It was not his words that shocked me; it was the realization that I was in over my head. Jake was all I had ever wanted, but I could see now that this fever inside me was just going to grow stronger and stronger. The only way I'd be able to put it out would be to give myself completely away-unraveling my secrets and baring my pain -and I did not think I could do that. If I kept seeing Jake I would be consumed by this fire; surely I would touch him and keep touching him until I couldn't go back.

"We can't get married," I said, pushing away from him. "I'm only seventeen." I turned my face up to his, but all I saw in his eyes was a distorted reflection of myself. "I don't think I can see you anymore," I said, my voice breaking over the syllables.

I stood up, but Jake still held my hand. I felt the panic building in me, bubbling up and threatening to spill. "Paige," he said, "we'll go slowly. I know you better than you know yourself. I know you want what I want."

"Really?" I whispered, angry that my self-control was slipping away and that he was probably right. "What, exactly, Jake, do you want?"

Jake stood up. "I want to know what you see when you look at me." His fingers dug into my shoulders. "I want to know your favorite Stooge and the hour you were born and the thing that scares you more than anything else in the world. I want to know," he said, "what you look like when you fall asleep." He traced the line of my chin with his finger. "I want to be there when you wake up."

For a moment I saw the life I might have, wrapped in the laughter of his big family, writing my name beside his in the old family Bible, watching him leave in the morning. I saw all these things I had wished for my whole life, but the images made me tremble. It wasn't meant to be; I didn't know the first thing about fitting into such a normal, solid scene. "You aren't safe anymore," I whispered.

Jake looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "Neither are you," he said.

That night, I learned the truth about my parents' marriage. My father was working in the bas.e.m.e.nt when I came home, still restless and thinking of Jake's hands. He was bent over his sawhorse worktable, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a plastic fitting onto the back of his Medicine Pacifier, which, when finished, would be able to dispense controlled amounts of baby Tylenol and Triaminic.

My father had been everything to me for so long that it did not seem unnatural to ask him questions about falling in love. I was less embarra.s.sed than I was afraid, since I figured he'd think I was speaking up out of guilt and send me off to confession. For a few minutes I watched him, taking in his light-brown hair and the whiskey color of his eyes, his capable, shaping hands. I had always thought I'd fall in love with someone like my father, but he and Jake were very different. Unless you counted the little things-the way they both let me cheat at gin rummy so I could win; the way they carefully weighed my words as if I were the Secretary of State; the fact that when I was miserable, they were the only two people in the world who could make me forget. In my whole life, only when I was with my father or with Jake was I able to believe, as they did, that I was the finest girl in the world.

"How did you know," I asked my father without any preliminary conversation, "that you were going to marry my mother?"

My father did not look up at me, but he sighed. "I was engaged to somebody else at the time. Her name was Patty-Patty Connelly -and she was the daughter of my parents' best friends. We all came over to the United States from County Donegal when I was five. Patty and I grew up together-you know, all-American kids. We went swimming naked in those little summer pools, and we got the chicken pox at the same time, and I took her to all our high-school proms. It was expected, Patty and me, you see."

I came to stand beside him, pulling a length of black electrical tape when he gestured for it. "What about Mom?" I said.

"A month before the wedding, I woke up and asked what in the name of heaven I was doing, throwing my life away. I didn't love Patty, and I called her and told her the wedding was off. And three hours later she called me back to let me know she'd swallowed about thirty sleeping pills."

My father sat down on the dusty green sofa. "Quite a turn of the cards, eh, la.s.s?" he said, slipping into the comfort of his brogue. "I had to drive her to the hospital. I waited around until they were done pumping her stomach, and then I turned her over to her parents." My father rested his head in his hands. "Anyway, I went to a diner across the street from the hospital, and there was your mother. Sitting on one of the counter stools she was, and she had cherry Danish all over her fingers. She had on this little red-checked halter top and white shorts. I don't know, Paige, I can't really explain it, but she turned around when I came in, and the second our eyes connected, it was like the world just disappeared."

