Harvesting the Heart Read online

  Even as Jake was stroking the skin of my arm, making me promises he knew he would not keep, I was forming a plan. I could not stay in Chicago and know that Jake was minutes away. I could not hide my shame from my father for very long. After graduation, I would disappear. "I won't be going to college after all." I spoke the words aloud. The sentence hung, visible, black printed letters stretched across the space before me. "I won't be going."

  "What did you say?" Jake asked. He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw the pain of a hundred kisses and the healing power of his arms around me.

  "Nothing," I told him. "Nothing at all."

  A week later, after graduation, I packed my knapsack and left my father a note that told him I loved him. I boarded a bus and got off at Cambridge, Massachusetts--a place I chose because it sounded, like its namesake, an ocean away--and I left my childhood behind.

  In Ohio I reached into my knapsack and rummaged for an orange, but I came up instead with an unfamiliar worn yellow envelope. My name was printed on the outside, and when I opened it I read an old Irish blessing I'd seen a million times, cross-stitched on a faded violet sampler that hung on the wall over Jake's bed:

  May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May the rains fall soft upon your fields. And 'til we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

  As I read the careful, rolling script of Jake's handwriting, I started to cry. I had no idea when he had left this for me. I had been awake the entire time he was in my room that final evening, and I had not seen him since. He must have known I would leave Chicago, that I would leave him.

  I stared out the clouded window of the bus, trying to picture Jake's face, but all I could see was the strip of granite lining an

  unfamiliar highway. He was already fading from me. I fingered the note gently and ran my hands over the letters and pressed the curling edges of the paper. With these words, Jake had let go of me, which proved that he knew more about why I was leaving than even I did. I had believed that I was running away from what had happened. I did not know--not until I met Nicholas days later--that the

  whole time I was really running toward what was yet to be.

  chapter 1 5

  Nicholas

  Nicholas watched his wife turn into a wraith. She never really slept, since Max wanted to nurse every two hours. She was afraid to leave him alone for even a minute, so she

  showered only every other day. Her hair hung down her back like tangled yarn, her eyes were ringed with shadows. Her skin seemed frail and transparent, and sometimes Nicholas reached out to touch her just to see if she would vanish at the brush of his hand.

  Max cried all the time. Nicholas wondered how Paige could stand it, the constant shrieking right in her ear. She didn't even seem to notice, but these days Paige wasn't noticing much of anything. Last night, Nicholas had found her standing in the dark of the nursery, staring at Max in his wicker bassinet. He watched from the doorway, feeling a knot come into his throat at the sight of his wife and his son. When he came forward, his footsteps hushed on the carpet, he touched Paige's shoulder. She turned to him, and he was shocked by

  the look in her eyes. There was no tenderness, no love, and no longing. Her gaze was riddled with questions, as if she simply didn't understand what Max was doing there at all.

  Nicholas had been at the hospital for twenty consecutive hours, and he was exhausted. Driving home, he had pictured three things over and over in his mind: his Shower Massage, a steaming plate of fettuccine, his bed. He pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car, already hearing through sealed doors and windows the high-pitched screams of his son. At that one sound, all the spring left his body. He moved sluggishly onto the porch, reluctant to enter his own house.

  Paige stood in the center of the kitchen, balancing Max on her shoulder, a Nuk pacifier in her hand and the telephone tucked beneath one ear. "No," she was saying, "you don't understand. I don't want daily delivery of the Globe. No. We can't afford it." Nicholas slipped behind her and lifted the baby from her shoulder. She could not see Nicholas, but she did not instinctively resist him when he took her child. Max hiccupped and vomited over the back of Nicholas's shirt.

  Paige set the telephone into its cradle. She stared up at Nicholas as if he were fashioned of gold. She was still wearing her nightgown. "Thank you," she whispered.

  Nicholas understood the clinical explanations for postpartum blues, and he tried to remember the best course of treatment. It was all hormonal, he knew that, but surely a little praise would help speed it along and would bring back the Paige he used to know. "I don't know how you do it," he said, smiling at her.

