Harvesting the Heart

Eddie blew smoke rings that expanded and settled around my neck. “You know, Paige,” he said, pronouncing my name Pej, “people just ain’t creative. If they get a new identity, they do something stupid like flip their first and middle names. They use their maiden names or the last name of their favorite uncle. Or they spell their same name different or change one digit in their Social Security number. They aren’t willing to completely give up what they’re leaving behind.” He leaned forward, almost whispering. “Of course, the really sharp ones get a whole new image. I found a guy once who’d taken a new identity by striking up a conversation at a bar with a fellow who looked like him. He got the other guy to compare IDs, just for kicks, and he memorized the number on the driver’s license and then got himself a copy by saying it had been stolen. It ain’t so hard to become someone else. You look in the local papers and find the name of someone who died within the past week who was about your own age. That gives you a name and an address. Then you go to the place where the death occurred, and it’s on public record, and bingo, you got a date of birth. Then you go to Social Security and make up a wacko story about your wallet being filched and you get a new card with this new name-the death records are usually slow in getting over to Social Security, so nothing seems out of the ordinary. And then you pull the same shit at the RMV and you get a new driver’s license…” He shrugged and stubbed out his cigarette on the floor. “The thing is, Paige, I know all this stuff. I got connections. I’m one step ahead of your mother.”

I thought about my mother’s obituaries; how easy it would have been for her to find someone close to her age who had died. I thought of how connected she got to those people, how she’d visit the graves as if they were old friends. “What are you going to do first?” I asked.

“I’m gonna start with the scraps of the truth. I’m gonna take all this information you gave me and the picture, and I’m gonna walk around your neighborhood in Chicago, seeing if anyone remembers her. Then I’m gonna run a driver’s license check and a Social Security check. If that don’t work, I’m gonna look up twenty-year-old obit pages of the Trib. And if that don’t work, I’m gonna dig in my brain and ask myself, ‘Where the hell can I turn now?’ I’m gonna hunt her down and get an address for you. And then if you want I’ll go to her house and I’ll get her garbage before the town picks it up and I’ll be able to tell you anything you want to know about her: what she eats for breakfast, what she gets in the mail, if she’s married or livin’ with someone, if she has kids.”

I thought of my mother holding another baby, a different daughter. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I whispered.

Eddie stood up, letting us know the meeting was over. “Fifty bucks an hour is my fee,” he said, and I paled. I couldn’t possibly afford to pay him for more than three days.

Jake stepped up behind me. “That’s fine,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder, and his words fell softly behind my ear. “Don’t worry about it.”

I left Jake waiting in the car and called Nicholas from a pay phone on the way back to Chicago. It rang four times, and I was thinking about what kind of message I could leave, when Nicholas answered, hurried and breathless. “Hello?”

“Hello, Nicholas,” I said. “How are you?”

There was a beat of silence. “Are you calling to apologize to me?”

I clenched my fists. “I’m in Chicago now,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “I’m going to find my mother.” I hesitated and then asked what was on my mind, what I couldn’t get off my mind. “How’s Max?” I said.

“Apparently,” Nicholas said, “you don’t give a damn.”

“Of course I do. I don’t understand you, Nicholas. Why can’t you just think of this as a vacation, or a visit to my father? I haven’t been back here in eight years. I told you I’d come home.” I tapped my foot against the pavement. “It’s just going to take a little longer than I thought.”

“Let me tell you what I did today, dear,” Nicholas said, his voice icy and restrained. “After getting up with Max three times during the night, I took him to the hospital this morning. I had a quadruple bypass scheduled, which I almost didn’t complete because I couldn’t stay on my feet. Someone could have died because of your need for a-what did you call it?-a vacation. And I left Max with a stranger because I didn’t have any idea who else could baby-sit for him. And you know what? I’m doing this all again tomorrow. Aren’t you jealous, Paige? Don’t you wish you were me?” The static on the line grew as Nicholas fell silent. I had never thought about all that; I had just left. Nicholas’s voice was so bitter that I had to hold the receiver away from my ear. “Paige,” he said, “I don’t want to see your face again.” And then he hung up.