I closed my eyes, trying to picture this. I did not believe it was one hundred percent true. After all, I had not heard my mother's side of the story. "And then what?" I said.

"And then we got married in three months. It wasn't the easiest thing for your mother. Some of my old deaf aunts called her Patty at the wedding. She got china and crystal and silver picked out by Patty, because people had already bought the gifts when the first wedding was called off."

My father stood and went back to the pacifier. I stared at his back and remembered that on holidays, when my mother served with the rose-wreathed dishes and the gold-leaf goblets, she would get tight-lipped and uncomfortable. I started to wonder what it might have felt like to live your life in a place someone else had carved. I wondered if, had our china been blue-rimmed or geometric, she might have never left.

"And what," I said, "ever happened to Patty?"

Late that night, I felt my father's breath at my temple. He was leaning over me, watching me sleep. "This is only the beginning," he said to me. "I know it isn't what you want to hear, but he isn't the one you'll be with for the rest of your life."

I heard his words still twisting in the air long after he'd left my room, and I wondered how he had known. A stale wind blew through my open window; I could smell rain. I stood up quickly and dressed in yesterday's clothes; I moved soundlessly down the stairs and out of the house. I did not have to look back to know that my father was watching me from his bedroom window, his palms pressed to the gla.s.s, his head bowed.

The first drops fell, heavy and cold, as I turned the corner away from my home. By the time I was halfway to the Flanagans' Mobil station, the wind shrieked through my hair and knotted my jacket around me. Rain battered my cheeks and my bare legs, so violent that I might not have found my way if I hadn't been going there for years.

Jake pulled me in from the storm and kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my wrists. He peeled the soaked coat from my shoulders and wrapped my hair in an old chamois. He did not ask why I had come; I did not ask why he had been there. We fell against the dented side of a Chevy sedan, skimming our hands over each other's faces to learn the hollows, the curves, and the lines.

Jake led me to a car waiting to be serviced, a Jeep Cherokee 4 4 with a broad open compartment in the back. Through the fishbowl rear window of the Jeep, we watched the storm. Jake pulled my shirt over my head and unfastened my bra, moved his tongue from one nipple to the other. He traced his way over my ribs, my stomach, unzipping my skirt and tugging it over my hips. I could feel the rough rug of the car against my legs, and Jake's hand on my breast, and then I felt the pressure of his lips against the thin film of my underpants. I shivered, amazed that his breath could burn hotter than the ache between my thighs.

When I was naked he knelt beside me and ran his hands over me, units of measure, as if I were something he owned. "You are beautiful," he said, as quiet as a prayer, and he leaned close to kiss me. He did not stop, not even as he undressed himself or stroked my hair or moved between my legs. I felt as if there were a thousand threads of gla.s.s woven in me, a million different colors, and they were stretched so tight that I knew they would snap. When Jake came inside me, my world turned white, but then I remembered to breathe and to move. At the moment when everything shattered, I opened my eyes wide. I did not think about Jake or about that quick sting of pain; I did not think about the heady scent of Marlboros and pomade that clung to the Jeep's interior. Instead I squinted into the frenzied night sky and I waited for G.o.d to strike me down.

chapter 12

Nicholas The women lay on the blue industrial carpet like a string of little islands, their bellies swelling toward the ceiling and trembling slightly as they panted and exhaled. Nicholas was late for Lamaze cla.s.s. In fact, although it was the seventh cla.s.s in a series of ten, it was the first he'd attended, because of his schedule. But Paige had insisted. "You may know how to deliver a baby," she had said, "but there's a difference between a doctor and a labor coach."

