The Law of Bound Hearts (15 page)

“No. He's training for an Ironman. I wrote about it in our Christmas letter. Remember?”

Ah, yes. Cynthia's annual letter detailing her family's many successes. “That's right,” Sam said. “Hawaii, is it? The one in Maui?”

“San Diego,” Cynthia said. “Next August.”

“Good for him,” Sam said. She took a sip of coffee, wondered if it was the difference in their ages or geography that distanced her from her brother and his family.

“He's training twenty to twenty-five hours a week. This competition is very important to him.”

“I can imagine,” Sam said. She drank more coffee and rolled her eyes at Stacy, a just-get-me-off-the-phone look.

“That's why I think it's so unfair of Libby.”

The name shot through Sam. “Libby?”

“Naturally, I feel sorry for her,” Cynthia said. “You know I do. But I don't think she has any right to keep after Josh like this. He's already told her he can't do it, but she keeps at him. Then he feels guilty for saying no. She called again yesterday. This time she said all she wants is for him to be tested, to see if he is a match, but then what? I mean, why even be tested if you're not going to be a donor?”

Sam had to sit down. A donor?

“And what if the disease is inherited?” Cynthia went on. “She says it isn't, but how can they be certain? And God forbid, what if Jeffrey or Robert ever needed a kidney? What then?”

“A kidney?” Sam said. Stacy looked over at her.

“Exactly. Josh would want to be able to give one to his own sons. Besides, it's not like it's a huge emergency. They've got her on dialysis. From what I understand, people can stay on that for years.”

Sam swallowed against the coffee that rose to her throat. She felt suddenly light-headed.

“I mean, if she wanted money, that would be one thing, although with Richard's trust money they have more than God. But body parts are quite something else. Anyway,” Cynthia went on, “I thought maybe you could give Josh a call. Support him in his decision.” She drew a breath. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're not going to be tested, are you? She hasn't guilted you into it, has she?”

“No,” Sam said, barely able to get the words out. “I'm not getting tested.”

“Well, give Josh a call, will you? You two need to stick together on this.”

“Bad news?” Stacy said after Sam hung up.

Sam nodded, unable to speak. She stared up at the bulletin board over her workstation, stared at the dozens of couples posed by their cakes, preparing for the ritual cutting.

“Are you all right?” Stacy said. “You're as white as a cup of Crisco.”

Libby needs a kidney.
The photos on the board blurred and she blinked away tears, stared at the cakes. They were four and five layers, their height a tradition from the middle ages.
Libby needs a kidney.
A couple would kiss over a tower of cakes, trying not to knock them down. If they succeeded, it meant a lifetime of prosperity.

“Sam?”

Why would anyone believe it was possible to protect against the future?

Stacy crossed to Sam. “You're shaking,” she said. “What's happened?”

Sam looked away from the bridal couples, so certain of the happiness that awaited them. “It's my sister.” She remembered the message Libby had left on her machine.
Please,
Libby had said.
Please
call me.

Six years. Sam had thought she was free. But love was never free, she realized now. It bound you.

“Will it hurt?” Sam asks in a baby voice.

Libby does not answer. She concentrates on the match flame at the tip of the
safety pin.

“Why are you doing that?” Sam whispers. They are not supposed to have
matches. They will be in big trouble if their mother catches them.

“So the pin will be sterile,” Libby says, “and we won't get infected.” She is
eleven and knows a lot more about things than Sam.

“Oh,” Sam says. Her hands are still sticky from the peach they had eaten
earlier and she thinks maybe she should have washed before they began.

Libby goes first. Sam watches, mesmerized, as her sister pricks her finger
and, immediately, a drop of blood appears. Sam wants to stop now. When Libby
told her all about the Three Musketeers and about vows for life, it had sounded
exciting, but now she isn't sure. Libby reaches for her hand.

It does hurt. Tears fill Sam's eyes, but she does not cry out.

“Good girl,” Libby says. She lifts Sam's finger to her mouth, licks off the
blood. Her tongue is warm on Sam's skin.

“Now you,” Libby says. She holds her finger for Sam to lick.

Blood always, always makes Sam feel funny in her stomach.

