Harvesting The Heart Part 24

He starts shaking when he thinks of another man's hands on her body, another man's child in her womb, but he believes that with time the shock will pa.s.s. It's not really the abortion that upsets him. As a doctor, Nicholas spends so much time and effort saving lives that he can't personally support the decision to have an abortion, although he understands the motives of the pro-choice camp. No, what unnerves him is the secrecy. Even if he could listen to Paige's reasons for terminating a pregnancy, he couldn't understand hiding something like that from one's own husband. He had a right to know. It might have been her her body, but it was body, but it was their their shared past. And in eight years, she never thought enough of him to mention the truth. shared past. And in eight years, she never thought enough of him to mention the truth.

Nicholas spent the early morning trying to push from his mind the image of Paige begging for mercy. She had been shadowed by the mirror, so that there were two of her, her words and actions mocking her like a clown's silhouette. She had looked so fragile that Nicholas couldn't help but think of the wispy heads of dried dandelions, vulnerable to a breath. One word from him, and he knew she would fall apart.

But Nicholas had enough anger pulsing through his blood to block out any residual feelings. He was going to beat her at her own game, taking Max before she could use the poor kid to absolve her of guilt. He was going to get a divorce and drive her as far from him as possible, and maybe in five, in ten years, he wouldn't see her face every time he looked at his son.

Oakie Peterborough blots his meaty lips with his napkin and takes a deep breath. "Look," he says, "I'm a lawyer, but I'm also your friend. You ought to know what you're getting into."

Nicholas stares him down. "Just tell me what I have to do."

Oakie exhales, a sick sound like that of an overboiled kettle. "Well, Ma.s.sachusetts is a state that permits fault in divorce cases. That means you don't have to prove fault to get a divorce, but if you can, the property and a.s.sets will be divided accordingly."

"She abandoned me," Nicholas interrupts. "And she lied for eight years."

Oakie rubs his hands together. "Was she gone for more than two years?" Nicholas shakes his head. "She wasn't the primary breadwinner, was she?" Nicholas snorts and throws his napkin on the table. Oakie purses his lips. "Well, then it's not desertion-at least not legally. And lying ... I'm not sure about lying. Usually, just cause for fault is things like excessive drinking, beating, adultery."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Nicholas mutters.

Oakie does not hear him. "Fault would not not include a change of religion, say, or moving out of the house." include a change of religion, say, or moving out of the house."

"She didn't move," Nicholas clarifies. "She left." left." He stares up at Oakie. "How long is this going to take?" He stares up at Oakie. "How long is this going to take?"

"I can't know yet," he says. "It depends on whether we can find grounds. If not, you get a separation agreement, and a year later it can be finalized into a divorce."

"A year," year," Nicholas yells. "I can't wait a year, Oakie. She's going to do something crazy. She just up and left three months ago, remember-she's going to take my kid and run." Nicholas yells. "I can't wait a year, Oakie. She's going to do something crazy. She just up and left three months ago, remember-she's going to take my kid and run."

"A kid," Oakie says softly. "You didn't say there was a kid."

When Nicholas leaves the restaurant, he is seething. What he has learned is that although courts no longer a.s.sume that a woman should have custody, Max will go wherever his best interests lie. With Nich olas working so many hours a day, there is no guarantee of custody. He has learned that since Paige supported him through medical school, she is ent.i.tled to a portion of his future earnings. He has learned that this procedure will take much longer than he ever thought possible.

Oakie has tried to talk him out of it, but Nicholas is certain he has no choice. He cannot even think about Paige without feeling his spine stiffen or his fingers turn to ice. He cannot stand knowing that he has been played for a fool.

He walks into Ma.s.s General and ignores everyone who says h.e.l.lo to him. When he reaches his office, he shuts and locks the door behind him. With a sweep of his arm, he clears all the files off his desk. The one that lands on top of the pile on the floor is Hugo Albert's. That morning's surgery. It was also, he noted from the patient history, Hugo Albert's golden wedding anniversary. When he told Esther Albert that her husband was doing well, she cried and thanked Nicholas over and over, said that he would always be in her prayers.

