Mercy (51 page)

"Why was she cleaning out a duck pond?"

"She said nobody else did it, and she was thinking of the ducks. That was th e kind of person she was."

On a yellow pad in front of her, Audra Campbell scrawled, Saint Maggie.

"Did you have a happy marriage?"

"I think so. I think she thought so. I mean, we fought about things--how muc h money we had, whose turn it was to clean the bathroom--but I guess every c ouple does that." He glanced at Pauline Cioffi, sitting in the gallery with the other spectators. "She was my best friend, too. After I married Maggie, I didn't understand how I'd lasted twenty-five years without her." Graham leaned casually against the jury box. "What were your plans for the future?"

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Jamie's eyes clouded. "It became fairly clear about a year ago that we did n't have a lot of future left," he said. "But before Maggie got sick, we t alked a lot about moving to a bigger house, maybe out of Cummington. Our g oal was to have more than one bathroom. And we wanted kids. God, did we wa nt them. We were trying; we had been trying for five years. But Maggie los t one baby, and she couldn't conceive, and then we found out that probably had something to do with the cancer too."

Allie shifted uncomfortably. She remembered the stack of ovulation-predicto r tests in the linen closet of Jamie's house. With a child in the picture, Jamie might never have agreed to Maggie's request. With a child, all sorts of outcomes might have been changed. Ducking her head a little, she peered at Cam. If she and Cam had had a baby, would he still have betrayed her?

"Jamie, how did you find out about Maggie's illness?" For a moment, Jamie didn't speak. Then he closed his eyes and leaned again st the witness chair and let words fall from his mouth. They were spoken s lowly and without emotion, but his hands were clenched on the wooden raili ng so tightly that the fingers and knuckles were white. He was telling a s tory, and even juror number 11, who seemed to have been nodding off, was a lert and listening. Jamie created before everyone's eyes a skating pond, a snapped bone, a doctor's solemn conference.

Cam thought of Braebury, of the double skating oval, of Mia. He remembered the ice sculpture. By the time they left the pond, it had grown so warm out side that when he glanced at the melting phoenix before slinging his skates over his shoulder, it did not look at all the way he had remembered. Graham waited a moment after Jamie fell silent. "When Dr. Wharton told yo u Maggie's bone lesions were a sign of cancer, how did you feel?" Jamie shook his head. "I told him he was wrong. I mean, you've seen X-rays, right? How could they possibly pick out a lesion? I suppose it was the wor d 'cancer' that scared me to death. You hear it, and all of a sudden you ar en't breathing anymore." He looked up at Graham. "It didn't much matter tha t the doctor was telling me it was in Maggie's body, and not mine. It would have hit me the same, either way."

Jodi Picoult

"Did you get a second opinion?"

"Yes, from a doctor in Boston. He said that Maggie's bone lesions were the secondary site of a tumor too." Jamie looked down at his lap.

"How did the news affect Maggie?"

"She was afraid. She drew into a shell for a couple of days and didn't say a nything, didn't really let me inside. But then she bounced back, and said sh e wanted to schedule an operation as quickly as possible. She said she wante d that thing out of her body."

Graham nodded. "What did you decide to do then?"

"She had a mastectomy. That terrified her too--you know, she was still so you ng, and she thought I would consider her deformed in some way. I kept telling her that it didn't matter, that she could have reconstructive surgery in a y ear, or whatever, but I think part of the reason that she kept talking about how she would look afterward was because it kept her from facing the fact tha t even getting rid of a breast wasn't going to take care of a cancer that had already spread."

"Can you describe the treatments Maggie underwent?" Tenderly, as if they were layers of blankets he was peeling off to reveal h is wife, Jamie began to outline the course of Maggie's cancer. He described her lying on the living room couch, doing reaching exercises to build up t he muscles beneath her arm and in her chest wall that the mastectomy had se vered. He listed the names of the drugs she'd had during chemotherapy as if they were old friends. He talked of driving Maggie home from these treatme nts, and pulling over to the curb so that she could push open the door and vomit. He described the waiting room of the radiology lab, with bald smilin g children and sallow women who wrapped their heads with scarves. He descri bed watching the laser of light, a red knife, spearing the center of Maggie

's eye.

