The Law of Bound Hearts (23 page)

Sam and Libby

Sam pushed her way through the waiting room, out to the parking lot. The image of Libby—mouth a twist of agony, body one single spasm—burned beneath her eyelids. The alarm echoed in her ears. “Oh, God,” she said, the words a sob. She doubled over, sucked air.

“Miss? Are you okay?”

A hand cupped her shoulder. “Take a couple of deep, gentle breaths. Easy now.”

She forced herself to obey. Her breathing slowed, but not her heart, which thumped wildly beneath her ribs, a small animal bent on escape.

“Better now?” It was the black nurse who had cared for Libby.

She straightened up, turned to him. “My sister—” Words clotted in her throat. Again she heard the urgent ringing of the alarm, saw Libby in spasm. “Is she—?”

“She's fine,” he said. “She's resting.”

She searched his face for a lie. “Honest?”

“Cross my heart.” He smiled warmly, then leaned over and picked up Libby's tote, which had slid off Sam's shoulder when she doubled over. He handed it to her.

“What happened in there?”

“Her saline levels went out of balance and she cramped up.”

“Jesus. Does that happen often?”

“Occasionally. We've adjusted it. She's all right now.”

“Really?”

“Why don't you go see for yourself?”

“Maybe in a minute.” She felt the heat of shame, knowing she couldn't face it again. The buzzers and bells and people in green leather chaises hooked up to machines, blood running through tubes. She hadn't realized it was going to be anything like this. How could he bear to work here? How did people take these jobs? Like the technicians who euthanized stray animals. What kind of heart did you have to have? Incredibly hard? Or soft?

“I've got to get back,” he said, and, taking her arm, he led her inside. She sank down on a chair in the waiting room, dimly aware of the curious stares from others.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Water? Or we have some soda in the staff refrigerator. Ginger ale. Coke.”

“No. No, but thanks.”

The others in the room had come prepared for the long wait. A woman was knitting, several were reading. One—a young woman— sat nodding in time to music pouring into her ears from a headset. Sam didn't want water or Coke or something to pass the time. She wanted Lee. She clutched her hands in her lap to stop their trembling. She regretted leaving her cell back at the house. She needed to talk to him. She leaned over to a man seated on her left. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know if there is a public phone around here?”

He shook his head. “If it's an emergency, they'll probably let you use the one at the desk.”

“That's all right,” Sam said. “No emergency.”

She lifted the heft of Libby's tote, wondered if her sister carried a cell. Probably. Judging from the weight of the bag, it probably held just about everything but a vacuum cleaner, but knowing her sister, maybe that, too, one of those Dustbusters. She opened the flap.

A slender softcover book of poems lay on top. Poetry was Libby's thing; Sam had never gotten its appeal. Except for the simplest, most direct—Emily Dickinson, say—it was a language she couldn't decipher. Whenever she tried to read it, she just ended up feeling stupid. Libby had once tried to explain it to her, but even the words she used were maddening. Iambs. Trochees. Quatrains. Couplets.

Sam stared at the cover: A dark-haired man in profile, thin slash of an eyebrow, Roman nose, chin resting on cupped hand, was sitting by the bed of a sleeping woman whose hair was the same shade as Libby's. She read the title:
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.
There was a Post-it stuck to the inside of the cover and she read it before she realized it was personal. “Remember, love always outweighs despair. Gabe.”

She slipped the book back into Libby's bag. It was none of her business if Libby had a lover, but still, the softening in her heart she'd felt toward Libby since the first second she'd seen her earlier that morning toughened.

She continued rooting through the bag in search of a phone and found a second book, also poetry. Was this from the mysterious Gabe as well? Inside, in purple ink, was stamped “Northampton Public Library, Northampton, Massachusetts.” She turned back to the cover and read the title.
The Will to Change,
by Adrienne Rich. A door to memory opened and she recalled the monumental fuss this book—or rather its absence—had caused. At first there had been numerous calls from Mrs. Stinson, the librarian, informing their mother the book was weeks overdue and requesting its return. Libby had denied having it. Maybe you lost it, their mother had said, but no, Libby said, she'd never taken out the book at all. Mrs. Stinson's calls had been followed by a registered letter requesting payment for the book. It was the only registered letter Sam remembered ever being delivered to their home. Their father had written a check that night.

Sam considered the book. Why hadn't Libby just said she lost it? Why had she lied? Couldn't she have gone to a bookstore and bought a copy? Sam leafed through the pages. Then, on the inside of the back cover, she saw writing that she instantly recognized as Libby's.

