The Law of Bound Hearts

by Anne Leclaire

  “I’m going to attach the A line first,” Kelly said. “That’s A for arterial, and then the V or venous line. Once we’ve got the tubes in, you’ll be good to go.” She hummed under her breath, a tune Libby knew but couldn’t identify. Libby waited and waited for the pain, felt a slight tugging sensation in her chest, and then heard Kelly say, “Okay. You’re home free now.”

  She opened her eyes. Tubes ran from her chest to the machine. Her blood flowed through them. Overhead, the green section of the tricolor bulb was lit.

  Kelly pulled a sheet up over her chest, covering the tubes and the catheter. She wiped the sheen of perspiration off Libby’s brow. “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “It didn’t hurt,” Libby said.

  “No. Did you think it would?”

  Libby felt both relief that there was no pain and anger at the woman in the waiting room. Why would she have told such a lie? “Someone told me it would.”

  “Not the catheters. That’s one of the blessings of them. The downside is, you’ve got to be real careful of infections.”

  “What about the shunt? Does it hurt when you use that?” The shunt in her arm wouldn’t be healed and ready for use for another three weeks.

  “Sometimes there’s a little discomfort with that,” Kelly said. “Nothing to worry about now. We rub a local anaesthetic on the site, before we needle.”

  Discomfort. Libby knew what that meant. Pain. Just get through today. One day at a time.

  A technician rolled one of the wheelchair men in from the waiting room. Libby averted her eyes while he was attached to his machine. She couldn’t bear to think of what might be in her future, couldn’t imagine herself in a wheelchair, but then there had been a time in the not too distant past when she couldn’t have imagined herself here, hitched up to this machine.

  Richard returned, carrying the blanket. “They told me you might want this,” he said. “They said you might feel chilled.” He gave a glance at the machine, paled, and turned away. She hoped to hell he wasn’t going to faint.

  He sat in a chair by her side, took her hand. “Can I get you anything, Lib?” he asked. “Anything you want?”

  Was there anything she wanted? She ran over her laundry list of desires. “Yes.”

  He leaned forward, eager for the chance to do something, to help. “What?”

  “A new kidney,” she said.

  He laughed so loud the woman in the next station looked over. “A new kidney,” he said. He thought she was joking. He tucked the blanket around her, hovered over her.

  “Listen,” she said. “There’s no sense in you hanging around here.”

  “Don’t you want me to keep you company? It’s four hours,” he said, as if by some miracle this pertinent fact had escaped her notice.

  She nodded toward several of the other patients, who were sleeping. “I think I’ll try and sleep,” she said.

  Kelly, returning to check the monitor, overheard. She nodded approvingly. “Lots of people nap. It helps pass the time.”

  “I could sit here while you’re sleeping,” Richard offered.

  “No, really. Please. Why don’t you go to your office? Get some work done and come back later. There’s no sense in hanging around here for half the day.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I think I’ll try and sleep.”

  She wouldn’t. Sleep was out of the question. After he left, she looked around at the other patients, each tethered to a machine, blood flowing in and out. The TV chef was taking a casserole out of the oven but Libby noted he was not wearing hot mitts. Did they think viewers wouldn’t notice? Did they think people were stupid?

  She closed her eyes. She would just pretend she was somewhere else. Somewhere far away. Somewhere pleasant. A chaise on a cruise ship, she decided, although she had never been on one. She tried to imagine sea breezes brushing her face. She imagined a deck, swimming pools, shuffleboard courts, courteous staff in white coats waiting on her. She pictured a cabin with crisp linens on the bed and a porthole looking out to the sea. Finally, when she guessed that at least a half hour had passed, she opened her eyes. She checked the clock. Five minutes had gone by. Five minutes. She didn’t know if she would be able to get through this. She scanned the room, the other patients. How did they stand it? She felt cornered. Claustrophobic.

