Harvesting the Heart (37 page)

Max
was so good-natured for the rest of the afternoon that I knew God was
punishing me. I wallowed in my guilt, tickling Max's belly, blowing
wet kisses onto his fat thighs. When Nicholas came home, a knot
tightened in my stomach, but I did not get up off the floor with the
baby. "Paige, Paige, Paige!" Nicholas sang, stepping into
the hallway. He sashayed into the living room with his eyes half
closed. He'd been on call for thirty-six straight hours. "Don't
mention the words Mass General to me—don't even say the word
heart.
For
the next twenty-four glorious hours I'm going to sleep and eat greasy
food and be a sloth right here in my own house." He walked down
the hall toward the stairs, his voice trailing behind. "Did you
get to the cleaners?" he called.

"No,"
I whispered. I had an excuse this time for not leaving the house, but
he wouldn't want to hear it.

Nicholas
reappeared in the living room, holding his shirt by the collar. His
good mood had vanished. He'd asked me to go to the dry cleaners two
days ago, but I hadn't felt comfortable taking Max by myself, and
Nicholas hadn't been home to watch him, and I didn't know how to even
begin to find a baby-sitter. "It's a good thing I have off
tomorrow, then, since this is the last goddamned clean shirt I had.
Come
on,
Paige,"
he said, his eyes turning dark. "You can't possibly be busy
every minute of the day."

"I
was thinking," I said, not looking up, "that maybe you'd
watch the baby while I go to the laundry and grocery shopping."
I swallowed. "I was kind of waiting for you to get home."

Nicholas
glared at me. "This is the first break I've had in thirty-six
hours and you want me to watch Max?" I did not say anything.

"For
Christ's sake, Paige, it's my only day off in the past two weeks.
You're
here
every single goddamned day."

"I
can wait till you take a nap," I suggested, but Nicholas was
already starting back down the hall.

I
held Max's little fists in my hands and braced myself for what I knew
was to come. Nicholas ran down the stairway with Max's bloody outfit,
wet, wrapped around his fingers. "What the hell is this?"
Nicholas said, his voice hot and low.

"Max
had an accident," I said as calmly as I could. "A
nosebleed. I didn't mean to do it. The diaper fell—" I
looked up at Nicholas, at the storm in his eyes, and I started to cry
again. "I twisted around for a second—well, not even; more
like half a second—to get it, and Max rolled the wrong way and
hit his nose on the table—"

"When,"
Nicholas said, "were you planning on telling me?"

He
crossed the room in three long strides and picked Max up roughly. "Be
careful," I said, and Nicholas made a strange sound in the back
of his throat.

His
eyes swept the kidney-shaped bruises below Max's eyes, the traces of
blood on the pads of his nose. He looked at me for a moment, as if he
were piercing through to my soul and knew I was marked for hell. He
clutched the baby tighter in his arms. "You go," he said
quietly. "I'll take care of Max."

His
words, and the accusation behind them, stung me as violently as a
slap to the face. I stood and walked to the bedroom, collecting the
heap of Nicholas's shirts. I pulled them into my arms, feeling their
sleeves wrap and bind my wrists. I pulled my purse and my sunglasses
from the kitchen table, and then I stood in the doorway of the living
room. Nicholas and Max looked up at the same time. They sat together
on the pale couch, looking as if they were carved from the same block
of marble. "I didn't mean to," I whispered, and then I
turned away.

At
the cash machine, I was crying so hard that I didn't realize I had
pressed the wrong buttons until a thousand dollars came out, instead
of the hundred I needed for grocery shopping and prepayment on
Nicholas's shirts. I did not bother to redeposit it. Instead I tore
out of the fire zone I'd parked in, rolled down all the windows, and
headed to the nearest highway. It felt good to hear the wind scream
in my ears and lighten the weight of my hair. The band in my chest
began to ease, and my headache was disappearing. Maybe, I thought,
what I needed all along was a little time alone. Maybe I just needed
to get away.

The
supermarket's flashing sign appeared at the horizon. And it struck me
then that Nicholas was right to doubt me, to hold Max as far away
from me as he could. Here I was smiling into the rushing air,
thinking about my freedom, when just hours before I had watched my
child bleed because of my own carelessness.

There
had to be something wrong with me, deep down, that made me to blame
for Max's fall. There had to be something that made me such an
incompetent mother. Maybe it was the same reason my own mother had
left—she was afraid of what more she could do wrong. It was
possible that Max was better off the way he was, in the solid, strong
arms of his father. It was possible that given the option, Max would
do better with no mother at all.

At
the very least, this much was true: I was no good to Max, or to
Nicholas, the way I was right now.

As
I drove straight past the market, the plan began to form in my head.
I wouldn't be gone for long, just for a little while. Just until I
had got a full night's sleep, and I felt good about myself and about
being Max's mother, and I could make a long self-help list of all the
things I could do, without running out of ideas. I would come back
with all the answers; I would be a whole new person. I would call
Nicholas in a few hours and tell him my idea, and he would agree and
say in his calm, brook-steady voice, "Paige, I think it's just
what you need."

