Excerpt of Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
(Page 6 of 11)
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It was when we came home the summer after freshman year in
college that things began to change. We were all chafing under our parents'
rules and roofs, but Eric rubbed himself raw, lightening up only when we three
would go out at night. Eric would always suggest a bar, and he knew the ones
that didn't card minors. Afterward, when Fitz was gone, Eric and I would spread
an old quilt on the far shore of the town lake and undress each other, swatting
away mosquitoes from the pieces of each other we'd laid claim to. But every time
I kissed him, there was liquor on his breath, and I've always hated the smell of
alcohol. It's a weird quirk, but no stranger than those people who can't stand
the scent of gas, I suppose, and have to hold their breath while they fill up
their cars. At any rate, I'd kiss Eric and inhale that fermenting, bitter smell
and roll away from him. He'd call me a prude, and I started to think maybe I was
one—that was easier than admitting what was really driving us apart.
Sometimes we find ourselves walking through our lives
blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot.
It was this way for Fitz and me, the decade after high school. If Eric told us
that he had a beer only every now and then, we believed him. If his hands shook
when he was sober, we turned away. If I mentioned his drinking, it became my
problem, not his. And yet, in spite of all this, I still couldn't end our
relationship. All of my memories were laced with him; to extract them would mean
losing the flavor of my childhood.
The day I found out I was pregnant, Eric drove his car off the
road, through a flimsy guard rail, and into a local farmer's cornfield. When he
called to tell me what had happened—blaming it on a woodchuck that ran across
the road—I hung up the phone and drove to Fitz's apartment. I think we have a
problem, I said to him, as if it was the three of us, which, in reality, it was.
Fitz had listened to me speak a truth we'd taken great pains
never to utter out loud, plus a newer, magnificent, frightening one. I can't do
this alone, I told him.
He had looked at my belly, still flat. You aren't.
As one of Wexton's three attorneys, Eric does real estate
transfers and wills and the occasional divorce, but he's done a little trial
work, too—representing defendants charged with DUI and petty thefts. He usually
wins, which is no surprise to me. After all, more than once I have been a jury
of one, and I've always managed to be persuaded.
Case in point: my wedding. I was perfectly happy to sign a
marriage certificate at the courthouse. But then Eric suggested that a big party
wasn't such a bad idea, and before I knew what had happened, I was buried in a
pile of brochures for reception venues, and band tapes, and price lists from
florists.
I'm sitting on the living room floor after dinner, swatches of
fabric covering my legs like a patchwork quilt. "Who cares whether the napkins
are blue or teal?" I complain. "Isn't teal really just blue on steroids,
anyway?"
Copyright © 2005 by Jodi Picoult. Printed by permission. Excerpted from the book Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