  Libby shifted her gaze, scanned the room. Her attention was caught by a girl at the station across from hers. The girl looked vaguely familiar, like someone Libby had once known. She had cropped blond hair and was thin. Beyond thin. Skeletal. So gaunt her body didn’t appear capable of holding organs inside its frame. Libby couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew the girl, had seen her somewhere, not like this—this creature of bones and sinew—but a healthier version.

  The girl was not sleeping or reading or knitting, but stared straight ahead. She had the inward-focused look of a monk. Her lips curved in a smile, so eerily tranquil Libby wondered if she was blind. She knew that diabetes sometimes caused loss of vision. Or maybe she had been drugged, which wasn’t such a bad idea, come to think of it. Why hadn’t she asked Carlotta about that? Some magical pill that would put her beyond anxiety or fear.

  Who did the girl look like? Why did she seem familiar? It nagged at Libby and she studied the girl’s thin face. It was utterly without expression, yet there was about her an aura of peacefulness. The terrible frailness and halo of hair reminded Libby of a medieval martyr. As she studied her, Libby felt the unearthly serenity flow from the girl across the bay to where she lay. It bathed her, calmed her. For the first time that morning, her breath came normally. When she finally pulled her gaze away from the girl and checked the clock, a full forty minutes had passed. Maybe she would be able to get through this after all.

  The man in the wheelchair was sleeping. So was the Jesus Christ woman in the next chaise, her eyes flickering beneath their lids, as if in her dreams someone were chasing her. Her knitting lay in her lap. Turquoise and purple yarns, so bright they were practically neon. Colors only a child would wear. A memory stirred. Colors. Bands of color. Green, red, purple, turquoise, yellow, and pink. With ivory bone heart-shaped buttons. The sweater her grandmother made for her the Christmas she was twelve. It had been years since Libby thought of that sweater. Sam had a matching one. Sam. It took her by surprise, this longing for her sister. It lodged in her chest, beneath her heart, her heart that beat on and on, pumping blood out of her body and into the machine.

  The peace she had felt moments before evaporated. She wanted to get up, rip the tubes from her chest. She wanted to go home.

  Her mother’s voice spoke out. You think you’re so smart, young lady. You think you’re getting away with something, but sooner or later you’ll have to pay the piper. Pay the piper. As Matthew would say, life bites you in the ass.

  I’ve done nothing to deserve this, she whispered, but the protest was weak.

  Was this the price she had to pay for her sins? For the harm she had caused.

  Over the machine, the green light flicked off and the yellow light flashed. Kelly was there at once.

  “What’s wrong?” Libby asked.

  “Not to worry,” Kelly said, checking the monitor. “Your blood pressure elevated.” She adjusted a dial on the machine. “It’s not unusual the first time. Just try and relax.”

  Libby concentrated on slowing her breath. She looked across at the saintly girl, concentrated on the serene face, tried to feel again the girl’s peace flow across to her. On the machine, the yellow light blinked off. The green light glowed on.

  “There you go,” Kelly said. “Like I said, you’re just a little nervous. It’s not unusual the first time.”

  “Yes,” Libby said.

  “Your husband said to let you know he’s out in the waiting room. He’ll be there reading. He said to let him know if you can’t sleep and want him to come back.”

  She felt a weight beneath her breast, a burden she knew was guilt. And grief. She didn’t want Richard.


  She wanted . . .

  She wanted to be forgiven.

  She wanted Sam.

  Sam

  Just before four, Sam woke. The room held the soft lavender shadows of predawn. Lee was still asleep and she snuggled closer, inhaled the scent of him. He smelled to her of the sea. The distinctive smell of ocean air. Of salt.

  Salt preserves and cures.

  She had learned this from a baking instructor when she was enrolled at Johnson & Wales. The instructor had also told their class that ages ago salt had been so valuable it had been used for currency, that its Latin name was, in fact, the root of “salary.” He said salt had caused wars, had been used to preserve Egyptian mummies, and was an essential element in the human diet. There were more than fourteen thousand known uses for salt, he told them. He then explained how one of those uses was in bread making. Salt provided uniform grain and texture, he said, and strengthened the gluten in the dough, allowing it to expand without breaking.

