Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult Read Free Book Online Page B

you’d covered with iridescent gift wrap, and every time Sean swore in front of you, you netted a quarter. Just this month alone, you were up to forty-two dollars—you’d kept count the whole way home from Florida. I took a quarter out of my pocket and put it into the jar on the table nearby, but you weren’t looking; your attention was still focused out
side, on a frozen pond at the edge of the lawn, where Amelia was skating.
    Your sister had been ice skating since, well, since she was your age. She and Piper’s daughter, Emma, took lessons together twice a week, and there was nothing you wanted more than to copy your sister. Skating, however, happened to be a sport you’d never, ever be allowed to try. Once, you’d broken your arm when you were pretending to skate on one foot across the kitchen linoleum in your socks.
    “Between my foul language and your dad’s, you’re going to have enough cold, hard cash to buy a plane ticket out of here pretty soon,” I joked, trying to distract you. “Where to? Vegas?”
    You turned away from the window and looked at me. “That would be dumb,” you said. “I can’t play Blackjack till I’m twenty-one.”
    Sean had taught you how. Also Hearts, Texas Hold ’Em, and Five-Card Stud. I’d been horrified, until I realized that playing Go Fish for hours at a time might officially qualify as torture. “So the Caribbean, then?”
    As if you would ever travel unimpeded, as if you would ever take a vacation without thinking about this last one. “I was thinking of buying some books. Like Dr. Seuss stuff.”
    You read at a sixth-grade level, even though your peers were still sounding out the alphabet. It was one of the few perks of OI: when you had to be immobile, you’d pore over books, or get on the Internet. In fact, when Amelia wanted to rile you, she called you Wikipedia. “Dr. Seuss?” I said. “Really?”
    “They’re not for me. I thought we could ship them to that hospital in Florida. The only thing they had to read was Where’s Spot? and that gets really old after the fifth or sixth time.”
    That left me speechless. All I wanted to do was forget about that stupid hospital, to curse the insurance nightmare it had led to and the fact that you would be stuck in the four-month hell of a spica cast—and there you were, already past the pity party. Just because you had every right to feel sorry for yourself didn’t mean you ever took the opportunity to do so. In fact, sometimes I was sure that the reason people stared at you with your crutches and wheelchair had nothing to do with your disabilities, and everything to do with the fact that you had abilities they only dreamed of.
    The phone rang again—for the briefest of seconds I fantasized that it
was the CEO of the health insurance company, calling to personally apologize. But it was Piper, checking in. “Is this a good time?”
    “Not really,” I said. “Why don’t you call back in a few months?”
    “Is she in a lot of pain? Did you call Rosenblad?” Piper asked. “Where’s Sean?”
    “Yes, no, and I hope earning enough to cover the credit card bills for the vacation we didn’t get to have.”
    “Well, listen, I’ll pick up Amelia for skating tomorrow, when I take Emma. One less thing for you to worry about.”
    Worry about it? I hadn’t even known Amelia had practice. It wasn’t just on the bottom of the totem pole; it wasn’t even on the totem pole.
    “What else do you need?” Piper asked. “Groceries? Gas? Johnny Depp?”
    “I was going to say Xanax…but now I might take door number three.”
    “It figures. You’re married to a guy who looks like Brad Pitt—with a better body—and you go for the long-haired artsy type.”
    “Grass is always greener, I guess.” Absently I watched you reach for the old laptop computer beside you and try to balance it on your lap. It kept toppling over, because of the angle of your cast, so I grabbed a throw pillow and set it on your lap as a