And a father, Nicholas had thought, but he didn't say anything. Paige was nervous enough, whether or not she chose to admit it. She didn't need to know that every night so far during the third trimester, Nicholas had awakened, sheets soaked in sweat, worrying about this baby. It wasn't the labor; he could deliver a baby with his eyes closed, for Christ's sake. It was what happened afterward. He had never held an infant, except for his routine swing through pediatrics as an intern. He didn't know what you did to make them stop crying. He didn't have the first idea how to make them burp. And he was worried about what kind of father he would be-certainly absent more than he was home. Of course Paige would be there day and night, which he far preferred to the idea of day care-at least he thought he did. Nicholas sometimes wondered about Paige, doubtful about the kinds of things she might be able to teach a child when she herself knew so little about the world. He had considered buying a stack of colorful books- Nicholas had thought, but he didn't say anything. Paige was nervous enough, whether or not she chose to admit it. She didn't need to know that every night so far during the third trimester, Nicholas had awakened, sheets soaked in sweat, worrying about this baby. It wasn't the labor; he could deliver a baby with his eyes closed, for Christ's sake. It was what happened afterward. He had never held an infant, except for his routine swing through pediatrics as an intern. He didn't know what you did to make them stop crying. He didn't have the first idea how to make them burp. And he was worried about what kind of father he would be-certainly absent more than he was home. Of course Paige would be there day and night, which he far preferred to the idea of day care-at least he thought he did. Nicholas sometimes wondered about Paige, doubtful about the kinds of things she might be able to teach a child when she herself knew so little about the world. He had considered buying a stack of colorful books-How to Make Baby Talk, 101 101 Things to Stimulate Your Baby's Mind, The PARENTS' Guide to Educational Toys Things to Stimulate Your Baby's Mind, The PARENTS' Guide to Educational Toys-but he knew Paige would have taken offense. And Paige seemed so distressed about having the baby that he had vowed to stick to safe topics until she had given birth. Nicholas gripped the edge of the doorway, watching the Lamaze cla.s.s, and wondered whether he had actually become ashamed of his wife.

She was lying in the farthest corner of the room, her hair spilled around her head, her hands resting on the huge round mound of her stomach. She was the only person there without a mate, and as Nicholas crossed the room to join her, he felt a quick stab of remorse. He sat behind her quietly as the nurse teaching the cla.s.s came over to shake his hand and offer him a name tag. NICHOLAS! it said, and in the corner was a chubby, smiling cartoon baby.

The nurse clapped her hands twice, and Nicholas watched Paige's eyes blink open. He knew from the way she smiled at him, upside down, that she had not really been relaxing at all. She was faking it; she'd known the very second he'd entered the room. "Welcome," she whispered, "to Husband Guilt Cla.s.s."

Nicholas leaned back against pillows he recognized from his own bedroom, listening to the nurse recount the three stages of labor, and what to expect during each one. He suppressed a yawn. She held up plastic-coated pictures of the fetus, arms and legs crossed, its head squeezing through the birth ca.n.a.l. A pert blond woman on the other side of the room raised her hand. "Isn't it true," she asked, "that your labor will probably be a lot like your mother's?"

The nurse frowned. "Every baby's different," she mused, "but there does seem to be a correlation."

Nicholas felt Paige tense at his side. "Oh, well," she whispered. He suddenly remembered Paige as he'd seen her the night before when he came home from the hospital. She'd been sitting on the couch, wearing a sleeveless nightgown although it had been cold outside. She was crying, not even bothering to wipe the tears from her cheeks. He'd rushed to her side and taken her into his arms, asking over and over, "What is it?" and Paige, still sobbing, had pointed at the television, some insipid Kodak commercial. "I can't help it," she had said, her nose bubbling, her eyes swollen. "Sometimes this just happens."

"Nicholas?" the nurse said for the second time.

The other fathers-to-be were staring at him, smirking, and Paige was patting his hand. "Go ahead," she said. "It won't be so bad."

The nurse was holding up a padded white bowl-like thing crossed with straps and ties. "In honor of your first cla.s.s," she said, helping Nicholas up from the floor. "The Sympathy Belly."

"For G.o.d's sake," he said.