  Salt, the instructor had told them, was the only rock that was eaten by humans.

  She inhaled Lee’s sea smell again. Still half awake, her mind circled around in languid word association. Pillar of salt. Salt of the earth. To ward off bad luck, throw a pinch over your shoulder. To protect a newborn, bathe him in salt water. Salt water. Salt marsh. Saltworks.

  She recalled how, when Alice was showing her real estate properties, she had told her that two hundred years ago saltworks had been a mainstay of Sippican’s economy. Alice had driven by the sites where windmills had once pumped seawater upland through hollowed logs to vats. She’d explained how it had been moved from vat to vat until the sun evaporated the water and left salt deposits at the bottom. Wooden roofs, swung on cranes, covered the vats at night or when it rained. The salt produced in this way, she said, was pure, strong, and free from lime.

  Sam wondered if the tears of all the women widowed by the sea were pure and strong. Did the salt they wept make their hearts expand but not break? Had it warded off spirits? Had it preserved? Worked cures?

  “Hey.” Lee, awake now, lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, drew her to him.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “You looked like you were pretty far off.”

  “Just thinking.”

  He kissed her temple. “About what?”

  She smiled. “You’ll never guess.”

  “Tell me.” He kissed her nose, the curve at the corner of her lips.

  “Salt.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What about it?”

  She closed her eyes, ran though her thoughts. “Did you know that it is the only rock that humans eat?”

  “Is that a fact?” He lifted her arm and brought it to his mouth. His brown eyes were steady on hers. He licked the inner crease of her elbow. “Salt,” he said. She trembled. He ran his tongue up the tender, white underpart of her arm. “Salt,” he said. She felt the deep, hot bolt of desire. He continued, licking around her breasts, up the curve of her neck to the hollow of her throat. “Salt,” he said.

  She knew there were women he had loved before. She had seen them around town and knew their names. Alison. Kerry. Carolyn. They were friendly with him, cordial to her. One, Carolyn, still gave him birthday gifts: bottles of good wine, expensive books.

  “If you leave me—,” she began.

  He traced his tongue back down between her breasts, then lower. Her back arched and she caught her breath. “If you leave me,” she whispered, “we couldn’t stay friends.”

  He burrowed his face in her belly, murmured something.

  “What?” she said.

  “I will never leave you,” he said.

  She allowed herself to believe this. Her body opened to him.

  He ran his tongue lower, dipped into the salt of her hidden places.

  Their bodies, warm and open and not yet inhabiting the day’s defenses, coupled, melded, merged, swam, dove deep, grew salt.

  “Tell me something,” Lee said. His voice was sleepy, postcoital.

  She curled her body closer to his. Happiness this deep should be outlawed. Taboo. Illegal. Or bottled and sold. At prohibitive prices. Taxed like a luxury item. New brides with costly weddings and elaborate cakes, brides with Cartier rings that cost more than her home, these brides had nothing on her. “Tell you what?”

  “Something about you,” he said.

  “About me?”

  “Tell me a story about you.” His hand settled on her hip. “About when you were a girl.”

  “I told you one last night. Remember?” She slung her leg over his thigh. “About the time I was fourteen and Libby pretended she was a mannequin.”

  “Tell me another one.”

  Through the window, the first streaks of rose lit the eastern sky. They should get up. She had the three weddings on Saturday and there was a ton of work ahead. She didn’t move. “You go first. Tell me something about when you were a boy. Something you haven’t told any of your other girlfriends.”

  “Like there’s been so many,” he said.

  “Come on,” she pressed. “Just one thing. One thing you haven’t told anyone else.”

  He thought for a minute. “Well, when I was ten I had a crow.”

  “You mean like a pet?”

  “Not really. It was wild.”