He puts his head down on the desk and closes his eyes. He wishes he had his father's private practice, or that the a.s.sociation with surgical patients lasted as long as it does in internal medicine. It is too hard to deal with such intense relations.h.i.+ps for such a short period of time and then move on to another patient. But Nicholas is starting to see that this is his lot in life.

With fierce self-control, he opens the top drawer and takes out a piece of the Ma.s.s General stationery that now bears his name. "Oakie wants a list," he mutters, "I'll give him a list." He starts to write down all the things that he and Paige own. The house. The cars. The mountain bikes and the canoe. The barbecue and the patio furniture and the white leather couch and the king-size bed. It is the same bed they had in the old apartment; it had too much of a history to justify replacement. Nicholas and Paige had ordered the handcrafted bed on the understanding that it would be theirs by the end of the week. But it was delayed, and they slept on a mattress on the floor for months. The bed had been burned in a warehouse fire and had to be built all over again. "Do you think," Paige said one night, curled against him, "G.o.d is trying to tell us this was all a mistake?"

When Nicholas runs out of possessions, he takes a blank sheet of paper and writes his name at the top left and Paige's name at the top right. Then he makes a grid. DATE OF BIRTH. PLACE OF BIRTH. EDUCATION. LENGTH OF MARRIAGE. He can fill it all in easily, but he is shocked at how much s.p.a.ce his own schooling takes up and how little is written in Paige's column. He looks at the length of marriage and does not write anything.

If she had married that guy, would she have had the child?

Nicholas pushes away the papers, which suddenly feel heavy enough to threaten the balance of the desk. He leans his head back in the swivel chair and stares at the clouds manufactured by the hospital smokestacks, but all he sees are the lines of Paige's wounded face. He blinks, but the image does not clear. He half expects that if he whispers her name, she will answer. He thinks he must be going crazy.

He wonders if she loved this other guy, and why the question, still unspoken, makes him feel as if he will be sick.

When he turns the chair around, his mother is standing in front of the desk. "Nicholas," she says, "I've brought you a present." She holds a large, flat, paper-wrapped square. Even before he pulls at the string, Nicholas knows it is a framed photograph. "It's for your office," she says. "I've been working on it for weeks."

"It isn't my office," Nicholas says. "I can't really hang anything up." But even as he is speaking, he finds himself staring at the photograph. It is a pliant willow tree on the sh.o.r.e of a lake, bent into an inverted U by an angry wind. Everything in the background is one shade or another of purple; the tree itself is molten red, as if it is burning at the core.

Astrid comes to his side of the desk and stands at his shoulder. "Striking, isn't it?" she says. "It's all in the lighting." She glances at the papers on Nicholas's desk, pretending not to notice what they say.

Nicholas runs his fingers across his mother's signature, carved at the bottom. "Very nice," he says. "Thanks."

Astrid sits on the edge of the desk. "I didn't come just to give you the photograph, Nicholas; I'm here to tell you something you aren't going to like," she says. "Paige has moved in with us."

Nicholas stares at her as if she has stated that his father was really a gypsy or that his medical diploma is a fraud. "You've got to be kidding," he says. "You can't do this to me."

"As a matter of fact, Nicholas," Astrid says, standing and pacing the room, "you have very little say as to what we do in our own house. Paige is a lovely girl-better to realize it late than never, I think-and she's a charming guest. Imelda says she even makes her own bed. Imagine."

Nicholas's fingers itch; he has a savage urge to strike out or to strangle. "If she lays a hand on Max-"

"I've already taken care of it," Astrid says. "She's agreed to leave the house during the day while I've got Max. She only comes back to sleep, since a car or a front lawn isn't really suitable."

Nicholas thinks that maybe he will remember this moment forever: the wrinkled empty smile of his mother; the flickering track light overhead; the sc.r.a.pe of wheels as something is rolled by the door. This, he will say to himself in years to come, was the moment my life fell apart. was the moment my life fell apart. "Paige isn't what you think she is," he says bitterly. "Paige isn't what you think she is," he says bitterly.

