The navigator sighed. 'My only responsibility is to guide this ship from Riga to Boston and back to Riga.'
'Do you always carry orphans?'
'No. Usually we carry cargo. Crates. I don't ask what's in them. I don't ask questions, period.'
'So you could be doing something illegal.'
The navigator laughed. 'You are a little devil, aren't you?' He began to write again in his notebook, recording numbers in neat columns.
The boy watched him for a while in silence. Then he said, 'Do you think anyone will adopt me?'
'Of course someone will.'
'Even with this?' Yakov raised his stump of an arm. The navigator looked at him, andYakov recognized the flicker of pity in the man's eyes. 'I know for a fact someone will adopt you,' he said.
'How do you know?'
'Someone's paid for your passage, haven't they? Arranged for your papers.'
'I've never seen my papers. Have you?'
'It's none of my business. My only job is to get this ship to Boston.' He waved Yakov aside. 'Why don't you go back to the other boys? Go on.'
'They're still not feeling well.'
'Well, go play somewhere else.'
Reluctantly Yakov left the bridge and went out on deck. He was the only one there. He stood by the rail and stared down at the water splintering before the bow. He thought of the fish swimming somewhere below in their grey and turbid world, and suddenly he found he couldn't breathe; the image of swirling water was suffocating. Yet he didn't move. He stayed at the rail gripping,it with his one hand, letting the panicky thoughts of cold, deep water wash through him. Fear was something he had not felt in a very long time.
He was feeling it now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She had had the same dream two nights in a row. The nurses told her it was because of all the medications she'd been taking. The methylprednisolone and the cyclosporine and the pain pills. The chemicals were scrambling her brain. And after weeks of hospitalization, of course she'd be having bad dreams. Everyone did. It was nothing to worry about. The dreams would, eventually, fade away.
But that morning, as Nina Voss lay in her ICU bed, the tears fresh in her eyes, she knew the dream would not go away, would never go away. It was part of her now. Just as this heart was part of her.
Softly, she touched her hand to the bandages on her chest. It had been two days since the operation, and though the soreness was just starting to ease, it still awakened her at night, a reminder of the gift she'd received. It was a good, strong heart. She had known that within a day of the surgery. During the long months of her illness, she'd forgotten what it was like to have a strong heart. To walk without gasping for air. To feel the blood pump, warm and vital, to her muscles. To look down at her own fingers and marvel at the rosy flush of her capillaries. She had lived so long waiting for death, accepting death, that life itself had become foreign to her. But now she could see it in her own hands. Could feel it in her fingertips.
And in the beating of this new heart.
It did not yet feel as if it belonged to her. Perhaps it never would. As a child, she would often inherit her older sister's clothing, Caroline's good wool sweaters, her scarcely-worn party dresses. Although the garments had unquestionably passed to Nina's ownership, she had never stopped thinking of them as her sister's. In her mind, they would always be Caroline's dresses, Caroline's skirts.
And whose heart are you? she thought, her hand gently touching her chest.
At noon, Victor came to sit by her bed.
'I had the dream again,' she told him. 'The one about the boy. It was so clear to me this time! When I woke up, I couldn't stop crying.'
'It's the steroids, darling,' said Victor. 'They warned you about that side effect.'
'I think it means something. Don't you see? I have this part of him inside me. A part that's still alive. I can feel him…'
'That nurse should never have told you it was a boy's.'
'I asked her.'
'Still, she shouldn't have told you. It does no one any good to release that information. 'Not you. Not the boy.'
'No,' she said softly. 'Not the boy. But the family — if there's a family-'
'I'm sure they don't wish to be reminded. Think about it, Nina. It's a strictly confidential process. There's a reason for it.'
'Would it be so bad? To send the family a thank-you letter? It would be completely anonymous. Just a simple-'
'No, Nina. Absolutely not.'
Nina sank back quietly on the pillows. She was being foolish again. Victor was right. Victor was always right.
'You're looking wonderful today, darling,' he said. 'Have you been up in a chair yet?'
'Twice,' said Nina. Suddenly the room seemed very, very cold to her. She looked away and shivered.
Pete was sitting in a chair by Abby's bed, looking at her. He wore his blue Cub Scout uniform, the one with all the little patches sewn on the sleeves and the plastic beads dangling from his breast pocket, one bead for each achievement. He was not wearing his cap. Where is his cap? she wondered. And then she remembered that it was lost, that she and her sisters had searched and searched the roadside but had not found it anywhere near the mangled remains of his bicycle.
He had not visited in a long time, not since the night she'd left for college. When he did visit, it was always the same. He would sit looking at her, not speaking.
She said, 'Where have you been, Pete? Why did you come if you're not going to say anything?'
He just sat watching her, his eyes silent, his lips unmoving. The collar of his blue shirt was starched and stiff, just the way their mother had pressed it for the burial. He turned and looked towards another room. A musical note seemed to be calling to him; he was starting to shimmer, like water that has been stirred.
She said, 'What did you come to tell me?'
The waters were churning now, beaten to a froth by all those musical notes. Another bell-like jangle led to total disintegration. There was only darkness.
And the ringing telephone.
Abby reached for the receiver. 'DiMatteo,' she said.
'This is the SICU. I think maybe you'd better come down.'
'What's happening?'
'It's Mrs ross in Bed 15. The transplant. She's running a fever, 38.6?
'What about her other vitals?'
'BP's a hundred over seventy. Pulse is ninety-six.'
'I'll be there.' Abby hung up and switched on the lamp. It was 2 a.m. The chair by her bed was empty. No Pete. Groaning, she climbed out of bed and stumbled across the room to the sink, where she splashed cold water on her face. Its temperature didn't even register. She felt the water as though through anaesthesia. Wake up, wake up, she told herself. You have to know what the hell you're doing. A post-op fever. A three-day-old transplant. First step, check the wound. Examine the lungs, the abdomen. Order a chest x-ray and cultures.
And keep your cool She couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Not now, and certainly not with this patient.
Every morning for the past three days, she'd walked into Bayside not knowing if she still had a job. And every afternoon at five o'clock she'd heaved a sigh of relief that she'd survived another twenty-four hours. With
