by Jodi Picoult
"Close enough." She patted his shoulder and pointed to the picture of Nicholas. "Daddy. Daddy."
Robert Prescott straightened abruptly and slammed his head on the underside of the table. "Shit," he said, and Astrid poked him with an elbow.
"Your language," she snapped. "That's not the first word I want to hear from him." She picked up the portrait of Paige she had shot from a distance, the one Nicholas had balked at the first day he'd left
Max. "This is your mommy," she said, running her fingertips over Paige's delicate features. "Mommy." "Muh," Max said.
Astrid turned to Robert, her mouth wide. "You did hear that, didn't you? Muh?"
Robert nodded. "It could have been gas."
Astrid scooped the baby into her arms and kissed the folds of his neck. "You, my love, are a genius. Don't listen to your dotty old grandfather."
"Nicholas would pitch a fit if he knew you were showing him Paige's picture, you know," Robert said. He stood and straightened, rubbing the small of his back. "I'm too damn old for this," he said. "Nicholas should have had Max ten years ago, when I could really enjoy him." He held out his arms for Max, so that Astrid could pull herself up. She gathered together the photos. "Max isn't all yours, Astrid," he said. "You really should get Nicholas's go-ahead."
Astrid pulled the baby back into her arms. Max pressed his lips to her neck and made razzing sounds. She slid him into the high chair that sat at the head of the table. "If we'd always done what Nicholas wanted," she said, "he'd have been a teenage vegetarian with a crew cut who bungee-jumped from hot-air balloons."
Robert opened two jars of baby food, pear-pineapple and plums, and sniffed at them to see which might taste better. "You have a point," he said.
Nicholas had planned to do the entire operation, with the exception of the vein harvest, from start to finish, out of deference to Alistair. He knew that if the positions were reversed, he would want it that way. But by the time he had threaded the ribs with wire, he was unsteady on his feet. He had been concentrating too hard too long. The placement of the veins had been perfect. The sutures he'd made around Alistair's heart were microscopically minute. He just couldn't do any more.
"You can close," he said, nodding to the resident who had been assisting him. "And you'd better do the best goddamned job of your surgical career." He regretted the words as soon as he'd said them, seeing the slight tremor in the girl's fingers. He leaned down below the sterile drapes that hid Alistair's face. There was a lot he had planned to say, but just seeing him there with the life temporarily drained out of him reminded Nicholas too much of his own mortality. He held his wrist against Alistair's cheek, careful not to mark him with his own blood. He felt the tingle coming back to Fogerty's skin as the unobstructed heart began to do its work again. Satisfied, he left the room with all the dignity Fogerty had told him he would one day command.
Robert didn't like it when Astrid took Max into the darkroom. "Too many wires," he said, "too many toxic chemicals. God only knows what gets into his system in there." But Astrid wasn't stupid. Max couldn't crawl yet, so there was no danger of his getting into the stop bath or the fixer. She didn't do any developing when he was around; she just scanned contact sheets for the prints she'd make later. If she placed him just right, on a big striped beach towel, he was perfectly content to play with his chunky plastic shapes and the electronic ball that made farm animal noises.
"Once upon a time," Astrid said, telling the story over her shoulder, "there was a girl named Cinderella, who hadn't lived the most charmed life but had the good fortune to meet a man who had. The kind of man, by the way, you're going to grow up to be." She leaned down and handed him a rubber triangle he'd inadvertently tossed away. "You're going to open doors for girls and pay for their dinners and do all the chivalrous things men used to do before they slacked off under the excuse of equal rights."
Astrid circled a tiny square with her red grease pen. "This one's good," she murmured. "Anyway, Max, as I was saying . . . oh, yes, Cinderella. Well, someone else will probably tell you the story at a later date, so I'm just going to skip ahead a little. You see, a book doesn't always end at the final page." She squatted down until she was sitting across from Max, and then she took his hands in her own, kissing the tips of his stubby wet fingers.
