  MERINGUE

  6 large egg whites at room temperature

  Pinch of cream of tartar

  Pinch of salt

  3/4 cup sugar

  On low speed, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until combined. Increase the speed and whip until they form stiff peaks. Beat in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time.

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Add the filling to the pie shell and top it with the meringue. Make sure you spread the meringue all the way to touch the edges of the crust. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Let the pie cool for about 2 hours, then refrigerate to prevent weeping.

  Or just think happy thoughts.

  Willow

  March 2009

  I

  n school we have Hundred Day. It falls in late November, and we have to bring in a hundred of something, anything. When Amelia was in first grade, she brought in a hundred chocolate chips, but by the time she made it off the bus, she was down to fifty-three. Me, I brought a list of seventy-five bones I've broken and the names of twenty-five more that I haven't.

  A million is ten thousand hundreds. I can't even think of ten thousand. Maybe there are that many trees in a forest or water molecules in a lake. Eight million is even more than that, and it is the number of dollars written on the big blue check that has been on our refrigerator for almost six months now.

  My parents talk about that check a lot. They say that pretty soon the van will officially wheeze itself to death and we'll have to use the money to buy a new one, but then they find a way to keep the old one running. They talk about how the registration deadline for camps for kids like me is coming up, and how they'll have to send in a deposit. I have the brochures next to my bed. In them, there are kids in every color who have OI, like me. They all look happy.

  Maybe that's what happens to kids who go away somewhere. Amelia did, and when she came home, she had brown hair again and her own easel. She paints all the time - portraits of
me while I'm sleeping, still lifes of coffee mugs and pears, landscapes in colors they'd never really be. I have to look really hard at her arms to see the silver scars, and even when she catches me looking, she hardly ever bothers to pull down her sleeves.

  It was Saturday. My father was parked in front of the television, watching the Bruins. Amelia was outside somewhere, sketching. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, playing solitaire with the index cards of her recipes. She had over a hundred (if only she was in the first grade!), and she'd decided to put them together in a cookbook. It was a compromise, because she didn't have to bake all the time anymore like she used to for Mr DeVille. He still stocked her pies and tarts and macaroons when she went off on a tear in the kitchen, but now her big plan was to publish the book, and give all the money she made to the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation.

  We didn't need money, because ours was all tacked to the refrigerator.

  'Hey,' my mother said, as I climbed onto a chair. 'What's up?'

  'Nothing.' The mail, fanned out on the table like a bright scarf, caught my eye.

  'There's something in there for you,' my mother said.

  It was a card - and inside was a picture of Marin with a boy who was probably around Amelia's age. He had buck teeth and skin the color of chocolate. His name was Anton, and she had adopted him two months ago.

  We didn't see Piper, and Amelia and Emma weren't friends anymore. The sign in front of the building that used to be her office didn't have her name on it now. It said GRETEL HANDELMAN, CHIROPRACTOR, instead. And then one Saturday morning my dad and I went out to get bagels, and there was Piper in line in front of us. My dad said hello and she asked how I was doing, but even though she was trying to smile, it looked all wrong, like a wire that was bent out of shape and wouldn't ever really be straight again. She told my dad that she was working part-time at a women's free health clinic in Boston, and that she was on her way there right now. Then she knocked over the cup full of straws at the cash register, and she was in such a hurry to leave that she forgot to pay until the girl who had brought her her coffee reminded her it wasn't free.

  I missed Piper, but I think my mother missed her more. She didn't really have any friends now. She didn't hang out with anyone but me, Amelia, and Dad.

  It was kind of sad, actually.

  'Wanna bake?' I asked.

  My mother rolled her eyes. 'You cannot seriously tell me you're hungry. You just had lunch.'

  I wasn't hungry, but I was bored.

  She looked up at me. 'Tell you what. Go get Amelia, and we'll figure out a plan of action. A movie, maybe.'

  'Really?'

  'Sure,' my mother said.

  We could treat ourselves to movies now. And we went out to restaurants. And I was going to get a sports wheelchair so that I could actually play kickball in the gym with my class. Amelia said the reason we could spend money all of a sudden was the check that was still on the refrigerator. At school there were jerks who said we were rich, but I knew that wasn't really true. I mean, after all, my parents had never cashed the check. We still had a rusty old car and our little house and the same clothes. A lot of zeros didn't mean anything, really, except security - my parents could splurge a little, because if their funds ran out, there was a backup. That meant they didn't fight nearly as much, which wasn't something you could buy at a store anyway. I didn't know much about bank accounts, but I was smart enough to realize that checks didn't do you any good unless they were deposited. My parents, though, didn't seem to be in any great rush. Every few weeks my mother would say, I really ought to bring that to the bank, and my father would grunt in agreement, but somehow it never got done, and the check stayed tacked on the fridge.

  I went into the mudroom to get my boots and my coat, my mother's voice trailing behind. 'Be--'

  'Careful,' I finished. 'Yeah, I know.'

  It was March, but it was still cold enough out for my breath to make funny shapes through my scarf: one that looked like a chicken and another that was a hippo. I started down the slope of the backyard carefully. There wasn't snow anymore, but the ground still crunched under the soles of my boots. It made a sound like teeth biting.