  “You had a wild crow?”

  “I found it in the parking lot by the Yacht Club. It had a broken wing. I put it in a carton and my mom drove me over to Doc Osborne’s. Doc said once a bird’s wing is broken, it can’t be healed. He said it would be cruel to keep it and it should be put down.”

  “But you kept it.” She was thinking about the stray cats at the boatyard, about his way with the broken ribs of sloops.

  “I talked my mom into it. She agreed but said I’d have to keep it out on the sunporch.”

  A fondness for Alice washed over Sam. “Did you name it?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess because it wasn’t mine to name. I just called it Crow.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “It stayed there six months. It about drove Mom crazy.” He laughed at the memory. “When I let it go, we had to take a chisel to clean the bird shit off the floor.”

  “And did it fly again?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It did.” There was still joy in his voice at the memory. She wondered if it was possible to love a person more.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Did you have a pet?”

  She shook her head. “My mother was allergic.” She couldn’t imagine her mother allowing them to keep a chickadee, much less a crow.

  “Not even a goldfish?”

  “We had a snapping turtle for a couple of days once. My sister found him. She wrapped him up in our sweatshirts and I helped her carry him home.” Even now Sam could remember how afraid of the snapper she’d been, her terror so different from Libby’s fearlessness. “When we got home, Libby put him in the upstairs bathtub. Then she charged the neighborhood kids admission to come and look at him, until my mother found out. She made her give them back all their money.”

  She lifted her knees and made a tent of the bedclothes. “Now tell me something else about you,” she said.

  “What do you want to know?”

  She imagined him young. A boy. A teenager. “Who was your first love?”

  “Very first?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Mrs. McIntire.”

  “Mrs.? A married woman?”

  “Very.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven.” She smiled, picturing him at seven. “She was my second-grade teacher.”

  “Did she know you had this crush on her?”

  “It was hard to miss. I used to leave candy kisses on her desk. I cut her picture out of the class photo and slept with it. I think I was in high school before I could even look at her without blushing.”
/>   “You should have had our second-grade teacher. On second thought, I’m glad you didn’t. Miss Granger would have cooled you on women forever.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Miss Granger was older than my grandmother and smelled funny. And crabby. God, she was mean. Beats me why she wanted to teach. I think she hated kids.” She felt the heat of old anger rising in her cheeks, surprising her.

  “You are to draw a self-portrait,” Miss Granger says. “A picture of yourself.” She passes out sheets of heavy paper the color of oatmeal.

  Sam wants a purple crayon. It is her favorite color and the one she always uses from her big box at home, but the box Miss Granger hands out for art has only eight colors. She chooses the blue since it is the closest she can find to purple. She begins with the head, carefully drawing a round balloon. She concentrates, her tongue tucked in her cheek, wanting to get it right. She adds eyes and a mouth, five corkscrew curls for hair. She draws a line down from the balloon, adds stick arms and legs, pitchfork hands, a bell skirt. The figure floats, untethered to the ground. When she is done, she draws a second figure, identical to the first except taller. She smiles, pleased with the portrait.

  When Miss Granger sees it, she frowns. Sam has done something wrong. She looks at the picture, unable to see her mistake.

  “Who is this?” Miss Granger points to the smaller figure.

  “Me,” Sam says in a small voice. What has she done wrong?

  “And this?” Miss Granger’s finger lands on Libby.

  “My sister.”

  Miss Granger snaps the paper up and takes it to her desk, snips off the part with Libby.

  “You were to draw a self-portrait, Samantha,” she says. “Not a family picture.”

  Sam cries and won’t stop, even when Miss Granger sends her to the principal, who calls for the school nurse. They send Sam home. She cries all night. Makes herself ill.Actually has a fever. She refuses to go to school the next day. Or the next. There are whispered phone calls, consultations with the principal.

  When she returns to class, all the self-portrait drawings have been taken down from where they were clipped to a string above the chalkboard.