"Cinderella had liked the idea of living in a castle, and she was actually rather good at being a princess until one day she started to think about what she might be doing if she hadn't gotten married to the handsome prince. All her old friends were kicking up their heels at banquet halls and entering Pillsbury Bake-Offs and dating Chippendale's dancers. So she took one of the royal horses and traveled to the far ends of the earth, taking photographs with this camera she'd gotten from a peddler in exchange for her crown."
The baby hiccuped, and Astrid pulled him to a standing position. "No, really," she said, "it wasn't a rip-off. After all, it was a Nikon. Meanwhile, the prince was doing everything he could to get her out of his mind, because he was the laughingstock of the royal community for not being able to keep a leash on his wife. He went hunting three times a day and organized a croquet tournament and even took up taxidermy, but staying busy all the time still couldn't occupy his thoughts. So--"
Max waddled forward, supported by Astrid's hands, just as Nicholas appeared at the darkroom's curtain. "I don't like when you take him in here," he said, reaching for Max. "What if you turn your back?"
"I don't," Astrid said. "How was your surgery?"
Nicholas hoisted Max onto his shoulder and smelled his bottom. "Jeez," he said. "When did Grandma change you last?"
Standing, Astrid frowned at her son and plucked Max off his shoulder. "It only takes him a minute," she said, walking past Nicholas from her darkroom into the muted light of the Blue Room.
"The surgery was fine," Nicholas said, picking at a tray of olives and cocktail onions that Imelda had set out for Astrid hours before. "I'm just here to check in because I know I'll be late. I want to be there when Fogerty wakes up." He stuffed three olives into his mouth and spit the pimentos into a napkin. "And what was that trash you were telling Max?"
"Fairy tales," Astrid said, unsnapping Max's outfit and pulling free the tapes of the diaper. "You remember them, I'm sure." She swabbed Max's backside and handed Nicholas the dirty bundle to dispose of. "They all have happy endings."
When Alistair Fogerty awoke from a groggy sleep in surgical ICU, the first words he uttered were, "Get Prescott."
Nicholas was paged. Since he had been expecting this summons, he was at Fogerty's bedside in minutes. "You bastard," Alistair said to him, straining to shift his weight. "What have you done to me?"
Nicholas grinned at him. "A very tidy quadruple bypass," he said. "Some of my best work."
"Then how come I feel like I have an eighteen-wheeler on my chest?" Fogerty tossed against the pillows. "God," he said. "I've been listening to patients tell me that for years, and I never really believed them. Maybe we should all go through open heart, like psychiatrists have to be analyzed. A humbling experience."
His eyes began to close, and Nicholas stood up. Joan Fogerty was waiting at the door. He crossed to speak to her, to tell her that all the preliminary signs were very good. She had been crying; Nicholas could tell by the raccoon rings of mascara under her eyes. She sat beside her husband and spoke softly, words Nicholas could not hear.
"Nicholas," Fogerty whispered, his voice barely audible above the steady blip of the cardiac monitor. "Take care of my patients, and don't fuck with my desk."
Nicholas smiled and walked out of the room. He took several steps down the hall before he realized what Alistair had been telling him: that he was now the acting chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Mass General. Without realizing it, he took the elevator to the floor where Fogerty's office was located, and he turned the unlocked door. Nothing had changed. The files were still piled high, their coded edges bright like confetti. The sun fell across the forbidding swivel chair, and Nicholas was almost certa
in he could see Alistair's impression on the soft leather.
He walked to the chair and sat down, placing his hands on the
arms as he had seen Fogerty do so many times. He turned to face the window but closed his eyes to the light. He didn't even hear Elliot Saget, Mass General's chief of surgery, enter. "And the seat isn't even cold yet," Saget said sarcastically.
Nicholas whipped around and stood up, sending the chair flying into the radiator behind. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was just
down checking on Alistair--"
Saget held up a hand. "I'm only here to make it official. Fogerty's on six months leave. You're the acting director of cardiothoracic. We'll let you know what kind of meetings and committees we'll be cluttering your evenings with, and I'll get your name on the door." He
turned to leave and then paused at the threshold of the door to smile. "We've known about your skills for a long time, Nicholas.