"Now, Paige has been toting this around for seven months," the nurse scolded. "Surely you can make do for thirty minutes."

Nicholas shrugged into the armholes, glaring at the nurse. It was a thirty-four-pound contraption, a soft false belly whose insides sloshed from side to side unpredictably. When Nicholas shifted, a large ball bearing dug into his bladder. The nurse fastened the straps around his waist and shoulders. "Why don't you take a walk," she said.

Nicholas knew she was waiting for him to fall. He carefully raised and lowered his feet, undaunted by the shifting weight and the strain in his back. He turned back to the crowd, to Paige, triumphant. The nurse's voice came from behind him. "Run," she said.

Nicholas spread his legs wide and tried to move faster, half jogging, half hopping. Some of the women began to laugh, but Paige's face remained still. The nurse tossed a pen onto the floor. "Nicholas," she said, "if you wouldn't mind?"

Nicholas tried to ease toward the ground by bending his knees, but the liquid in the Sympathy Belly swished to the left, knocking off his sense of balance. He fell to the floor on his hands and knees, and he bowed his head.

Around him, laughter swelled, vibrating against his knees and ringing in his ears. He lifted his chin and rolled his eyes. He scanned the other husbands and wives, who were clapping now in response to his performance, and then his gaze fell on his wife.

Paige was sitting very quietly, not smiling, not clapping. A thin silver streak ran the length of her face, and even as he watched, her palm came up to wipe away the tear. She rocked until she was on her knees, then she heaved herself up to a standing position and came to Nicholas's side. "Nicholas has had a very long day," she said. "I think we've got to go."

Nicholas watched Paige unfasten the Sympathy Belly and slide it over his shoulders. The nurse took it from her before she could support the full weight. Nicholas smiled at the others as he followed Paige out the door, and followed her to her car. She wedged herself behind the steering wheel and closed her eyes as if she was in pain. "I hate seeing you like that," she whispered, and when she opened her eyes, clear and cerulean blue, she was staring right through her husband.

chapter 13

Paige I gave birth in the middle of a cla.s.s four hurricane. I was just at the end of my eighth month. All day long I had sat on the couch, weary from the sluggish heat, and listened to news reports of the coming storm. It was a freak weather pattern, a string of odd monsoon rains across the Northeast, coming three months too early. The weatherman told me to tape my windows and store water in the bathtub. Ordinarily I might have, but I did not have the energy. gave birth in the middle of a cla.s.s four hurricane. I was just at the end of my eighth month. All day long I had sat on the couch, weary from the sluggish heat, and listened to news reports of the coming storm. It was a freak weather pattern, a string of odd monsoon rains across the Northeast, coming three months too early. The weatherman told me to tape my windows and store water in the bathtub. Ordinarily I might have, but I did not have the energy.

Nicholas did not come home until midnight. The wind had already picked up, howling through the streets like a child in pain. He undressed in the bathroom and slipped into bed quietly so he wouldn't wake me, but I had been sleeping fitfully. I had a low, moaning backache, and I'd gotten up to pee three times. "I'm sorry," Nicholas said, seeing me stir.

"Don't worry," I told him, rolling myself into a sitting position. "I might as well hit the bathroom again."

As I stood, I felt drops of water at my feet, and I stupidly a.s.sumed it was the rain, somehow come inside.

Two hours later, I knew something was not quite right. My water had not broken, not the way they'd said it would in Lamaze cla.s.s, but a thin trickle of fluid ran down my legs every time I sat up. "Nicholas," I said, my voice trembling, "I'm leaking."

Nicholas rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head. "It's probably a tear in the amniotic sac," he murmured. "You're a whole month early. Go back to sleep, Paige."

I grabbed the pillow and threw it across the room, fear ripping through me like the violence of winter. "I am not a patient, G.o.ddammit," I said. "I am your wife." And I leaned forward, starting to cry.

