Harvesting the Heart (61 page)

When
I see Nicholas again, he is with a younger man, probably a resident,
walking through the halls of surgical ICU. I knew he'd make a swing
through here, even if he was planning to head to other floors first,
because he'd have to check on that morning's patient. His name is
Oliver Rosenstein, and he is sleeping peacefully, breathing in time
with the steady beats of the heart monitor. "We make patients
sicker than they are when they come to us," Nicholas is saying
to the resident. "We
elect
to
make them sicker in hopes that they'll be better in the long run.
That's part of why you're put up on a pedestal. If you trust your car
to a mechanic, you look for someone who's good. If you trust your
life to a surgeon, you look for someone who's God." The resident
laughs and looks up at Nicholas, and it is clear that he thinks
Nicholas is as mythic as they come.

Just
as I am wondering why I have never seen Nicholas work during the
eight years we've been married, he is paged over the loudspeaker.
He murmurs something to the resident and bolts up the nearest
staircase. The resident leaves Oliver Rosenstein's room and walks off
in the other direction. Because I don't know where to go, I stay
where I am, at the open doorway to the room.

"Uhh,"
I hear, and Oliver Rosenstein stirs.

I
bite my lower lip, not certain what to do, when a nurse breezes past
me into the room. She leans close to Oliver and adjusts several tubes
and wires and catheters. "You're doing fine," she soothes,
and then she pats his yellow, veined hand. "I'm going to page
your doctor for you." She leaves as briskly as she entered, and
because of that I am the only person who hears Oliver Rosenstein's
first postsurgical words. "It isn't easy," he says, barely
audible, "not easy to go through this. . . . It's real, real
hard." He rolls his head from side to side, as if he is looking
for something, and then he sees me and smiles. "Ellie," he
says, his voice a rough sandpaper snap. He clearly thinks I am
someone else. "I'm here,
kine
ahora,"
he
says. "For a WASP, that Prescott is a mensch."

It
is another hour before I find Nicholas again, and that is only by
accident. I am wandering around the post-op floor, when Nicholas
blusters out of the elevator. He is reading a file and eating a
Hostess cupcake. A nurse laughs at him as he passes the central desk.
"You gonna be the next cardiac surgeon around these parts with
blocked arteries," she scolds, and Nicholas tosses her the
second cupcake, still packaged.

"If
you don't tell anyone," he says, "this is yours."

I
marvel at this man, whom everyone seems to know, who seems so
controlled and so calm. Nicholas, who could not tell you where I keep
the peanut butter in his own kitchen, is completely in his element
at this hospital. It hits like an unexpected slap: This is really
Nicholas's home. These people are really Nicholas's family. This
doctor, whom everyone seems to need for a signature or a quiet
word or an answer, does not need anyone else, especially me.

Nicholas
stuffs the chart he has been reading into the box glued to the door
of room 445. He enters and smiles at a young resident in a white
coat, her hands jammed in her pockets. "Dr. Adams tells me
you're all set for tomorrow," he says to the patient, pulling up
a chair next to the bed. I scoot to the other side of the doorway so
that I can peek in, unseen. The patient is a man about my father's
age, with the same round face and faraway look in his eyes. "Let
me tell you what we're going to do, since I don't think you're going
to remember much of it," Nicholas says.

I
cannot really hear him, but little drifts of dialogue float out to
me, words like
oxygenation,
mammary arteries, intubate.
The
patient does not seem to be listening. He is staring at Nicholas with
his mouth slightly open, as if Nicholas is Jesus Himself.

Nicholas
asks the man if he has any questions. "Yes," the patient
says hesitantly. "Will I know you tomorrow?"

"You
might," Nicholas says, "but you're going to be groggy by
the time you see me. I'll check in when you're up in the afternoon."

"Dr.
Prescott," the patient says, "in case I'm too doped up to
tell you—thanks."

I
do not hear Nicholas respond to the patient, so I don't have time to
retreat before he comes out the door. He barrels into me, apologizes,
and then notices whom he has run into. With a narrowed look, he grabs
my upper arm and starts to pull me down the hall. "Julie,"
he says to the resident who has been in the room with him, "I'll
see you after you round." Then he curses through his clenched
teeth and drags me into a tiny room off the side of the hall, where
patients can get ice chips and orange juice. "What the hell do
you think you're doing here?"

My
breath catches in my throat, and for the life of me I cannot answer.
Nicholas squeezes my arm so hard that I know he is leaving behind a
bruise. "I—I—"

"You
what?"
Nicholas
seethes.

"I
didn't mean to bother you," I say. "I just want to talk to
you." I start to tremble and wonder what I will say if Nicholas
takes me up on my offer.

"If
you don't get the hell out of here," Nicholas says, "I'll
have security throw you out on your ass." He releases my arm as
if he's been touching a leper. "I told you not to come back,"
he says. "What else do I have to do to show you I mean it?"

I
lift my chin and pretend I haven't heard anything he's said.
"Congratulations," I say, "on your promotion."

Nicholas
stares at me. "You're crazy," he says, and then he walks
down the hall without turning back.