You've got quite a reputation for spit and fire. If you're the one who gave Alistair his heart trouble, then God help me," he said, and he walked out.
Nicholas sank back into Alistair's leather wing chair--bis leather wing chair--and wheeled himself in circles like a little kid.
Then he put his feet down and soberly organized the papers on the desk into neat, symmetric piles, not bothering to read the pages, not yet. He picked up the phone and dialed for an outside line, but realized he had no one to call. His mother was taking Max to a petting zoo, his father was still at work, and Paige, well, he didn't know where she was at all. He leaned back and watched the billowed smoke blowing from Mass General toward Boston. He wondered why, after years of wanting to stand at the very top, he felt so goddamned empty.
chapter 3 1
Paige
my mother said there was no connection, but I knew that Donegal colicked because she had broken her ankle. It hadn't been his feed or water; those had been consistent. There hadn't been any severe temperature changes that could have caused it. But then my mother had been tossed from Elmo over a jump, right into the blue wall. She had landed a certain way and was now wearing a cast. I thought Donegal's colic was a sort of sympathy pain.
My mother, who had been told not to move by the doctor who'd set her ankle, hopped the whole way from the house to the barn on her crutches. "How is he?" she said, falling to her knees in the stall and running her hands over Donegal's neck.
He was lying down, thrashing back and forth, and he kept looking back at his sides. My mother pulled up his lip and looked at his gums. "He's a little pale," she conceded. "Call the vet."
Josh walked to the phone, and I sat by my mother. "Go back to bed," I told her. "Josh and I can take care of this."
"Like hell you can," my mother said. "Don't tell me what to do." She sighed and rubbed her face against her shirt sleeve. "In the chest on the table up there you'll find a syringe of Banamine," she said. "Would you get it for me?"
I stood up, clenching my jaw. I only wanted to help her, and she wasn't doing herself any good hobbling around a sick horse that was flailing all over the place and likely to hit her. "I hope to God he hasn't got a twisted gut," she murmured. "I don't know where I'll get the money for an operation."
I sat on the other side of Donegal while my mother gave him the shot. We both stroked him until he quieted. After a half hour, Donegal suddenly neighed and wriggled his legs beneath him and shuddered to his feet. My mother scooted out of the way on her hands, into a urine-soaked pile of hay, but she didn't seem to care. "That's my boy," she said, beckoning Josh to help her stand.
Dr. Heineman, the traveling vet, arrived with a pickup truck stocked with two treasure chests full of medicine and supplies. "He's looking good, Lily," he said, checking Donegal's temperature. " 'Course, you look like hell. Whaddya do to your foot?"
"I didn't do it," my mother said. "It was Elmo."
Josh and I held Donegal in the center aisle of the barn as the vet put a twitch on his nose--a metal clothespin-like thing--and then, when he was distracted by that pain, threaded a thick plastic catheter down his nostril and into his throat. Dr. Heineman waved his nose over the free end and smiled. "Smells like fresh green grass," he said, and my mother sighed, relieved. "I think he's going to be just fine, but I'll give him a little oil just in case." He began to pump mineral oil from a plastic gallon tub through the tube, blowing the last bit down with his own mouth. Then he unthreaded the catheter, letting loose phlegm splatter at Donegal's feet. He patted the horse's neck and told Josh to lead him back into the stall. "Watch him for the next twenty-four hours," he said, and then he turned to me. "And it couldn't hurt to watch her as well."
My mother waved him away, but he was laughing. "You tried out that cast yet, Lily?" he said, walking down the barn's aisle. "Does it fit into your stirrup?"
My mother leaned against my side and watched the vet go. "I can't believe I pay him," she said.
I walked slowly with my mother back to the house, getting her to promise she'd at least stay on the couch downstairs if I sat in the barn with Donegal. While Josh did the afternoon chores, I ran back and forth between the stable and the house. When Donegal slept, I helped my mother do crossword puzzles. We turned on the TV and watched daytime soaps, trying to figure out the story lines. I cooked dinner and tied a plastic bag around my mother's foot when she wanted to bathe, and then I tucked her into bed.
