Mercy (20 page)

"They're pretty," he said, brushing one pansy. "And they smell like spring." Mia sat down on the couch opposite Cam and plucked one branch from the arr angement. "Apple blossoms. They're very hard to get in October." She stare d at the patterns of the flowers, dotting

the bark in a neat spiral. "Do you know that, supposedly, if you cut an apple in half on Christmas Eve, and put the left half close to your heart and the right half by the front door, the person you want will be found near the righ t half at midnight?"

Cam watched her hands absently strip the bark from the branch. "Is this so mething you've done?'

"No," Mia said. "I've just heard of it."

"How do you know which is which?"

"What do you mean?"

Cam touched the branch closest to him. "Which is the left half and which is t he right half of the apple?"

Mia raised her eyebrows. "I don't know. I suppose it all depends on your po int of view." She ran a finger over the rim of one of the two teacups, but did not make an effort to pour out, or even ask Cam if he wanted some tea. He saw her knees bounce as she tapped the floor with her feet, and realized she was even more nervous than he was.

Suddenly she bolted up and walked past him to the flower cooler. From his se at, Cam could see the reflection of her face in the glass. Her features seem ed so drawn that the slightest motion of her mouth might make her shatter. " When I was traveling," she said, "I learned everything I could about flowers

. On Corfu, the natives wear sunflowers as hats. And in France, the country wives use clematis as a clothesline." She passed a hand down the chilled fro nt of the glass case, grasping for the handle as if she were drowning. "Did you know Allie keeps fresh herbs, too? Here's basil. It's supposed to be a s ymbol of hatred." She turned quickly, and offered a fragrant sprig she'd bro ken off to Cam, who had come to stand behind her. He took it from her, set i t on the edge of the couch, and then closed his fingers over hers. Mia tugged free and crossed her arms over her chest. "But in Romania," she s aid, her voice high and thin, "if a woman gets a man to take basil from her own hand, he'll be faithful for the rest of his life." Suddenly she sank aga inst the cooler, as if her knees had simply given out. She buried her face i n her hands. "Oh, God," she murmured. "Oh, my God." Cam drew her into his arms and held her until all the brittle-ness melted fro m her carriage and left her soft and sobbing against

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him. "Sssh," he whispered into her hair. His eyes fell on the basil, balanced on the edge of the couch. "Sssh."

yamie MacDonald lived in a modest Colonial on the north side of the Cummin gton duck pond. It had been painted white, and its black shutters were beg inning to peel. When Allie pulled up in her car and parked in the driveway

, a neighbor waved to her, as if she had been expected.

There was a pretty wreath on the front door. Curly willow had been twisted into the shape of a heart, and dried red and white roses were snaked throug h its turns. Allie dug Jamie's house keys out of her pocket and opened the door.

The house was neat and very quiet. Allie knew from Jamie that he and Maggi e had left Cummington in a hurry, but there didn't seem to be any dust, an d the polished wood floor that ran down the length of the hall was unmarke d by muddy boots or black heel prints. The house smelled of lemon wax, eve rgreen, and something that Allie could not put her finger on but would hav e bet was a fragrance that simply signified Maggie herself.

"Well," she said aloud, more to hear the way her voice sounded in someone el se's home than anything else, "we've got work to do." She hung her coat over the knob of the banister and dug Jamie's list out of the back pocket of her jeans. "The file boxes are in the study," she read, and she poked her head into the first room off to the right.

It was a dining room, decorated with a large oval cherry table and an Irish lace runner. An oversized pewter goblet sat in the center of the table, fill ed with chubby wax grapes. From the dining room she stepped into the den, wh ere the vacuous black eye of the TV screen stared back at her, and the simpl e dips of the couch showed that Maggie and Jamie liked to sit side by side.