I
watch him until his white coat is a blur against a distant wall. I
wonder why he cannot see the similarity between me and his patients,
whom he keeps from dying of broken hearts.

At
the Prescotts' Brookline mansion, I sit for seven minutes in the car.
I let my breath heat up the interior and wonder if there is an
etiquette for begging mercy. Finally, driven by an image of Max, I
push myself up the slate path and rap on the door with the heavy
brass lion knocker. I am expecting Imelda, the short, plump maid, but
instead Astrid herself—and my son—opens the door.

I'm
immediately struck by the contrast between Astrid and my own mother.
There are the simple things—Astrid's silk and pearls as
compared to my mother's flannel shirts and chaps; Astrid's antiques
set against my mother's stables. Astrid thrives on her fame; my
mother goes to great lengths to protect her identity. But on the
other hand, Astrid and my mother are both strong; they are both proud
to a fault. They have both fought the system that bound them, and
recreated themselves. And from the look of things, Astrid—like
my mother—is beginning to admit to her mistakes.

Astrid
doesn't say anything. She looks at me—no, actually she looks
into
me,
as if she is sizing me up for the best lighting and direction and
angle. Max is balanced on her hip. He watches me with eyes that the
color blue must have been named for. His hair is matted with sweat on
the side of his head, and a crinkled line from a sheet is imprinted
on his cheek.

Max
has changed so much in just three months.

Max
is the image of Nicholas.

He
figures out that I am a stranger, and he burrows his face in Astrid's
blouse, rubbing his nose back and forth on the fibbing.

Astrid
makes no move to give him to me, but she also doesn't shut the door
in my face. To make sure of this, I take a tiny step forward.
"Astrid," I say, and then I shake my head.
"Mom."

As
if the word has triggered a memory, which I know is impossible,
Max lifts his face. He tilts his head, as his grandmother did at
first, and then he reaches out one balled fist. "Mama," he
says, and the fingers of the fist open one by one like a flower,
stretching and coming to rest on my cheek.

His
touch—it's not what I've expected, what I've dreamed. It is
warm and dry and gentle and brushes like a lover. My tears slip down
between his fingers, and he pulls his hand away. He puts it back into
his mouth, drinking in my sorrow, my regrets.

Astrid
Prescott hands Max to me so that his arms wrap around my neck and his
warm, solid form presses the length of my chest. "Paige,"
she says, not at all surprised to see me. She steps back so that I
can enter her home. "Whatever took you so long?"

^chapter
34

_Nicholas

Paige
has single-handedly ruined Nicholas's day. Nicholas
knows
he has nothing else to complain about—his surgery went well
enough; his patients are bearing up—but discovering Paige
tripping along at his heels has unnerved him. It is a public
hospital, and she has every right to be inside it; his threat about
calling security was only that—a threat. Seeing her outside his
patient's door rattled him, and he never gets rattled at the
hospital. For several minutes after he walked away from her, he had
felt his pulse jumping irregularly, as if he'd received a shock to
the system.

At
least she wouldn't find Max. She hadn't followed him to the hospital;
surely he would have noticed. She must have showed up later. Which
meant that she didn't know Max was at his parents', and never, never
would she guess that Nicholas had swallowed his pride and in fact was
starting to enjoy having Robert and Astrid Prescott back in his life.
On the outside chance that Paige
did
go
over

there,
well, his mother certainly wouldn't let her in, not after all the
pain she'd caused to Astrid's own son.

Nicholas
stops at his office to pick up his suit jacket before heading
home. In spite of the name on the door and the fact that he has his
own secretary, it is still really Alistair's place. The art on the
walls is not what Nicholas would have picked; the nautical
paraphernalia like that sextant and the brass captain's wheel are not
his style. He would like a forest-green office with fox-and-hound
prints, a banker's shaded lamp on his desk, an overstuffed cranberry
damask couch. Anything but the pale white and beige that predominate
in his house—which Paige, with her predilection for color, has
always hated and which, all of a sudden, Nicholas is starting to see
that he doesn't like himself.

Nicholas
rests his hand on the brass wheel. Maybe one day. He is doing a good
job as chief of cardiac surgery; he knows that. Saget has as much as
told him that if Alistair decides to cut back his schedule or retire
completely, the position is Nicholas's for keeps. It is a dubious
honor. Nicholas has wanted it for so long that he has slipped into
the schedule naturally, joining the proper hospital committees
and giving lectures to the residents and visiting surgeons. But all
the extra hours and the grueling pressure to succeed keep him apart
from Max and from Paige.

Nicholas
shakes his head. He
wants
to
be apart from Paige. He doesn't need her anymore; he wants her to
choke on a taste of her own medicine. Setting his jaw, he pulls
together the files he needs to review before tomorrow and locks his
office door behind him.

At
eight o'clock, there isn't much traffic on Storrow Drive, and
Nicholas makes it to his parents' house in fifteen minutes. He lets
himself in and steps into the hall. "Hello," he calls,
listening to his echo in the cupola above. "Where are you guys?"