Harvesting the Heart

by Jodi Picoult

  The woman had been horrified. "You wouldn't want to do that," she said. "Not yet, at least. It's only been six weeks, isn't that right? He's still getting used to the breast, and if you give him the bottle, well, who knows what might happen."

  I hadn't answered, thinking, What might happen, indeed? Maybe Max would wean himself. Maybe my milk would dry up and I could fit back into my clothes and lose the twelve pounds that still was settled around my waist and hips. I didn't see what the big deal about formula was. After all, I had been brought up on formula. Everyone had, in the sixties. We all turned out okay.

  I had offered the woman tea, hoping she wouldn't accept, because I didn't have any. "I have to go along" she told me, patting my hand. "Do you have any more questions?"

  "Yes," I said without thinking. "When does my life go back to normal?"

  And she had laughed and opened the front door. "What makes you think it ever does?" she said, and disappeared down the porch, her shantung suit whispering around her.

  Today I had convinced myself otherwise. Today was the day that I started acting like a regular person. Max was only a baby, and there really wasn't any reason that I couldn't control the schedule. He didn't need to eat every two hours. We would stretch that to four. He didn't have to sleep in his crib or his playpen; he could just as easily nap in his car seat while I went grocery shopping or bought stamps at the post office. And if I got up and left the house, breathed some fresh air and gave myself a purpose, I wouldn't find myself exhausted all the time. Today, I told myself, was the day I'd begin all over again.

  I was afraid to leave Max alone for even a minute, because I'd read all about crib deaths. I had fleeting visions of Max strangling himself with the Wiggle Worm toy or choking on the corner of the red-balloon quilt. So I tucked him under my arm and carried him into his nursery. I laid him on the carpet while I packed the diaper bag with seven diapers, a bib, a rattle, and, just in case, trial sizes of Johnson's shampoo and Ivory Snow.

  "Okay," I said, turning to Max. "What would you like to wear?"

  Max looked up at me and pursed his lips as if he were considering this. It was about sixty degrees outside, and I didn't think he needed a snowsuit, but then again, what did I know? He was already wearing an undershirt and a cotton playsuit embroidered with elephants, a gift from Leroy and Lionel. Max started to squirm on the floor, which meant he was going to cry. I scooped him into my arms and pulled from one of his near-empty dresser drawers a thin hooded sweatshirt and a bulky blue sweater. Layers, that's what Dr. Spock said, and surely with both of these on, Max couldn't catch a cold. I placed him on his changing table, and I had his sweatshirt half on when I realized I needed to change his diaper. I pulled him out of the sweatshirt, making him cry, and started to sing to him. Sometimes it made him quiet right down, no matter what the song. I let myself believe he just needed to hear my voice.

  The sweater's arms were too long, and this really annoyed Max, because every time he stuffed his fist into his mouth, fuzz from the wool caught on his lips. I tried to roll the sleeves back, but they got chunky and knotted. Finally, I sighed. "Let's just go," I told Max. "You won't even notice after a while."

  This was the day of my six-week checkup at Dr. Thayer's. I was looking forward to going; I'd get to see the people I had worked with for years--real adults--and I considered the visit the last one of my pregnancy. After this, I was going to be a whole new woman.

  Max fell asleep on the way to Dr. Thayer's, and when we pulled into the parking lot, I found myself holding my breath and gently disengaging my seat belt, praying he would not wake up. I even left the car door ajar, afraid that a slam would start him screaming. But Max seemed to be out for the long haul. I slung his car seat/carrier over my arm, as if he were a basket of harvested grapes, and headed up the familiar stone stairs of the ob/gyn office.

  "Paige!" Mary, the receptionist who had replaced me, stood up the minute I walked in the door. "Let me give you a hand." She came up to me and lifted Max's carrier off my arm, poking her finger into his puffy red cheek. "He's adorable," she said, and I smiled.

  Three of the nurses, hearing my name, swelled into the waiting room. They embraced me and wrapped me in the heady smell of their perfume and the brilliance of their clean white outfits. "You look fabulous," one said, and I wondered if she didn't see my tangled, hanging hair; my mismatched socks; the pasty wax of my skin.

