Larger Than Life (Novella) (13 page)

The memories on the other side of my mother’s disappearance are just as spotty. I
can tell you about my new bedroom at my grandma’s place, which had a big-girl bed—my
first. There was a little woven basket on the nightstand, which was inexplicably filled
with pink packets of Sweet’N Low, although there was no coffeemaker around. Every
night, even before I could count, I’d peek inside to make sure they were still there.
I still do.

I can tell you about visiting my father, at the beginning. The halls at Hartwick House
smelled like ammonia and pee, and even when my grandma urged me to talk to him and
I climbed up on the bed, shivering at the thought of being so close to someone I recognized
and didn’t know at all, he didn’t speak or move. I can describe how tears leaked out
of his eyes as if it was a natural and expected phenomenon, the way a cold can of
soda sweats on a summer day.

I remember the nightmares I had, which weren’t really nightmares but just me being
awakened from a dead sleep by Maura’s loud trumpeting. Even after my grandma came
running into my room and explained to me that the matriarch elephant lived hundreds
of miles away now, in a new sanctuary in Tennessee, I had this nagging sense that
Maura was trying to tell me something, and that if I only spoke her language as well
as my mother had, I’d understand.

All I have left of my mother is her research. I pore over her journals, because I
know one day the words will rearrange themselves on a page and point me toward her.
She taught me, even in absentia, that all good science starts with a hypothesis, which
is just a hunch dressed up in fancy vocabulary. And my hunch is this: She would never
have left me behind, not willingly.

If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to prove it.

Jodi Picoult is the author of twenty-two novels, including the #1
New York Times
bestsellers
Lone Wolf
,
Between the Lines
,
Sing You Home
,
House Rules
,
Handle with Care
,
Change of Heart
,
Nineteen Minutes
, and
My Sister’s Keeper
. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.

The Storyteller
Lone Wolf
Sing You Home
House Rules
Change of Heart
Nineteen Minutes
The Tenth Circle
Vanishing Acts
My Sister’s Keeper
Second Glance
Perfect Match
Salem Falls
Plain Truth
Keeping Faith
The Pact
Mercy
Picture Perfect
Harvesting the Heart
Songs of the Humpback Whale

For Young Adults

Between the Lines

And For the Stage

Over the Moon: An Original Musical for Teens

Coming October 14, 2014

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