“Go on,” Libby says. “We both have to do it, or it won't work.”

Sam closes her eyes and licks Libby's finger.

“Forever and ever,” Libby says, using her grown-up voice. “Me for you and
you for me. Now it's your turn.”

“Forever and ever,” Sam says.

“Me for you and you for me,” Libby says.

“Me for you and you for me,” Sam echoes.

Libby hugs her. “I love you, Sam-I-Am.”

“I love you back,” Sam says. Her tears have dried. She tastes the sweetness of
peach juice, the salt of Libby's blood.

Libby

Libby took the entire drive from the lake to the center at a good ten miles over the limit, risking a stop by the local traffic cops, who were notorious for ticketing speeders. Even so, she was thirty minutes late for her appointment.

Dodi, the receptionist, looked pointedly at the wall clock and then back at Libby. “You're late,” she said.

“I'm sorry.” Several people in the waiting room looked over at her. Libby's cheeks flushed. What was this? Grammar school? A reprimand for a rule infraction?

Behind Dodi, in a separate cubicle, several nurses had gathered. They talked softly.

Dodi tapped her pencil on the appointment book. “It's important that you be on time for your treatment.”

“Yes.” Libby considered excuses. An emergency in the family, car trouble, flat tire.

“Otherwise,” Dodi continued, “you set everything back for the entire day.”

“I understand.” Forget the excuses, Libby decided. She'd be damned if she was going to lie just to avoid this lecture. Maybe she'd just blurt out the truth, how she'd been sitting in a parking lot on the edge of Lake Michigan trying to build up courage to face another session. Did these people understand what it was like, coming here?

Libby was rescued by Kelly. She followed the nurse to an exam room and was weighed, her legs and abdomen checked for fluid retention. The checkup was perfunctory, almost abrupt, performed without Kelly's usual chatter. Libby assumed the nurse, like Dodi, was upset because she'd been late.

“I'm sorry to set the schedule back,” she said.

“Don't worry about it,” Kelly said. She led Libby out to the treatment bay.

It took Libby a moment to notice how quiet the area was. Conversation was subdued. The television was nearly inaudible.

Libby barely had time to sit down when Jesse leaned over. “Lord, I'm glad to see you, girl.”

“You had us worried,” Eleanor said from Libby's other side. “Is everything all right? Did you have car trouble?”

“No. The car's fine.” The women's concern took her by surprise. She settled back, unbuttoned her shirt. Kelly slid the tubes into her catheter. The nurse stayed until the machine began pumping blood.

“I don't think you'll have to worry about any saline imbalance today,” Kelly said. “Your numbers are textbook, but I'll keep checking anyway. Right now I've got to go get Mr. Waters off his monitor. I'll be back. Okay?”

“She'll be fine,” Eleanor said. She turned to Libby. “I tried to call you,” she said. “Monday afternoon.”

“You tried to call me?”

“To see how you were doing,” Eleanor said. “I know it was pretty rough on you last time. I wanted to check and see that you were all right.”

“We put you in our prayer circle,” Jesse said. “The one I told you about.”

Disconcerted by this show of concern, Libby fell silent.

“I remembered your husband said you lived in Lake Forest,” Eleanor continued, “but I couldn't remember your last name. I called the office here but they won't give out that information. A privacy policy, they said. If you can imagine.”

“Yes.”

“As if any of us had any privacy here.”

That, at least, Libby agreed with.

Eleanor reached for a small notebook and pencil. “So what is it?”

“What?”

“Your last name.”

Short of being rude, there was no way out of it. “Barnett,” Libby said. “Elizabeth Barnett.”

“You might as well give me the number, too,” Eleanor said. “That'll save me the trouble of having to look it up.”

Libby recited her number. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jesse jotting it down as well. She could just imagine what she was letting herself in for. The next thing she knew, Jesse'd be showing up at her door trailing her entire prayer circle.

Kelly returned and checked Libby's monitor. “Looking good,” she said and then rushed off again.

“She's mad.” Libby surprised herself by confiding this to Eleanor.

“Who?”

“Kelly. I guess because I showed up late.”