/ should be in forensics, she thought, tabulating the hundreds of things sh e had already learned about Jamie and his wife simply by stepping through a few rooms of his house. She went into the kitchen and opened the refrigera tor, wrinkling her nose as she poured the sour milk down the sink drain and threw some moldy bread into the trash. Then she found the study. It was painted an old-world blue, and one wall was filled with Jodi Picoult

ancient yellowed books that Allie could not imagine anyone having the patie nce to read. There were two desks in the room: one the wide, tilted run of an architect's workspace, the other a simple oak structure with hideaway ca binets. Allie moved to the architect's desk first. Jamie had mentioned that Maggie was an illustrator, or she had been before it became too difficult to work. There were no pictures-in-progress tacked to the surface, but a sm all bowl painted with Mickey Mouse's face held markers in all the colors of Allie's own roses: sage and lemon and honey and shell pink; sky blue and a ubergine, topaz and ivory. Allie picked the markers up and rolled them betw een her palms, resisting the urge to draw a rainbow.

Clipped to the corner of the white desk was a photograph of Jamie and Maggi e. Allie peered closer, fascinated by the mobile smile of Maggie's mouth an d the shine of Maggie's eyes. Jamie's arm was looped around her shoulders, his face was turned in profile as he pressed a kiss onto her cheek. Allie touched her finger to the spot on Maggie's cheek that Jamie was kissing

, then touched her own mouth. Feeling slightly guilty, she pulled the photo f rom its clip and tucked it into the pocket of her chamois shirt. Jamie's desk held all the bills and all the tax records. She found the fire-r esistant strongbox under the right drawer, just as he'd said she would. The k ey was already in the lock; she had only to turn it to reveal their marriage certificate, their passports, the deed to the house, and their insurance. She took a manila envelope from the desk, emptied its contents, and placed these things inside. Then she removed the picture from her pocket and slipped it g ently on top of the other documents.

If she was the jury, she knew what she'd believe more.

Allie walked upstairs to the bedroom and opened the three doors inside to f ind two closets and the bathroom. One entire shelf in the linen closet was filled with ovulation-predictor tests, carefully stacked. She took one out and stared at the fuzzy picture of a mother and child on the package. Maggi e and Jamie had no children, neither did Allie and Cam. The difference was, Maggie and Jamie had wanted a baby. Allie did too--she had from the moment she'd started dating Cam--but even now, years later, he insisted 139

he wasn't ready. And in this, like all other things, she would wait for him. Allie closed the linen closet and walked to the other side of the bedroom. She sat down in front of Maggie's vanity table and sprayed a bit of perfume from an atomizer onto her neck. Joy. She knew the smell; she had never bee n able to afford it. To the left of the perfume was deodorant. To the right was an army of amber plastic vials containing Demerol, Valium, and a host of other medicines that Allie did not recognize.

Oh, Maggie, she thought, staring into the mirror, / would have moved them. I would not have kept them in a place where I could see them every time 1

looked for my own reflection.

With the precision of a research scientist, Allie wrote down the names of th e prescription drugs and their dosage strength on the front of the manila en velope.

In retrospect, she could not say what had made her do it, but Allie methodi cally began to get undressed. She tucked her sneakers under the vanity tabl e and hung her shirt and jeans over the chair and walked into Maggie MacDon ald's closet.

She dressed in a filmy camisole the color of apricots, and an ankle-length sk irt made of silk faille in all the shades of a sunset. It was big at the wais t, so she hiked it tighter with a leather belt embroidered with a Native Amer ican bead design. Then she found a big blue turtleneck sweater that reached t o her knees and seemed to swallow her alive.

Maggie had been much taller.

In a hatbox on the top shelf of the closet she found a wig that was the sa me color as Maggie's hair. She didn't think Maggie had been wearing a wig; surely that would have come out during the autopsy. More likely this was from a year or so ago, when she had undergone chemotherapy that did not wo rk.

Allie crouched in front of the vanity table and tugged and pushed her own dul l brown hair under the neat mesh cap until a swing of artificial hair came to touch in two points at the base of her chin.

She went through the drawers of the lingerie chest, pulling on thigh-high st ockings and then argyle socks and tennis Peds over those. She wrapped a scar f printed with exotic fruit around her

Jodi Picoult

neck, and a longer, more diaphanous one about her hips. In the top drawer s he found Maggie's old bras, as wispy and thin as a memory, buried beneath t he sturdy white cotton prosthetic ones for a mastectomy patient. Feeling sick, Allie clamped her hand to her mouth with the intention of runn ing to the bathroom, but when turning around she faced the bed. For the firs t time she noticed that it was unmade. In a house where everything had its p lace, where dust didn't deign to settle, the tangled blue sheets and knotted

, rolled comforter seemed to be a violation. She inched closer, dropping dow n to the edge of the bed and reaching for a pillow. She brought it to her fa ce, smelling Jamie's aftershave and Joy.

