Lone Wolf A Novel by Jodi Picoult Page A

between us, sometimes when she asked me to play, I’d go along with it. One of her favorite games was to hide inside her bedroom closet and blast off. In the dark, she’d chatter away about the planets we were passing, and when she opened the door again, she gasped about the aliens with six eyes and the mountains that shivered like green jelly.
    Believe me, even though I was old enough to know better, all I wanted was to see those aliens and mountains. I think even as a kid, when I realized I was different, my greatest hope was that change was possible, that I could be just like everyone else. Instead, I would open the closet door and glance around at the same old dresser and bureau, at my mother, putting away Cara’s folded laundry.
    It was no surprise that when my father went into the wild, Cara offered different explanations to anyone who asked: He’s on a dig with egyptologists in Cairo. He’s training for a space shuttle mission. He’s filming a movie with Brad Pitt.
    I have no idea if she really believed the things she was saying, but I can tell you this much: I wished it were that easy for me to come up with excuses for my father.
    The floor of the hospital where Cara and the other orthopedicspatients are kept is considerably different from the ICU. There’s more activity, for one, and the deathly quiet that makes you want to lower your voice to a whisper on my father’s floor is replaced here by the sounds of nurses interacting with patients, the squeak of the book cart being pushed by a candy striper, the spill of voices from a dozen televisions bleeding past the thresholds of the rooms.
    When I walk into Cara’s room, she’s watching Wheel of Fortune. “Only the good die young,” she says, solving the puzzle.
    My mother spots me first. “Edward?” she says. “Is everything all right?”
    She means with my father. Of course she’d think that. The look on Cara’s face makes my stomach hurt.
    “He’s fine. I mean, he’s not fine. But he’s not any different.” I am already fucking this up. “Mom, could I talk to Cara alone for a minute?”
    My mother looks at Cara, but then she nods. “I’ll go give the twins a call.”
    I sit down in the chair my mother vacated and drag it closer to the bed. “So,” I begin, gesturing to Cara’s bound shoulder. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
    My sister stares at me. “I’ve been hurt worse,” she says evenly.
    “I, uh, I’m sorry that this is the way we had to have a reunion.”
    She shrugs, her mouth pressed into a tight line. “Yeah. So why are you even here?” she asks after a minute. “Why don’t you just go back to whatever you were doing and leave us alone?”
    “I will, if you want,” I say. “But I’d really like to tell you what I’ve been doing. And I’d kind of like to know what you’ve been up to, too.”
    “I’ve been living with Dad. You know, the guy you’re downstairs pretending to know better than I do.”
    I rub my hand over my face. “Isn’t this hard enough without you hating me?”
    “Oh. Gosh. You’re right. What am I thinking? I’m supposed to welcome you back with open arms. I’m supposed to ignore the fact that you tore our family to shreds because you’re selfish and you left instead of trying to talk something out, so now you can ride in like some white knight and pretend you give a damn about Dad.”
    There’s no way to convince her that just because you put half a planet between you and someone else, you can’t drive that person out of your thoughts. Believe me. I tried.
    “I know why you left,” Cara says, jutting her chin up. “You came out and Dad went ballistic. Mom told me so.”
    Cara was too young to understand back then, but she’s not now; she would have eventually asked questions. And of course my mother would have told her what she believed to be the answers.
    “You know what? I don’t even care why you left,” Cara says. “I just want to know why you bothered to come back when no