I woke up suddenly, breathless, at midnight, realizing that of all nights, tonight I had forgotten to do a ten o'clock check. How did my mother remember all these things? I ran down the stairs and threw the door open. I raced the whole way to the barn in my bare feet. I switched on the light and panted, catching my breath as I walked down the stalls. Aurora and Andy, Eddy and Elmo, Jean-Claude and Tony and Burt. All the horses were sitting, their legs folded neatly beneath them. They were in varying states of consciousness, but none startled at my appearance. The last stall in the barn was Donegal's. I took a deep breath, thinking I would never forgive myself if anything had happened to him. I could never make something like that up to my mother. I held my hands against the chain-link door. Curled against the belly of the snoring horse was my mother, fast asleep, her cast gleaming in the slanted square of moonlight, her fingers twitching in the wake of a dream.

"Now remember," my mother said, balancing precariously on her crutches at the gate to the field, "he hasn't been turned out in two days. We're going to ease into this; we're not going to run him ragged. Understand?"

I nodded, looking down at her from what seemed like a tremendous height when in fact I was only on Donegal. I was terrified. I kept remembering what my mother had said two months before, that even an inexperienced rider could sit on Donegal and look good. But he had been sick, and I had never galloped across an open field, and the only horse I'd ridden was twenty years older than this one and knew the routine better than I did.

My mother reached up and squeezed my ankle. She adjusted the stirrup so it rested further up by my toes. "Don't worry," she said. "I wouldn't have asked you to ride him if I didn't think you could do it." She hallooed and slapped Donegal's hind leg, and I sat level in the saddle as he cantered off.

I couldn't see Donegal's legs for the tall gra.s.s, but I could feel his strength between my thighs. The more I gave him the reins, the gentler the rhythm of his run became. I fully expected that I was going to take off, that he would step on the lowest clouds and carry me over the swollen blue peaks of the mountains.

I leaned in toward Donegal's neck, hearing my mother's voice in my mind from that very first day: "Never lean forward unless you're planning to gallop." I had never galloped, not really, unless you counted a pony's quick strides at a canter. But Donegal shifted into a faster run, so smooth that I barely lifted in the saddle.

I sat very still and closed my eyes, letting the horse take the lead. I tuned in to the pounding sound of Donegal's hooves and the matching beat of my own pulse. I opened my eyes just in time to see the brook.

I hadn't known there was another stream, one that ran across this field, but then again I'd never ridden in it, never even walked all the way across it. As Donegal approached the stream he tensed the muscles in his hindquarters. I released my hands to slide up his neck, adding leg to help him off the ground. We soared over the water, and although it couldn't have been more than half a second, I could have sworn I saw each glistening rock, each rush and surge of current.

I pulled back on the reins, and Donegal tossed his head, breathing heavily. He stopped at the fence a few feet away from the brook and turned toward the spot where we had left my mother as if he knew he had been putting on a show all along.

At first I could not hear it over the tumble of water and the gossip of the robins, but then the sound came: slow, growing louder, until even Donegal became perfectly quiet and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. I patted his neck and praised him, all the while listening to the proud beat of my mother's clapping.

My mother came into my bedroom late that night when the heaviest stars had dripped like a chain of diamonds over the sill of my window. She put her hand over my forehead, and I sat up and thought for a moment that I was five years old and that this was the night before she left. Wait, I tried to tell her, but nothing came out of my throat. Don't do it again. Instead I heard myself say, "Tell me why you left."

My mother lay down beside me on the narrow bed. "I knew this was coming," she said. Nearby, the face of the porcelain doll gleamed like a Cheshire cat. "For six years I believed in your father. I bought into his dreams and I went to Ma.s.s for him and I worked at that stinking paper to help pay the mortgage. I was the wife he needed me to be and the mother I was supposed to become. I was so busy being everything he wanted that there was too little left of Maisie Renault. If I didn't get away, I knew I'd lose myself completely." She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me back against her chest. "I hated myself for feeling that way. I didn't understand why I wasn't like Donna Reed."

"I didn't understand that, either," I said quietly, and I wondered if she thought I was talking about her or about me.