I
started to laugh, my spirit bubbling up from where it had been buried
deep inside. It was really so easy. I could keep driving and driving
and pretend that I had no husband, no baby. I could keep going and
never look back. Of course I
would
go
back, as soon as I had my life in order again. But right now, I
deserved this. I was taking back the time I had been cheated of.

I
drove faster than I'd ever driven in my life. I ran my fingers
through my hair and grinned until the wind cracked my lips. My cheeks
grew flushed and my eyes stung from the brisk rush of the air. One by
one, I tossed Nicholas's shirts out the window, leaving behind on the
highway a trail of white, yellow, pink, powder blue, like a fine
string of pale scattered pearls.

Part
II:
Growth

Summer
1993

^chapter
1
9

Paige

_T
he
thick sateen curtains at Ruby's House of Fate blocked out the hot
midday sun. Ruby herself, a mountain of copper flesh, sat across from
me. She held my hands in her own. Her cheeks reddened, her chins
trembled. Suddenly her thick eyelids opened, to reveal startling
green eyes that had, just minutes before, been brown. "Girl,"
Ruby said, "yo' future is yo' past."

I
had come to Ruby's House of Fate out of hunger. Driving all day away
from Cambridge had brought me to Pennsylvania—to Amish country.
For a time I had parked the car and watched the neat black buggies,
the fresh-capped girls. Something told me to keep on driving, in
spite of the burning in the pit of my stomach. I hadn't eaten since
breakfast, and it was now almost eight o'clock at night. So I had
continued west, and at the outskirts of Lancaster I discovered Ruby.
Her little row house was marked by a big billboard in the shape of a
palm, covered with glittering moons and gold stars,
ruby's
house of fate
,
the sign read.
your
place to find answers.

I
wasn't certain what my questions were, but that didn't seem
important. I wasn't a believer in astrology, but that also seemed to
be beside the point. Ruby answered the door as if she had been
expecting me. I was confused. What was a black woman doing
reading fortunes in Amish country? "You'd be amazed," she
said, as if I had spoken aloud. "So many people pass through."

Ruby
did not tear her green eyes from mine. I had been driving aimlessly
all day, but at Ruby's words I suddenly realized where I was headed.
"I'm going to Chicago?" I asked softly, for confirmation,
and Ruby grinned.

I
tried to pull away from her grasp, but she held fast to my hand. She
rubbed her smooth thumb over my palm and spoke quietly in a language
I did not understand. "You'll find her," she said, "but
she isn't what you think she is."

"Who?"
I asked, although I knew she meant my mother.

"Sometimes,"
she said, "bad blood skips a generation."

I
waited for her to explain, but she released my hand and cleared her
throat. "That'll be twenty-five," she said, and I rummaged
through my purse. Ruby walked me outside, and I swung open the hot,
heavy door of the car. "You need to call him too," she
said, and by the time I looked up at her, she was gone.

"Nicholas?"
I pulled at the collar of my shirt and ran my fingers over the smooth
silk scarf from Astrid, trying to escape the phone booth's heat.

"My
God, Paige. Are you hurt? I called the supermarket—I called six
of them, because I didn't know where you'd gone, and I tried the
nearest gas stations. Was there an accident?"

"Not
really," I said, and I heard Nicholas draw in his breath. "How's
the baby?" I asked, feeling tears prick the back of my throat.
It was strange; for almost three months, all I'd thought about was
getting away from Max, and now I couldn't stop thinking about him. He
was always in the corner of my mind, clouding my vision, his gummy
fists reaching toward me. I actually missed him.

"The
baby's fine. Where are you? When are you coming home?"

I
took a deep breath. "I'm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

"You're
where?"
In
the background, I heard Max start to cry, and then the sounds became
louder, so I knew Nicholas was jiggling the baby in his arms.

"I
was headed to the Stop & Shop, and I kind of kept going. I just
need a little time—"

"Well,
hey, Paige, so does the rest of the free world, but we don't just up
and run away!" Nicholas was yelling; I held the receiver away
from my ear. "Let me get this straight," he said, "you
left us on
purpose?"

"I
didn't run away," I insisted. "I'm coming back."

"When?"
Nicholas demanded. "I have a life, you know. I have a job to get
back to."

I
closed my eyes and leaned my head against the glass of the phone
booth. "I have a life too."

Nicholas
did not answer, and for a moment I thought he'd hung up, but then I
heard Max babbling in the background. "Your life," Nicholas
said, "is right here.
Not
in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

What
I wanted to tell him was: I'm not ready to be a mother. I can't even
be your wife, not until I patch together the pieces of my own life
and fill in all the holes. I
will
come
home, and we'll pick up where we left off. I won't forget you; I love
you. But what I said to Nicholas was: "I'll be back soon."