  Paige looked at her feet. "Well, I'm obviously not doing it right," she said. "He won't stop crying. He can't ever get enough to eat, and I'm so tired, I just don't know what to try next." On cue, Max began to wail. Paige straightened her spine, and a quick glimmer in her eyes told Nicholas how hard she was working simply to keep on her feet. She smiled stiffly and said, over Max's cries, "And how was your day?"

  Nicholas looked around the kitchen. On the table were baby gifts from his colleagues, some unwrapped; paper and ribbons were strewn across the floor. A breast pump ringed with milk sat on the counter beside an open tub of yogurt. Three books on child care were propped up against dirty glasses, open to the sections on "Crying" and "The First Weeks." Stuffed into the unused playpen were the dress shirts he needed brought to the laundry. Nicholas glanced at Paige. There would be no fettuccine.

  "Listen," he said. "How about you lie down for an hour or two and I'll take care of the baby?"

  Paige sank back against the wall. "Oh," she said, "would you really?"

  Nicholas nodded, pushing her toward the bedroom with his free hand. "What do I have to do with him?" he asked.

  Paige turned around, poised on the edge of the doorway. She raised her eyebrows, then she threw back her head and laughed.

  Fogerty had called Nicholas into his office two days after Paige gave birth. He offered a gift that Joan had picked out--a baby monitor--which Nicholas thanked him for, in spite of the fact that it was a ridiculous present. But how could Fogerty have realized that in a house as small as his, Max's shattering cries could be heard anywhere? "Sit down," Fogerty said, an atypical courtesy. "If I'm not mistaken, it's more rest than you've had in a while."

  Nicholas had fallen gratefully into the leather wing chair, running his hands over the smooth worn arms. Fogerty paced the length of his office and finally perched on a corner of his desk. "I wasn't much older than you when we had Alexander," Fogerty said. "But I didn't have quite so much responsibility riding on my shoulders. I can't do it all over again, but you have the chance to do it right the first time."

  "Do what?" Nicholas asked, tired of Fogerty and his obtuse riddles.

  "Separate yourself," Fogerty said. "Don't lose sight of the fact that people outside your home are also depending on you, on your stamina, on your ability. Don't let yourself be compromised."

  Nicholas had left the office and gone directly to Brigham and Women's, to visit Paige and Max. He had held his son, and felt the gentle swell of the baby's chest with each breath, and marveled at the fact that he had helped create a living, thinking thing. He had believed Fogerty was a sanctimonious old fool, until the night when Paige and Max came home. Then he had slept with a pillow wrapped over his head, trying to block out Max's cries, his noisy suckling, even the rustle of Paige getting in and out of bed to tend to him. "Come on, Paige," he demanded after being awakened for the third time. "I've got a triple bypass at seven in the morning!"

  But in spite of Fogerty's cautions, Nicholas knew his wife was falling apart. He had always seen her as such a model of strength-- working two jobs to pay his way through Harvard, scrounging together money to make the endless interest payments, and, before that, leaving her life behind to start again in Cambridge. It was hard to believe that something as tiny as a newborn chi
ld could throw Paige for a loop.

  "Okay, buddy," Nicholas said, taking a howling Max to the couch. "Do you want to play?" He held up a rattle that protruded from between two cushions and shook it in front of his son. Max didn't seem to see it. He kicked his legs and waved his small red hands. Nicholas bounced the baby up and down on his knee. "Let's try something else," he said. He picked up the television remote and nipped through the channels. The whir of color seemed to calm Max down, and he settled like a sleeping puppy in the hollow of Nicholas's chest.

  Nicholas smiled. This wasn't so hard after all.

  He slipped his hand under Max's legs and scooped the baby up, carrying him upstairs to the nursery. Silently, Nicholas moved past the closed door of the master bedroom. If he put Max down now, he could probably take a shower before the baby woke again.

  The minute Max's head touched the soft bassinet mattress, he began to scream. "Shit," Nicholas said, grabbing the baby roughly.