My mother sat up and crossed her legs. "You're happy here," she said. "And you fit. I saw it in the way you rode Donegal. If you lived here you could teach some of the beginner kids. If you want, you could even start to show." Her voice trailed off as she stared out the window, and then she turned her gaze back to me. "Paige," she said, "why don't you just stay here with me?"

Just stay here with me. As she spoke, something inside me burst and coursed warm through my veins, and I realized that all along I must have been a little bit cold. Then that rush stopped, and there was nothing. This was what I had wanted, wasn't it? Her stamp of approval, her need for me. I'd waited twenty years. But something was missing. stay here with me. As she spoke, something inside me burst and coursed warm through my veins, and I realized that all along I must have been a little bit cold. Then that rush stopped, and there was nothing. This was what I had wanted, wasn't it? Her stamp of approval, her need for me. I'd waited twenty years. But something was missing.

She said she wanted me to stay, but I was the one who'd found her. If I did stay, I'd never know the one thing I really wanted to know. Would she ever have come looking for me?

It was a choice, a simple choice. If I stayed, I would not be with Nicholas and Max. I wouldn't be around when Max threw his first loopy pitch; I wouldn't run my fingers over the plaque on Nicholas's office door. If I stayed, it was for good; I would never be going home.

Then it struck me for the first time: the meaning of the words I'd been saying over and over since I'd arrived. I really did have to go home, although I was only now beginning to believe it. "I have to go back," I said. The words fell heavy, a wall between my mother and myself.

I saw something Bicker across my mother's eyes, but just as quickly it was gone. "You can't undo what's done, Paige," she said, squaring her shoulders the same way I did when I fought with Nicholas. "People forgive, but they never forget. I made a mistake, but if I had come back to Chicago, I never would have been able to live it down. You always would have been throwing that up at me, like you are now. What do you think Nicholas is going to do? And Max, when he's old enough to understand?"

"I didn't run away from them," I said stubbornly. "I ran to find you."

"You ran to remind yourself you still had a self," my mother said, getting up from the bed. "Be honest. It's about you, isn't it?"

She stood beside the window, blocking out the reflected light so that I was left in almost total darkness. All right, I was at my mother's horse farm and we were catching up and all that was good, but it hadn't been the reason I'd left home. In my mind, both actions were tangled together, but one hadn't caused the other. Still, no matter what, leaving home had to do with more than just me. It may have started out that way, but I was beginning to see how many chain reactions had been set off and how many people had been hurt. If the simple act of my disappearance could unravel my whole family, I must have held more power-been more important-than I'd ever considered.

Leaving home was all about us. I realized this was something that my mother had never stopped to learn.

I stood up and rounded on her so quickly she fell back against the pale gla.s.s of the window. "What makes you think it's that simple?" I said. "Yes, you walk out-but you leave people behind. You fix your life-but at someone else's expense. I waited for you," I said quietly. "I needed you." I leaned closer. "Did you ever wonder what you missed? You know, all the little things, like teaching me to put on mascara and clapping at my school plays and seeing me fall in love?"

My mother turned away. "I would have liked to see that," she said softly. "Yes."

"I guess you don't always get what you want," I said. "Do you know that when I was seven, eight, I used to keep a suitcase, all packed and ready, hidden in my closet? I used to write to you two or three times a year, begging you to come and get me, but I never knew where to send the letters."

"I wouldn't have taken you away from Patrick," my mother said. "It wouldn't have been fair."

"Fair? By whose standards?" I stared at her, feeling worse than I had in a very long time. "What about me? Why Why didn't you ever didn't you ever ask ask me?" me?"

My mother sighed. "I couldn't have forced you to make that kind of choice, Paige. It was a no-win situation."

"Yes. Well," I said bitterly, "I know all about those." Suddenly I was so tired that all the rage rushed out of my body. I wanted to sleep for months; for, maybe, years. "There are some things you can't tell your father," I said, sinking onto the bed. My voice was even and matter-of-fact, and in a moment of courage I lifted my eyes to see, quicksilver, my soul fly out of hiding. "I had an abortion when I was eighteen," I said flatly. "You weren't there."

Even as my mother reached for me, I could see her face blanch. "Oh, Paige," she said, "you should have come to me."