  Amelia was probably in the woods; she liked to draw the birches because she said they were tragic, and that something so beautiful shouldn't have to die so quickly. I dug my hands into my pockets and tucked my nose under the edge of my scarf. With each step, I thought of something I knew: The average woman consumes six pounds of lipstick in her lifetime.

  Three Mile Island is really only two and a half miles long.

  Cockroaches like to eat the glue on the backs of stamps.

  I hesitated as I came to the edge of the pond. The reeds were nearly as tall as I was, and I had to work hard to push myself through them without tangling one of my arms or legs. Right now, for the first time in months, I had no healing fractures, and I planned to keep it that way.

  My father told a story once about how he was out in his police cruiser when he realized all the cars in front of him were stopped dead. He slowed down and put the car into park, then opened the door to see what was going on. The minute he stepped onto the pavement, though, he landed flat on his back. Black ice; it was a miracle that he had even managed to brake safely.

  The ice on the pond was like that: so clear that I could see the weeds and sand right through it, like it was a pane of glass. I got down carefully on my hands and knees, and inched forward.

  I'd never been allowed on the ice, and like most things that you aren't allowed to do, it was all I thought about.

  I couldn't get hurt this way - I was moving so slowly, and I wasn't standing up. My back was hunched like a cat's, my eyes staring down at the surface. Where did the fish go in the winter? Could you see them, if you looked carefully?

  I moved my right knee, and my right hand. My left knee, and my left hand. I was breathing hard, not because it was so difficult but because I could not believe it was this easy.

  There was a moan that rippled across the surface of the pond, as if the sky was crying. And then suddenly, all around me, the ice became a spiderweb, and I was the bug stuck at its center.

  Grasshoppers have white blood Butterflies taste with their hind feet Caterpillars have about four thousand muscles . . .

  'Help,' I said, but I couldn't yell and breathe at the same time.

  The water sucked at me all at once. I tried to grab for the ice, but it broke away in sheets; I tried to swim, but I didn't know how without a life jacket. My jacket and pants and boots were a sponge, and it was so cold, cold like frostbite, cold like an ice-cream headache.

  An armadillo can walk underwater.

  Minnows have teeth in their throats.

  A shrimp can swim backward.

  You would think I'd have been scared. But I could hear my mother, telling me a story before I went to bed, about a coyote who wanted to capture the sun. He climbed the tallest tree, and he put it in a jar and brought it home. That jar, though, it couldn't hold something so strong, and it burst. See, Wills? my mother had said. You are filled with light.

  There was glass above me, and the runny eye of the sun in the sky, and I beat my fists against it. It was like the ice had sealed itself on top of me again, and I couldn't push through. I was so numb, I had stopped shivering.

  As the water filled my nose and mouth, as the sun got tinier and tinier, I closed my eyes and curled my fists around the things I knew for sure: That a scallop has thirty-five eyes, all blue.

  That a tuna will suffocate if it ever stops swimming.

  That I was loved.

  That this time, it was not me who broke.

  Recipe: (1) a set of instructions for preparing a dish; (2) something likely to lead to a certain outcome.

  Follow these rules, and you will get what you want: it's the easiest prescription in the world. And yet, you can observe a recipe down to the letter, and it will not make a difference when the end product sits in front of you and you realize it's not wha
t you wanted.

  For a long time, I could only see you sinking. I pictured you, with your skin pale blue and your hair streaming out behind you like a mermaid's. I would wake up screaming, beating the mattress with my hands, as if I could reach through the ice and drag you to safety.

  But that wasn't you, no more than the skeleton you'd been given was you. You were more than that, lighter. You were the steam that fogged the mirror in the morning when Sean dragged me out of bed and forced me to take a shower. You were the crystals painting my car windshield after a night's frost. You were the heat rising off the pavement like a ghost in the middle of the summer. You never left me.

  I do not have the money anymore. It was yours, after all. I slipped the check into the silk lining of the coffin when I kissed you good-bye for the last time.

  Here are the things I know for sure: When you think you're right, you are most likely wrong.

  Things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises - can be put back together but will never really be whole.

  And, in spite of what I said, you can miss a person you've never known.

  I learn this over and over again, every day I spend without you.

  * * *

  WILLOW'S SABAYON, WITH CLOUDS

  SABAYON

  6 egg yolks

  1 cup sugar

  2 cups heavy cream, whipped

  1/2 cup light rum or Grand Marnier

  Whisk the eggs and sugar in a double boiler. Once they are completely mixed, fold in the whipped cream. Remove from the heat, pass through a sieve, and add the rum.

  CLOUDS

  5 egg whites

  Pinch of salt

  1/3 cup sugar

  2 cups milk or water

  Place the egg whites and salt in a mixing bowl; on low speed, mix until smooth. Gradually increase the speed and sprinkle in the sugar. Beat until the whites hold a soft peak - this is meringue, the cloud I imagine you resting on nowadays. Meanwhile, simmer the milk or water. Take a spoonful of the meringue and gently drop it into the simmering liquid. Cook the meringue for 2 to 3 minutes and, with a slotted spoon, turn it over and continue cooking for another 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the poached meringue to a paper towel. The clouds are fragile.