  Mary was the one to shoo them back behind the swinging wooden door. "Ladies," she said, "we've got an office to run here." She carried Max to an empty chair, surrounded by several very pregnant women. "Dr. Thayer's running late," she said to me. "So what's new?"

  Mary ran back to the black lacquer desk to answer the phone, and I watched her go. I wanted to push her out of the way, to open the top drawer and riffle through the paper clips and the payment invoices, to hear my own steady voice say "Cambridge ob/gyn." Before Max was even born, Nicholas and I had decided I'd stay home with him. Art school was out of the question, since we couldn't afford both day care and tuition. And as for me working, well, the cost of decent day care almost equaled my combined salaries at Mercy and the doctors' office, so it just didn't pay. You don't want a stranger taking care of him, do you? Nicholas had said. And I suppose I had to agree. One year, Nicholas told me, smiling. Let's give it one year, and then we'll see.

  And I had beamed back at him, running my palms over my still-swollen belly. One year. How bad could one single year be?

  I leaned over and unzipped Max's sweater, opened the first few buttons of the jacket underneath. He was sweating. I would have taken them both off, but that would have awakened him for sure, and I wasn't ready for that. One of the pregnant women caught my eye and smiled. She had healthy, thick brown hair that fell in little cascades to her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless linen maternity dress and espadrilles. She looked down at Max and unconsciously rubbed her hands over her belly.

  When I turned to look, most of the other women in the office were watching my baby sleep. They all had the same expression on their faces--kind of dreamy, with a softness in their eyes that I never remembered seeing in mine. "How old is he?" the first woman asked.

  "Six weeks," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. All the others turned at the sound of my voice. They were waiting for me to tell them something--anything--a story that would let them know it was worth the wait; that labor wouldn't be so horrible; that I had never been happier in my life. "It's not what you think," I heard myself saying, my words pouring thick and slow. "I haven't slept since he was born. I'm always tired. I don't know what to do with him."

  "But he's so precious," another woman said.

  I stared at her, her belly, her baby inside. "Consider yourself lucky," I said.

  Mary called my name minutes later. I was set up in a small white examination room with a poster of a womb on the wall. I undressed and wrapped the paper robe around myself and opened the drawer to the little oak table. Inside was the tape measure and the Doppler stethoscope. I touched them and peeked at Max, still sleeping. I could remember lying on the examination table during my checkups, listening to the baby's amplified heartbeat and wondering what he would look like.

  Dr. Thayer came into the room in a burst of rustling paper.

  "Paige!" she said, as if she was surprised to see me there. "How are you feeling?"

  She motioned me to a stool, where I could sit and talk to her before getting up on the table and into the humiliating position of an internal exam. "I'm all right," I said.

  Dr. Thayer flipped open my file and scribbled some notes. "No pain? No trouble with nursing?"

  "No," I told her. "No trouble at all."

  She turned to Max, who slept in his carrier on the floor as though he were always an angel. "He's wonderful," she said, smiling up at me.

  I stared at my son. "Yes," I said, feeling that choke again at the back of my throat. "He is." Then I put my head in my hands and started to cry.

  I sobbed until I couldn't catch my br
eath, and I thought for sure I would wake up Max, but when I lifted my head he was still sleeping peacefully on the floor. "You must think I'm crazy," I whispered.

  Dr. Thayer put her hand on my arm. "I think you're like every other new mother. What you're feeling is perfectly normal. Your body has just been through a very traumatic experience, and it needs time to heal, and your mind needs to get adjusted to the fact that your life is going to change."

  I reached across her for a tissue. "I'm awful with him. I don't know how to be a mother."

  Dr. Thayer glanced at the baby. "Looks like you're doing fine to me," she said, "although you might not have needed the sweatshirt and the sweater."

  I winced, knowing that I had done something wrong again and hating myself for it. "How long does it take?" I asked, a thousand questions at once. How long before I know what I'm doing? How long before I feel like myself again? How long before I can look at him with love instead of fear?

  Dr. Thayer helped me over to the examination table. "It will take," she said, "the rest of your life."