Northern lights
Learn Latin

It was typical of Libby's poetry. The Northern lights learn Latin. It made no sense at all, but Sam continued to read.

Swim with the dolphins
Italy
Portugal
Attend a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Now Sam realized it was not poetry but some sort of list, evidently penned recently, since the ink had not faded. Things Libby had done, she supposed. Fuck my sister's husband, she thought. Her lips tightened. That should be there.

Hold my first grandchild

So, not things Libby had done. But what? Things she wanted to do?

Write a book of poetry

When had Libby written this list? After she got sick? Were these things, then, that she had wanted to do? Things she would never do? Did Libby think she was going to die? Sam returned her attention to the list.

Forgive Richard
Reconcile with Sam

She read the words twice, felt the weight of them settle on her shoulders. Her fingers felt stiff as she closed the book and returned it to Libby's bag. She picked up a magazine from the stack by her chair, opened it, and stared blindly at an article on how to pack healthy lunches for your school-age child.

“Sorry you had to see that,” Libby said. They were in the car, Sam driving. “It's not always like that.”

“I thought you were—I don't know. Dying, I guess.” There, she'd said it.

“The first time it happened, I thought so, too.”

“It's happened more than once then?” Again the picture of Libby, twisted in agony, flashed before her eyes and she had to blink to clear her vision, to see the traffic around her.

“Twice. So far.” Libby dropped her head back against the headrest, closed her eyes.

“How often do you have to go?”

“To dialysis? Three times a week. Four hours each session.”

Sam listened while Libby told her about the “part-time job” of staying alive. Libby, voice drained, told her how she had discovered her illness: the exhaustion, foamy pee, swelling ankles.

While Libby talked, Sam glanced over at her. The flesh beneath Libby's eyes was puffy, her face drawn, ashen. Old. As if she'd aged twenty years in one morning. “Sleep if you want to,” she said. “I know the way back to your house.”

A smile flitted across her sister's face. “Even after all this time?”

“Yes.”

Sam drove in silence. Occasionally she glanced over at Libby, but her sister slept.

Reconcile with Sam.

“I never liked him, you know.”

Startled, Sam jumped, and the wheel swerved beneath her hands. “Sorry,” she said, regaining control. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I never liked him,” Libby said again.

“Who?” Richard? Sam didn't want to be drawn into their battle.

“Jay,” Libby said. “From the first time you brought him around, I thought he was an asshole.”

Sam clutched the wheel. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“I did try and warn you about him, to tell you not to get married.”

In another situation, Sam's double take might have been comical. “You never did,” she said, abandoning her resolve not to discuss this subject.

“You're forgetting.”

“When?”

“Well, the last time was when you came here before you eloped. And we were in my bedroom. Remember? You were trying on dresses. I tried to warn you and you got mad.”

Sam recalled the morning, remembered the blue dress and the way it hadn't fit quite right. But she did not remember Libby openly warning her about Jay. “Why didn't you like him?”

“Well, for starters, the second time we met, he tried to feel me up, which gave me a pretty good clue he was a prick.”

“You're lying.”

“Remember the July Fourth picnic at the lake? After we went swimming, you went to the bathhouse to change out of your suit and Richard took the twins for ice cream. Well, your boyfriend Took Liberties.” She gave a tired laugh. “God, don't I sound like Mother. Remember how she used to say not to let boys take liberties with us? They say as you age you become your mother. Every girl's nightmare. I still hear her voice in my head. Do you?”

Sam wouldn't be pulled off the subject. “And you never told me about that day at the lake?”

“You were so in love. And we'd all been drinking.”

“So if you knew he was such a goddamn prick, why did you fuck him?”

Libby exhaled, a long sigh. “It's a long story. It was a mistake.”

“That's it? A mistake?” Sam thought of the list she'd written in preparation for a phone conversation with Libby.
Don't blame. Don't
get angry. Don't be defensive. Don't go over old history.
“Is that your way of saying you're sorry?”

“You know I am. God, Sam, if you know anything, you must know how much I regret hurting you. I would do anything to be able to change what happened. Anything.”

Reconcile with Sam.

She was not so easily won. Words were cheap enough. She maintained a stubborn silence and heard Libby sigh.

“Who's Gabe?” she asked. She heard in her head the echo of Lee's voice telling her she had the heart of a terrorist.

Libby gave her a quick look. “A friend.”

Back in Sippican, on the town square, there was a sculpture formed from woven tree branches, part of the Art in the Park series. A week after its installation, someone had knocked it to the ground. The artist, a local man, had meticulously resurrected it, but the next day it had again been leveled. The cycle went on for a month before they caught the vandals. Two fourteen-year-old boys who couldn't explain their actions. They didn't know the artist, they just wanted to ruin it, they said. It hurt them to look at it. Sam understood.

