Harvesting the Heart (69 page)

Real
people do not live like this, surrounded by thousands of volumes of
books and ancient paintings of pale women and thick silver varsity
mugs. Real people do not take tea as seriously as if it were
Communion. Real people do not make five-figure donations to the
Republican party—

"Do
you like Handel?"

At
the sound of Robert's voice, my eyes fly open and every muscle in my
body goes on the alert. I stare at him carefully, wondering if this
is a test, a trap set for me so I'll slip up and show how little I
understand. "I don't know," I say bitterly.
"Should
I?"
I wait to see his eyes flare, or his mouth tighten, and when it
doesn't, the fight goes out of me.
It's
your own fault, Paige,
I
think.
He's
only trying to be nice.
"I'm
sorry," I say. "I haven't had a very good day. I didn't
mean to snap at you. It's just that when I was growing up, the only
antique we had was my father's family Bible, and the music we
listened to had words." I smile hesitantly. "This kind of
life takes a little getting used to, although you couldn't really
understand that—"

I
break off, recalling what Nicholas told me years ago about his
father, what I'd forgotten when I'd seen Robert, and all his
trappings, again. Something flickers across his eyes—regret, or
maybe relief— but just as quickly, it disappears. I stare at
him, fascinated. I wonder how he could have come from my kind of
background but still know, so easily, the right way to move and to
act in a house like this.

"So
Nicholas told you," Robert says, and he doesn't sound
disappointed or furious; it's simply a statement of fact.

Suddenly
I remember what had tugged at the corner of my mind when Nicholas
said his father had grown up poor. Robert Prescott was the one who
had objected to Nicholas's marrying me. Not Astrid—which I
could understand—but Robert.
He
had
been the one to drive Nicholas away.
He
had
been the one who said Nicholas would be ruining his life.

I
tell myself I'm not angry anymore, just curious. But I pick Max up
anyway, taking him away from my father-in-law. "How
could
you?"
I whisper.

Robert
leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "I worked so hard
for this. All of this." He gestures, sweeping his hands in the
directions of the four walls. "I could never stand the thought
of someone throwing it all away. Not Astrid, and especially not
Nicholas."

Max
squirms, and I set him down on the floor. "Nicholas didn't have
to throw it all away," I point out. "You could have paid
for his education."

Robert
shakes his head. "It wouldn't have been the same. Eventually
you'd have held him back. You could never move in these circles,
Paige. You wouldn't be comfortable living like this."

It
isn't the truth that stings; it is hearing Robert Prescott, once
again, decide what is best for me. I curl my hands into fists. "How
the hell can you be so sure?"

"Because
I'm
not,"
he says quietly. Shocked, I sink back into the couch. I stare at
Robert's cashmere sweater, his neat white hair, the pride gracing his
jaw. But I also notice that his hands are clenched tight together and
that a pulse beats fast at the base of his neck.
He's
terrified,
I
think.
He's
as scared of me as I've been of him.

I
think about this for a moment, and about why he is telling
me
something
it obviously hurts him to discuss. I remember something my mother
said in North Carolina when I asked her why she had never come back.
"You make your own bed," she told me. "You have to lie
in it."

I
smile gently and sweep Max off the floor. I hand him to his
grandfather. "I'll change for dinner," I say, and I
start toward the hall.

Robert's
voice stops me. His words trip over Handel's sweet violins and
reaching flutes. "It's worth it," he says quietly. "I
would do it all over again."

I
do not turn around. "Why?"

"Why
would
you?"
he
says, and his question follows me up the stairs and slips into the
cool quiet of my room. It demands an answer, and it knocks me off
center.

Nicholas.

Sometimes
I sing Max to sleep. It doesn't seem to matter what I sing—gospel
or pop, Dire Straits or the Beatles. I usually skip the lullabies,
because I figure Max will hear those from everyone else.

We
sit on the rocking chair in his room at the Prescotts'. Astrid lets
me hold him whenever I want to now, as long as Nicholas isn't around
and isn't about to show up. It's her way of getting me to stay, I
think, although I don't consider leaving a real option anymore.

Max
has just had his bath. The easiest way to give it, because he's so
slippery in the bathtub, is just to get naked with him and set him
between my legs. He has a Tupperware bowl and a rubber duck that he
plays with in the water. He doesn't mind when I get baby shampoo in
his eyes. Afterward I wrap him in the towel with me, pretending we
share the same skin, and I think of wallabees and opossums and other
animals that always carry around their young.