As I padded toward the bathroom again, a slow burn crept from my back around my belly and settled deep under my skin. It didn't hurt, not really, not yet, but I knew this was the thing the nurse at Lamaze could not describe-a contraction. I held on to the Corian counter and stared into the bathroom mirror. Another gripping knot shook me, hands deep inside me that seemed to be clutching from the inside, as if they would surely pull me into myself. It made me think of a science trick Sister Bertrice had done when I was in eleventh grade-she'd blown smoke into a Pepsi can until none of the oxygen was left and then capped the top with a rubber stopper, and when she lightly touched the side of the can it crumpled, collapsing just like that. "Nicholas," I whispered, "I need help."

While Nicholas was on the phone with my doctor's answering service, I started to pack a bag. It was was an entire month before my due date. But even if it had been May, I knew I wouldn't have had a bag packed. That would have been admitting the inevitable, and right up till the last minute I did not truly believe that I was destined to be a mother. an entire month before my due date. But even if it had been May, I knew I wouldn't have had a bag packed. That would have been admitting the inevitable, and right up till the last minute I did not truly believe that I was destined to be a mother.

Lamaze cla.s.s had taught me that early labor lasted for six to twelve hours; that contractions started irregularly and happened hours apart. Lamaze had taught me that if I breathed the right way, in in-two-three-four, out out-two-three-four, and pictured a clean white beach, I could surely control the pain. But my labor had come out of nowhere. My contractions were less than five minutes apart. And nothing, not even the previous contraction, could prepare me for the pain of the next one.

Nicholas stuffed my bathrobe, two T-shirts, my shampoo, and his toothbrush into a brown paper grocery bag. He knelt beside me on the bathroom floor. "Jesus Christ," he said, "you're only three minutes apart."

Oh, it hurt, and I couldn't get comfortable in the car, and I had started bleeding, and with every grasp of the fist inside me I gripped Nicholas's hand. The rain whipped around the car, screaming as loud as I did. Nicholas turned on the radio and sang to me, making up words to the songs he did not know. He leaned out the window at the empty intersections, yelling, "My wife's in labor!" and drove like a madman through the blinking red lights.

At Brigham and Women's Hospital, he parked in a fire zone and helped me out of the car. He was cursing about the weather, the condition of the roads, the fact that Ma.s.s General had no maternity ward. The rain was a sheet, soaking through my clothes and plastering them to me, so that I could clearly see every tightening of my belly. He pulled me into the emergency admitting area, where a fat black woman sat picking her teeth. "She's preregistered," he barked. "Prescott. Paige."

I could not see the woman. I twisted in a plastic seat, wrapping my arms around my abdomen. Suddenly a face loomed-hers-round and dark, with yellow tiger eyes. "Honey," she said, "do you have to push?"

I couldn't speak, so I nodded my head, and she jumped to attention, demanding a wheelchair and an orderly. Nicholas seemed to relax. I was brought into one of the older labor and delivery suites. "What about those modern rooms," Nicholas demanded. "The ones with nice drapes and bedspreads and all that?"

I could have given birth in a cave on a bed of pine needles; I did not care. "I'm sorry, Doctor," the orderly said, "we're full up. Something about the atmospheric pressure of a hurricane makes women's waters break."

Within minutes, Nicholas stood to the right of me, a labor nurse to my left. Her name was Noreen, and I trusted her more than my own husband, who had saved the lives of hundreds. She rustled the sheet between my legs. "You're ten centimeters," she said. "It's show time."

She stepped out of the room, leaving me alone with Nicholas. My eyes followed the door. "It's okay, Paige. She's going to get Dr. Thayer." Nicholas put his hand on my knee and gently ma.s.saged the muscles. I could hear the steady rasp of my breathing, the hot pulse of my blood. I turned to Nicholas, and with the clarity and clairvoyance that pain brings, I realized I did not know this man at all and that the worst was yet to come. "Don't you touch me," I whispered.

Nicholas jumped away, and I looked into his eyes. They were ringed gray, surprised and hurt. For the first time in my life, I found myself thinking, Well, good. Well, good.