"You should have been there," I murmured. But really, what difference could it have made? My mother would have believed it was her duty to tell me of the choices. She might have whispered about the certain smell of a baby, or reminded me of the spell we had woven, mother and daughter, lying beside each other on a narrow kitchen table, wrapping our future around us like a hand-worked shawl. My mother might have told me the things I didn't want to hear back then and could not bear to hear right now.

At least my baby never knew me, I thought. I thought. At least I spared her all that pain. At least I spared her all that pain.

My mother lifted my chin. "Look at me, Paige. You can't go back. You can't ever go back." She moved her hands to rest on my shoulders like gripped clamps. "You're just like me," she said.

Was I? I had spent the past three months trying to find all the easy comparisons-our eyes, our hair, and the less obvious traits, like the tendency to run and to hide. But there were some traits I didn't want to admit I shared with her. I had given up the gift of a child because I was so scared that my mother's irresponsibility would be pa.s.sed on in my bloodline. I had left my family and chalked it up to Fate. For years I had convinced myself that if I could find my own mother, if I could just see what might have been, I would possess all the answers.

"I'm not like you," I said. It wasn't an accusation but a statement, curled at the end in surprise. Maybe I had expected to be like her, maybe I had even secretly hoped to be like her, but now I wasn't going to lie down and just let it happen. This time I was fighting back. This time I was choosing my own direction. "I'm not like you," I said again, and I felt a knot tighten at the base of my stomach, now that all of a sudden I had no excuse.

I stood up and walked around the little-girl's bedroom, already knowing what I was going to do. I had spent my life wondering what I could have done wrong that made the one person I loved more than anything leave me behind; I wasn't going to pin that blame like a scarlet letter on Nicholas or Max. I pulled my underwear out of a drawer. I stuffed my jeans, still covered with hay and manure, into the bottom of the small overnight bag I'd arrived with. I carefully wrapped up my sticks of charcoal. I started to envision the quickest route home, and I counted off the hours in my mind. "How can you even ask me to stay?" I whispered.

My mother's eyes glowed like a mountain cat's. She shook with the effort of holding her tears at bay. "They won't take you back," she said.

I stared at her, and then I slowly smiled. "You "You did," I said. did," I said.

chapter 32

Nicholas Max had his first cold. It was amazing that he'd made it this long-the pediatrician said it had something to do with breast-feeding and antibodies. Nicholas had got almost no sleep in the past two days, which were supposed to be his time off from the hospital. He sat helpless, watching Max's nose bubble and run, scrubbing clean the cool-mist vaporizer, and wishing he could breathe for his son.

Astrid was the one to diagnose the cold. She had taken Max to the pediatrician because she thought he'd swallowed a willow pod-which was an entirely different story-and she wanted to know if it was poisonous. But when the doctor listened to his chest and heard the upper-respiratory rattle and hum, he'd prescribed PediaCare and rest.

Nicholas was miserable. He hated watching Max choke and sputter over his bottle, unable to drink since he couldn't breathe through his nose. He had to rock him to sleep, a lousy habit, because Max couldn't suck on a pacifier and if he cried himself to sleep he wound up soaked in mucus. Every day Nicholas called the doctor, a colleague at Ma.s.s General who'd been in his graduating cla.s.s at Harvard. "Nick," the guy said over and over, "no baby's ever died of a cold."

Nicholas carried Max, who was blessedly quiet, to the bathroom to check his weight. He placed Max on the cool tile and stood on the digital scale, getting a reading before he stepped back onto it holding Max. "You're down a half pound," Nicholas said, holding Max up to the mirror so he could see himself. He smiled, and the mucus in his nostrils ran into his mouth.

"This is disgusting," Nicholas muttered to himself, tucking the baby under his arm and carrying him to the living room. It had been an endless day of carrying Max when he cried, cuddling him when he got frustrated and batted at his nose, washing his toys in case he could reinfect himself.

He propped Max up in front of the TV, letting him watch the evening news. "Tell me what the weather's going to be like this weekend," Nicholas said, walking upstairs. He needed to raise one end of the crib and to get the vaporizer going so that if, G.o.d willing, Max fell asleep, he could carry him into the dark nursery without waking him. He was bound to fall asleep. It was almost midnight, and Max hadn't napped since morning.

He finished in the nursery and came back downstairs. He leaned over Max from behind. "Don't tell me," he said. "Rain?"

