Jodi Picoult - Nineteen Minutes

Nineteen Minutes

If we dont change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.

-CHINESE PROVERB

By the time you read this, I hope to be dead.

You cant undo something thats happened; you cant take back a word thats already been said out loud. Youll think about me and wish that you had been able to talk me out of this. Youll try to figure out what would have been the one right thing to say, to do. I guess I should tell you, Dont blame yourself; this isnt your fault, but that would be a lie. We both know that I didnt get here by myself.

Youll cry, at my funeral. Youll say it didnt have to be this way. You will act like everyone expects you to. But will you miss me?

More importantly-will I miss you?

Does either one of us really want to hear the answer to that question?

March 6, 2007

In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.

Nineteen minutes is how long it took the Tennessee Titans to sell out of tickets to the play-offs. Its the length of a sitcom, minus the commercials. Its the driving distance from the Vermont border to the town of Sterling, New Hampshire.

In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem.

In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.

In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.

As usual, Alex Cormier was running late. It took thirty-two minutes to drive from her house in Sterling to the superior court in Grafton County, New Hampshire, and that was only if she speeded through Orford. She hurried downstairs in her stockings, carrying her heels and the files shed brought home with her over the weekend. She twisted her thick copper hair into a knot and anchored it at the base of her neck with bobby pins, transforming herself into the person she needed to be before she left her house.

Alex had been a superior court judge now for thirty-four days. Shed believed that, having proved her mettle as a district court judge for the past five years, this time around the appointment might be easier. But at forty, she was still the youngest judge in the state. She still had to fight to establish herself as a fair justice-her history as a public defender preceded her into her courtroom, and prosecutors assumed shed side with the defense. When Alex had submitted her name years ago for the bench, it had been with the sincere desire to make sure people in this legal system were innocent until proven guilty. She just never anticipated that, as a judge, she might not be given the same benefit of the doubt.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee drew Alex into the kitchen. Her daughter was hunched over a steaming mug at the kitchen table, poring over a textbook. Josie looked exhausted-her blue eyes were bloodshot; her chestnut hair was a knotty ponytail. Tell me you havent been up all night, Alex said.

Josie didnt even glance up. I havent been up all night, she parroted.

Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and slid into the chair across from her. Honestly?

You asked me to tell you something, Josie said. You didnt ask for the truth.

Alex frowned. You shouldnt be drinking coffee.

And you shouldnt be smoking cigarettes.

Alex felt her face heat up. I dont

Mom, Josie sighed, even when you open up the bathroom windows, I can still smell it on the towels. She glanced up, daring Alex to challenge her other vices.

Alex herself didnt have any other vices. She didnt have time for any vices. She would have liked to say that she knew with authority that Josie didnt have any vices, either, but she would only be making the same inference the rest of the world did when they met Josie: a pretty, popular, straight-A student who knew better than most the consequences of falling off the straight-and-narrow. A girl who was destined for great things. A young woman who was exactly what Alex had hoped her daughter would grow to become.

Josie had once been so proud to have a mother as a judge. Alex could remember Josie broadcasting her career to the tellers at the bank, the baggers in the grocery store, the flight attendants on planes. Shed ask Alex about her cases and her decisions. That had all changed three years ago, when Josie entered high school, and the tunnel of communication between them slowly bricked shut. Alex didnt necessarily think that Josie was hiding anything more than any other teenager, but it was different: a normal parent might metaphorically judge her childs friends, whereas Alex could do it legally.

Whats on the docket today? Alex said.

Unit test. What about you?

Arraignments, Alex replied. She squinted across the table, trying to read Josies textbook upside down. Chemistry?

Catalysts. Josie rubbed her temples. Substances that speed up a reaction, but stay unchanged by it. Like if youve got carbon monoxide gas and hydrogen gas and you toss in zinc and chromium oxide, andwhats the matter?

Just having a little flashback of why I got a C in Orgo. Have you had breakfast?

Coffee, Josie said.

Coffee doesnt count.

It does when youre in a rush, Josie pointed out.

Alex weighed the costs of being even five minutes later, or getting another black mark against her in the cosmic good-parenting tally. Shouldnt a seventeen-year-old be able to take care of herself in the morning? Alex started pulling items out of the refrigerator: eggs, milk, bacon. I once presided over an involuntary emergency admission at the state mental hospital for a woman who thought she was Emeril. Her husband had her committed when she put a pound of bacon in the blender and chased him around the kitchen with a knife, yelling Bam!

Josie glanced up from her textbook. For real?

Oh, believe me, I cant make these things up. Alex cracked an egg into a skillet. When I asked her why shed put a pound of bacon in the blender, she looked at me and said that she and I must just cook differently.

Josie stood up and leaned against the counter, watching her mother cook. Domesticity wasnt Alexs strong point-she didnt know how to make a pot roast but was proud to have memorized the phone numbers of every pizza place and Chinese restaurant in Sterling that offered free delivery. Relax, Alex said dryly. I think I can do this without setting the house on fire.

But Josie took the skillet out of her hands and laid the strips of bacon in it, like sailors bunking tightly together. How come you dress like that? she asked.

Alex glanced down at her skirt, blouse, and heels and frowned. Why? Is it too Margaret Thatcher?

No, I meanwhy do you bother? No one knows what you have on under your robe. You could wear, like, pajama pants. Or that sweater you have from college thats got holes in the elbows.

Whether or not people see it, Im still expected to dresswell, judiciously.

A cloud passed over Josies face, and she busied herself over the stove, as if Alex had somehow given the wrong answer. Alex stared at her daughter-the bitten half-moon fingernails, the freckle behind her ear, the zigzag part in her hair-and saw instead the toddler whod wait at the babysitters window at sundown, because she knew that was when Alex came to get her. Ive never worn pajamas to work, Alex admitted, but I do sometimes close the door to chambers and take a nap on the floor.

A slow, surprised smile played over Josies face. She held her mothers admission as if it were a butterfly lighting on her hand by accident: an event so startling you could not call attention to it without risking its loss. But there were miles to drive and defendants to arraign and chemical equations to interpret, and by the time Josie had set the bacon to drain on a pad of paper toweling, the moment had winged away.