“This Gabe,” she said. “Is he someone's husband, too?”

Libby closed her eyes and turned away. “Yes,” she said. “He is.”

Had Libby expected it to be easy? Had she thought that after the first awkward moments Sam would say all was forgiven and they would fall into each other's arms like lost girls in a fairy tale? She supposed that she had. How had Sam grown so hard?

She thought of the story Sam had told her about smashing the windows. Once she wouldn't have believed Sam capable of such violence. She reviewed the family myth of them: Josh the action man, adventurer, peace corps volunteer, marathon man, the hero. Libby the rebel, the poet, the bad girl. Sam the baby. The one who needed protecting, their mother's pet. The one who caused no trouble. Over the years, the roles had all been switched.

The car slowed. Libby heard Sam gasp and she opened her eyes just as they pulled into her drive. A truck was parked in front of their house. Sam stamped on the breaks so hard, Libby was jolted against her seat belt. As Sam switched off the engine, the cab door on the pickup opened and a man got out. He was tall and good-looking, with a killer grin, the kind that would stop traffic quicker than a red light.

“Lee,” Sam said in a soft-bellied whisper.

“Someone you know?” Libby said, but her sister was already out of the car, running hell-bent into the stranger's arms. He picked her up, lifted her right off her feet, as in some television commercial. He had to be strong to lift her like that, Libby thought. Sam wasn't exactly tiny. The air around them shimmered with such happiness Stevie Wonder could see how in love they were. She swallowed against the hurt that closed her throat.

Finally the stranger put Sam down and turned toward her car. He led the way, Libby noticed. Sam held back. Her sister had said very little about the new man in her life, not even his name. Keeping her life secret. Libby understood, but this knowledge stung.

The man opened the door, held out a hand to her. “You must be Elizabeth,” he said. His voice was warm. A good voice. She could see this was a good man.

“Yes,” she said.

He pulled Sam to his side, held her hand with his. With his other hand, he helped Libby from the car. “I'm pleased to meet you,” he said. “Sam's told me so much about you.”

Libby looked at Sam, surprised and absurdly pleased.

Sam held on to Lee, challenging Libby with her eyes, not realizing it was no contest.

This man, thought Libby, looking at Lee's face, this man would never betray her sister. Nor would she, God help her. Not ever again.

Libby and Sam

Libby woke to voices in the hall and, sleep-muddled, she thought it was the twins. She surrendered to the quietude she always felt when they returned home from school, the sense that she could breathe fully again because her children were back under her roof, safe. This sensation—peace of heart, she supposed, or the nearest thing to it—always surprised her, for she had never been one of those overly cautious mothers always fretting and stewing.

She nearly called out to them, and then, coming fully awake, she remembered. Not Mercy and Matt. Sam. And Lee. She lay quietly and listened as they passed by her door, followed the echo of their steps on the stairs.

Last night had gone well. Considering. She supposed someone viewing the scene through a camera lens would have seen four people enjoying themselves, with no hint of the truth, the subtext, as she knew it was called in the theater. What actors we are, she thought. Except for Lee.

Earlier in the evening, Sam and Lee had insisted on preparing dinner while she napped. Richard had suggested going out—his treat, he said—but they wouldn't hear of it. Armed with the pages of Libby's dietary restrictions and guidelines, the two of them had fashioned the menu: roast chicken, green beans with mushrooms, green salad with a cranberry vinaigrette. Fresh pineapple for dessert.

The dining room was lit by candles, and by the extra source of light that was Sam in love. Libby could tell from the way her sister's shoulder slanted toward Lee that, hidden from view by the drape of the tablecloth, their hands were interlocked. Richard played the host, serving wine, carving the chicken, steering conversation toward Lee, who, at Richard's prompting, told them about himself and his boatyard.

Richard offered to arrange for them to go sailing on Michigan, and Lee said he'd like that, if not this visit then the next. (
The next.
How she had held on to the promise of those words, taking from them knowledge that Sam would come again.) In answer to Richard's question about why he didn't work on fiberglass crafts, Lee answered that he liked working with wood. Without a scintilla of self-consciousness he'd said, “It takes love to work on wooden boats.” He talked about how wood sat in the water in a natural way and how it honored the tree to give it another life.

Then he grinned sheepishly. “I'm talking too much about myself,” he said.

Libby liked him enormously then. He reminded her of Richard when they were much younger and he would talk to her for hours about music. Like a lovesick acolyte, she would sit and listen, just as Sam did now, as if every word was a key to the secrets of his heart, while he tried to find the words to share his passion.

