Harvesting the Heart (62 page)

He
wanders into the parlor, which is primarily a playroom now, but no
one is there. He peeks into the library, where his father usually
spends the evenings, but the room is dark and cool. Nicholas starts
up the stairs, his feet falling onto the worn track of the Oriental
runner. "Hello," he says again, and then he hears Max
giggle.

When
Max laughs, it rumbles out of his belly, and it overcomes him so
thoroughly that by the time the sound bubbles up through his throat,
his little shoulders are shaking and his smile is like the sun.
Nicholas loves the sound, just as much as he hates Max's piercing
crabby whine. He follows the giggle around the hall and into one of
the extra bedrooms, the one that Astrid has redecorated into a
gingham nursery. Just outside, Nicholas drops to his hands and
knees, thinking to surprise Max by crouching like a tiger. "Max,
Max, Maximilian," Nicholas growls, pawing his way into the
half-open door.

Astrid
is sitting on the only chair in the room, an oversize white rocker.
Max is in the middle of the pale-blue carpeted floor, tugging at
tufts of the rug with one fist. His free hand is used for balance and
is propped comfortably against Paige's knee.

Although
Astrid looks up, Paige doesn't seem to notice that Nicholas has
crawled into the room. She reaches for Max's bare toes and pulls them
one by one, the pinkie last, and then runs her fingers up the length
of his leg. He squeals and giggles again, leaning back his head so
that he can see her upside down. "More?" she says, and Max
slaps his hands against her thighs.

Somewhere
in the back of Nicholas's mind, behind the red haze, something snaps.
He stares at Paige, dumbfounded that she is actually in the same room
as
his
son.
She
looks impossibly young, with her red hair spilling down over her
shoulders and her shirt untucked in the back, her sneakered feet just
out of Max's reach. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. But Max,
who wails when the UPS man comes to the door these days, has taken to
Paige as if she's been there all his life, instead of only half. And
Paige makes it look so easy. Nicholas remembers the nights he had to
walk up and down the halls of the house, letting Max cry in his arms
because he didn't know how else to put him to sleep. He even took
books out of the library to learn the words to "Patty-Cake"
and "Three Blind Mice." But Paige walks in from nowhere,
sits down, spreads her legs in a circular playground for Max, and
she's got him crowing.

Out
of the blue, a vision of Paige flashes across Nicholas's mind —Paige
with her hand in the Miracle Whip jar, scraping together the last of
the stuff for his sandwich. It was four-thirty in the morning,
and he was leaving for surgery, but she, as always, had got up to
make his lunch. "Well," she said, ringing the knife against
the empty jar, "we can call this one quits." And she looked
around the kitchen for a dish towel and couldn't find one and wiped
her hands on the soft white cotton of her angel's nightgown when she
thought, incorrectly, that Nicholas wasn't looking.

Paige
hasn't made his lunch since Max was born, and although he isn't about
to blame a newborn or admit to jealousy, he suddenly realizes that
Paige hasn't been
his
since
Max was born. He clenches his fists in the carpet, just like Max.
Paige hasn't come back here for him; she's come for Max. She probably
traced Nicholas to the hospital only to make sure he wouldn't be
around when she found Max. And although this shouldn't bother him,
because he's pushed away all his feelings for her, it still smarts.

Nicholas
takes a deep breath, waiting for brilliant anger to replace the pain.
But it is slow in coming, especially when he looks at Paige, at the
picture she makes with his son. He narrows his eyes and tries to
remember what is familiar about this, and then he sees the
connection. The way Max looks at her—as if she is a
deity—is exactly the way Paige used to look at Nicholas.

Nicholas
jumps to his feet and glares at his mother. "Who the hell told
you to let her in here?" he seethes.

Astrid
stands calmly. "Who the hell told me not to?" she says.

Nicholas
runs a hand through his hair. "For Christ's sake, Mom, I didn't
think I had to spell it out. I
told
you
she was back. You
know
how
I feel. You
know
what
she's done." He points to Paige, still wrapped around the baby
and tickling his sides. "How do you know she isn't going to
steal him away when your back is turned? How do you know she isn't
going to hurt him?"

Astrid
lays a hand on her son's arm. "Nicholas," she says, "do
you really think she's going to do that?"

At
that, Paige looks up. She stands and pulls Max up on his feet. "I
just had to see him, Nicholas. I'll go now. It's not your mother's
fault." She scoops Max into her embrace, and he locks his
dimpled arms around her neck.

Nicholas
takes a step forward, so close he can feel the warm rush of Paige's
breath. "I don't want to see your car at home," he says in
his quiet, steely surgeon's voice. "I'll get a restraining
order."

He
expects Paige to turn and slink away, intimidated, like everyone
else does when he speaks that way. But she stands her ground and rubs
her hands over Max's back. "It's my house too," she says
quietly, "and it's my son."

Nicholas
explodes. He grabs the baby so roughly, Max begins to cry. "What
the hell do you think you're going to do? Take the kid the next time
you decide to bolt? Or maybe you already have a plan to leave."