  He rocked him against his chest, holding Max's ear against his heart. "There," he said. "You're okay."

  Nicholas took Max to the changing table and surveyed the arrangement of Pampers and A&D and cornstarch powder. He un-snapped the terry-cloth sleeper and pulled the edges of the tape from the corners of the diaper with a loud rasp. Max started to scream again, his face turning round and tomato red, and Nicholas began to hurry. He lifted the diaper, but when he saw a stream of urine arch from the raw, newly circumcised penis, he slapped the pad back in place. He took deep breaths, plugging an ear with one hand and holding Max's squirming body with the other. Then he slipped the old diaper away and put the new one on, knowing it was too low in the back but not caring enough to fix it.

  He had to snap and unsnap the terry-cloth sleeper three times before he got it right. His hands were too big to secure the little silver circles, and there always seemed to be one snap he'd missed. Finally, he picked Max up and hung him upside down from his shoulder, just grasping his feet. If Paige could see me, Nicholas thought, she'd murder me. But Max became quiet. Nicholas paraded around the nursery in a circle, holding his son upside down. He felt sorry for the kid. All of a sudden, without warning, he was thrown into a world where nothing seemed familiar. Not much different from his parents.

  He carried Max down to the living room, settling him on the couch in a nest of stuffed pillows. The baby had Nicholas's eyes. After the first day, the dark black had given way to cool sky blue, startling against the red oval of his face. Other than that, Nicholas couldn't tell. It remained too early to see whom Max would take after.

  Max's glazed eyes roamed blindly over Nicholas's face, seeming for a moment to come into focus. He started to cry again.

  "Jesus fucking Christ," Nicholas muttered, picking the baby up and starting to walk. He bounced Max on his shoulder as he moved. He sang Motown. He twirled around and around, very fast, and he tried hanging the baby upside down again. But Max would not stop crying.

  Nicholas couldn't get away from the sound. It pounded behind his eyes, over his ears. He wanted to put the baby down and run. He was just thinking about it when Paige came downstairs, groggy but resigned, like a prisoner on death row. "I think he's hungry," Nicholas said. "I couldn't make him stop."

  "I know," Paige said. "I heard." She took the baby from Nicholas and rocked him back and forth. Nicholas's shoulders throbbed with relief, as if a huge weight had been removed. Max quieted a little, his crying now a soft, grating whine. "He just ate," Paige said. She went to sit on the couch and flipped the television on. "Nickelodeon," she said to nobody. "Max seems to like Nickelodeon."

  Nicholas slipped into the bedroom and set off the test button on his beeper. The soft chirps vibrated against his hip. He opened the door, to find Paige waiting. "I've got to go back to the hospital," he lied. "Complications on a heart-lung transplant."

  Paige nodded. He pushed past her, fighting the urge to take her into his arms and say, Let's get away. Just you and I, let's go, and everything will be different. Instead he went into the bathroom, showering quickly and then changing his shirt, his pants, his socks.

  When he left, Paige was sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery. She had her nightgown opened to her belly, still soft and round. Max's mouth was clamped to her right breast. With every tug of his lips he seemed to be pulling in more and more of her. Nicholas's gaze strayed to Paige's face, which was turned to the window. Her eyes held the ragged edge of pain. "It hurts?" Nicholas asked.

  "Yes." Paige did not look at him. "That's what they don't tell you."

  Nicholas drove quickly to Mass General, weaving in and out of traffic. He opened all the windows in the car, and he turned on the radio, some rap station, as loud as possible. He tried to drown out the sound of Max's cries in his ears, the image of Paige when he walked out the door. At least he was able to leave.

  When he passed the nurses' station in the ER, Phoebe, who had known him for years, raised her eyebrows. "You're not on call tonight, Dr. Prescott," she said. "Did you miss me again?"

  Nicholas smiled at her. "I can't live without you, Phoebe," he said. "Run away with me to Mexico."

  Phoebe laughed and opened a patient file. "Such words from a man with a new baby boy."

