Harvesting the Heart (25 page)

"We're
making a Frankenstein monster," I'd cry out, pronouncing the
long, strange word the way my father had told me to. My father would
start banging hammers and wrenches around on the workbench,
making an awful racket. "It's an unsightly mess down here,

May,"
he'd yell, laughter threaded through his voice like a gold filament.
"Brains and blood and gore. You wouldn't want to see this."

She
must have known. After all, she never
did
come
down, in spite of her gentle threats. My mother was like a child in
that respect. She never peeked early for her Christmas presents or
tried to eavesdrop on conversations that would give her a hint. She
loved a surprise. She would never spoil a surprise.

We
finished the juice sensor the night before Mother's Day. My father
filled a water glass and dipped in the thin silver stick and then
slowly suctioned away the liquid. When less than an inch was left in
the bottom of the glass, the stick began to beep. It was a high,
shrill note—downright annoying—since we figured you'd
need that kind of prodding to force you to replace the juice. It
didn't stop until the water was refilled. And just for desperate
measure, the top of the stick glowed blood red the whole time it was
beeping, casting shadows on my fingers and my father's as we clutched
the rim of the glass.

"This
is perfect," I whispered. "This will fix everything."
I tried to remember a time when, every day at four o'clock, my mother
had not been chased into the bedroom by her own shadow. I tried to
remember weeks when I had not caught her staring at the closed front
door as if she was expecting Saint Peter.

My
father's voice startled me. "At the very least," he said,
"this will be a beginning."

My
mother went out after Mass that Sunday, but we barely noticed.
The minute she was out the door, we were pulling the fine linen and
the fancy china from the closets, setting a table that wept with
celebration. By six o'clock, the roast my father had made was wading
in its own gravy; the green beans were steaming; the juice pitcher
was full.

At
six-thirty, I was squirming in my chair. "I'm hungry, Daddy,"
I said. At seven, my father let me lie down in the living room to
watch TV. As I left, I saw him rest his elbows on the table and bury
his face in his hands. By eight, he had removed all traces of the
meal, even the ribboned package we'd set on my mother's chair.

He
brought me a plate of beef, but I was not hungry. The television
was on, but I'd rolled over on the couch so that my head was buried
in the pillows. "We had a present and everything," I said
when my father touched my shoulder.

"She's
at her friend's place," he said, and I turned to look up at him.
My mother, to my knowledge, had no friends. "She just called to
tell me she was sorry she couldn't make it, and she asked me to kiss
the most beautiful lass in Chicago good night for her."

I
stared at my father, who had never in my life lied to me. We both
knew that the telephone had not rung all day.

My
father bathed me and combed through my tangled hair and pulled a
nightgown over my head. He tucked me in and sat with me until he
thought I had fallen asleep.

But
I stayed awake. I knew the exact moment when my mother walked through
the door. I heard my father's voice asking where the hell she had
been. "It's not like I disappeared," my mother argued, her
words angrier and louder than my father's. "I just needed to be
by myself for a little while."

I
thought there might be yelling, but instead I heard the rustle of
paper as my father gave my mother her present. I listened to the
paper tear, and then to the sharp gasp of my mother drawing in her
breath as she read the Mother's Day card I'd dictated to my father.
This
is so we won't forget,
it
read.
Love,
Patrick. Love, Paige.

I
knew even before I heard her footsteps that she was coming to me. She
threw open the door of my room, and in the silhouetted light of the
hall I could see her trembling. "It's okay," I told her,
although it was not what I had wanted or planned to say. She crouched
down at the foot of the bed as if she were awaiting a sentence.
Unsure what to do, I just watched her for a moment. Her head was
bowed, as though she was praying. I stayed perfectly still until I
couldn't do it anymore, and then I did what I wanted
her
to
do: I put my arms around my mother and held her like I couldn't for
the life of me let go.

My
father came to stand at the door. He caught my eye as I looked up
over my mother's dark, bent head. He tried to smile at me, but he
couldn't quite do it. Instead he moved closer to where I held my
mother. He rested his cool hand on the back of my neck, just as Jesus
did in those pictures where He was healing the crippled and the
blind. He kept his hold on me, as though he really thought that might
make it hurt any less.

When
I was little, my father wanted me to call him Da, like every little
girl in Ireland. But I had grown up American, calling him Daddy and
then Dad when I got older. I wondered what my child would call
Nicholas, would call me. This is what I was thinking about when I
called my father—ironically, from the same underground pay
phone I had first used when I got to Cambridge. The bus station was
cold, deserted. "Da," I said, on purpose, "I miss
you."

My
father's voice changed, the way it always did when he realized it was
me on the phone. "Paige, lass," he said. "Twice in one
week! There must be some occasion."

I
wondered why it was so hard to say. I wondered why I hadn't told him
before. "I'm having a baby," I said.