Astrid walks to the far side of the office as if she hasn't heard him. She removes a yellowed nautical map from the wall, smoothing her fingers over the gla.s.s and tracing the whorls of eddies and currents. "I'm thinking about right here," she says. "You'll see it every time you look up." She crosses the room to put the old frame on the desk and picks up the picture of the willow. "You know," she says casually, reaching up on her toes to hang the picture correctly, "your father and I almost got a divorce. I think you remember her-she was a hematologist. I knew about it, and I fought him every step of the way, trying to be very difficult and spilling drinks on him to make a scene and threatening once or twice to run away with you. I thought that being quiet about the whole thing was the biggest mistake I could make, because then he'd think I was weak and he could walk all over me. And then one day I realized that I would have much more power if I decided to be the one to yield." Astrid straightens the picture and steps back. "There. What do you think?"

Nicholas's eyes are slitted, dark and angry. "I want you to throw Paige out of the house, and if she comes within a hundred feet of Max, I swear to G.o.d I'll have you brought up on charges. I want you to get out of my office and call me later and apologize profusely for b.u.t.ting into my life. I want you to put back that G.o.dd.a.m.ned ocean map and leave me alone."

"Really, Nicholas," Astrid says lightly, although every muscle in her body is quivering. She has never seen him like this. "The way you're acting, I wouldn't recognize you as my son." She picks up the sailing chart and hooks it on the wall again, but she does not turn around.

"You don't know the half of it," Nicholas murmurs.

By a twist of bad timing, Nicholas and Paige run into each other that afternoon at the Prescotts'. Because of a complication with a patient, Nicholas left the hospital late. He is just packing Max's toys into the duffel bag when Paige bursts into the parlor. "You can't do this to me," Paige cries, and when Nicholas lifts his head, his gaze has carefully been wiped clean of emotion.

"Ah," Nicholas says, picking up a Big Bird jingle ball. "My mother has been the bearer of bad news."

"You've got to give me a chance," she says, moving in front of him to catch his eye. "You aren't thinking clearly."

Astrid appears in the doorway, with Max in her arms. "Listen to her, Nicholas," she says quietly.

Nicholas tosses his mother a look that makes Paige remember the basilisk in Irish legend, the monster who killed with a glance. "I think I've listened enough," he says. "In fact, I've heard things I never wanted to hear." He stands and slings the diaper bag over his shoulder, roughly grabbing Max out of Astrid's arms. "Why don't you just run upstairs to your guest bedroom," he sneers. "Cry your little heart out, and then you can come downstairs for brandy with my my G.o.dd.a.m.ned parents." G.o.dd.a.m.ned parents."

"Nicholas," Paige says. Her voice breaks over the syllables. She takes a quick look at Astrid and runs through the hall after Nicholas, swinging open the door and yelling his name again into the street.

Nicholas stops just before his car. "You'll get a good settlement," he says quietly. "You've earned it."

Paige is openly crying now, clinging to the frame of the door as if she cannot keep upright by herself. "It isn't supposed to be this way," she sobs. "Do you think I really care about the money? Or about who lives in that stupid old house?"

Nicholas thinks about the horror stories he's heard from other surgeons, whose cutthroat, red-taloned wives have robbed them of half their Midas earnings and all their sterling reputations. He cannot picture Paige in a tailored suit, glaring from the witness stand, replaying a testimony that will support her for life. He can't truly see her caring about whether $500,000 per year will be enough to cover her cost of living. She'd probably hand him the keys to the house if he asked nicely. In truth, she isn't like the others; she never has been, and that's what Nicholas always liked.

Her hair has fallen over her face, and her nose is running; her shoulders are shaking with the effort to stop crying. She is a mess. "Mama," Max says, reaching out to her. Nicholas turns him away and watches Paige swipe the back of her hand across her eyes. He tells himself it can't turn out any other way, not with what he knows now; but he quite literally feels his chest burn, swollen tissue irreparably staked, as his heart begins to break.

