omnipotent. He cannot create life at all; he can only keep it going. And even that is touch and go.
Nicholas stares at Paige.
Paige has put down the Styrofoam cup and suddenly stands. “I’m going to get some more coffee,” she announces. “Do you need anything?”
Nicholas stares at her. “You haven’t touched the coffee you just bought.”
Paige crosses her arms and rakes her fingernails into her skin, leaving raw red lines that she doesn’t notice at all. “It’s cold,” she says, “way too cold.”
A collection of nurses walks by. They are dressed in simple white uniforms but wear felt ears in their hair, and their faces are made up with whiskers and fur. They stop to talk to the devil. He is some kind of physician, a red cape whirling over his blue scrubs. He has a forked tail and a shiny goatee and a hot chili pepper clipped to his stethoscope. Paige looks at Nicholas, and for a second Nicholas’s mind goes blank. Then he remembers that it is Halloween. “Some of the people dress up,” he explains. “It cheers up the kids in pediatrics.”
Paige tries to smile, but only half her mouth turns up. “Well,” she says. “Coffee.” But she doesn’t move. Then, like the demolition of a building, she begins to crumble from the top down. Her head sinks and then her shoulders droop and her face sags into her hands. By the time her knees give way beneath her, Nicholas is standing, ready to catch her before she falls. He settles her into one of the stiff canvas seats. “This is all my fault,” she says.
“This isn’t your fault,” Nicholas says. “This could have happened to any kid.”
Paige doesn’t seem to have heard him. “It was the best way to get even,” she whispers, “but He should have hurt me instead.”
“Who?” Nicholas says, irritated. Maybe there is someone responsible. Maybe there is someone he can blame. “Who are you talking about?”
Paige looks at him as if he is crazy. “God,” she says.
When he had changed Max’s diaper and seen the blood, he didn’t even stop to think. He bundled Max in a blanket and ran out the door without a diaper bag, without his wallet. But he hadn’t driven straight to the hospital; he’d gone to his parents. Instinctively, he had come for Paige. When it came right down to it, it didn’t matter why Paige had left him, it didn’t matter why she had returned. It didn’t matter that for eight years she’d kept a secret from him he felt he had every right to know. What mattered was that she was Max’s mother. That was their truth, and that was their starting point to reconnect. At the very least, they had that connection. They would
If Max was all right.
Nicholas looks at Paige, crying softly into her hands, and knows that there are many things that depend on the success of this operation. “Hey,” he says. “Hey, Paige. Honey. Let me get you that coffee.”
He walks down the hall, passing goblins and hoboes and Raggedy Anns, and he whistles to keep out the roaring sound of the silence.
They should have come out to report on the progress. It has been so long that the sun has gone down. Nicholas doesn’t notice until he goes outside to stretch his legs. On the street he hears the catcalls of trick-or- treaters and steps on crushed jewel-colored candy. This hospital is like an artificial world. Walk inside and lose all track of time, all sense of reality.
Paige appears at the door. She waves her hands frantically, as if she is drowning. “Come inside,” she mouths against the glass.
She grabs at Nicholas’s arm when he gets through the doorway. “Dr. Cahill said it went okay,” she says, searching his face for answers. “That’s good, isn’t it? He wouldn’t hold anything back from me?”
Nicholas narrows his eyes, wondering where the hell Cahill could have gone so fast. Then he sees him writing notes at the nurses’ station around the corner. He runs down the hall and spins the surgeon around by the shoulder. Nicholas does not say a word.
“I think Max is going to be fine,” Cahill says. “We tried to manually manipulate the intestines, but we wound up having to do an actual resection of the bowel. The next twenty-four hours will be critical, as expected for such a young child. But I’d say the prognosis is excellent.”
Nicholas nods. “He’s in recovery?”
“For a while. I’ll check him in ICU, and if all is well we’ll move him up to pediatrics.” Cahill shrugs, as if this case is just like any other. “You might want to get some sleep, Dr. Prescott. The baby is sedated; he’s going to sleep for a while. You, on the other hand, look like hell.”
Nicholas runs a hand through his hair and rubs his palm over his unshaven jaw. He wt s?€†onders who bothered to call off his surgery this morning; he forgot it entirely. He is so tired that time is passing in strange chunks. Cahill disappears, and suddenly Paige is standing beside him. “Can we go?” she asks. “I want to see him.”
That is what shocks Nicholas into clarity. “You don’t want to go,” he says. He has seen babies in the recovery room, stitches snaked over half their swollen bodies, their eyelids blue and transparent. Somehow they always look like victims. “Wait awhile,” Nicholas urges. “We’ll go up as soon as he’s in pediatrics.”
Paige pulls away from Nicholas’s grasp and stands squarely in front of him, eyes flashing. “You listen to me,” she says, her voice hard and low. “I’ve waited an entire day to find out if my son was going to live or die. I don’t care if he’s still bleeding all over the place. You get me to him, Nicholas. He needs to know that I’m here.”
Nicholas opens his mouth to say that Max, unconscious, will not know if she is in the recovery room or in Peoria. But he stops himself. He’s never been unconscious, so what does he know? “Come with me,” he says. “They usually don’t let you in, but I think I can pull strings.”
As they make their way to the recovery room, a string of children in pajamas parades through the hall, wearing papier-mache masks of foxes and geisha girls and Batman. They are led by a nurse whom Nicholas has seen once before; he thinks she baby-sat for Max what seems like years ago. They are singing “Camptown Races,” and when they see Paige and Nicholas they break out of their line and puddle in a crowd around them. “Trick or treat,” they chant, “trick or treat. Give me something good to eat.”
Paige looks to Nicholas, who shakes his head. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and turns them inside out to reveal an unshelled pecan, three nickels, and a ball of lint. She picks up each object as if it is coated in gold and presses the treasures one by one into the palms of the waiting children. They frown at her, disappointed.
“Let’s go,” Nicholas says, pushing her through the tangle of costumed kids. He goes the back way, coming from the service elevator, and walks straight to the nurses’ station. It is empty, but Nicholas steps behind the desk as if it is his right and flips through a chart. He turns to tell Paige where Max is, but she has already moved away.
He finds her standing in the recovery room, partially obscured by the thin white curtains. She is absolutely rigid as she stares into the oval hospital crib that holds Max.
Nothing could have prepared Nicholas for this. Underneath the sterile plastic dome, Max is lying perfectly still on his back, arms pointed over his head. An IV needle stabs into him. A thick white bandage covers his stomach and chest, stopping at his penis, which is blanketed with gauze but not restricted by a diaper. A nasogastric tube feeds into a mask that covers his mouth and nose. His chest rises and falls almost imperceptibly. His hair looks obscenely black against the alabaster of his skin.
If Nicholas didn’t know better, he would think that Max was dead.
He has fo ha?€†rgotten that Paige is there too, but then he hears a choked sound beside him. Tears are streaming down her face when she steps forward to touch the side rail of the crib. Reflected light bathes her face in silver, and with her ringed, haggard eyes she looks very much like a phantom when she turns to Nicholas. “You liar,” she whispers. “This is not my son.” And she runs out of the room and down the hall.
chapter 42