I woke up suddenly, breathless, at midnight, realizing that of all nights, tonight I had forgotten to do a ten o'clock check. How did my mother remember all these things? I ran down the stairs and threw the door open. I raced the whole way to the barn in my bare feet. I switched on the light and panted, catching my breath as I walked down the stalls. Aurora and Andy, Eddy and Elmo, Jean-Claude and Tony and Burt. All the horses were sitting, their legs folded neatly beneath them. They were in varying states of consciousness, but none startled at my appearance. The last stall in the barn was Donegal's. I took a deep breath, thinking I would never forgive myself if anything had happened to him. I could never make something like that up to my mother. I held my hands against the chain-link door. Curled against the belly of the snoring horse was my mother, fast asleep, her cast gleaming in the slanted square of moonlight, her fingers twitching in the wake of a dream.
"Now remember," my mother said, balancing precariously on her crutches at the gate to the field, "he hasn't been turned out in two days. We're going to ease into this; we're not going to run him ragged. Understand?"
I nodded, looking down at her from what seemed like a tremendous height when in fact I was only on Donegal. I was terrified. I kept remembering what my mother had said two months before, that even an inexperienced rider could sit on Donegal and look good. But he had been sick, and I had never galloped across an open field, and the only horse I'd ridden was twenty years older than this one and knew the routine better than I did.
My mother reached up and squeezed my ankle. She adjusted the stirrup so it rested further up by my toes. "Don't worry," she said. "I wouldn't have asked you to ride him if I didn't think you could do it." She hallooed and slapped Donegal's hind leg, and I sat level in the saddle as he cantered off.
I couldn't see Donegal's legs for the tall grass, but I could feel his strength between my thighs. The more I gave him the reins, the gentler the rhythm of his run became. I fully expected that I was going to take off, that he would step on the lowest clouds and carry me over the swollen blue peaks of the mountains.
I leaned in toward Donegal's neck, hearing my mother's voice in my mind from that very first day: "Never lean forward unless you're planning to gallop." I had never galloped, not really, unless you counted a pony's quick strides at a canter. But Donegal shifted into a faster run, so smooth that I barely lifted in the saddle.
I sat very still and closed my eyes, letting the horse take the lead. I tuned in to the pounding sound of Donegal's hooves and the matching beat of my own pulse. I opened my eyes just in time to see the brook.
I hadn't known there was another str
eam, one that ran across this field, but then again I'd never ridden in it, never even walked all the way across it. As Donegal approached the stream he tensed the muscles in his hindquarters. I released my hands to slide up his neck, adding leg to help him off the ground. We soared over the water, and although it couldn't have been more than half a second, I could have sworn I saw each glistening rock, each rush and surge of current.
I pulled back on the reins, and Donegal tossed his head, breathing heavily. He stopped at the fence a few feet away from the brook and turned toward the spot where we had left my mother as if he knew he had been putting on a show all along.
At first I could not hear it over the tumble of water and the gossip of the robins, but then the sound came: slow, growing louder, until even Donegal became perfectly quiet and pricked up his ears. I patted his neck and praised him, all the while listening to the proud beat of my mother's clapping.
My mother came into my bedroom late that night when the heaviest stars had dripped like a chain of diamonds over the sill of my window. She put her hand over my forehead, and I sat up and thought for a moment that I was five years old and that this was the night before she left. Wait, I tried to tell her, but nothing came out of my throat. Don't do it again. Instead I heard myself say, "Tell me why you left."
My mother lay down beside me on the narrow bed. "I knew this was coming," she said. Nearby, the face of the porcelain doll gleamed like a Cheshire cat. "For six years I believed in your father. I bought into his dreams and I went to Mass for him and I worked at that stinking paper to help pay the mortgage. I was the wife he needed me to be and the mother I was supposed to become. I was so busy being everything he wanted that there was too little left of Maisie Renault. If I didn't get away, I knew I'd lose myself completely." She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me back against her chest. "I hated myself for feeling that way. I didn't understand why I wasn't like Donna Reed."