Nicholas grimaces and shakes his head. He slips inside the car, fastening Max into his seat and then turning the ignition. He tries to trace the sequence, but he cannot figure out how they have made it to this point-the place where you cannot go back. Paige hasn't moved an inch. He cannot hear her voice over the purr of the engine, but he knows that she is telling him she loves him, she loves Max.

"I can't help that," he says, and he drives away without letting himself look back.

chapter 37

Paige.

When I come down to breakfast in the morning, I am carrying my overnight bag. "I want to thank you for your hospitality," I say stiffly, "but I think I'm going to be leaving today."

Astrid and Robert look at each other, and it is Astrid who speaks first. "Where are you going?" she asks.

This question, the one I have been expecting, still throws me for a loop. "I don't know," I say. "I guess back to my mother's."

"Paige," Astrid says gently, "if Nicholas wants a divorce, he'll find you even in North Carolina."

When I do not say anything, Astrid stands up and folds her arms around me. She holds me even though I do not hold her back. She is thinner than I expected, almost brittle. "I can't change your mind?" she says.

"No," I murmur, "you can't."

She pulls away, keeping me at arm's length. "I won't let you leave without something to eat," she says, already moving toward the kitchen. "Imelda!"

She leaves me alone with Robert, who of all the people in this household makes me most uncomfortable. It isn't that he's been rude or even unkind; he has offered his house to me, he goes out of his way to compliment my appearance when I come down to dinner, he saves me the Living section of the Globe Globe before Imelda clips the recipes. I suppose the problem is mine, not his. I suppose some things -like forgiveness-take time. before Imelda clips the recipes. I suppose the problem is mine, not his. I suppose some things -like forgiveness-take time.

Robert folds his morning paper and motions for me to sit next to him. "What was the name of that colicky horse?" he says out of nowhere.

"Donegal." I smooth my napkin across my lap. "But he's fine now. Or he was when I left."

Robert nods. "Mmm. Incredible how they bounce back."

I raise my eyebrows, now understanding where this conversation is headed. "Sometimes they die," I point out.

"Well, yes, of course," Robert says, spreading cream cheese on a m.u.f.fin. "But not the good ones. Never the good ones."

"You hope hope not," I say. not," I say.

Robert jabs the m.u.f.fin toward me, making his point. "Exactly." Suddenly he reaches across the table and covers my wrist with his free hand. His touch, unexpected, is cool and steady, just like Nicholas's. "You're making it very easy for him to forget about you, Paige. I'd think twice about that."

At that moment Nicholas strides into the dining room, carrying Max. "Where the h.e.l.l is everybody?" he says. "I'm late."

He slips Max into the high chair beside Robert and makes a point of not looking at me. Astrid walks in with a tray of toast and fruit and bagels. "Nicholas!" she says, as if last night never happened. "You'll stay for breakfast?"

Nicholas glares at me. "You already have company," he says.

I stand up and watch Max bang the edge of Robert's plate with a sterling-silver spoon. Max has Nicholas's aristocratic face but most definitely my eyes. You can see it in his restlessness. He's always looking at the one place he cannot see. You can tell he will be a fighter.

Max sees me and smiles, and it makes his whole body glow. "I was just going," I say. With a quick look at Robert, I walk out the door, leaving my overnight bag behind.

The volunteer lounge at Ma.s.s General is little more than a closet, tucked behind the ambulatory care waiting rooms. While I am waiting for Harriet Miles, the secretary, to find me an application form, I stare over her shoulder at the hall and wait to catch a glimpse of Nicholas.

I do not want to do this, but I see no other choice. If I'm going to make Nicholas change his mind about a divorce, I have to show him what he'll be missing. I can't do that when the only way I see him is by chance or in pa.s.sing at his parents', so I'll have to spend all my time where he does-at the hospital. Unfortunately, I'm not qualified for most of the positions that would throw me together with him, so I try to convince myself that I've wanted to volunteer at the hospital all along but haven't had the time. Still, I know this isn't true. I hate the sight of blood; I don't like that antiseptic cloud of illness that you always smell in a hospital's halls. I wouldn't be here if I could think of any other way to cross Nicholas's path several times a day.