It was possible that Maggie had felt too sick to make the bed on the day the y left, or that Jamie had been the last one to leave it. For all she knew, M

aggie might not have even been sleeping upstairs at that point, too tired to go up and down. But Allie could see them as clearly as the bright patterns woven into the skirt she wore: Jamie and Maggie, about to walk out the door of their house, until Maggie turned suddenly and grasped Jamie's hand and dr agged him back up the stairs to make love one last time in their own home. She lay down on the bed in Maggie MacDonald's clothing, pulled the sheets over her head, and wept.

Cam's face turned the same way as Mia's when they kissed. They scraped teet h and mashed noses before getting it right, but the simple act of finding t heir way together instead of having an expected pattern made his head swim. They sat on the couch, kissing like teenagers, their hands trapped between their bodies like gypsy moths, darting beneath clothing and batting agains t skin.

She smelled, felt, and tasted different than Allie, and Cam allowed himself to think this just once. Then he concentrated on learning the texture of the bac ks of her hands; the feel of the pulse at her temple; the clear, heady scent o f her hair.

He undressed Mia slowly, waiting for her to clutch at the sides of her shirt or make a tiny cry of protest, but when she did nothing he simply continued

. She sat on the couch on the white blur of her

big shirt, which unfolded beneath her legs like the opened petals of a lily. Then he stood up and began to unbutton his uniform.

The badge struck the edge of the table when he tossed it away, reminding hi m of exactly who he was and why he should not be doing this, but he pushed the thought aside to step from his shoes and shuck his way out of his pants

. When he was naked in front of her, Mia reached out to touch his thigh. Sh e got to her feet and walked around him in a little circle, trailing her fi ngers so that they were always brushing his skin. "Oh, my," she said softly

, coming to face him. "Where are the mistakes?" He caught her up close then, lifting her to the tips of her toes so that the y pressed together at the shoulders and stomach and legs. He kissed a curl t hat had worked its way to the corner of her mouth. He followed her down to t he couch and came into her slowly.

She saw Cam's beauty not in its entirety, but in bits and pieces, like a cam era's eye swinging slowly. She panned from the russet of his thick hair to t he veins beneath the white stretch of skin, to the simple sculpted V where t he muscle of his shoulder joined his bicep. She ran her hands down his chest and stomach to the spot where they were joined, and felt him shake. Their hearts were pounding between them, slightly out of rhythm. Cam knew he could not hold on, so he buried his face against her neck and, in the stron gest effort of will he had yet to face in his life, pulled out of Mia and cr ushed her against him.

He felt the spot, milky and sticky between them, as binding as guilt. "I didn

't have anything," he said, by way of explanation.

Mia nodded. "You'll have to do something about that next time." Cam felt his heart jump. She wanted to see him again. She wanted to do this again. He rolled to his side, nearly knocking her off the narrow couch, and draped her body over his, realizing for the first time that Mia was crying. With his finger, he wiped away a tear that was balanced over her nostril. "W

hy?" he said, not sure he wanted to know the answer. Mia shivered. "I was thinking of my parents," she whispered. "I was thinking I've waited far too long for you."

Cam shifted his weight, still afraid that she might break, or in 142 HH Jodi Picoult

the blink of an eye puff into a little cloud and disappear. He reached blindly behind him to the edge of the couch, and retrieved the sprig of basil. He tuc ked it behind Mia's ear. "About that tea," he said, and he watched her turn li ke a sunflower into the light and strength of his smile.

/n 1692, forty MacDonalds of Glencoe, a town not five miles from Carrymui r, were murdered by Campbell soldiers who had enjoyed their hospitality f or two weeks.

The MacDonald laird had been delinquent in pledging his support to William of Orange, waiting until the last day of the prescribed time to swear his a llegiance. But he had given his word, so when a troop of Campbell soldiers came to Glencoe and asked to stay in the name of the English crown, the lai rd had no misgivings.