"Was there ever a time when your wife was in remission?"

"No," Jamie said. "It got to the point where the cancer became both of our j obs. We couldn't concentrate on anything else, and we didn't have room for a nything else. We worked as a team to get rid of what was hurting her. We lea rned all the back roads to the hospital. The goal for each day was just to g et through it."

"When did Maggie know she was going to die?"

Jamie glanced away from Graham. "The doctor told her the tumor was in her b rain. She'd been having dizzy spells and then explosions, she called it, be hind her eyes. This was in June of'95. We were in his office after a checku p--we always went in after a checkup--and she asked him flat-out. Wharton t old her everyone was going to die, and Maggie got very angry. She said, 'Do n't patronize me,' and she stood up to walk out of the room but she fainted

." Jamie looked up. "Like I said, that was the problem at the time. When sh e came to, Wharton told her yes, but he didn't know exactly when."

"Did she say anything about it to you then?"

Jamie nodded. "In the car, she didn't say a word until we pulled into our dri veway. But she didn't unhook her seat belt or make a move to leave the car. A nd then she looked at me and asked me if I knew what cancer looked like. I sh ook my head, and she started to cry. 'He's a big, fat, ugly puppeteer,' she t old me, 'and he's holding all the strings.' "

Graham scanned the jury. Sympathy on many of the faces; some were leanin g forward. A couple of women caught Graham's eye and turned away, as if they knew they were being monitored. He took a deep breath. "Did Maggie ask you to kill her before September of 1995?"

"Yes," Jamie said. "In January. We were on vacation in Quebec."

"What was your response at the time?"

"I told her to stop talking like that." He shook his head. "I knew it was bad f or her, but I didn't think it was as bad as all that." He looked to the corner of the courtroom, to the American flag, dusty and still. "I didn't know it was going to get worse."

A Hie sat across from Cam at an Armenian diner just around the corner from the superior court. Spread between them were platters of lamb and saffron rice, tabouli, hummus, and a basket of pita. Most of the food remained un touched.

"Do you think we should bring something back for Jamie?" Allie asked.

"I'm sure his lawyer will take care of it," Cam said. He leaned against the b anquette and watched his wife. He couldn't quite be-Jodi Picoult lieve how easily she'd agreed to go out to lunch with him. He must have c aught her at a vulnerable moment, worn down from the sharp emotion of Jam ie's morning testimony.

"Do you think he's doing okay? How he's talking, and the way he looks up t here?"

Cam nodded. "I've been watching the jury. Some of the women on the left sid e were crying a little when he mentioned the treatments. That has to be a d ecent sign."

"Graham says you can't trust a jury. They'll act one way one minute and turn around and stab you in the back. Besides, the trial isn't about whether or no t Jamie and Maggie were in a difficult, horrible situation. It's about whethe r or not he was crazy when he killed her."

"Which he wasn't," Cam said.

Allie shot him a look. "Thank God you weren't called to serve." Cam pushed a wedge of pita bread toward her. "You've got to eat something. You look like you'll keel over if the wind picks up." Allie stuffed the pita into her mouth. "Thanks a lot," she said sarcasticall y. She stared at Cam, in full uniform, his heavy gun belt riding high on his hips and his badge catching the reflected light from the window. "You know,

" she said, smiling shyly, "I always feel awfully safe going places with you when you're dressed like that."

Cam laughed. "You wouldn't believe how many people at the court have aske d me where the bathroom is. They think I'm a security guard." Allie leaned across the table and adjusted his collar. The brush of her finger s beneath his chin sent a chill down his spine. "I don't know if it's the unif orm that does it for me. Maybe it's the gun. Maybe it's just you." Maybe it's because when he's dressed like that, it is hard to believe he would lie. She sank against the seat, and Cam instinctively leaned forward, trying to p ull her back and knowing that he'd already lost her. "You realize they came to town the same day," Allie said quietly. "Jamie and Mia."

"I know. I remember asking her if she knew him." His heart was racing again

, simply because of the topic. But this time, Allie wasn't yelling at him. She was in a public place and she was speak-ing softly and holding out a little sliver of trust, just large enough to fit on the small saucer that the waitress had dropped off with their bill.