  I still had silver lines on my cheeks when Dr. Thayer left, memories I couldn't wash away of acting like a fool in front of her. I walked out of the office without saying goodbye to the waiting pregnant women or to Mary, who called after me even as the door was closing. I lugged Max to the parking lot, his carrier becoming heavier with each step. The diaper bag cut into my shoulder, and I had a pain in my back from leaning heavily to one side. Max still slept, a miracle, and I found myself praying to the Blessed Mother, figuring she of all holy saints would understand. Just one more half hour, I silently begged, and then we'll be home. Just one more half hour and he can wake up and I'll feed him and we'll go back to our normal routine.

  The parking attendant in the lot was a teenager with skin as black as pitch and teeth that gleamed in the sun. He carried a boom box on his shoulder. I gave him my validated ticket, and he handed me my keys. Very carefully, I opened the passenger door and secured the seat belt around Max's carrier. I shut the door more quietly than I would have imagined possible. Then I moved around to my side of the car.

  At the moment I opened the door, the attendant switched on his radio. The hot pulse of rap music split the air as powerfully as a summer storm, rocking the car and the clouds and the pavement. The boy nodded his head and shuffled his feet, hip-hop dancing between the orange parking lines. Max opened his eyes and shrieked louder than I had ever heard him yell.

  "Sssh," I said, patting his head, which was sweaty and red from the band of the sweater's hood. "You've been such a good boy."

  I put the car in drive and started out of the lot, but that only made Max cry louder. He'd slept so long I had no doubt he was starving, but I didn't want to feed him here. If I could just get him home, everything would be all right. I curved around the line of parked cars and came to the driveway that led out to the street. Max, purpled with effort, began to choke on his own sobs.

  "Dear God," I said, slamming the car into park and unfastening the seat belt around Max's carrier. I pulled my shirt out of my slacks and hoisted it up around my neck, fumbling with my bra to bare a breast. Max stiffened as I lifted him and held his hot little body against mine. The rough wool of his sweater chafed my skin; his fingers clawed at my ribs. Now I began to cry, and tears splashed onto the face of my son, running over his own tears and falling somewhere between his sweater and sweatshirt. The parking attendant swore at me and started to walk over to the car. I quickly pulled my shirt down over Max's face, hoping that I wouldn't smother him. I did not unroll the window. "You're blocking my driveway," the boy said, his lips twisted and angry against the hot glass.

  The rap music throbbed in my head. I turned away from the boy, and I pulled Max tighter against me. "Please," I said, closing my eyes. "Please leave me alone."

  Dr. Thayer had told me to do something for myself. So when Max went to sleep at eight, I decided I'd take a long, hot bath. I found the baby monitor the Fogertys had given us, and I set it up in the bathroom. Nicholas wasn't due home until ten, and Max would probably sleep until midnight. I was going to be ready when my husband came home.

  Nicholas and I had not made love since I was just five months pregnant, that night when it had hurt and I told him to stop. We never spoke about it--Nicholas didn't like to talk about things like that--and as I got bigger and more uncomfortable, I cared less and less. But I needed him now. I needed to know that my body was more than a birthing machine, a source of food. I needed to hear that I was beautiful. I needed to feel Nicholas's hands on me.

  I ran the bathwater, stopping it three times because I thought I had heard Max making sounds. In the corner of the medicine cabinet I found a lilac bath cube, and I watched it disintegrate in the water. I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and shrugged my shorts off and stood in front of the mirror.

  My body had become foreign. Strange--I was still expecting to see the big curve of my stomach, the heavy lines of my thighs. But this thinner body wasn't the way it used to be, either. I was mapped with purple lines. My skin was the color of old parchment and seemed to be stretched just as tight. My breasts were low and full, my belly soft and bowed. I had become someone else.

  I told myself Nicholas would still like what he saw. After all, the changes were because I had borne his child. Surely there was something beautiful in that.

  I slipped into the steaming water and ran my hands up and down my arms, over my feet and between my toes. I nodded off for a little while, catching myself as my chin went underwater. Then I stood and toweled dry and walked to the kitchen absolutely naked, leaving soft damp footprints on the seamless carpet.

