Nicholas thinks about the horror stories he’s heard from other surgeons, whose cutthroat, red-taloned wives have robbed them of half their Midas earnings and all their sterling reputations. He cannot picture Paige in a tailored suit, glaring from the witness stand, replaying a testimony that will support her for life. He can’t truly see her caring about whether $500,000 per year will be enough to cover her cost of living. She’d probably hand him the keys to the house if he asked nicely. In truth, she isn’t like the others; she never has been, and that’s what Nicholas always liked.
Her hair has fallen over her face, and her nose is running; her shoulders are shaking with the effort to stop crying. She is a mess. “Mama,” Max says, reaching out to her. Nicholas turns him away and watches Paige swipe the back of her hand across her eyes. He tells himself it can’t turn out any other way, not with what he knows now; but he quite literally feels his chest burn, swollen tissue irreparably staked, as his heart begins to break.
Nicholas grimaces and shakes his head. He slips inside the car, fastening Max into his seat and then turning the ignition. He tries to trace the sequence, but he cannot figure out how they have made it to this point-the place where you cannot go back. Paige hasn’t moved an inch. He cannot hear her voice over the purr of the engine, but he knows that she is telling him she loves him, she loves Max.
“I can’t help that,” he says, and he drives away without letting himself look back.
chapter 37
Astrid and Robert look at each other, and it is Astrid who speaks first. “Where are you going?” she asks.
This question, the one I have been expecting, still throws me for a loop. “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess back to my mother’s.”
“Paige,” Astrid says gently, “if Nicholas wants a divorce, he’ll find you even in North Carolina.”
When I do not say anything, Astrid stands up and folds her arms around me. She holds me even though I do not hold her back. She is thinner than I expected, almost brittle. “I can’t change your mind?” she says.
“No,” I murmur, “you can’t.”
She pulls away, keeping me at arm’s length. “I won’t let you leave without something to eat,” she says, already moving toward the kitchen. “Imelda!”
She leaves me alone with Robert, who of all the people in this household makes me most uncomfortable. It isn’t that he’s been rude or even unkind; he has offered his house to me, he goes out of his way to compliment my appearance when I come down to dinner, he saves me the Living section of the
Robert folds his morning paper and motions for me to sit next to him. “What was the name of that colicky horse?” he says out of nowhere.
“Donegal.” I smooth my napkin across my lap. “But he’s fine now. Or he was when I left.”
Robert nods. “Mmm. Incredible how they bounce back.”
I raise my eyebrows, now understanding where this conversation is headed. “Sometimes they die,” I point out.
“Well, yes, of course,” Robert says, spreading cream cheese on a muffin. “But not the good ones. Never the good ones.”
“You
Robert jabs the muffin toward me, making his point. “Exactly.” Suddenly he reaches across the table and covers my wrist with his free hand. His touch, unexpected, is cool and steady, just like Nicholas’s. “You’re making it very easy for him to forget about you, Paige. I’d think twice about that.”
At that moment Nicholas strides into the dining room, carrying Max. “Where the hell is everybody?” he says. “I’m late.”
He slips Max into the high chair beside Robert and makes a point of not looking at me. Astrid walks in with a tray of toast and fruit and bagels. “Nicholas!” she says, as if last night never happened. “You’ll stay for breakfast?”
Nicholas glares at me. “You already have company,” he says.
I stand up and watch Max bang the edge of Robert’s plate with a sterling-silver spoon. Max has Nicholas’s aristocratic face but most definitely my eyes. You can see it in his restlessness. He’s always looking at the one place he cannot see. You can tell he will be a fighter.
Max sees me and smiles, and it makes his whole body glow. “I was just going,” I say. With a quick look at Robert, I walk out the door, leaving my overnight bag behind.
The volunteer lounge at Mass General is little more than a closet, tucked behind the ambulatory care waiting rooms. While I am waiting for Harriet Miles, the secretary, to find me an application form, I stare over her shoulder at the hall and wait to catch a glimpse of Nicholas.
I do not want to do this, but I see no other choice. If I’m going to make Nicholas change his mind about a divorce, I have to show him what he’ll be missing. I can’t do that when the only way I see him is by chance or in passing at his parents’, so I’ll have to spend all my time where he does-at the hospital. Unfortunately, I’m not qualified for most of the positions that would throw me together with him, so I try to convince myself that I’ve wanted to volunteer at the hospital all along but haven’t had the time. Still, I know this isn’t true. I hate the sight of blood; I don’t like that antiseptic cloud of illness that you always smell in a hospital’s halls. I wouldn’t be here if I could think of any other way to cross Nicholas’s path several times a day.
Harriet Miles is about four feet ten inches tall and almost as wide. She has to step on a little stool, fashioned in the shape of a strawberry, to reach the top drawer of the filing cabinet. “We don’t have as many adult volunteers as we’d like,” she says. “Most of the kids rotate through for a year or so just to beef up their college applications.” She closes her eyes and stuffs her hand into a stack of papers and comes up with the right one. “Ah,” she says, “success.”
She settles back on her chair, which I could swear has a booster seat on it, but I am too embarrassed to lean over and check. “Now, Paige, have you had any medical training or been a volunteer at another hospital?”
“No,” I say, hoping this won’t keep them from accepting me.
“That’s not a problem,” Harriet says smoothly. “You’ll attend one of our orientation sessions, and you can start working right after that-”
“No,” I stammer. “I have to start
Harriet licks the tip of her pencil and begins to fill in my application form. She doesn’t blink when I give my last name, but then again, I suppose there are a lot of Prescotts in Boston. I give Robert and Astrid’s address instead of my own, and just for kicks I fake my birth date, making myself three years older. I tell her I can work six days a week, and she looks at me as if I am a saint.
“I can put you in admitting,” she says, frowning at a schedule on the wall. “You won’t be able to do paperwork, but you can shuttle the patients up to their rooms in wheelchairs.” She taps the pencil on the blotter. “Or you can work the book cart,” she suggests, “on the patient floors.”
Neither of which, I realize, will place me where I need to go. “I have a request,” I say. “I’d like to be near Dr. Prescott, the cardiac surgeon.”
Harriet laughs and pats my hand. “Yes, he’s a favorite, isn’t he? Those eyes! I think he’s the reason for half the graffiti in the candy stripers’ bathroom. Everyone wants to be near Dr. Prescott.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “He’s my husband.”
Harriet scans the application sheet and points to my last name. “So he is,” she says.
