"Do you know what I'd give to come home one night and not hear you bitching about the kind of day you've had?"
"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. A
nd 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 housekeeper'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."
Nicholas regarded his mother with all the cold reserve she'd proudly bred into him. He pulled a snapshot of Max from his pocket and tossed it onto the table, on top of a print of a turbaned man with a face as old as honesty. "I'm sure it isn't as good as yours," Nicholas said, staring down into the startled blue eyes of his son. When they'd taken that picture, Paige had stood behind Nicholas with a white sock pulled onto her hand. She had drawn eyes on the top of it and a long forked tongue and had hissed and made rattlesnake noises, pretending to bite Nicholas's ear. In the end, Max had smiled after all.
Nicholas pulled his arm away from his mother's touch. He knew he could not stand there much longer without giving in. He would reach for his mother, and by erasing the space between them, he would be wiping clean a slate listed with grievances that were already starting to fade. He took a deep breath and stood tall. "At one point you weren't ready to be part of my family." He stepped back, digging his heel into the melting fossil sunset of one Moab print. "Well, I'm not ready now." And he turned and disappeared through the shifting black curtain of the darkroom, leaving an outlined glow in the dim crimson light like the unrelenting face of a ghost.
"I went today." "I know."
"How did you know?"
"You haven't said three words to me since you got home. You're a million miles from here."
"Well, only about ten miles. Brookline's not so far. But you're just a Chicago girl; what could you know?"
"Very funny, Nicholas. So what did they say?"
"She. I wasn't going to go when my father was home. I went during my lunch break today."
"I didn't know you got lunch breaks--"
"Paige, let's not start this again."
"So--what did she say?"
"I don't remember. She wanted to know more. I left her a picture."
"You didn't talk to her? You didn't sit down and have tea and crumpets and all that?" "We're not British." "You know what I mean."
"No, we did not sit down and have tea. We didn't sit down at all. I was there for ten minutes, tops."
"Was it very hard? . . . Why are you looking at me like that? What?"
"How can you do it? You know, just cut to the heart of the matter like that?"
"Well, was it?"
"It was harder than putting together a heart-lung. It was harder than telling the parents of a three-year-old that their kid just died on the operating table. Paige, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."
"Oh, Nicholas."
"Are you going to turn off that light?" "Sure."
"Paige? Do we have a copy of that picture I left at my parents'?" "The one of Max we got with the sock snake?" "Yeah. It's a good picture."
"I can get a copy. I have the negative somewhere."
"I want it for my office."
"You don't have an office."
"Then I'll put it in my locker. . . . Paige?"
"Mmm?"
"He's a pretty attractive kid, isn't he? I mean, on the average, I don't think babies are quite as good-looking. Is that a pretentious thing to say?"
"Not if you're his father."
"But he's handsome, isn't he?"
"Nicholas, love, he looks exactly like you."
chapter 1 8
Paige
I was reading an article about a woman who had a bad case of the postpartum blues. She swung from depression to exhilaration; she had trouble sleeping. She became slovenly, wild-eyed, and agitated. She began to have thoughts about hurting her baby girl. She called these thoughts The Plan and told them, in fragments, to her co-workers. Two weeks after she began having these ideas, she came home from work and smothered her eight-month-old daughter with a couch pillow.
She had not been the only one. There was a woman before her who killed her first two babies within days of their births and who tried to kill the third before authorities stepped in. Another woman drowned her two-month-old and told everyone he'd been kidnapped. A third shot her son. Another ran her baby over with her Toyota.
This apparently was a big legal battle in the United States. Women accused of infanticide in England during the first year after
birth could be charged only with manslaughter, not murder. People said it was mental illness: eighty percent of all new mothers suffered from the baby blues; one in a thousand suffered from postpartum psychosis; three percent of those who suffered from psychosis would kill their own children.
I found myself gripping the magazine so tightly that the paper ripped. What if I was one of them?
I turned the page, glancing at Max in his playpen. He was gumming a plastic cube that was part of a toy too advanced for his age. No one ever sent us age-appropriate baby gifts. The next article was a self-help piece. Make a list, the article suggested, of all the things you can do. Supposedly after fashioning such a list, you'd feel better about yourself and your abilities than when you started. I flipped over the grocery list and picked up a dull pencil. I looked at Max. I can change a diaper. I wrote it down, and then the other obvious things: I can measure formula. I can snap Max's outfits without screwing up. I can sing him to sleep. I began to wonder what talents I had that had nothing to do with my baby. Well, I could draw and sometimes see into people's lives with a simple sketch. I could bake cinnamon buns from scratch. I knew all the words to "A Whiter Shade of Pale." I could swim half a mile without getting too tired; at least I used to be able to do that. I could list the names of most of the cemeteries in Chicago; I knew how to splice electrical cords; I understood the difference between principal and interest payments on our mortgage. I could get to Logan Airport via the T. I could fry an egg and flip it in the pan without a spatula. I could make my husband laugh. r />
The doorbell rang. I stuffed the list into my pocket and tucked Max under my arm, especially unwilling to leave him alone after reading that piece on killer mothers. The familiar brown suit and cap of the UPS man was visible through the thin stained-glass pane of the door. "Hello," I said. "It's nice to see you again."
The UPS man had come very other day since Nicholas mentioned to his mother that she had a grandson. Big boxes filled with Dr. Seuss books, Baby Dior clothing, even a wooden hobbyhorse, were sent in an effort to buy Max's--and Nicholas's--love. I liked my UPS man.
He was young and he called me ma'am and he had soft brown eyes and a moony smile. Sometimes when Nicholas was on call he was the only adult I'd see for days. "Maybe you'd like to have some coffee," I said. "It's still pretty early."
The UPS man grinned at me. "Thanks, ma'am," he said, "but I can't, not on company time."
"Oh," I said, stepping back from the threshold. "I see."
"It must be tough," he said.
I blinked up at him. "Tough?"
"With a baby and all. My sister just had one and she used to be a teacher and she says one little monster is worse than a hundred and twenty seventh graders in springtime."
"Well," I said, "I suppose it is."
The UPS man hoisted the box into our living room. "Need help opening it?"
"I can manage." I shrugged and gave a small smile. "Thanks, though."
He tipped his worn brown hat and disappeared through the open doorway. I listened to the squat truck chug down the block, and then I set Max on the floor next to the box. "Don't go anywhere," I said. I backed my way into the kitchen, and then I ran to get a knife. When I came into the living room again, Max had pushed himself up on his hands, like the Sphinx. "Hey," I said, "that's pretty good." I flushed, pleased that I had finally seen a developmental marker before Nicholas.