Paige
knots her hands in front of her. "I am
not
going
to bolt. All I want is to be let back in my house again. I'm not
going to run anywhere unless I'm forced to."

Nicholas
laughs, a strange sound that comes through his nose. "Right,"
he says. "Just like last time. Poor Paige, driven away by a
twist of Fate."

In
that moment, Nicholas knows he has won. "How come you have to
see it like that?" Paige whispers. "How come you can't just
see that I came home?" She steps back, speaking through a broken
smile. "Maybe you're perfect, Nicholas, and everything you do
turns out right the first time. The rest of us ordinary humans have
to try over and over again and hope that we'll keep getting second
chances until we figure it out." She turns and runs out of the
room before a single tear falls, and Nicholas can hear the heavy oak
front door pulled shut behind her.

Max
fidgets in Nicholas's arms, so he sets him down on the carpet. The
baby stares out the open bedroom door as if he is waiting for Paige
to come back. Astrid, whom Nicholas has forgotten about, reaches down
to pull the dying leaf of a potted palm out of Max's hand. When she
straightens, she looks Nicholas right in the eye. "I'm ashamed
of you," she says, and she walks out of the room.

Paige
is at the house when Nicholas returns with Max. She sits quietly in
front of the porch with her sketch pad and her charcoal.

In
spite of his threat, Nicholas does not call the police. He does not
even acknowledge that he sees her when he carries Max and his diaper
bag and the files from the hospital into the house. From time to time
that night when he is playing with Max on the living room floor he
can see Paige peering in through the window, but he doesn't bother to
close the drapes or to move Max into another room.

When
Max has trouble falling asleep, Nicholas tries the one thing that
always works. Dragging the vacuum cleaner out of the front hall
closet, he sets it over the threshold of the nursery and flips the
switch so that the whir of the motor drowns out the choked cries of
Max's screams. Eventually Max quiets down and Nicholas pulls the
vacuum away. It works because of the white noise that distracts Max,
but Nicholas thinks it might be genetic. He can remember coming home
from thirty-six-hour shifts, falling asleep to the hum of the vacuum
as Paige cleaned the house.

Nicholas
walks to the front hall and turns out the light. Then he steps to the
window, knowing that he'll be able to see Paige without her being
able to see him. Her face is silver in the moonlight, her hair a rich
bronze glow. Puddled around her are scores of drawings: Max sitting,
Max sleeping, Max rolling over. Nicholas can not see among them a
single image of himself.

The
wind blows a couple of the drawings up the steps of the porch. Before
he can even think to stop himself, Nicholas opens the front door in
time for them to fly into the hall. He picks them up —one of
Max playing with a rattle, one of Max grabbing his own feet—and
walks onto the porch. "I think these are yours," he says,
coming to stand beside her.

Paige
is on her hands and knees, trying to keep the other drawings from
blowing away. She has secured a stack of them under a big rock and
has pinned the rest with her elbow. "Thanks," she says,
rolling awkwardly onto her side. She gathers the pictures up and
stuffs them inside the front cover of her sketch pad, as if she is
embarrassed. "If you want to stay out here," she says, "I
can sit in the car."

Nicholas
shakes his head. "It's cold," he says. "I'm going to
go inside." He sees Paige draw in her breath, waiting for an
invitation, but he's not about to let that happen. "You're very
good with Max," he says. "He's going through this stranger
thing now, and he doesn't take to just anybody."

Paige
shrugs. "I think I've grown into him. This is more what I
pictured when I thought of a baby—something that sits up and
smiles and laughs with you, not just something that eats and sleeps
and poops and completely ignores you." She peers up at him. "I
think that
you're
the
one who's very good with Max. Look at what he's turned into. He's
like a whole different kid."

Nicholas
thinks of many things he could say, but instead he just nods his
head. "Thanks," he says. He leans against the step of the
porch and stretches out his legs. "You can't stay here forever,"
he says.

"I
hope I don't have to." Paige tilts her head back and lets the
night wash over her face. "When I was in North Carolina, I slept
outside with my mother." She sits up and laughs. "I
actually liked it."

"I'll
have to take you camping in Maine," Nicholas says.

Paige
stares at him. "Yes," she says, "you'll have to."

A
chill sweeps across the lawn, beading the dew and sending a shiver
down Nicholas's spine. "You're going to freeze out here,"
he says, and he stands before he can say anything else. "I'm
going to get you a coat."

He
runs up the porch as if it is a refuge and pulls the first coat he
can find out of the hall closet. It is a big woolen overcoat, one of
his, and as he holds it out to Paige he sees it will sweep her
ankles. Paige steps into the coat and pulls the lapels together.
"This is nice," she says, touching Nicholas's hand.

Nicholas
pulls away. "Well," he says, "I don't want you to get
sick."

"No,"
Paige says, "I mean
this."
She
gestures between herself and Nicholas. "Not yelling." When
Nicholas does not say anything, she picks up her sketch pad and her
charcoal, and as a second thought she offers a half-smile. "Give
Max a kiss for me," she says.

When
Nicholas steps into the safety of the house and stands in the folds
of the dark hallway, he is momentarily disoriented. He has