“It's like catching a perfect wave, you know,” Richard had told her once, and because she had wanted to be flawless for him, to not disappoint him in even an insignificant way, she had nodded, never telling him that she did not surf.

“The power of the music takes you,” he'd said. That particular time they had been in his room, both prone on the floor listening to a concerto. He had rolled onto his side to face her. “You almost don't have to do anything,” he'd said. “You can't push. The music carries you. You almost cease to exist. It's an organic experience but it requires complete focus. Like being in a trance.”

She had stayed silent, letting him talk, but she
had
understood what he meant. It was like that for her when they were making love, or when she was writing a poem.

Now she wondered why she hadn't told him that. Why she hadn't let him know she felt that way about poetry. Had she not wanted to seem to be competing? (Her mother's voice again.
A man likes it when
he is the center of your life. Listen, don't talk. That's what they want: a willing ear.
At least Libby had never handed that advice on to Mercy.) When was the last time she'd been lost in a poem? She couldn't remember. Certainly before the twins were born. How was it that Richard had kept his passion alive while she had turned from hers? How did something like that get lost? And once lost, or abandoned, could it ever be reclaimed?

Libby's thoughts returned to last night's dinner. At one point, Lee jumped up, saying he'd almost forgotten he had something for Sam. He left the room, then came back with a photo. Sam laughed out loud when she saw it. Lee passed it to Libby. A Polaroid of a wedding cake. Really stunning. Libby had never seen anything like it.

Sam explained how, because she'd come here, her assistant Stacy had been left to decorate this cake. With help from Alice, she added, and then explained that Alice was Lee's mother, and that led to the story of how they met.

Sam has a whole family of her own out there, Libby thought, and it brought her pain to realize this. Just as it stung to see how completely and obviously Lee loved Sam, hurt because it was something she did not have.

Admit it, Libby said to herself. She stared across her bedroom, watched the sun come through the east-facing windows and play on the furniture. Admit you're jealous. Seeing them together had made her feel old. Used up. She faced an empty future. How had Sam gotten to be the lucky one? Was there some kind of universal balance being struck? Early in their lives she had been the talented one, the pretty one, the one people looked at first. Was it Sam's turn now?

There was a knock on the door, one soft tap, then Richard entered.

“For heaven's sake,” she said. “It's your room, too. You don't have to knock.” At her insistence, he'd slept in Matthew's bed.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked. He was barefoot, still dressed in pajamas. Pajamas that she had washed and ironed—
ironed
—when she was still a dutiful and trusting wife who cared about such things.

“Yes,” she said. “You?”

He came toward the bed. “Elizabeth,” he said. “We have to talk. I need to explain. It's not what you think.”

She held up a hand, warding him off. “Not now. Really. I can't right now.”

He went into their bathroom and moments later she heard him brush his teeth, then the irritating slurp as he drank water from cupped hands. This odd habit—so unlike him—exasperated her no end, though she could not break him of it. There was a glass right there by the sink, for heaven's sake. If he could only hear himself, slurping like a dog at a water bowl.

That reminded her of Hannah's greyhound. If things had been normal between them, she would have told Richard about Lulu, how when she was excited she jumped off the ground with all four feet and how she looked like she was grinning when she was praised or petted. Thoughts of Lulu reminded Libby that she hadn't called Gabe to thank him for taking her in the way he had, and, of course, to ask about Hannah. She hadn't heard a word and she supposed that was a good thing, for if there was news—good or bad—surely Eleanor Brooks would have called. She remembered the look of hope on Gabe's face. Militant hope that would not be denied.

Libby picked up the phone, amazed that she recalled a number she had dialed only once. On the other end, the phone rang on and on. She pictured the empty house and the greyhound sitting by the door, waiting for her mistress to return. Mercedes had always wanted a dog, and now Libby felt a moment's regret that she had never allowed it, just as her own mother had not permitted her to have a pet. For the second time in two days, she thought about how in many ways she had grown up to become her mother. It was not a welcome thought.

She checked the clock. Allowing for the time difference, it was after nine on the East Coast, not too early. She was in the middle of dialing Mercy's number when Richard came out of the bathroom.

“Isn't it rather early to be calling someone?” he said.

She kept her voice cool, distancing. “I'm calling Mercy.”

“She's not in,” he said, too quickly.

She replaced the receiver. “How do you know?”

“I talked to her last night,” he said. “She said she was going out today.”

“Oh. When was this?”

“After dinner. When you and Samantha were cleaning up.”

