Free Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult Page A

shot. “I don't wear nail polish,” Delia says wearily.
“No kidding.” I step toward her. “What have you told Sophie, anyway?”
“She saw the police take her grandfather away in handcuffs. What was I supposed to say to her?” Delia shakes her head. “I told her it was just a game, like the one we were playing when the cops came.” She closes her eyes. “Trouble.”
“Where's Eric?”
“At the office. Filing paperwork to try a case in Arizona.” Her voice stumbles over the words, and she sinks into a chair. “You want to hear something funny, Fitz? I used to wish every night that my mother was still alive. I'm not talking about when I was a kid, I mean as recently as a week ago. You know . . . like when Sophie was a tooth in the school play and I wished my mother could have seen her, or when I had to pick out the dishes for the main course at the wedding and I couldn't even pronounce half of the ones on the caterer's list. I used to pretend that there had been some hospital mix-up, and that my mother would show up saying it had all been an awful mistake. Well, look at what happens when you get what you ask for: I have a mother, but I have no idea who I am. I don't know my actual birthday. I don't even know if I'm really thirty-one. And I thought I knew my father ... but it turns out that was the biggest lie of all.”

Vanishing Acts
“He's the same man you grew up with,” I say carefully, treading over a minefield full of false comfort. “He's the same man he was yesterday.”
“Is he?” Delia retorts. “I've been through some pretty awful situations with Eric, but I never thought about picking Sophie up and stealing her away so that he'd never see her again. I can't imagine a person ever getting to that point. But my own father apparently did.”
I could tell her from personal experience that when people we love make choices, we don't always understand them. But we can go on loving them, just the same. It isn't a matter of comprehension. It's forgiveness.
But all this took me a lifetime to discover, and where has it gotten me? To the point where, if Delia asks me to jump, I strap on my moon boots. Some lessons can't be taught, they simply have to be learned.
“I'm sure he had a reason for doing what he did,” I say. “I'm sure he wants to talk to you.”
“And then what happens? Are we supposed to go back to the way it used to be? I don't quite see us meeting my mother for dinner every other Sunday and laughing about old times. And I don't know how I'm ever supposed to be able to listen to what he says without wondering if he's telling me the truth.” She starts to cry. “I wish this never happened,” she says. “I wish I'd never found out.” I hesitate a second before hauling her into my arms–touching Delia is something I am always careful about; it comes at such great cost to me. I feel her heart beat hard against mine, two prisoners communicating through a cell-block wall. I understand better than she'd imagine that history is indelible. You can mask it; you can patch it smooth and clear; but you will always know what's hidden underneath. I find myself selfishly leaning closer, so that I breathe in the scent of her hair. Delia taught me that human scents are like snowflakes–each one's different. Blindfolded, I could find Delia by smell alone: She is lily-milk and snow, fresh-cut grass in summer, the perfume of my childhood.
She shifts, so the softest skin below her ear brushes against my lips, and that's all it takes for me to jump back as if I've been burned. I know what it's like to wake up thinking you will be able to cast the people who play the starring roles in your life, only to realize that you have to watch it from the audience. For Delia, the whole play has changed in the middle, and the least I can do is to be her constant. She had always trusted me to fix what's wrong: a dead car battery, a flooded basement, a broken heart. This time, I am out of my league, but I try to