Harvesting the Heart (33 page)

“Pardon me, Nicholas, but I don't get too many other visitors to complain to.”

“No one tells you to sit in the house.”

“No one helps me when I leave it.”

“Paige, I'm going to bed. I have to get up early.”

“You always have to get up early. And you're the one that counts, of course, because you're the one with the job.”

“Well, you're doing something just as important. Consider this
your
job.”

“I do, Nicholas. But it wasn't supposed to be.”

The first thing that struck Nicholas was how many trees were already in bloom. He'd lived on this block for eighteen years of his life, but it had been so long since he'd even seen it that he assumed the Japanese maples and the crab apple trees formed their wide mauve awnings over the front yard at the
end
of June. He sat for a few minutes in the car, thinking about what he would say and how he would say it. He ran his fingers over the smooth polished wood of the stick shift, feeling instead the cool leather of a baseball, the soft inner pouch of his childhood mitt. His mother's Jaguar was parked in the driveway.

Nicholas had not been to his parents' home in eight years, not since the night when the Prescotts had made clear what they thought of his choice of Paige as a wife. He had been bitter enough to cut off his contact with his parents for a year and a half, and then a Christmas card had come from Astrid. Paige had left it with the bills for Nicholas to see, and when he did he had turned it over and over in his hands like an ancient relic. He'd run his fingertips over the neat block lettering of his mother's print, and then he had glanced up to see Paige across the room, trying to look as if she didn't care. For her benefit he'd thrown away Astrid's card—but the next day, from the hospital, he had called his mother.

Nicholas told himself he was not doing it because he forgave them, or because he thought they were right about Paige. In fact, when he spoke to his mother—twice a year now, on Christmas and on her birthday—they did not mention Paige. They did not mention Robert Prescott, either, because Nicholas vowed that in spite of the curiosity that drew him to his mother, he would never forget the image of his father bearing down on Paige eight years before, when she sat unsettled and engulfed by a wing chair.

He didn't tell Paige about these calls. Nicholas was inclined to believe that since his mother had never in eight years even asked about his wife, his parents had not changed their original impression of Paige. The Prescotts seemed to be waiting for Paige and Nicholas to have a falling-out, so they could point fingers and say “I told you so.” Oddly enough, Nicholas never took this personally. He spoke to his mother just to keep hanging by a filial thread; but he divided his life into pre-Paige and post-Paige. Their conversations concentrated on Nicholas's life up till the fateful argument, as if days instead of years had passed. They spoke about the weather, about Astrid's treks, about Brookline's curbside recycling program. They did not mention his specialization in cardiac surgery, the purchase of his house, Paige's pregnancy. Nicholas did not offer any information that might widen the rift that still spread between them.

It didn't help to be sitting in front of his childhood home, however, and be thinking that all those years ago, his parents just might have had a point. Nicholas felt he'd been defending Paige forever, but he was beginning to forget why. He was starving, because Paige didn't make his lunch anymore. She was often awake at four-thirty in the morning, but usually Max was attached to her. Sometimes—not often—he blamed the baby. Max was the easiest target, the demanding thing that had taken his wife like a body snatcher and left in her place the sullen, moody woman he now shared a home with. It was hard to blame Paige herself. Nicholas would look into her eyes, raring for an argument, but all that gazed back at him was that vacant sky-stare, and he'd swallow his anger and taste raw pity.

He didn't understand Paige's problem. He was the one on his feet all goddamned day;
he
was the one with a reputation on the line; he was the one whose missteps could cost lives. If anyone had a right to be exhausted or short-tempered, it was Nicholas. All Paige did was sit in the house with a baby.

And from the time he'd spent with his son, it didn't seem so difficult. Nicholas would sit on the floor and pull at Max's toes, laughing when Max opened his eyes wide and stared around, trying to figure out who'd done that. A month or so ago, he'd been whirling Max around over his head and then hanging him from his feet—he loved that kind of thing—as Paige watched from a corner, her mouth turned down. “He's going to puke on you,” she said. “He just drank.” But Max had kept his eyes open, watching his world spin. When Nicholas had righted the baby and cradled him, Max turned his gaze up and stared directly at his father. Then a slow smile spread across his face, blushing into his cheeks and straightening his little shoulders. “Look, Paige!” Nicholas had said. “Isn't that his first real smile?” And Paige had nodded and looked at Nicholas in awe. She had left the room to find Max's baby book, so she could record the date.