“She's not mad,” Jesse said. “She's just upset.”

“I guess everyone is,” Eleanor said.

Libby could not believe it. “I can just imagine what happens if you miss an appointment. You probably have to make a confession.”

“Oh, they're not upset about you,” Jesse said. “It's Harold.”

“Who's Harold?”

“Mr. Lenehy,” Eleanor said.

“You know,” Jesse said. “The wheelchair. Deaf as a brick.”

“What about him?”

Eleanor pointed to the empty chaise on the other side of the bay.

No wonder the television was turned so low.

“The poor man's in the hospital,” Jesse said.

“Oh, no,” Libby said. “What happened?”

“We don't know for sure,” Eleanor said.

“
They
know,” Jesse said, tilting her head toward the nurses' station, “but of course they won't say a word to us.”

“I heard it was a heart attack,” Eleanor said.

“Heart attack?”

“It's not that unusual,” Eleanor said. “Half the people in here are at cardiovascular risk. It goes with the territory.”

This was news to Libby and she made a mental note to ask Carlotta about that. “Will he be all right?”

Eleanor shrugged. “My guess is, it isn't good.”

“Here you go, dear,” Jesse said. She handed a tissue to Libby. It was only then that Libby realized she was weeping. Ridiculous. Weeping over a man who had done nothing but irritate her with his insistence on having the TV volume high, a man she barely knew.

When she came out of the center, the air had turned heavy, forewarning of a storm. The dense atmosphere matched Libby's mood. She couldn't believe how sad she felt. It was ridiculous, really, how disturbed she was about Harold Lenehy. It was the cruelty of it that got to her. First he lost the use of his kidneys, then he lost a leg. Now, after all he'd gone through, to have a heart attack. It made existence seem so pointless, a mean joke, as if life were no more than a series of wrong turns and disappointments, more than one could bear. It was so
unfair.

Of course, it was foolish to rail against the injustice of it. If she knew anything it was that the universe didn't concern itself with being fair. Good people died every day. Parents were plucked from the sky, pulled from one's life with no warning, dashed to earth in an eruption of fiery steel. Lumps appeared in breasts. Organs stopped functioning. Husbands walked away from wives they'd loved for twenty years, or betrayed them. The only surprise was that she could still be astounded—taken out at the knees—by the capriciousness of life. People like Jesse—those who believed in some power or god, people who had faith—were lucky. Libby supposed it was easier to have an answer for unanswerable questions.

She switched on the car ignition, but sat a moment before shifting into gear. She couldn't face the idea of going home, of spending the afternoon alone. She considered driving to the college and finding Richard, but she was almost positive he had a class. Then, too, it was an unspoken rule that she would never bother him at work. She thought about calling someone on her cell phone. Sally Cummings or Jenny Cartwright. But she hadn't spoken with either of them in weeks. She wasn't ready to face the explanations required of her.

When she pulled off the highway and onto North Green Bay, she thought about returning to the lakeshore, but changed direction at the last minute. For the second time that fall, she drove to the nature preserve, following an impulse she couldn't explain any more this time than before.

The parking lot was half full and she edged past a school bus and a handful of cars. She parked and opened the car door, inhaled deeply the slightly acrid air of dead leaves. The maples at the perimeter of the lot were in their last collapse of color.

It felt good to be outside. She crossed the meadow, circling a towering pile of brush and tree limbs, preparations for the annual bonfire. She and Richard always attended this autumn event, along with half the populace of Lake Forest. In the past she had enjoyed the ritual, weaving her way in darkness with Richard's flashlight, standing with him in the dark, waiting for the pile to be torched. And then the hungry roar, the leap of flames stretching up into the night sky, and in the distance the sound of the bagpipes. Julia Plumb's husband was one of the pipers.

You have to pay the piper.

She quickened her step, as if she could outrun her past, outdistance a history she would give anything to be able to change. She hurried past woolly mats of prairie catsfoot and dried stalks of coreopsis and loosestrife. She settled onto a bench. “Let Nature Be Your Teacher,” the brass plaque on the back instructed her. Honestly, why couldn't someone just give a memorial bench without attaching some preachy sentiment? She sat, placed her tote by her side.