“You didn't tell me.”

“We haven't had much time to talk.”

He looked tired. His shoulders slumped. There was an expression on his face, in his eyes, she could not read but thought was sadness.

She turned away.

Last night, after they had done up the dishes, Sam had pleaded exhaustion on Lee's part. He had driven eighteen hours straight, she said. He needed sleep. Upstairs, in the perfectly outfitted guest room, in the king-size bed, she lay cradled in his arms and, whispering so she would not be overheard, she told him about the dialysis center, the people in wheelchairs, the blood flowing through tubes, the sounds and smells. She told him about the spasm that had seized Libby. He had held her until she was talked out and her tears had stopped.

She told him more details about Richard's involvement with a student that had precipitated Libby's disappearance, and Libby's own apparent affair. And how Mercy was not at Brown, a fact Richard was keeping from Libby. She told him about her own confusing swings of emotion, a flash of love and concern and then a swing back to anger. He listened to everything. “What should I do?” she finally asked him.

“About what?”

“All of it.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“With all that's going on maybe a little nonaction is called for. Just let things be, see how they unfold according to their own timetable.”

“What? You mean like Zen?”

He smiled. “Can't hurt.” Then he rolled her over onto her stomach. He straddled her and began rubbing her back.

“Aren't you tired?” she said, even as she gave herself over to his touch.

“Shhhh,” he said. He used his palms, his thumbs, the edge of his hand as he worked, stroking the length of her back, concentrating on the long muscles that flanked her spine. Then he kneaded her shoulders and neck and she felt her muscles release tension. His hands slowed, massage turned to caress. She became aware of his weight, the heat of his body, and an answering heat was kindled in her belly. A sound—half sigh, half moan—slipped from her lips. He lifted his weight onto his knees, giving her enough room to turn toward him.

And then the action bed got some action.

He woke her early in the morning.

“What time is it?” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

“Nearly nine.”

She groped for her watch on the bedside table and squinted at the dial. “It's eight,” she said, her voice all outrage.

He laughed. “I guess I forgot to reset my watch.”

She groaned. She wanted to sleep another hour. Easy. Maybe two.

“Come on,” he said. “We've got places to go.”

“Where?”

“You'll see. It's a surprise.”

She bargained for more time, but he would not give in. He waited while she showered, then edged her out into the hall, down the stairs, and to the kitchen. There was no sign of Richard or Libby. Sam refused to go any farther until she'd had coffee. He waited impatiently while she drank a mug. She had never seen him this impatient.

They took her rental instead of his truck. “How'd you happen to pick this car?” he asked as he slid behind the wheel, smiling at some joke she didn't get.

“It's what they had for me at the airport. Why?”

“The name,” he said.

She still didn't get it. “Dodge?”

“Intrepid,” he said. And then: “Everything speaks to us.”

They drove through the center of town. Church bells marked their progress. She wondered for a moment if that could possibly be what he had in mind, but he continued past the church.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

“You'll see.”

“Give me a hint. One hint.”

“Just one,” he said. “It's somewhere Richard told me about last night, a place he said we should see.”

“I don't remember him telling you about any place.”

“It was after dinner. You and your sister were doing the dishes.”

“The lake?” she guessed.

He shook his head and refused to tell her more. At last he turned into a parking lot. Sam looked around but there was nothing in view. “Where are we?”

“The prairie,” he said. “Richard said this is one of the last virgin preserves in the state.”

“You dragged me out of bed to go for a walk?”

He grinned. “Come on.” He made his voice mysterious. “There is more that lies ahead.” Then in his normal voice: “I think you'll be glad you came.” He took her hand and led her through a meadow to the edge of the prairie. The grasses were dried to shades of bronze and bone. She looked up at him as they walked along the path. She couldn't imagine him truly at home anywhere but near the sea and would have thought he'd have looked alien here in this midwestern flatland, but he strode through the grasses with a quiet grace. And then, in a flash of comprehension, she understood what it was that gave him that quiet confidence. Lee was at ease in his own body. She stepped closer to him, as if she could absorb his confidence. He reached for her hand, smiled at her.

She thought about what he'd said earlier, about letting things unfold on their own timetable. She remembered the list she had found in Libby's book.

Reconcile with Sam.

The hard little marble of resentment rolled in her chest. She reached out and brushed a dried stalk that was nearly as tall as she. “How did you come to forgive your father?” she said.

“Oh, I guess I simply didn't want to carry that monkey on my back.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a small, rough-hewn bench, much like a pew, to the side of the path, and he drew her there. She sat with her feet tucked beneath her, leaning against his chest.