"Did you laugh at me?" she whispered. "I think of you two, laughing at me." Cam had listened to heartrending stories all morning, and he didn't think an y of Jamie's testimony had cut him as deeply and as painfully as what Allie had just said.

He thought of Mia; of how, when they were together, there was simply no room for anyone else. "No," Cam said. He kept his eyes locked to Allie's as he r eached across the table and took her hand. For the first time, she did not p ull away. Her fingers fluttered against his palm, then came to rest.

"No," he repeated, smiling from the inside out. "Never that." After lunch, Jamie sat in the witness box and conjured Maggie. Graham aske d questions from time to time, but it was only to guide Jamie in the right direction. He began on the night of January fifteenth, when Maggie return ed from the doctor; he would finish when he drove up to the Wheelock polic e and asked for his cousin.

She had been grasping a red polo shirt when she asked him to kill her. The b ox she was using to store her clothes was about three-quarters full. On the top were the bras she had been able to wear before the operation. He was hol ding her hands. "I want you to kill me," she said.

"You've got to be kidding," Jamie answered. "Absolutely not." Maggie pulled away from him, letting the shirt fall between them like a pudd le of blood. "Jamie, let me go. You're being selfish." He watched her frail shoulders tremble with the strength of her certainty an d he sat on their bed and realized he was about to say the most awful words he could. "No," he told her. "You are." She turned around and sank to the edge of the bed on the opposite side. They s at like studied figurines, their hands clasped in their laps, their heads bowe d. "I have a right to be selfish," Maggie said bitterly. "It's one of the few privileges my body has left me in possession of."

Jodi Picoult

Jamie picked up the red shirt and threw it back into her drawer. He reached i nto the liquor box for the bras, which slipped through his fingers like a ske in of silken ribbons. He put these back in Maggie's dresser too. They went to bed and fell asleep the way they were most comfortable: with M

aggie's back to his front, one of his arms beneath the pillow, the other cu pping her remaining breast. Sometime in the middle of the night, when his f ingers relaxed, his hand brushed over the flat plane of her chest. He woke up feeling for her scar.

She drew in a sharp breath.

"Am I hurting you?"

Maggie turned in his arms. "On what level?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.

She had looked at him before like that. Jamie liked to think of it as her Med usa look, the one that froze him in his tracks and rendered him incapable of thinking. But this time, in the middle of her gaze, her eyes widened just the slightest bit. And he knew that she couldn't even plead with him because of the pain.

He did not know what it would be like to go to sleep each night wondering i f you would wake up in the morning. To stare into the bathroom mirror and s ee the sunken eyes, the bald patches on your scalp, to look at the jagged s car across what used to be your breast--and to thank God you could still st and on your own two feet and see your face clearly.

Jamie did know what it was like, however, to kiss your wife each night in b ed and put behind the pressure of your lips a silent, last goodbye, just in case, a sentiment you'd never verbalize because it would feed her fear. He knew how he woke up sometimes to check her breathing. He knew how very tir ed he was, how he forced himself to drag up just a little more energy. He was the one who spoke first. "Why can't you take pills? I'll get them for y ou. I won't call 911."

In the black night, with the sounds of their house settling around them, even this talk of death had a comfort zone. Maggie touched her hand to his chest. It was a stab in the dark, but her palm landed just over his heart, as if sh e knew she'd held it all along. "I want you touching me," she said. "I want y our hands on me the minute I go."

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She rolled onto her stomach and propped up on her elbows. The prospect of f inally controlling this nightmare had her eyes gleaming, her smile sincere.

"Do it now,' she begged. "Do it before you lose your nerve." Jamie turned onto his side, where he wouldn't see her. "Sure," he muttered.

"Let me just grab my gun and I'll blow off the back of your head. Or I can put my hands around your throat and shake you back and forth until your ne ck snaps."

He was being crude; he knew it. But he didn't see any other way to shock her back to reality. He felt Maggie slip her arms under his and embrace him. "A pillow. It wouldn't hurt."

He was silent for so long she believed he had fallen asleep. The morning was just unraveling when Jamie turned and drew her close. "I want this weekend with you," he said, slightly nauseated by the nature of the bargain. "I pick the time and I pick the place."