Jodi Picoult - Harvesting the Heart

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-mâché 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.

T hey’ve killed him. He’s so still and pale and tiny that I know it beyond a doubt. Once again there has been a baby and it did not live and it is all because of me.

I run out of the room where they’ve laid Max out, down the hall and the staircase and through the nearest door I can find. I am suffocating, and when the automatic door slides open I gulp in the night air of Boston. I can’t get enough. I fly down Cambridge Street, passing teenagers dressed in bright neon rags and lovers entwined-Rhett and Scarlett, Cyrano and Roxanne, Romeo and Juliet. An old woman with wrinkled skin the shade of a prune stops me with a withered hand on my arm. She holds out an apple. “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she says. “Take it, dearie.”

The whole world has changed while I have been inside. Or maybe I’m not where I think I am. Maybe this is purgatory.

The night sweeps from the sky to wrap my feet. When I laugh because my lungs are bursting, the dark streets echo my shrieks. Surely, I think, I am going to hell.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I am aware of the place I’ve come to. It is in the business district of Boston, filled with pin-striped executives and sweaty hot dog carts during the day; but at night, Government Center is nothing more than a flat gray wasteland, a stage for the dance-crazed wind. I am the only person here. In the background I hear the flutter of the wings of pigeons, beating like a heart.

I have come here with a purpose in mind. I am thinking of Lazarus and of Christ Himself. It isn’t right for Max to die for my sins. Nobody ever asked me. Tonight, in return for a miracle, I am willing to sell my own soul.

“Where are You?” I whisper, choking on my words. I close my eyes against the gusts that blow across the plaza. “Why can’t I see You?”

I spin wildly. “I grew up with You,” I cry. “I believed in You. I even trusted You. But You are not a forgiving God.” As if in answer, the wind whistles over the glowing windows of an office building. “When I needed Your strength, You were never there. When I prayed for Your help, You turned away. All I ever wanted was to understand You,” I shout. “All I ever wanted were the answers.”

I fall to my knees and feel the unforgiving cement, wet and cold. I lift my face to the scrutiny of the sky. “What kind of God are You?” I say, sinking lower to the pavement. “You took away my mother. You made me give up my first baby. You’ve stolen my second.” I press my cheek against the rough concrete surface and know the moment it scrapes and bleeds. “I never knew any of them,” I whisper. “Just h thgn="jay ow much can one person take?”