You have to pay the piper.
Her mother's voice again.

Well, she didn't need any maternal echo to engage her sense of guilt. Guilt, anger, and fear were pretty much the extent of her emotional range lately. And remorse, she thought, let's not forget remorse. At that, she reached into her bag for the book of poetry. She flipped to the back and read the list she had written by the lake. Had it been only that morning?

Northern lights
Learn Latin
Swim with the dolphins
Italy
Portugal
Attend a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Hold my first grandchild
Write a book of poetry

She studied these items, these delayed dreams, her goals of a lifetime. Only hours before, they had seemed so consequential, significant enough to write down, to mourn the thought of their loss. But now? Harold Lenehy's attack had disturbed her. She stared out over the prairie for long minutes. Say she was given one week. One day. Say she could be granted anything. What really held significance? She looked out over the champagne-colored land, watched a wood-cock swoop by. What did she desire with all her heart? The answers came swiftly. She dug a pen out from the depths of her tote and added two more items to her list.

Forgive Richard
Reconcile with Sam

“Hello, Elizabeth.”

The greeting startled her.

“Sorry,” Gabe said. “I thought you saw me coming.”

“No,” she said. “I didn't.” She thought at once of Hannah, wondered how Gabriel Rose was coping with his wife's illness. Not too well, she thought, judging by how he had aged since she'd last seen him.

She and Richard had met Gabe about two years ago. He had been collecting seeds from the prairie grasses, part of his job at the Open Lands Association. Richard had struck up a conversation with him, and soon they were deep in the middle of a discussion about ecology and the history of the prairie. Gabe had told them that this acreage was virgin land, never plowed or tilled for crops. She remembered how she had watched his hands, moved by how gently he shook seeds from the stalks of grass into the pockets of his canvas apron. She had seen him around town occasionally after that and he always called her by name, although they'd been introduced only that once.

She wanted to tell him how Hannah's presence at the center eased her sessions, helped in some nearly mystical way, but then decided to let him bring up the subject if he wanted. “Collecting seeds again?” she asked. She slid the volume of poetry back into her bag.

He nodded. He was dressed in his orangy-tan Carhartt overalls, double cloth at the knees. He cupped a handful from the pocket of his apron. “Big bluestem,” he said.

She nodded, as if she actually knew the difference between big bluestem and Kentucky blue.

He sifted the seeds from palm to palm. “The poetry of reproduction,” he said.

She looked up at him, surprised. “What a lovely phrase.”

“But not mine,” he said. “Jean Giraudoux. He was talking about flowers. ‘The flower is the poetry of reproduction. . . . an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.' ”

“Lovely,” she said again.

“It's from
The Enchanted.
” He dumped the seeds back into his apron pocket. “Have you read it?”

“No.” Gabe reciting poetry? Wasn't the world a hotbed of surprise? She nodded toward his hand. “What do you do with the seeds?”

“Use them to restore other preserves.” He pushed back his hat and wiped his shirtsleeve across his brow. “Mind if I join you?”

She scooted over on the bench. When he sat down, the muscles of his thighs bunched. She looked away, stared out at the grasses. The wind had come up and the blades bent and heaved in waves. He took an apple out of the apron, produced a pocketknife. He bisected the fruit and handed her half. She nibbled at hers. He ate his half with relish, swallowing even the seeds and core, wasting nothing.

“Willa Cather had a line about the prairie,” he said. “About times when the winds come up like this. She wrote: ‘The whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.' ”

His hands looked rough with calluses and he could have used a decent haircut. When she was twenty, Libby wouldn't have bothered to speak to him, never mind share an apple, but now she could understand why a girl like Hannah would go for him. He was exactly the kind of man Libby would wish for Mercedes. Of course, Mercy wouldn't give him a second look, would dismiss him as not her type. Not
edgy
enough. The last boy she'd brought home had red spiked hair and a stud in his tongue. Richard could barely eat dinner at the table with him. Libby wondered if it was age that made one recognize goodness. Appreciate kindness. And she wondered how someone like Hannah had recognized it so young. She hoped to hell Mercedes would outgrow the “edgy” stage quickly.