Harriet Miles is about four feet ten inches tall and almost as wide. She has to step on a little stool, fas.h.i.+oned in the shape of a strawberry, to reach the top drawer of the filing cabinet. "We don't have as many adult volunteers as we'd like," she says. "Most of the kids rotate through for a year or so just to beef up their college applications." She closes her eyes and stuffs her hand into a stack of papers and comes up with the right one. "Ah," she says, "success."

She settles back on her chair, which I could swear has a booster seat on it, but I am too embarra.s.sed to lean over and check. "Now, Paige, have you had any medical training or been a volunteer at another hospital?"

"No," I say, hoping this won't keep them from accepting me.

"That's not a problem," Harriet says smoothly. "You'll attend one of our orientation sessions, and you can start working right after that-"

"No," I stammer. "I have to start today." today." When Harriet stares at me, unnerved, I settle into the chair and clench my hands at my sides. When Harriet stares at me, unnerved, I settle into the chair and clench my hands at my sides. Careful, Careful, I think. I think. Say what she wants to hear. Say what she wants to hear. "I mean, I really "I mean, I really want want to start today. I'll do anything. It doesn't have to involve medical stuff." to start today. I'll do anything. It doesn't have to involve medical stuff."

Harriet licks the tip of her pencil and begins to fill in my application form. She doesn't blink when I give my last name, but then again, I suppose there are a lot of Prescotts in Boston. I give Robert and Astrid's address instead of my own, and just for kicks I fake my birth date, making myself three years older. I tell her I can work six days a week, and she looks at me as if I am a saint.

"I can put you in admitting," she says, frowning at a schedule on the wall. "You won't be able to do paperwork, but you can shuttle the patients up to their rooms in wheelchairs." She taps the pencil on the blotter. "Or you can work the book cart," she suggests, "on the patient floors."

Neither of which, I realize, will place me where I need to go. "I have a request," I say. "I'd like to be near Dr. Prescott, the cardiac surgeon."

Harriet laughs and pats my hand. "Yes, he's a favorite, isn't he? Those eyes! I think he's the reason for half the graffiti in the candy stripers' bathroom. Everyone wants to be near Dr. Prescott."

"You don't understand," I say. "He's my husband."

Harriet scans the application sheet and points to my last name. "So he is," she says.

I lick my lips and lean forward. I offer a quick, silent prayer that in this war between Nicholas and myself, no one else will be hurt. Then I smile and lie as I never have before. "You know, his hours are pretty awful. We never get a chance to see each other." I wink at Harriet conspiratorially. "I thought I'd do this as a kind of anniversary present. Try to be near him and all. I figured if I could get a.s.signed close to him every day, kind of be his personal volunteer, he'd be happier, and then he'd be a better surgeon, and then everyone would win."

"What a romantic idea." Harriet sighs. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the other doctors' wives came in as volunteers?"

I give her a steady, sober look. I have never been on a conversational basis with those women, but if that is my penance I will swear to carry it out on penalty of death. Today I'd promise Harriet Miles the moon. "I'll do everything I can," I say.

Even as she smiles at me, Harriet Miles's eyes are melting. "I wish I I was crazy in love," she says, and she picks up the telephone to dial an inside number. "Let's see what we can do." was crazy in love," she says, and she picks up the telephone to dial an inside number. "Let's see what we can do."