Max
is getting very sleepy, rubbing his eyes with his little fists and
yawning often. "Hang on a second," I say, sitting him up on
the floor. I lean down and pop a pacifier into his mouth.

He
watches me as I straighten his crib. I smooth the sheet and move the
Cookie Monster and the rabbit rattle out of the way. When I turn
around fast, he smiles, as if this is a game, and he loses his
pacifier in the process. "You can't suck and smile at the same
time," I tell him. I turn around to plug in the night-light, and
when I face Max again he laughs. He holds up his arms to me, asking
to be held.

Suddenly
I realize that this is what I've been waiting for—a man who
depends entirely on me. When I met Jake, I spent years trying to make
him fall in love with me. When I married Nicholas, I lost him to the
mistress of medicine. I dreamed for years of a man who couldn't live
without me, a man who pictured my face when he closed his eyes, who
loved me when I was a mess in the morning and when dinner was late
and even when I overloaded the washing machine and burned out the
motor.

Max
stares up at me as if I can do no wrong. I have always wanted someone
who treats me the way he does; I just didn't know that I'd have to
give birth to him. I pick Max up, and immediately he wraps his arms
around my neck and starts crawling up my body. This is the way he
hugs; it is something he's just learned. I can't help but smile into
the soft folds of his neck.
Be
careful what you wish for,
I
think.
It
might come true.

Nancy
Bianna stands in the long main founders' hallway, her finger pressed
against her pursed lips. "Something," she murmurs. "I'm
missing something." She swings her head back and forth, and her
hair, blunt cut, moves like an Egyptian's.

Nancy
has been the primary reason that my sketches of Nicholas's patients
and some new ones, of Elliot Saget and Nancy and even Astrid and Max,
now hang framed in the entrance to the hospital. Previously a row of
unimaginative prints, imitations of Matisse, hung against the
cinder-block walls. But Nancy says this will be the start of
something big. "Who knew Dr. Prescott was so well connected?"
she mused to me. "First you, and then maybe an exhibit by his
mother."

That
first day I met her, after I had left Nicholas in his office, she
shook my hand vigorously and slid her thick black-rimmed glasses up
her nose. "What patients want to see when they check into a
hospital," she explained, "isn't a line of meaningless
color. They want to see
people."
She
leaned forward and gripped my shoulders. "They want to see
survivors.
They
want to see
life."

Then
she stood up and walked casually in a circle around me. "Of
course we understand you'd have the final say on placement and
inclusion," she added, "and we'd compensate you for
your work."

Money.
They were going to give me money for the silly little pictures I drew
to get Nicholas to notice me. My sketches were going to hang on the
walls at Mass General, so that even when I wasn't around Nicholas, he
couldn't help but be reminded.

I
smiled at Nancy. "When can we start?"

Three
days later, the exhibit is being set up. Nancy paces the hallway and
switches a portrait of Mr. Kasselbaum with one of Max. "The
juxtaposition of youth and age," she says. "Autumn and
spring. I love it."

At
the far end of the exhibit, near the admissions desk, is a small
white card with my name printed on it.
paige
prescott
,
it reads,
volunteer
.
There is no biography, nothing at all about Nicholas or Max, and this
is sort of nice. It makes me feel as though I have just appeared out
of nowhere and stepped into the limelight; as if I have never had a
history at all.

"Okay,
okay . . . places," Nancy calls, grasping my hand. There are
only two other people in the hall, custodians with ladders and
wire-cutters, and neither of them speaks very good English. I don't
really know who Nancy is talking to. She pulls me to the side and
draws in her breath. "Ta-da!" she trills, although nothing
has changed from a moment before.

"It's
lovely," I say, because I know she is waiting.

Nancy
beams at me. "Stop by tomorrow," she says. "We're
thinking of changing our stationery, and if you're any good at
lettering . . ." She lets her sentence trail off, speaking
for itself.

When
she disappears into an elevator, taking the workmen and the ladders
with her, I stand in the hallway and survey my own work. It is the
first time I have ever seen my skills on formal display. I am good. A
sweet rush of success bubbles inside me, and I walk down the hall,
touching each individual picture. I take away a shot of pride from
each one and leave in its place the promise-marker of my
fingerprints.

One
night when the house is as dark as a forest I go to the library to
call my mother. I pass Astrid and Robert's room on the way and I hear
the sound of lovemaking, and for some reason instead of being
embarrassed I am frightened. When I reach the library, I settle in
the big wing chair Robert likes best and I hold the heavy phone in my
hands like a trophy.

"I
forgot to tell you something," I say when my mother answers the
phone. "We named the baby after you."