Dr. Thayer bl.u.s.tered into the room, her scrubs flying untied behind her. "So you couldn't wait another month, Paige, eh?"

She squatted down in front of me, and I was vaguely aware of her fingers probing and flattening and stretching. I wanted to tell her I could could wait, that I had been willing to wait the rest of my life rather than actually face this child, but suddenly that was not the truth. Suddenly I just wanted to be free of the throbbing weight, the splitting pain. wait, that I had been willing to wait the rest of my life rather than actually face this child, but suddenly that was not the truth. Suddenly I just wanted to be free of the throbbing weight, the splitting pain.

Nicholas braced one of my legs and Noreen braced the other while I pushed. I felt for sure I would crack in two. Noreen held a mirror between my legs. "Here's the head, Paige," she said. "Do you want to feel it?"

She took my hand and stretched it downward, but I pulled away. "I want you to get it out of me," I cried.

I pushed and pushed, knowing all the blood in my body was flooding my face, burning behind my eyes and my cheeks. Finally, I sank back against the raised table. "I can't," I whimpered. "I really can't do this."

Nicholas leaned close to me to whisper something, but what I heard was the m.u.f.fled conversation between Noreen and Dr. Thayer. Something about a special care team, about the baby not coming fast enough now. Then I remembered the books I had read when I was first pregnant. The lungs. At the end of the eighth month, the lungs have just finished development.

Even if he ever got here, my baby might not be able to breathe.

"One more time," Dr. Thayer said, and I struggled up and bore down with all the energy I could summon. Quite clearly I could feel the nose, a tiny pointed nose, pressed against the tight seal of my own flesh. Get out, Get out, I thought, and Dr. Thayer smiled up at me. "We've got the head," she said. I thought, and Dr. Thayer smiled up at me. "We've got the head," she said.

After that it all came easily: the shoulders and the thick purple umbilical cord, the long skinny creature that lay, howling, between my legs. It was a boy. In spite of what I knew, I had hoped till this last moment that I would be having a girl. For some reason it still came as a shock. I stared at him, unfolded, wondering how he had ever fit inside. Doctors took him away from me, and Nicholas, who was one of them, followed.

It was at least a half hour before I got to touch my son. His lungs were p.r.o.nounced perfect. He was thin but healthy. He had the familiar newborn features: flattened Indian face, dark rat hair, obsidian eyes. His toes curled under, plump like early peas. On his belly was a red birthmark that looked like a funky scribbling of the number twenty-two. "Must be the stamp of the guy who inspected him," Nicholas said.

Nicholas kissed my forehead, staring at me with his wide-sky eyes, making me regret what I'd said before. "Four hours," he said. "How considerate of you to finish all the hard work in time for me to do my morning rotations."

"Well, you know," I said, "we aim to please."

Nicholas touched the baby's open palm, and the fingers curled together like a daisy at sunset. "Four hours is d.a.m.n fast for a first delivery," he said.

The question died on my lips: Was this my first? Was this my first? Staring into the demanding face of this son, I thought that maybe, right now, it didn't matter. Staring into the demanding face of this son, I thought that maybe, right now, it didn't matter.

Nearby, Dr. Thayer was completing the medical record. "Last name, Prescott," she verified. "Have you picked a first name?"

I thought of my mother, May O'Toole, and wondered if she knew in her corner of the world that she had a grandchild. I wondered if the baby might have her eyes, her smile, or her sorrow.

I turned my face up to Nicholas. "Max," I said. "His name is Max."

Nicholas went to Ma.s.s General to round his patients, and I was left alone with my baby. I held him awkwardly in my arms as he screamed and thrashed and kicked. I felt beaten from the inside; I couldn't move very well, and I wondered if I was the best person for Max right then.

When I turned on the TV above the bed, Max quieted down. Together we listened to the wind shake the walls of the hospital as the reporters described a world that was falling apart.

