Autumn finally came again. The world slowed down and the prairie air grew clear. As if this year were the same as any other, Elizabeth Barnett performed her annual chores. She shopped and packed and got the twins off to their respective colleges. She sorted and washed the summer cottons and packed them away. She replaced the batteries in all the smoke detectors and emptied and stored the terracotta planters that lined the front steps and back patio (twenty in all). She arranged with the yard service to rake and bag fallen leaves, to mulch the perennial beds against the coming winter. Days, functioning at a certain level of competence, she managed for the most part to fend off panic. Nightsâwhen even sound became a fearânights were different.

She woke to the clutch of panic in her throat, to a racing heart and sweat-dampened gown. It was a moment before she could breathe normally again. Even before she turned and slid her palm over the linen on Richard's side of the bed, even before she touched the cool sheet, bereft of his body heat, she knew he was gone. His absence provoked in her commingled feelings of betrayal and relief, an emotional dichotomy typical of her lately. She wanted connection but pursued isolation, was obsessed with her illness but found refuge in denial, wanted the support and understanding of friends but refused to let Richard tell them she was sick.

Finally she rose and padded barefoot down the hall. His study door was ajar and she nudged it open an inch more. He had opened the drapes. Moonlight poured in, providing the room's sole illumination. His back was to her, and there was a snifter of brandy at his side. He was listening to Bach. The Mass in B Minor, she recognized, always his selection when he was distressed: all through the frightful period of the twins' pneumonia, through his denied tenure at Wesleyan, through her parents' deaths, and Matt's experiments with drugs the summer before his senior year.

These things, the crises of married life, they had handled together, had found strength in doing so. Why wouldn't she allow it now? What would it cost her, after all, to cross the room, take his hand, let him console her and find the solace that comforting another can bring? Why couldn't she permit this simple mutual comfort? Her illness, God knows, hadn't been easy for Richard. Just that morning, he'd had to turn away to steady himself before picking up the syringe. From the beginning, although near phobic about needles, he had insisted on giving her the erythropoietin injections that were supposed to stimulate red cell production, this act his mute and nervous offering of love and support.

She tried to summon gratitude, tenderness, some trace of softness toward this manâher husbandâwho sat in moonlight with only Bach for comfort, but all she felt was fear, as if her emotional gearbox were fixed in one position. Although he never talked about it, she assumed Richard was afraid, too. What had her doctor, Carlotta, told her? When one system is diseased, it affects all the rest. As true of a family as of a body, she thought.

The flow of light through the windows suddenly reminded her of another night. Had it been only one year ago? It might as well have been a century. In that very room, she and Richard had lain naked in a moon pool. There had been music, as well, that night. Saint-SaÃ«ns? Or was it Schumann? She still confused one with the other. And brandy, too. And a hunger for each other they'd not experienced in a long time. It might have been farcicalâtheir haste to strip, to bare their middle-aged flesh while their nearly adult children slept down the hallâbut it had been lovely. She remembered that now. How lovely it had been, although she could not recall what precipitated their passion. They had just returned from a party; she did recall that. (Whose, she could not say for love or money. Another professor's, she supposed. The college circuit pretty much defined their social life.) In that small mirror of lunar light, they had coupled and moaned like newlyweds, momentarily innocent of the knowledge that passion, like love, is friable and transient. In the morning, she'd had rug burns on her shoulders. When she showed them to Richard, he had blushed.

That couple was far distant tonight, as removed and illusory as a scene she might have read in a novel or seen on-screen. Now she knew too well the fragility of life, knew that in the breath of a second, the future you'd planned for could be altered beyond imagination. She thought about opening the door wider then, going in, taking his hand, asking him if he remembered that night. Instead she eased the door shut and retraced her steps to their room, walking carefully, as if the floor were made not of wood but of some thin and insubstantial substance, ice that at any moment might fracture, plunging her into brumal depths.

She would have liked to watch television and let the inanity of a late-night show wash over her until she was lulled to sleep, but she knew the sound would draw Richard. So she climbed into bed and drew up the duvet. Finally, feeling foolish, she tried something she had read about in a magazine she'd picked up in Carlotta's waiting room. She pictured a white light, an amorphous glob, suspended overhead. She concentrated on it, pulled it toward her, imagined the feathery weight of it settling on her body. Was she doing it right? Were there special instructions she was forgetting? She wished she'd paid closer attention to the article. It was ridiculous anyway. If healing were accomplished as easily as that, doctors would be selling Chevys instead of driving around in Jags. Still, she continued. She visualized the light entering her body, washing through her, flooding blood and bone and tissue, then flowing to her kidneys, cleansing and healing each cell. Eventually she fell asleep.