Nicholas patted his breast pocket. They were still there, the pictures of Max he'd just had developed. He would leave one with his mother if he was feeling charitable by the time he left. He hadn't wanted to come in the first place. It was Paige who had suggested he call his parents and let them know they had a grandson. “Absolutely not,” Nicholas had said. Of course, Paige still believed he hadn't talked to his parents in eight years, but maybe that was true. Speaking to someone was not the same as really talking. Nicholas didn't know if he was willing to be the one to back down first.

“Well,” Paige had said, “maybe it's time for all of you to let bygones be bygones.” He'd found this a little hypocritical, but then she had smiled at him and ruffled his hair. “Besides,” she had said, “with your mom around, think of the fortune we'll save on baby pictures.”

Nicholas leaned his head back against the car seat. Overhead, clouds moved lazily across the hot spring sky. Once, when their lives were still uncluttered, Paige and Nicholas had lain on the banks of the Charles and stared at the clouds, trying to find images in their shapes. Nicholas could see only geometric figures: triangles, thin arcs, and polygons. Paige had to hold his hand against the backdrop of blue, tracing the soft fleeced white edges with his finger. There, she'd said,
there's an Indian chief. And far to the left is a bicycle. And a thumbtack, a kangaroo.
At first Nicholas had laughed, falling in love with her all over again for her imagination. But little by little he'd begun to see what she was talking about. Sure enough, it wasn't a cumulonimbus but the thick flowing headdress of a Sioux chief. In the corner of the sky was a wallaby's joey. When he'd looked through her eyes, there were so many things he could suddenly see.

“What's the matter with him?”

“I don't know. The doctor said it's probably colic.”

“Colic? But he's practically three months old. Colic is supposed to end when they're three months old.”

“Yes, I know. It's
supposed
to end. The doctor also told me that research says colicky babies grow up to be more intelligent.”

“Should that make it easier to block out his screaming?”

“Don't take it out on me, Nicholas. I was just answering
your
question.”

“Don't you want to get him?”

“I guess.”

“Well, Christ, Paige. If it's such a big deal, I'll go get him.”

“No. You stay. I'm the one who has to feed him. There's no point in you getting up.”

“All right, then.”

“All right.”

Nicholas counted the number of steps he took in crossing the street and reaching the path to his parents' house. Lining the neat slate stones were rows of tulips: red, yellow, white, red, yellow, white, in organized succession. His heart was pounding to the beat of his footsteps; his mouth was unnaturally dry. Eight years was a very long time.

He thought about ringing the bell, but he didn't want to face one of the servants. He pulled his key chain from his pocket and looked through the many hospital keys to find the old, tarnished one he'd kept on the brass ring since grade school. He had never thrown it away; he wasn't quite sure why. And he wouldn't have expected his parents to ask for it back. A lot might have passed between Nicholas Prescott and his parents, but in his family even bitter estrangements had to follow certain civil rules.

Nicholas was not prepared for the rush of heat that crept up his back and his neck the moment his key fit into the lock of his parents' home. He remembered, all at once, the day he'd fallen from the tree-house and snapped his leg bone through his skin; the time he'd come home drunk and weaved through the kitchen and into the house-keeper's bedroom by mistake; the morning he carried the world on his shoulders—his college graduation. Nicholas shook his head to force away the emotions and pushed himself into the massive foyer.

The black marble on the floor reflected a perfect image of his set face, and the fear in his eyes was mirrored in the high-polished frames of his mother's Endangered exhibit. Nicholas took two steps that sounded like primal thunder, certain that everyone now knew he was here. But no one came. He tossed his jacket onto a gilded chair and walked down the hall to his mother's darkroom.

Astrid Prescott was developing her photos of the Moab, nomads who lived among hills of sand, but she couldn't get her red right. The color of the ruby dust was still clouding her mind, but no matter how many prints she made, it wasn't the right shade. It didn't fix angry enough to whirl around the people, framing them in their nightmares. She put down the last set of photos and pinched the bridge of her nose. Maybe she would try again tomorrow. She pulled several contact sheets from her hanging line, and then she turned and saw the image of her son.

“Nicholas,” his mother whispered.

Nicholas did not move a muscle. His mother looked older, frailer. Her hair was wound in a tight knot at the nape of her neck, and the veins on her clenched fists stood out prominently, marking her hands like a well-traveled map. “You have a grandchild,” he said. His words were tight and clipped and sounded foreign on his tongue. “I thought you should know.”

He turned to leave, but Astrid Prescott rushed forward, scattering the elusive prints of the desert onto the floor. Nicholas was stopped by the touch of his mother's hand. Her fingertips, coated with fixer, left traces of burns up the length of his arm. “Please stay,” she said. “I want to catch up. I want to look at you. And you must need so much for the baby. I'd love to see him—her?—and Paige too.”