Harvesting the Heart (31 page)

"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

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 child 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."