Max reached up his hands. "Dada," he said, and then he coughed.

Nicholas sighed and settled Max into the crook of his arm. "Let's make a deal," he said. "If you go to sleep within twenty minutes I'll tell Grandma you don't have to eat apricots for the next five days." He uncapped the bottle that had been leaking onto the couch and rubbed it against Max's lips until his mouth opened like a foundling's. Max could take three strong sucks before he had to break away and breathe. "You know what's going to happen," Nicholas said. "You're going to get all better, and then I'm I'm going to get sick. And I'll give it back to you, and we'll have this d.a.m.n thing until Christmas." going to get sick. And I'll give it back to you, and we'll have this d.a.m.n thing until Christmas."

Nicholas watched the commentator talk about the consumer price index, the DJIA, and the latest unemployment figures. By the time the news was over, Max had fallen asleep. He was cradled in Nicholas's arms like a little angel, his arms resting limp over his stomach. Nicholas held his breath and contorted his body, pushing himself up from the heels, then the calves, then the back, finally snapping his head up. He tiptoed up the stairs toward the nursery, and then the doorbell rang.

Max's eyes flew open, and he started to scream. "f.u.c.k," Nicholas muttered, tossing the baby against his shoulder and jiggling him up and down until the crying slowed. The doorbell rang again. Nicholas headed back down the hall. "This better be an emergency," he muttered. "A car crash on my front lawn, or a fire next door."

He unlocked and pulled open the heavy oak door and came face-to-face with his wife.

At first Nicholas didn't believe it. This didn't really look like Paige, at least not as she had looked when she left. She was tanned and smiling, and her body was trim. "Hi," she said, and he almost fell over just hearing the melody wrapped around her voice.

Max stopped crying, as if he knew she was there, and stretched out his hand. Nicholas took a step forward and extended his palm, trying to ascertain whether he would be reaching toward a vision, coming up with a handful of mist. His fingertips were inches away from her collarbone, and he could see the pulse at the base of her throat, when he snapped his wrist back and stepped away. The s.p.a.ce between them became charged and heavy. What had he been thinking ? If he touched her, it would start all over again. If he touched her, he wouldn't be able to say what had been building inside him for three months; wouldn't be able to give her her due.

"Nicholas," Paige said, "give me five minutes."

Nicholas clenched his teeth. It was all coming back now, the flood of anger he'd buried under his work and his care of Max. She couldn't just step in as though she'd been on a getaway weekend and play the loving mother. As far as Nicholas was concerned, she didn't have the right to be there anymore at all, "I gave you three months," he said. "You can't just breeze in and out of our lives at your pleasure, Paige. We've done fine without you."

She wasn't listening to him. She reached forward and touched her hand to the baby's back, brushing the side of Nicholas's thumb. He turned so that Max, asleep again on his shoulder, was out of reach. "Don't touch him," he said, his eyes flashing. "If you think I'm going to let you walk back in here and pick up where you left off, you've got another thing coming. You aren't getting into this house, and you're not getting within a hundred feet of this baby."

If he decided to talk to Paige, if if he let her see Max, it would be in his own sweet time, on his own agenda. Let her stew for a little while. Let her see what it was like to be powerless all of a sudden. Let her fall asleep fitfully, knowing she had absolutely no idea what tomorrow held in store. he let her see Max, it would be in his own sweet time, on his own agenda. Let her stew for a little while. Let her see what it was like to be powerless all of a sudden. Let her fall asleep fitfully, knowing she had absolutely no idea what tomorrow held in store.

Paige's eyes filled with tears, and Nicholas schooled himself not to move a muscle. "You can't do this," she said thickly.

Nicholas stepped back far enough to grab the edge of the door. "Watch me," he said, and he slammed it shut in his wife's face.

Part III:

Delivery Fall 1993

chapter 33

Paige.

The front door has grown larger overnight. Thicker, even. It is the biggest obstacle I've ever seen. And I should know. For hours at a time, I focus all my concentration on it, waiting for a miracle.