I leaned my forehead against the side of the telephone booth and took deep breaths. Out of nowhere, that list I had written of my accomplishments just days before came to mind. I can change a diaper. I can measure formula. I can sing Max to sleep. I closed my eyes. I can find my mother.

I walked out of the phone booth, shading my eyes from the judgment of the sun. Jake grinned at me from the passenger seat of my car. “How’s Nicholas?” he asked.

“He misses me,” I said, forcing a smile. “He wants me to come home.”

In honor of my return to Chicago, Jake took what he called a wellof ‘€†-deserved vacation, and insisted I spend time with him while Eddie Savoy found my mother. So the next morning I drove to Jake and Ellen’s apartment, which was across the street from where Jake’s mother still lived. It was an unassuming little brick building, with a cast-iron fence around the tiny blotched yard. I rang the bell and was buzzed in.

Even before I reached Jake’s apartment, on the first floor, I knew which one was his. The familiar smell of him-green spring leaves and honest sweat-seeped through the cracks of the old wooden door. Ellen opened it, startling me. She held a spatula in her hand and wore an apron that said across her chest, KISS MY GRITS. “Jake says Eddie’s going to find your mother,” she said, not even bothering with “hello.” She drew me in with her excitement. “I bet you can’t wait. I can’t imagine not seeing my mother for twenty years. I wonder how long it-”

“Jeez, El,” Jake said, coming down the hall. “It’s not even nine o’clock.” He had just showered. His hair was still dripping at the ends, leaving little pockmarks on the carpet. Ellen reached over and made a part with her spatula.

The apartment was nearly bare, dotted with mismatched sofas and armchairs and an occasional plastic cube table. There weren’t many knickknacks, except for a few grade-school art class ceramic candy bowls, probably made years before by Jake’s siblings, and a statuette of Jesus on the Cross. But the room was warm and homey and smelled like popcorn and overripe strawberries. It looked happily wrapped and comfortably lived-in. I thought about my Barely White kitchen, my skin-colored leather couch, and I was ashamed.

Ellen had made French toast for breakfast, and fresh-squeezed orange juice and corned beef hash. I hovered at the edge of the speckled Formica table, looking at all the food. I hadn’t made breakfast in years. Nicholas left at four-thirty in the morning; there wasn’t time for a spread like this. “When do you have to get up to do all this?” I asked.

Jake curled his arm around Ellen’s waist. “Tell her the truth,” he said, and then he looked up at me. “Breakfast is all Ellen can do. My mother had to teach her how to turn on the oven when we got married.”

“Jake!” Ellen slapped his hand away, but she was smiling. She slipped a piece of French toast onto a plate for me. “I told him he’s more than welcome to move back home, but then he’d have to do his own laundry again.”

I was mesmerized by them. They made it look so easy. I could not remember the last time there had been a gentle touch or a relaxed conversation between Nicholas and me. I couldn’t remember if Nicholas and I had ever been like this. Things had happened so quickly for us, it was as though our whole relationship had been fast- forwarded. I wondered for a moment what might have happened if I had married Jake. I pushed that thought away. I had given my life to Nicholas, and we could have been like this, I knew we could, if Nicholas had been around just a little more. Or if I had given him something to stick around for.

I watched Jake pull Ellen onto his lap and kiss her senseless, as if I weren’t even there. He caught my eye. “Flea,” he said, grinning, “you aren’t going to watch, are you?”

“For God’s sake,” I said, smiling back at Jake. “What’s a girl got to do to get breakfast in this house?” I stood up and opened the refrigerator, looking for the maple syrup. I watched Jake and Ellen from behind the door. I saw their tongues meet. I promise you this, Nicholas, I thought. Once I get my act together, I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to fall in love with you all over again. I’m going to make you