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Authors: Jodi Picoult
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hell.”
When he leaves the room, I pull my chair a little closer to my father’s bed. If you had told me when I was eighteen that I would beback in Beresford, I would have laughed in your face. Back then, all I knew was that I had to get away from here as fast as possible. As a teenager, I never realized that the thing I was running from would still be here, waiting, no matter how far I ran.
Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you’re avoiding them.
If I were Hattie the nurse, I’d pray for my father. But I’ve never been religious. My father worshipped at the temple of nature, and my mother threw religion at me like a bucket of paint, but none of it ever stuck.
I find myself thinking of the first week I was in Thailand, when I noticed little decorative houses on pedestals in front of hotels, in the corners of restaurants, in front of local bars, in the middle of the woods, and in the yard of every house. Some were permanent, made of brick and wood. Some were temporary. Each house was filled with statues, furniture, figures of people or animals. On the balconies were incense holders, candlesticks, flower vases.
Most Thai are Buddhists, but bits of the old beliefs still creep through every now and then, like these spirit houses. Even now, the Thai feel that spirits need shelter when they aren’t in the heavens, in caves, or trees, or waterfalls. The Guardian Spirits of the Land offer different types of protection: from helping in business affairs to safeguarding the home, from protecting animals, forests, water, and barns to watching over temples and forts. In the six years I’ve been in Thailand, I’ve seen spirit house offerings ranging from flowers and bananas and rice to cigarettes and live chickens.
Here’s the interesting thing about spirit houses: when a familymoves, there’s a special ceremony to transfer the spirit from its original spirit house to its new place of residence. Only after that can you get rid of the place the spirit used to call its home.
Looking at the husk of my father in his hospital bed, I wonder if he’s already moved on.
LUKE
I hated college. There were too many buildings, too much concrete. It seemed counterintuitive to be studying zoology from textbooks instead of sitting quietly for hours in the woods, experiencing animals firsthand. I had my fair share of women and parties, but you’d be just as likely to find me hiking the Presidential Range, or camping in the White Mountains. It got to the point where I could pick out the distinctive voices of a great gray owl or a bohemian waxwing, a pine grosbeak or black-throated blue warbler. I tracked black bear and white-tailed deer and moose.
When I graduated with a degree in zoology, I got hired as a keeper at the only zoo in New Hampshire, down in the Manchester area. Wigglesworth Animal Park was a privately owned establishment that was half petting zoo with a handful of wild animals thrown into the mix. I worked my way up from the alpacas to the fisher cats to the red fox and finally to the wolves. The pack of five was kept in a small double-fenced enclosure with thick trees and a ridged rise that the wolves would sit on during the daytime hours. Every three days one of the keepers would bring in food—the carcass of a calf purchased from an abattoir. Anyone who entered would carry a ski pole—and it wasn’t just the wolf keepers who did this but also those who worked with the cougars or the black bear or any other big animal. I don’t know what damage any of us could really have inflicted with a ski pole, but it wasn’t necessary, anyway. The wolves were far more scared of us than we were of them. The minute they heard the lock on the double gate being opened, they would rush through the thickest
When he leaves the room, I pull my chair a little closer to my father’s bed. If you had told me when I was eighteen that I would beback in Beresford, I would have laughed in your face. Back then, all I knew was that I had to get away from here as fast as possible. As a teenager, I never realized that the thing I was running from would still be here, waiting, no matter how far I ran.
Mistakes are like the memories you hide in an attic: old love letters from relationships that tanked, photos of dead relatives, toys from a childhood you miss. Out of sight is out of mind, but somewhere deep inside you know they still exist. And you also know that you’re avoiding them.
If I were Hattie the nurse, I’d pray for my father. But I’ve never been religious. My father worshipped at the temple of nature, and my mother threw religion at me like a bucket of paint, but none of it ever stuck.
I find myself thinking of the first week I was in Thailand, when I noticed little decorative houses on pedestals in front of hotels, in the corners of restaurants, in front of local bars, in the middle of the woods, and in the yard of every house. Some were permanent, made of brick and wood. Some were temporary. Each house was filled with statues, furniture, figures of people or animals. On the balconies were incense holders, candlesticks, flower vases.
Most Thai are Buddhists, but bits of the old beliefs still creep through every now and then, like these spirit houses. Even now, the Thai feel that spirits need shelter when they aren’t in the heavens, in caves, or trees, or waterfalls. The Guardian Spirits of the Land offer different types of protection: from helping in business affairs to safeguarding the home, from protecting animals, forests, water, and barns to watching over temples and forts. In the six years I’ve been in Thailand, I’ve seen spirit house offerings ranging from flowers and bananas and rice to cigarettes and live chickens.
Here’s the interesting thing about spirit houses: when a familymoves, there’s a special ceremony to transfer the spirit from its original spirit house to its new place of residence. Only after that can you get rid of the place the spirit used to call its home.
Looking at the husk of my father in his hospital bed, I wonder if he’s already moved on.
LUKE
I hated college. There were too many buildings, too much concrete. It seemed counterintuitive to be studying zoology from textbooks instead of sitting quietly for hours in the woods, experiencing animals firsthand. I had my fair share of women and parties, but you’d be just as likely to find me hiking the Presidential Range, or camping in the White Mountains. It got to the point where I could pick out the distinctive voices of a great gray owl or a bohemian waxwing, a pine grosbeak or black-throated blue warbler. I tracked black bear and white-tailed deer and moose.
When I graduated with a degree in zoology, I got hired as a keeper at the only zoo in New Hampshire, down in the Manchester area. Wigglesworth Animal Park was a privately owned establishment that was half petting zoo with a handful of wild animals thrown into the mix. I worked my way up from the alpacas to the fisher cats to the red fox and finally to the wolves. The pack of five was kept in a small double-fenced enclosure with thick trees and a ridged rise that the wolves would sit on during the daytime hours. Every three days one of the keepers would bring in food—the carcass of a calf purchased from an abattoir. Anyone who entered would carry a ski pole—and it wasn’t just the wolf keepers who did this but also those who worked with the cougars or the black bear or any other big animal. I don’t know what damage any of us could really have inflicted with a ski pole, but it wasn’t necessary, anyway. The wolves were far more scared of us than we were of them. The minute they heard the lock on the double gate being opened, they would rush through the thickest
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