It would almost be funny, if it didn't hurt so much. For four years I walked in and out of that door without giving it a second thought, and now-the first time I've really wanted wanted to, the first time I've to, the first time I've chosen chosen to-I can't. I keep thinking, to-I can't. I keep thinking, Open sesame. Open sesame. I close my eyes and I picture the little hallway, the Chinese umbrella stand, the Persian runner. I've even tried praying. But it doesn't change anything; Nicholas and Max are on one side, and I'm stuck on the other. I close my eyes and I picture the little hallway, the Chinese umbrella stand, the Persian runner. I've even tried praying. But it doesn't change anything; Nicholas and Max are on one side, and I'm stuck on the other.

I smile when I can to my neighbors as they go by, but I am very busy. Such concentration takes all my energy. I repeat Nicholas's name silently, and I picture him so vividly I almost believe I can conjure him-magic!-inches from where I sit. And still nothing happens. Well, I will wait forever, if it comes to that. I have made my decision. I want my husband to come back into my life. But I will settle for finding a c.h.i.n.k in his armor, so that I can slip back into his life and prove that we can go back to normal.

I don't find it strange that I would give my right arm to be inside the house, watching Max grow up before my eyes-doing, really, the things that made me so crazy three months ago. I'd just been going through the motions then, acting out a role that I couldn't really remember being cast in. Now I'm back by my own free will. I want want to spread chutney on Nicholas's turkey sandwiches. I to spread chutney on Nicholas's turkey sandwiches. I want want to stretch socks over Max's sunburned feet. I to stretch socks over Max's sunburned feet. I want want to find all my art supplies and draw picture after picture with pastels and oils and hang them on the walls until every dull, pale corner of that house is throbbing with color. G.o.d, there is such a difference between living the life you are to find all my art supplies and draw picture after picture with pastels and oils and hang them on the walls until every dull, pale corner of that house is throbbing with color. G.o.d, there is such a difference between living the life you are expected expected to live and living the life you to live and living the life you want want to live. I just realized it a little late, is all. to live. I just realized it a little late, is all.

Okay, so my homecoming hasn't gone quite the way I'd planned. I figured on Nicholas welcoming me with a small parade, kissing me until my knees gave out beneath me, telling me that come h.e.l.l or high water, he'd never let me go again. Truth is, I was so excited about slipping back into the routine that fit me like a soft old shoe, I never considered that the circ.u.mstances might have changed. I had learned the lesson already this past summer, with Jake, but I never thought to apply it here. But of course, if I I am different, I shouldn't expect that time has stood still for Nicholas. I understand that he's been hurt, but if I can forgive myself, surely Nicholas can forgive me too. And if he can't, I'll have to make him try. am different, I shouldn't expect that time has stood still for Nicholas. I understand that he's been hurt, but if I can forgive myself, surely Nicholas can forgive me too. And if he can't, I'll have to make him try.

Yesterday I accidentally let him get away. I never thought of following him; I a.s.sumed that he'd found someone to watch Max at home when he went to work. But at 6:30 A.M., there he had been, toting the baby and a diaper bag, stuffing both into his car with the carelessness that comes from constant practice. I was very impressed. I could never carry both Max and and the diaper bag-in fact, I could barely summon enough courage to take Max out of the house. Nicholas-well, Nicholas made it look so easy. the diaper bag-in fact, I could barely summon enough courage to take Max out of the house. Nicholas-well, Nicholas made it look so easy.

He had come out the front door and pretended I wasn't there. "Good morning," I had said, but Nicholas didn't even nod his head. He got into his car, sitting for a minute behind the wheel. Then he unrolled the window on the pa.s.senger side and leaned toward it. "You will be gone," he said, "by the time I get home."

I a.s.sumed he was going to the hospital, but I wasn't about to go there looking the way I did. Embarra.s.sing Nicholas in his own front yard was one thing; making him look bad in front of his superiors was another. That I knew he would never forgive. And I had had looked awful yesterday. I'd driven seventeen hours straight, slept on my front lawn, and skipped showers for two days. I would slip into the house, wash up, change my clothes, and then go to Ma.s.s General. I wanted to see Max without Nicholas around, and how difficult could it be to find the day care facility there? looked awful yesterday. I'd driven seventeen hours straight, slept on my front lawn, and skipped showers for two days. I would slip into the house, wash up, change my clothes, and then go to Ma.s.s General. I wanted to see Max without Nicholas around, and how difficult could it be to find the day care facility there?