"A
baby?" My father's grin filled the spaces between his words. "A
grandchild. Well, now, that
is
an
occasion."

"I'm
due in May," I said. "Right around Mother's Day."

My
father barely skipped a beat. "That's fittin'," he said. He
laughed, deep. "I take it you've known for a while," he
said, "or else I did a poor job teachin' you the birds and the
bees."

"I've
known," I admitted. "I just figured—I don't know—I'd
have more time." I had a crazy impulse to tell him everything
I'd carefully hidden for years; the circumstances I sensed he knew
about anyway. The words were right there at the back of my throat, so
deceptively casual:
You
remember that night I left your home?
I
swallowed hard and forced my mind into the present. "I guess I'm
still getting used to the idea myself," I said. "Nicholas
and I didn't expect this, and, well, he's thrilled, but I
...
I just need a little more time."

Miles
away, my father exhaled slowly, as if he were remembering, out of the
blue, everything I hadn't had the courage to say. "Don't we
all," he sighed.

By
the time I reached the neighborhood where Nicholas and I lived, the
sun had set. I moved through the streets, quiet as a cat. I peeked
into the lit windows of town houses and tried to catch the warmth and
the dinnertime smell that they held. Because I misjudged my size, I
slipped against a hedge and fell flush against a mailbox, which was
lolling open like a blackened tongue. On the top of a pile of letters
was a pink envelope with no return address. It was made out to
Alexander LaRue, 20 Appleton Lane, Cambridge. The handwriting was
sloped and gentle, somewhat European. Without a second thought, I
looked up and down the street and tucked the letter into my coat.

I
had committed a federal offense. I did not know Alexander LaRue, and
I did not plan to give him back his letter. My heart pounded as I
walked as quickly as possible down the block; my face flushed
scarlet. What was I doing?

I
flew up the porch steps and slammed the door behind me, locking
both locks. I shrugged off my coat and pulled off my boots. My heart
choked at the back of my throat. With trembling fingers, I slit the
envelope open. There was the same sloped hand, the same spiked
letters. The paper was a torn corner from a grocery bag.
Dear
Alexander,
it
read, I
have
been dreaming of you. Trish.
That
was all. I read the note over and over again, checking the edges and
the back to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. Who was
Alexander? And Trish? I ran up to the bedroom and stuffed the letter
into a box of maxipads in the bottom of my closet. I thought about
the kinds of dreams Trish might be having. Maybe she closed her eyes
and saw Alexander's hands running over her hips, her thighs. Maybe
she remembered their sitting on the edge of a riverbank, shoes
and socks off", feet blurred in the water by a frigid rushing
stream. Maybe Alexander had also been dreaming of her.

"There
you are."

I
jumped when Nicholas came in. I raised my hand, and he looped his tie
around my wrist and knelt on the edge of the bed to kiss me.
"Barefoot and pregnant," he said, "just the way I like
'em."

I
struggled into a sitting position. "And how was your day?"
I asked.

Nicholas's
voice came to me from the bathroom, interrupted by the splash of the
faucet. "Come and talk to me," he said, and I heard the
shower being turned on.

I
went to sit on the toilet lid, feeling the steam curl my hair over
the back of my neck where it had fallen from my ponytail. My shirt,
too tight at the bust, misted and clung to my stomach. I considered
telling Nicholas what I had done that day, about the cemetery, about
Trish and Alexander. But before I could even run through my thoughts,
Nicholas turned off the water and pulled his towel into the stall. He
knotted it around his hips and stepped out of the shower, leaving the
bathroom in a cloud of fresh steam.

I
followed Nicholas and watched him part his hair in the mirror over my
dresser, using my brush and stooping so that he could see his face.
"Come over here," he said, and he reached behind him for my
hand, still holding my eyes with his reflection.

He
sat me down on a corner of the bed, and he pulled the barrette from
my hair. With the brush, he began to make slow, lazy strokes from my
scalp to my shoulders, fanning my hair from the nape of my neck to
spread like silk. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, letting
the brush catch through damp tangles and feeling Nicholas's
quiet hand smoothing the static electricity away a moment later. "It
feels good," I said, my voice thick and unfamiliar.

I
was vaguely aware of my clothes being pulled away, of being pushed
back on the cold quilted comforter. Nicholas kept running his hands
through my hair. I felt light, I felt supple. Without those hands
weighing me down, I was certain I could float away.

Nicholas
moved over me and came inside in one quick stroke, and my eyes
flashed open with a white streak of pain. "No," I screamed,
and Nicholas tensed and pulled away from me.

"What?"
he said, his eyes still hooded and wild. "Is it the baby?"

"I
don't know," I murmured, and I didn't. I just knew there was a
barrier where there hadn't been one days ago; that when Nicholas had
entered me I felt resistance, as if something was willing him out

just
as strongly as he wanted himself in. I met his eyes shyly. "I
don't think it's all right—that way—anymore."