  Nicholas moved through the halls with the confidence people expected of

  him. He ran his fingers over the smooth aqua tiles lining the walls of the corridors, heading for the small room kept for the residents on call overnight. It was no more than a closet, but Nicholas

  welcomed the familiar smell of formaldehyde and antiseptic and blue woven cotton as if he had entered a palatial estate. His eyes swept the neat cot that filled up the room, and then he pulled back the covers. He turned off his beeper and set it on the floor below his head. He drew into his memory the only Lamaze class he had attended, the nurse's low voice washing over the temples of the pregnant women: Imagine a long, cool white beach. Nicholas could see himself stretched out on the sand, under a feverish sun. He fell asleep to the music of an invented ocean, beating like a heart.

  chapter 1 6

  Paige

  I woke up in a pool of my own milk. It had been thirty minutes since I put Max down, and in the other room he was already talking, those high little squeaks he made when he woke up happy. I heard the rattle and spin of the striped wheel on his Busy Box, the toy he didn't recognize yet but kicked from time to time with his feet. Max's gurgles began to get louder, insistent. "I'm coming," I yelled through the adjoining wall. "Give me a minute."

  I stripped off Nicholas's polo shirt--my own shirts were too tight across my chest--and changed my bra. I wedged soft flannel handkerchiefs into the cups, a trick of the trade I'd discovered after those disposable nursing pads kept bunching up or sticking to my skin. I did not bother putting on a new shirt. Max fed so often that sometimes I would walk around the house topless for hours at a time, my breasts becoming heavier and heavier as they replenished what Max had taken.

  Max's little bud mouth was already working on the air when I got to his crib. I lifted him out and unhooked the front of the bra, unsure whether it was the left or right side he'd fed on last, because the whole day just seemed to run together. As soon as I settled into the rocking chair, Max began drinking--long, strong draws of milk that sent vibrations from my breasts to my stomach to my groin. I counted off ten minutes on my watch and then switched him to the other side.

  I was in a rush this morning because of my adventure. It was the first time I was going out with Max, just the two of us. Well, I had done it once before, but it had taken me an hour to get his diaper bag together and figure out how to strap his car seat into place, and by the time we got to the end of the block he was screaming so hard to be fed that I decided to just turn around and send Nicholas to the bank when he got home. So for six weeks I had been a prisoner in my own house, a slave to a twenty-one-inch tyrant who could not live without me.

  For six weeks I had slept the hours Max dictated, kept him changed and dry as he demanded, let him drink from me.
I gave Max so much of my time that I found myself praying for him to take a nap so that I would have those ten or fifteen minutes to myself, and then I'd just sit on the couch and take deep breaths and try to remember what I used to do to fill my days. I wondered how it could happen so quickly: once Max had been inside me, existing because of me, surviving from my bloodstream and my body; and now, by quick reversal, I had simply become part of him.

  I put Max on his back in the playpen and watched him suck on the corner of a black-and-white geometric-print card. Yesterday a woman from La Leche had come to the house, sent by the hospital for a follow-up visit. I had let her in reluctantly, kicking toys and cloth burping diapers and old magazines under the furniture as I led the way. I wondered if she'd say something about the dust piled on the fireplace mantel, the overflowing trash bins, or the fact that we hadn't fitted our outlets with safety plugs yet.

  She didn't comment on the house at all. She walked straight to

  Max's playpen. "He's beautiful," she said, cooing at Max, but I wondered if she said that about all the babies she saw. I myself had once believed all babies were cute, but I knew that wasn't true. In the hospital nursery, Max was the best-looking baby by far. For one thing, he looked like a little boy; there was no question. He had ebony hair, tufted and fine, and eyes that were cool and demanding. He was so much like Nicholas that sometimes I found myself staring at him, amazed.

  "I've just come to see how the nursing is going," she said. "I'm sure you're still nursing."

  As if that was the only option, I thought. "Yes," I told her. "It's going just fine." I hesitated and then told her that I was considering giving him one bottle of formula a day--just one--so that if I had to run an errand or take Max out, I could do it without worrying about having to nurse him in public.