After Nicholas left, I crawled into the front seat of my car and fished my keys from my pocketbook. I felt sure that Nicholas had forgotten about those. I opened the front door and stepped into my house for the first time in three full months.

It smelled of Nicholas and Max and not at all of me. It was a mess. I didn't know how Nicholas, who loved order, could live like this, much less consider it sanitary for Max. There were dirty dishes piled on every pristine surface in the kitchen, and the Barely White tiles on the floor were streaked with muddy footprints and scribbles of jelly. In the corner was a dead plant, and fermenting in the sink was half a melon. The hallway was dark and littered with stray socks and boxer shorts; the living room was gray with dust. Max's toys-most of which I'd never seen before-were covered with tiny smudged handprints.

My first instinct had been to clean up. But if I did that, Nicholas would know I had been inside, and I didn't want him yelling again. So I made my way to the bedroom and pulled a pair of khaki pants and a green cotton sweater out of my closet. After a quick shower, I put them on and threw my dirty clothes into the bathroom hamper.

When I thought I heard a noise, I ran out of the bathroom, stopping only in the nursery to get a quick scent of Max-soiled diapers and baby powder and sweet milky skin. I slipped out the back door just in case, but I didn't see anybody. With my hair still wet, I drove to Ma.s.s General and inquired about staff child care, but they told me there was no facility on the hospital grounds. "Good Lord," I said to the receptionist at the information desk. "Nicholas has him in a day care center." I laughed out loud then, thinking about how ridiculous this had all turned out. If Nicholas had agreed to consider day care before the baby was born, I wouldn't have been home all day with him. I would have been taking cla.s.ses, maybe drawing again-I would have been doing something for myself. myself. If I hadn't been home with Max, I might never have needed to get away. If I hadn't been home with Max, I might never have needed to get away.

I wasn't about to search through the Boston phone book for day care centers, so I had gone home and resigned myself to the fact that I'd lost a day. Then Nicholas showed up and told me again to get the h.e.l.l off his lawn. But late last night, he had come outside. He wasn't angry, at least not as angry as he had been. He stepped down to the porch, sitting so close that I could have touched him. He was wearing a robe I had not seen before. As I watched him, I pretended that we were different, that it was years ago, and we were eating bagels and chive cream cheese and reading the real estate listings of the Sunday Globe. Globe. For a moment, just a moment, something pa.s.sed behind the shadows in his eyes. I could not be sure, but I thought it took the shape of understanding. For a moment, just a moment, something pa.s.sed behind the shadows in his eyes. I could not be sure, but I thought it took the shape of understanding.

That's why today I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to follow Nicholas to the ends of the earth. He's late-it's past seven o'clock-and I'm already in the car. I have moved out of the driveway and parked down the block, because I want him to think I have disappeared. When he drives away I am going to tail him, like in the movies, always keeping a couple of cars between us.

He walks out the front door with Max tucked beneath his arm like a Federal Express package, and I start the engine. I unroll my window and stare, just in case Nicholas does anything I can use as a clue. I hold my breath as he locks the door, saunters to his car, and settles Max into the car seat. It's a different car seat now, facing forward, instead of the little bucket that faced the back. On the plastic bar across the car seat is a circus of plastic animals, each holding a different jingling bell. Max giggles when Nicholas buckles him in, and he grabs a yellow rubber ball that hangs from an elephant's nose. "Dada," he says-I swear I can hear it-and I smile at my baby's first word.

Nicholas looks over the top of the car before he slips into his seat, and I know he is trying to find me. I have an un.o.bstructed view of him: his glinting black hair and his sky-colored eyes. It has been quite a while since I've really looked at him; I have been making up images from a composite of memories. Nicholas really is the most handsome man I have ever seen; time and distance haven't changed that. It isn't his features as much as their contrast; it isn't his face as much as his ease and his presence. When he puts the car in gear and begins to drive down the block, I count, whispering out loud. "One Mississippi, two Mississippi," I say. I make it to five, and then I start to follow him.

As I expected, Nicholas doesn't take the turn to Ma.s.s General. He takes a route that I recognize from somewhere but that I can't quite place. It is only when I hide my car in a driveway three houses down from Nicholas's parents' house that I realize what has happened while I've been away.