In the morning, Richard slept at her side, his breathing heavy, just short of a snore. Today will be better, Libby promised herself as she looked over at him. She would practice patience, learn courage. She eased herself out of bed. He did not stir. On the way down to the kitchen, she paused at the door to his study. The drapes had been drawn again, the brandy glass rinsed and put away. Every trace of moonlight and music was gone from the air.

Sam

On the day the reporter showed up at her door wanting to interview her for a feature, Sam had nearly turned him away. She was too busy and she didn't trust reportersâend of story. But before she could toss him out, her assistant pulled her aside and told her not to be a goddamn fool, this was the kind of publicity a person couldn't buy. Stacy also said she'd boil her shoe and eat it if the guy wasn't a Taurus. She could tell by his jaw. She said that Taurus was absolutely the most trustworthy sign in the entire zodiac. Honest as real vanilla.

Feeling like a foolânothing Stacy said could ever convince her that there was any validity to all that astrology stuffâSam gave in. And that was how the article, a full-page feature in the food section of the
Boston Globe,
had fallen into her lap, a pin of pure platinum. It was luck that had brought the reporter to Sippican in the first place. He'd been visiting his sister's summer rental cottage when his ten-year-old niece told him about “the cake lady,” a cute bit he used as the lead for his article: “The neighborhood children call her the Cake Lady.”

At first that line bugged Sam; it sounded as if she were some grandmotherly Mary Poppins instead of a thirty-eight-year-old pastry chef whose wedding cakes went for nearly the price of a compact car. But then the reporter also said that the sugar flowers on her cakes were so lush, so botanically correctâroses with twenty-five petals, each petal a different shape or sizeâthat wedding guests marveled they did not wilt; that helped make up for the Cake Lady quote. He went on to say that some of her other creations were more like miniature cathedrals than cakesâbrilliant, bejeweled, and dramatic, towering nearly five feet in height, fabrications so extraordinary they might have been inspired by Gothic churches or FabergÃ© coronets or Byzantine necklaces.

Her mother, were she still alive, would have voiced concern about how such over-the-top praise leads to a swelled head, but Sam didn't need to worry about that. Any chance of an overblown ego was forestalled by the catalog of her weaknesses and faults, a litany she knew by heart: She was too stubborn for her own good, was prone to self-sabotage and procrastination, wasn't athletic, was too self-conscious to dance well. Abilities that came easily to othersâparallel parking, singing on key, balancing a checkbookâeluded her. So she would gratefully accept the reporter's praise for this one thing she excelled at. She made cakes worthy of being called art.

After the
Globe
piece ran, her phone rang steadily for a month, dozens of calls, some from caterers and brides as far away as New York and Philadelphia. And all because a reporterâa food writerâ came to town to visit his sister. Pure luck. When she was younger, Sam used to think luck was something you could earn or influence, but now she knew better. Luck just happened. Both the good and the bad, and she'd had her share of each, although lately, knock wood, she'd been on a promising roll, a fact Stacy attributed to her birth planet's current position in the Second House.

Now she inserted the number 18 shell tip into the pastry bag, spooned in royal icing, and started piping, the tip at a precise fortyfive-degree angle. Over the past six months she'd formed at least a zillion scallop shells and she could do this in the dark. Blindfolded. She hummed while she worked, touching the tip to the sheet of parchment paper, then lifting it slightly to create a rise. The melody helped her maintain a sense of rhythm, which was more important than people might think. That was the secret. Rhythm and momentum. She completed a dozen rows, fourteen to a row, then flexed her right hand and shook off a cramp.

A year ago, when she had relocated to Sippican and opened the shop, every bride that walked through the door wanted fresh flowers on her cake, but now that was passÃ©. These days it was the whole seashore motif. Shells. Mermaids. Sand castles.

As if reading her mind, Stacy looked over and said, “At least no one has wanted one of those creepy little bride-and-groom things stuck on the top like midgets.”