Astrid finds me sitting in the backyard under a peach tree, drawing. "What is it?" she asks, and I tell her I don't know. Right now it is just a collection of lines and curves; it will eventually form into something I recognize. I'm drawing because it is therapeutic. Nicholas almost didn't notice me today-even after I had helped wheel the stretcher with his recovering patient from surgical ICU to a semiprivate room, followed him with the book cart as he made his rounds, and stood behind him in the lunch line at the cafeteria. When he did finally recognize me as I refilled a water pitcher in the room of the patient he'd be operating on tomorrow, it was only because he had knocked against me and spilled water all over the front of my pale-pink volunteer pinafore. "I'm so sorry," he said, glancing at the stains on my lap and my chest. Then he looked at my face. Terrified, I didn't say a word. And although I expected Nicholas to storm out of the room and call for the chief of staff, he only raised his eyebrows and laughed.

"Sometimes I just draw," I say to Astrid, hoping that's enough of an explanation.

"Sometimes I just shoot," she says. I look up, startled. "A camera," camera," she adds. She leans against the trunk of a tree and turns her face to the sun. I take in the firm set of her chin, the silver sweep of hair, the courage that hovers about her like expensive perfume. I wonder if there is anything in the world that Astrid Prescott would not be able to do if she set her mind to it. she adds. She leans against the trunk of a tree and turns her face to the sun. I take in the firm set of her chin, the silver sweep of hair, the courage that hovers about her like expensive perfume. I wonder if there is anything in the world that Astrid Prescott would not be able to do if she set her mind to it.

"It would have been nice to have an artist in the family earlier," she says. "I always felt honor bound to pa.s.s along my talents." She laughs. "The photographic ones, anyway." She opens her eyes and smiles at me. "Nicholas was a nightmare with a camera. He never got the hang of f-stops, and he routinely overexposed his prints. He had the skill for photography, but he never had the patience."

"My mother was an artist," I blurt out, and then I freeze, my hand paused inches above my sketch pad. My first volunteered personal admission. Astrid moves closer to me, knowing that this unexpected c.h.i.n.k in my armor is the first step toward getting inside. "She was a good artist," I say as carelessly as I can manage, thinking of the mural of horses in Chicago and then in Carolina. "But she fancied herself a writer instead."

I start to move my pencil restlessly over a fresh page, and not daring to meet Astrid's eyes, I tell her the truth. The words come fresh as a new wound, and once again I can clearly smell the Magic Markers in my tiny hand; feel my mother's fingers close around my ankles for balance on the stool. I can sense my mother's body pressed beside mine as we watch our unfettered stallions; I can remember the freedom of a.s.suming-just knowing knowing-that she would be there the next day, and the next.

"I wish my mother had been around to teach me how to draw," I say, and then I fall silent. My pencil has stopped flying over the page, and as I stare at it, Astrid's hand comes to cover mine where it lies. Even as I am wondering what has made me say these things to her, I hear myself speak again. "Nicholas was lucky," I say. "I wish I'd had someone like you around when I was growing up."

"Nicholas was doubly lucky, then." Astrid s.h.i.+fts closer to me on the gra.s.s and slips her arms around my shoulders. It feels awkward -not like my mother's embrace, which I fit into so neatly by the summer's end. Still, before I can stop myself, I lean toward Astrid. She sighs against my hair. "She didn't have a choice, you know." I close my eyes and shrug, but Astrid will not leave it be. "She's no different from me," Astrid says, and then she hesitates. "Or you."

Instinctively I pull away, putting the reason of distance between us. I open my mouth to disagree, but something stops me. Astrid, my mother, myself. myself. I picture, like a collage, the grinning rows of white frames on Astrid's contact sheets; the dark press of hoofprints in my mother's fields; the line of men's s.h.i.+rts I'd flung from the car on the day I had to leave. The things we did, we did because we I picture, like a collage, the grinning rows of white frames on Astrid's contact sheets; the dark press of hoofprints in my mother's fields; the line of men's s.h.i.+rts I'd flung from the car on the day I had to leave. The things we did, we did because we had had to. The things we did, we did because we had a to. The things we did, we did because we had a right right to. Still, we each left markers of some kind-a public trail that either led others to us or became, one day, the road upon which we returned. to. Still, we each left markers of some kind-a public trail that either led others to us or became, one day, the road upon which we returned.