  I had set a bottle of wine to chill, and I took it from the refrigerator and brought it into the bedroom with two thick blue water glasses. Then I rummaged in my drawers for the white silk sheath I had worn on our wedding night, the only piece of sexy lingerie I had. I pulled it over my head, but it stuck at my chest--I'd never considered that it might not fit. By wriggling and tugging, I managed to get it over me, but it stretched at the bust and the hips as if I'd been poured into it. My stomach was highlighted, a soft white bowl.

  I heard Nicholas's car crunch into the driveway. Dizzy, I ran around the bedroom, turning off the lights. I smiled to myself--it would be like the first time all over again. Nicholas opened the front door quietly and climbed the stairs, pausing for a moment at our bedroom door. He pushed it open and stared at me where I sat on the center of the bed. My knees were tucked underneath me, my hair fell into my eyes. I wanted to say something to him, but my breath caught. Even with his loosened tie, his five o'clock shadow, and his hunched shoulders, Nicholas was the most striking man I had ever seen.

  He looked at me and exhaled. "I've had a really long day, Paige," he said quietly.

  My fingers clenched on the comforter. "Oh," I said.

  Nicholas sat on the edge of the bed. He slipped a finger underneath the thin strap of the negligee. "Where did you get this thing?" he said.

  I looked up at him. "That's what you said the first time I wore it," I said.

  Nicholas swallowed and turned away. "I'm sorry," he said. "But it's really late, and I have to be at the hospital by--"

  "It's only ten," I told him. I unknotted his tie and pulled it from around his neck. "It's been a very long time," I said quietly.

  For a moment I saw something in Nicholas--some little spark, something that lit his eyes from inside. He brushed his hand across my cheek and touched his lips to mine. Then he stood up.

  "I need to shower," he said.

  He left me sitting on the bed while he went into the bathroom. I counted to ten, and then I lifted my head and stood up. I walked to the bathroom, where the shower was already running. Nicholas was leaning into the stall to adjust the temperature of the water.

  "Please," I whispered, and he jolted around as if he were hearing a ghost. The steam rose between us. "You don't know what it's like for me," I said.

  The mirrors fogged over and the bathr
oom clouded, so that when Nicholas spoke, his word seemed to sink in the weight of the air. "Paige," he said.

  I took a step toward him and tilted my head for a kiss. In the background, over the monitor, I could hear Max sighing in his sleep.

  Nicholas slipped the negligee over my head. He placed his hands on my waist and skimmed his fingers over my ribs. At his touch, I moaned and stretched toward him. A thin arc of milk sprayed from my nipple onto the dark hair of his chest.

  I stared down at myself, angry at my body for its betrayal. When I turned to Nicholas, I expected him to ignore what had happened, maybe to make a joke; I was not prepared for what I saw in his eyes. He took a step away from me, and his gaze roved up and down my body with horror. "I just can't," he said, almost choking. "Not yet."

  He touched my cheek and then he quickly kissed my forehead, as if he had to get it over with before he changed his mind. He stepped into the shower, and I listened for a while to the quiet symphony of the falling water and the soap sliding over his shoulders and

  his thighs. Then I pulled the pool of satin from my feet, held it up to cover me, and walked into the bedroom.

  I put on the oldest, softest nightgown I had, one that buttoned down the front and had small panda bears printed all over it. As I stepped into the hallway, Nicholas turned off the water in the shower. I carefully twisted the doorknob of the nursery, pitch black inside.

  Nicholas would not come for me. Not tonight. I felt my way through the dark in the room, holding on to the air as though it were something tangible. I stepped around the large stuffed red

  ostrich Marvela had sent, and I skimmed my hands over the terry-cloth top of the changing table. Stumbling, I hit my shin against the sharp edge of the rocker, knowing the sticky slip of my foot came from my own blood. I settled down to count Max's even breaths and waited for my son to call me.

  chapter 1 7

  Nicholas

  You're going to be late again? I don't understand why you can't arrange to be home just a little bit more." "Paige, don't be ridiculous. I don't make my hours." "But you don't know what it's like here, all day and all night, with him. At least you get to leave your office."