At one point I found Max looking up at me, as if he'd seen the face before but couldn't place it. I inspected him, his wrinkled neck and blotchy cheeks, the bruised color of his eyes. I did not know how this child could possibly have come out of me. I kept waiting to feel that surge of mother love that was supposed to come naturally, the bond that meant nothing could keep me from my baby. But I was looking at a stranger. My throat seemed to swell up with a pain more raw than childbirth, and I recognized it immediately: I just wasn't ready. I could love him, but I had expected another month to prepare. I needed time. And that was the one thing I would not have. "You should know," I whispered, "I don't think I'll be very good at this." He placed his fist against my heart. "You have the upper hand," I told him. "I'm more afraid of you than you are of me."

At Brigham and Women's, one of the options for new mothers was partial rooming-in. The baby could stay with you all day, and at night when you were ready to go to sleep, a nurse would roll the plastic ba.s.sinet to the nursery. If you chose to breast-feed, a nurse would bring the baby back when he woke up. Noreen told me it was the best of both worlds. "You get your rest," she said, "but you don't miss that special time with the little guy."

I wanted to tell her to take Max all day, because I did not have the first idea what to do with a newborn. I put him on the edge of my bed and unwrapped his receiving blanket, marveling at the length of his legs and his pale blue feet. When I tried wrapping him back up again, I made a horrible mess of it, and Max kicked the blanket free. I pushed the call b.u.t.ton, and Noreen came back to show me the tight papoose bind. Then I went to put him back into his ba.s.sinet on his side-not on his stomach, because it would irritate the umbilical cord, and not on his back, because he might die of SIDS-but the edges of the basket were too high, and I half placed, half dropped him onto the soft padding. Max started to wail. "Don't do that," I said, but Max's eyes slit into dashes, and his mouth formed an angry red O. I held him at arms' length, watching his tightly swaddled legs wiggle like a mermaid's tail as he thrashed about. From the corner of my eye I saw several nurses walk by, but no one came in to offer help. "Oh, please," I said, tears coming, and I shifted Max onto my shoulder. Immediately he became quiet and grabbed fistfuls of my hair.

Noreen came into the room. "He's hungry," she said. "Try feeding him."

I looked at her blankly, and she helped me settle on the bed. She lifted a pillow onto my lap and laid Max across it, untied one shoulder of my hospital gown. She showed me how to hold my nipple, brown and unfamiliar, so that Max could get it into his mouth. "He doesn't really know how to do this," she said, "so you're going to have to teach him."

"Oh," I said. "The blind leading the blind."

But Max's gums clamped down on my nipple so hard that pain shot through my arm and brought tears to my eyes. "That can't be right," I said, thinking of the women on the TV formula commercials, who gazed down at their suckling infants as if they were the baby Jesus. "That hurts too much to be right."

"It hurts?" Noreen asked. I nodded. "Then he's got the right idea." She stroked Max's cheek as if she already liked him. "Let him go at it for a few more minutes," she said. "He's only getting colostrum now. Your milk won't come in for a few days."

Noreen told me that as I got used to this, I'd toughen up. She said she'd bring me damp tea bags to lay on my nipples when Max was finished, since something in the blend took away the soreness and the sting. Noreen left me to stare at the rain, pelting against the thick gla.s.s window and blurring the edges of the outside world. I fought back tears and waited for my son to suck me dry.

In the middle of the night, an unfamiliar nurse wheeled the ba.s.sinet into my room. "Guess who's hungry," she said cheerfully. Sleep was still wrapped around my head like a thick, stuffed cloud, but I reached for Max as I knew I was supposed to. I had been dreaming. I had been picturing my mother, but as Max's lips pulled at my breast, I began to lose the image.

I could not keep my eyes open, and every muscle in my body was lead heavy. I was sure I'd fall asleep and Max would roll out of my arms and strike his head on the floor and die. I blinked often, seeing nothing, until Max's mouth slackened and I could call for a nurse.