“I think we're safe on that score,” Sam said.

“You hope.”

“Unless some food editor decrees retro is in.”

“Just shoot me with a gun,” Stacy said.

Stacy. Now there was another piece of good luck. The very day Sam had propped a Part-Time Help Wanted sign in the front window, Stacy Dunn walked in to order a birthday cake for her mother. Minutes later, with only faint misgivings, Sam had hired her. Who would have thought this twenty-nine-year-old amateur astrologer who believed in past lives, this biker-chick look-alike and two-time divorcÃ©e at work on her third, would turn out to be the ideal assistant, the second-best thing to happen to Sam in years? (Although even Sam had to admit Stacy's attitude could use an occasional tweaking. For instance, she maintained that most brides' militant belief in until-death-do-us-part True Love could give a person heartburn. “Don't they know the statistics?” she'd ask. “Haven't they looked around?”)

In spite of her own complicated romantic history, Sam admired the brides' courage. She respected their bravery in the face of the dreary statistics Stacy was so fond of citing. All the time she was decorating a bride's cake, she poured wishes into it, good thoughts that would protect her and shield her from disillusionment, harm, deceit. She felt tender, nearly maternal, toward these brides. All of them: the confident ones and the nervous ones and the drama queens. The brides who wanted to be her new best friendâat least until the reception was overâand the ones dressed in empire gowns that barely concealed pregnancies. Even the bride who had met her husband-to-be in Jamaica and wanted their cake made in the shape of a green-and-purple Rasta hat. (That one about sent Stacy out for a case of Sam Adams. “A Rasta hat,” she pronounced after the girl left. “Why doesn't she just order a cake from Carvel?”)

These women, some still girls really, came in alone, or with fiancÃ©s, or in the grip of overconfident mothers who acted as if it were their wedding, not their daughter's, women who made it clear they were footing the bill and calling the shots. Lately these mothers, almost without exception, had been whippet thin, with the well-tended look of women who spent far too much time having their nails done and their hair foiled. Women who made her conscious of her own inadequacies in the looks department. Women like Libby, she suddenly thought.

Libby.
Caught totally off guard, Sam was unprepared for the painâ the actual physical painâthe name caused, even now. Her hand quavered, ruining a scallop shell.
Libby.
It had been six years. Six years. Nearly a sixth of her life. She had thought time, the reliable anesthetic, had done its work, but now a deep ache of regret and loss swept over her, scoring her raw with its familiarity. She closed her eyes, forced memories of Libby resolutely from her mind. She had done this before; it could be done. She took a sip of water, scraped the misshapen scallop shell off the parchment paper, and returned to piping shells, willing the rhythm to calm her.

Outside, moths fluttered against the window, adding a counterpoint to the Hobart that chugged away on the far side of the kitchen. Like every other piece of equipment in the place, the mammoth mixer was beyond old, ancient really, with a bowl large enough to bathe a child in. The Warrior, she called it, both because it was such a workhorse and because its original tour of duty was on a U.S. frigate in the forties. Still, you couldn't pay her to trade it for a newer model. This was a practical consideration as much as a sentimental one.

Sam did tend toward sentimental gesturesâa quality of Aries, Stacy saidâand knew that most people saw her as the essence of romance, probably because of her wedding-cake business, her home (a lavender-trimmed Victorian), and her appearance. According to Lee, her looks were
trÃ¨s, trÃ¨s
romantic. Botticelli-like, he said. In every other way admirably sane, he actually said things like that. As Stacy would say, totally OTT. Over the top. He was besotted with her, he said.
Besotted.

She tried to hear thisâshe
did
believe in romanceâbut the word and its terrifying implications were enough to make her sweat. “Besotted” was best left for brides. She preferred plain, ordinary “in love.” It was hard enough to accept love without inflating it like a blimp.

She checked the clock, amazed to see it was after six, then looked over at Stacy, who was stirring melted chocolate into a double batch of batter. There was a dusting of flour in her gel-spiked hair and a smudge of chocolate on her pointed chin.

“You don't have to stay,” Sam told her. “Barring disaster, we're on schedule.”

“I'll just finish this up,” Stacy said. It was the second day this week she had stayed late, but she refused overtime.