I can see Astrid only from a distance. Her shirt is a blue splotch against the wood door. Nicholas holds out the baby to her, and I feel my own arms ache. He says a few words, and then he walks back to the car.

I have a choice: I can follow Nicholas to wherever he's going next, or I can wait until he leaves and hope that I have the advantage of surprise and try to get Astrid Prescott to let me hold my baby, which I want more than anything. I see Nicholas start the car. Astrid closes the heavy front door. Without thinking about what I am doing, I pull out of the neighbor's driveway and follow Nicholas.

I realize then that I would have come back to Ma.s.sachusetts no matter what. It has to do with more than Max, with more than my mother, with more than obligation. Even if there were no baby, I would have returned because of Nicholas. Because of Nicholas. I'm in Because of Nicholas. I'm in love with love with Nicholas. Nicholas. In spite of the fact that he is no longer the man I married; in spite of the fact that he spends more time with patients than with me; in spite of the fact that I have never been and never will be the kind of wife he should have had. A long time ago, he dazzled me; he saved me. And out of every other woman in the world, Nicholas chose me. We may have changed over the years, but these are the kinds of feelings that last. I In spite of the fact that he is no longer the man I married; in spite of the fact that he spends more time with patients than with me; in spite of the fact that I have never been and never will be the kind of wife he should have had. A long time ago, he dazzled me; he saved me. And out of every other woman in the world, Nicholas chose me. We may have changed over the years, but these are the kinds of feelings that last. I know know they're still there in him, somewhere. Maybe the part of his heart that he's using now to hate me used to be the part that loves. they're still there in him, somewhere. Maybe the part of his heart that he's using now to hate me used to be the part that loves.

Suddenly I am impatient. I want to find Nicholas immediately, tell him what I now know. I want to grab him by the collar and kiss my memory into his bloodstream. I want to tell him I am sorry. I want to hear him set me free.

I lean my hand out the window as I drive, cupping the firm k.n.o.b of air that I can't see. I laugh out loud at my discovery: I had been restless for so long that, like an idiot, I ran for miles and miles just to realize that what I really wanted was right here.

Nicholas parks in the Ma.s.s General garage, the uppermost level, and I park four s.p.a.ces away from him. I think about the police shows I've seen on TV as I hide behind the concrete pylons, keeping my distance in case Nicholas decides to turn around. I start to sweat, wondering how I'll be able to keep him from noticing me on an elevator, but Nicholas takes the stairs. He goes down one level into the hospital building and walks down a hall that does not even remotely resemble a surgical floor. There is blue commercial carpeting and a line of wooden doors with the names of doctors spread across them on bra.s.s plaques. At one point, when he turns to fit a key into a lock, I pull myself into a doorway. "May I help you?" a voice says behind the half-open door, and I feel the blood drain out of my face, even as I curl my way back into the hall.

Nicholas has closed the door behind himself. I walk up to it and read the plaque. DR. NICHOLAS J. PRESCOTT, ACTING CHIEF OF CARDIOTHORACIC SURGERY. When did that happen? I lean against the frame of the smooth varnished door and rub my fingers over the recessed letters of Nicholas's name. I would have liked to be here for that, and even as I think this, I am wondering what the circ.u.mstances were. I see Alistair Fogerty, pants pillowed around his ankles, in a compromising position with a nurse in the supply closet. Maybe he is sick, or even dead. What else would make that pompous old goat give up his position?

The twitch of the doork.n.o.b startles me. I turn to the bulletin board and pretend to be engrossed in an article about endorphins. Nicholas walks past without noticing me. He has taken off his jacket and is wearing his white lab coat. He stops at an empty circular desk near the elevator bank and riffles through a clipboard's papers.

When he disappears behind the doors of the elevator, I panic. This is a big hospital, and the chances of my finding him again are next to nothing. But I must have followed him here for a reason, whatever it might be, and I'm not ready to give up yet. I press my fingers to my temples, thinking of Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew, of clues. How did Nicholas spend his day? Where would a doctor be likely to go? I try to run through my mind snippets of conversation we've had when he mentioned places in the hospital, even specific floors. Nicholas could have gone to the patient rooms, the laboratory, the lockers. Or he could be headed where a cardiac surgeon should be headed.

"Excuse me," I say quietly to a janitor emptying a trash container.