“No,” Nicholas says, moving toward her. “Come inside, Paige.” He reaches out his hand. “Come with me.”
At first she doesn’t budge, but then Nicholas notices her fingers twitching where they lay at her sides. He realizes this is a case where he will have to go more than halfway. He kneels on the cold ground and pulls Paige into a sitting position, then up to her feet. As he leads her into the house, he looks back beneath the blue hydrangeas. The spot where Paige’s body was lying is as clearly defined as a chalked murder outline. Her silhouette is obscenely green against the frost, as if she has left in her wake an artificial spring.
Nicholas leads her into the house, grinding wet mud into the light carpeting. As he peels off Paige’s coat and towels her hair dry with a clean dishcloth, he looks over the smudged footprints and decides he likes them; they make him feel as if he knows where he’s been. He tosses Paige’s coat onto the floor, and then her damp shirt and her jeans. He watches each piece of clothing fall like a bright jewel against the sickly palette of the rug.
Nicholas is so fascinated by the splashes of color blooming across the living room that he does not notice Paige at first. She shivers in front of him, wearing only her underwear. When Nicholas turns to her, he is amazed by the contrasts of color: the tanned line of Paige’s neck against the milky skin of her chest; the severe imprint of a birthmark against the whiteness of her belly. If Paige notices his scrutiny, she says nothing. Her eyes stay lowered, and her hands rub up and down her crossed arms. “Say something to me,” Nicholas urges. “Say anything.”
If she is really in shock, the last thing she should be doing is to stand half naked in the middle of a cold room. Nicholas thinks about bundling her in the old wedding-ring quilt they keep somewhere in the damn house, but he has no idea which closet it’s in. He puts his arms around her, and the chill of her skin shudders down his own spine.
Nicholas leads her upstairs to the bathroom. He closes the door and runs the hottest water into the tub, letting the steam cloud the mirrors. When the water fills the tub halfway, he unhooks Paige’s bra and slips off her underpants. He helps her into the tub and watches her teeth chatter and the mist rise around her. He stares beneath the ripple of the water at the stretch marks on her hips, now painted an airy silver, as if giving birth is really nothing more than a distant memory.
Automatically, Nicholas picks up the ghtÁ€†dinosaur-print washcloth and begins to soap Paige as he does Max. He starts with her feet, leaning half into the tub to clean between the toes and to massage the arches. He moves up her legs, sliding the washcloth behind her knees and over her thighs. He rubs her arms and her stomach and the shoulder-blade hollows of her back. He uses the buoyancy of the water to lift her, slipping the washcloth over her bottom and through her legs. He washes her breasts and sees the nipples tighten. He takes the Tupperware cup he keeps on the bathtub ledge and pours clean water over Paige’s hair, tilting her head back as the dark-red strands grow sleek and black.
Nicholas wrings out the washcloth and hangs it up to dry. The water is still running in the tub, the level rising. As Paige starts to move, water splashes onto his shirt and in his lap. She reaches forward and makes a low, throaty sound, stretching her hand toward Max’s rubber duck. Her fingers close over the yellow head, the orange bill. “Oh, God,” she says, turning to Nicholas. “Oh, my God.”
It happens very quickly-Paige lurches out of the tub and Nich olas rises up to meet her. She wraps her arms around his neck and clutches at the fabric of his shirt until it pulls over his head. All the time he is kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. His fingertips circle her breasts as her hands struggle to unbuckle and unzip. When they are both naked, Nicholas leans over Paige on the white tile and gently brushes her lips. To his surprise, she locks her fingers into his hair, kissing him greedily and refusing to free him.
It has been so long since he felt his wife next to him, holding him, surrounding him. He recognizes every smell and every texture of her body; he knows the points where their skin will meet and become slick. In the past he has thought mostly of his own body-the heavy pressure building between his legs and the moment he knows to let go and the catch of his heart in his throat when he comes-but now he only wants to make Paige happy. The thought runs through his mind over and over; it is the least he can do. It has been so long.
Nicholas can gauge by Paige’s breathing what she feels. He pauses and whispers against Paige’s neck. “Will this hurt?”
She looks up at him, and Nicholas tries to read her expression, but all he can see is the absence of fear, of regret. “Yes,” she says. “More than you know.”
They come together with the fury of a storm, clawing and scratching and sobbing. They are pressed so close they can barely move, just rocking back and forth. Nicholas feels Paige’s tears against his shoulder. He holds her as she trembles and closes softly around him; he cries out to her when he loses control. He makes love with a violence bred of passion, as if the act that creates life might also be used to ward away death.
They fall into a deep sleep on the bed, on top of the comforter. Nicholas curls his body around Paige as though that might protect her from tomorrow. Even in his sleep he reaches for her, filling his hand with the curve of her breast, crossing her abdomen with his arm. In the middle of the night he wakes up, to find Paige staring at him. He wishes there were words to say the things he wants to say.
Instead he pulls her against him and begins to touch her again, much more slowly. In the back of his mind he thinks he should not be doing this, but he cannot stop himself. If he can take her away for a little while, if she can take him away, what’s the harm? In his profession, he never stops fighting against impossible odds, but he learned a long time ago that not all outcomes can be controlled. He tells himself this is the reason he’s trying so hard now not to become involved, not to let himself love. He can fight till he drops, yet somewhere in the back of his mind he understands the margins of his power.
Nicholas closes his eyes as Paige runs her tongue along the line of his throat and spreads her small hands across his chest. For a quick moment he lets himself believe that she belongs to him every bit as much as he belongs to her. Paige kisses the corner of his mouth. It is not about possession and limits. It is about giving everything until there’s nothing left to give, and then searching and scraping until you find a little bit more.
Nicholas rolls over so that he and Paige are facing each other on their sides. They stare at each other for a long time, running their hands over familiar skin and whispering things that do not matter. They come together two more times that night, and Nicholas tallies their lovemaking silently. The first time is for forgiving. The second time is for forgetting. And the third time is for beginning all over again.
chapter 44
I wake up in my own bed, in Nicholas’s arms, and I have absolutely no idea how I got there. Maybe, I think to myself, this has all been a bad dream. For a moment I am almost convinced that if I walk down the hall I will find Max curled in his crib, but then I remember the hospital and last night, and I cover my head with the pillow, hoping to block out the light of day.