“I can't believe I booked three weddings on the same day,” Sam said by way of apology. “Of course it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the Van Horn order. All those mini-cakes for the individual tables. What was I thinking?” They both knew she would be glad enough for it come winter. So far there were only two weddings in the book for February, none for March, and three in April, a long stretch until the cash flow began again in the spring.

When the phone rang, the fifth time in the past half hour, she let Stacy pick up and went back to forming shells. While Sam worked she made mental notes. She needed to check her supply of pearl dust, since she would probably need more for the Sanderson order. Now
that
was a cake to get excited about. Sam looked up at the sketch tacked on the board over her workstation. Designed to incorporate details from the bride's gown and bouquet, the cake featured ivory fondant ribbons and bows that cascaded over four tiers. Each layer was trimmed with tiny seed pearls of royal icing, each gem brushed with pearl dust. A spray of white roses, their centers softened by a hint of ivory, decorated the top.

Stacy placed the receiver in the cradle. “Mrs. Gillis,” she said. “From the Yacht Club.”

“Let me guess,” Sam said. “Sheet cake, right?” In a perfect world, sheet cakes would be outlawed.

“For Saturday. I told them you couldn't do it.” Stacy was unable to hold back a sigh of disapproval. She had made it clear that she thought Sam should take every job that came along. Sheet cakes for lodge meetings, birthday cakes for one-year-olds, twenty-fifth anniversary cakes with the couple's names spelled out in silver dragÃ©es. Well, there were a lot of things Sam
should
do, but wouldn't. Stay within budget. Cut back on coffee. Lose twelve pounds. Okay, twenty.

“Listen,” Sam said. “Why don't you go on ahead? We're really fine. By the time I finish up here, the last batch of cakes should be ready to come out.”

“You sure?” Stacy said.

“Positive.”

“If you're sure.” Stacy removed her apron.

Sam readjusted the parchment paper and began a new rowâ all concentration, hoping to avoid Stacy's end-of-the-day ritualâbut there was to be no escape. Her assistant crossed to the extra chair by Sam's workstation and plunked down.

“I'll go first,” Stacy said. “You,” she said, as she always did. “I am grateful for you.”

Sam scratched a suddenly itchy arm. Her face reddened at the compliment.

“Okay,” Stacy said. “Your turn.”

“Is this necessary?”

“Absolutely.” A therapist had told Stacy, after her second divorce, to take time every day to list all the things she was grateful for. He'd told her to adopt an attitude of gratitude. Sam could just imagine the therapist's syrupy tone.
Adopt an attitude of gratitude.

Stacy had told her that this practice had gotten her through some rough times, although there had been days when she had to scrabble to think of even one item for her list. She said she had come to believe that gratitude held a transformative power. Stacy believed in gratitude just as deeply as she did in the idea that Mercury in retrograde caused machines to malfunction and tires to go flat.

“You want abundance in your life, don't you?” she said to Sam. “Gratitude is the key to abundance.”

“I'm grateful, okay?”

“Then let's hear your list.”

Sam rolled her eyes.

“And be specific. It's important to be specific.”

“Okay,” Sam began. “I'm grateful I don't have to clean toilets for a living.”

In spite of herself, Stacy laughed.

Sam began another shell. “I'm grateful I never married a man who wore a toupee. Or a ponytail.” Now she was warming up. “Let's see. I'm grateful I have my own teeth, that I don't have warts, and that my kids didn't die in the Johnstown flood.”

“You don't have kids,” Stacy said.

“Another thing to be grateful for,” Sam said. Not true. A too easy flippancy. In truth, she did want kidsâsomeday. And there were many things for which she was thankful. But she would sooner have died than articulate them to her assistant. Okay, it was superstitious, but Sam was afraid that if she acknowledged her blessings aloud, it would attract the attention of the gods or fate or whatever/whoever was out there and, in a flash, all would be repossessed. If she had learned anything from her life's experience it was that the things you most loved could be taken away in the space of a breath and that there was nothing as fragile as happiness. Not the wings of the moths fluttering against the window. Not the thinnest, most delicate thread of spun sugar.

Here is what Sam was truly grateful for: Lee.

Last night, lying in his arms, she had looked at him and said, “You know that song from
The Sound of Music
?”

He laughed. “
The Sound of Music
? You're kidding me.”

“The solo Maria sings,” she persisted. “In the gazebo.”

BOOK: The Law of Bound Hearts

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