The Law of Bound Hearts

by Anne Leclaire

  Deep in her chest, beneath the place where the catheter had been inserted, Libby felt a twist of pain. She shut the album.

  There were other books in the drawer as well. Three volumes of poetry. Anne Sexton. Sharon Olds. Adrienne Rich. Why had she set them aside in this drawer instead of putting them on the bookshelves in the study? She opened the Olds book, saw notations in the margins, in her own handwriting. The ink—green—had faded so badly she could barely make out the words. Once she had known these poems by heart.

  Beneath these books she found another slender volume. Its cover was beige and textured, with pieces of grass and flower petals pressed into it. Instantly, as if it had been last week instead of more than two decades ago, she remembered the day she bought the book. She had found it in a stationery store in Northampton the summer before she’d left for Oberlin. It had been costly, and the shop owner had told her it had been made entirely by hand: cover, pages inside, everything. In spite of the price—she could have bought a skirt for what it cost—she hadn’t been able to resist. Now she opened it. Her name— her maiden name, Elizabeth Lewis—was penned neatly on the first page. She turned to the next page, read the poem she had written there.

  The History of Water

  Waterfalls.

  Water falls

  in slippery flow, motion

  like music, invading

  sculpted rock.

  Silver-swift crystal

  fills stone-pocked memories

  Then spills

  And falls, water.

  She remembered now. The poem had been inspired by an oil painting she had seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She had been mesmerized by the way the painter had captured the light, the motion of water. The poem had pleased her, but now, looking critically, she saw its faults, although the “stone-pocked” was nice.

  With an odd, mingled sense of loss and affection, she recalled the years held in this drawer. High school. College. A perfect blending of friendship and music, poetry and freedom. Drinking bargain-shelf merlot, sitting up with friends until dawn, talking about sex and politics, love and obsessions, struggles with desire and hope. She remembered curling up on the floor in the corner of Richard’s cheap apartment, sublet for the semester, and listening to his cello, his playing a kind of foreplay. She recalled desire and the lovemaking it kindled.

  It had been a long time since she’d felt desire, or written a poem, or even read one, so long she could barely remember, although back then she read poetry constantly. Olds and the others. Volumes and volumes, lines written with strength and pity and tenderness and, sometimes, terror. She remembered what a teacher had once told her and how she had believed it absolutely: What we create may save us.

  Futile words. Not true. Not true. On the page in her hands, the lines blurred. Nothing could save her. Certainly not the poetry of a girl who still believed in hope, before she became the wasted shell of a woman.

  But there she went, getting maudlin again. She shook off the memories.

  But the grief. Oh, the grief. What was she to do with the grief?

  Sam

  Never again, Sam vowed. Never again would she schedule three weddings for the same day, not when one of the orders included a smaller, individual cake for each table at the reception. It was well after ten and she’d been up before dawn, and working—under pressure and without a break—ever since. Now she was exhausted. Totally wiped out. She closed her eyes; cakes floated behind her lids. The Hawkins cake: three tiers. Yellow cake with raspberry preserves and buttercream filling, decorated with white roses and edible pearls, and iced a hydrangea blue that matched the bridesmaids’ gowns. The Weaver cake: three tiers. Seashore motif. White cake with a chocolate mousse filling, set on a bed of sugar tinted to look like sand. White chocolate shells. The Van Horn cake: six tiers. Lemon cake with white chocolate mousse, emerald fondant ribbons edged in gold foil at the base of each tier, fluttery sweet peas growing up the sides. Topped with a nosegay of emerald-striped lady slipper orchids. For certain, that cake cost nearly as much as the bride’s gown. And that wasn’t counting the twenty table cakes or the groom’s cake, which was an exact replica of Fenway Park. In chocolate. (Emily Van Horn and her new husband were spending the first night of their marriage in Boston so they could catch the Red Sox the next afternoon. Then, before leaving for St. Bart’s, they were taking a week to see games at a half-dozen other major league parks.) And good luck to her, Sam thought.

  “I swear,” Stacy said. Her feet were swollen and she had them propped up on a stool. “If I have to listen to ‘The Wind Beneath My Wings’ one more time, I’m going to shoot the bride.”

  They had stayed through each reception, at least until the wedding cake was cut—a service few pastry chefs provided; most just assembled the cake and took off—and now they were both slightly tipsy. They’d gone through nearly a bottle of champagne, one of two thrust on them by the caterer and charged to Howard Van Horn, a man who could certainly afford it.

  “Or ‘True Love,’ ” Sam said, laughing. “I could sing that in my sleep.”

  “ ‘I Love You Truly,’ ” Stacy said. She stuck out her tongue and jabbed her finger toward her throat.

  “ ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life.’ ” Sam poured the last of the champagne into the coffee mugs they were using for glasses.

  “ ‘Sunrise, Sunset.’ ” Although more wine was the last thing they needed—they hadn’t had more than two bites to eat all day—Sam thought there was a better-than-even chance they’d open the second bottle before they closed up shop.

  “ ‘Chapel of Love,’ ” Stacy said.

  “ ‘True Love Waits.’ ”

  “ ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’ ” Stacy fired a gun-barrel finger at her temple.

  “ ‘Always.’ ”

  “ ‘Always and Forever.’ ” Stacy drained her champagne. “And the soloist thinks he’s Lionel Richie.”

  “You win,” Sam said, refilling her assistant’s mug. She swung her feet up next to Stacy’s. “God, but I’m way too young to feel this old.”

  “Okay,” Stacy said. “True-confession time. What’d they play at your wedding?’

  “They didn’t.”

  “You didn’t have music?”

  “I didn’t have a wedding.”

  “What?”

  “I eloped.”

  “Get outta town.”

  “A justice of the peace in Cape May, New Jersey.”

  “Wow. I figured you’d have had a big wedding.”

  “Nope. One production in the family was about all my mother could stand.” Their mother had spent the months leading up to Libby’s wedding moaning and bitching about the expense, making it sound like they were going to have to remortgage the house or something. No way was Sam going to go through that.

  She got up, steadied herself, and crossed to the refrigerator. She took out the second bottle of champagne, held it toward Stacy and raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Better not,” Stacy said. “I’m already as wasted as a sailor on shore leave.”

  “Say that three times quick,” Sam said.

  “I’m lucky I could say it once.”

  Sam tilted the bottle toward Stacy. “You sure? I’m going to.”

  “WTF,” Stacy said—her shorthand for what-the-fuck. “Twist my arm.”

  Sam stripped the foil, twisted out the cork, refilled their mugs. The champagne was good. The sixty-dollars-a-bottle-wholesale kind of good.

  “To Howard Van Horn,” Sam said, raising her mug overhead.

  Stacy lifted hers, sloshed a little of the champagne over the rim, drank. “To the father of the bride,” she said. “So whaddaya think that wedding cost him?”

  “Plenty.” The Van Horn wedding, a Great Gatsby extravaganza, had gone on for four days. Golf tournaments. A whale watch charter for the entire bridal party. Brunch for their closest friends at the yacht club. Clam-and-lobster-bake rehearsal dinner. All overseen by a fidgety little wedding planner from Boston w
ho charged by the hour and acted like everyone had signed on as her own personal staff, including Sam and Stacy and a couple of high school boys who parked cars. “Plenty,” she repeated. Sometimes it stunned her how much people were willing to spend on an event that was ancient history within months.

  “Well, Old Lucy Van Horn was in her glory,” Stacy said. “Didja know she and my mom were kids together? Mom remembers back before she was Mrs. Howard Van Horn and her father was the school janitor. She said back then Lucy didn’t own two socks that matched.”

  “Well, she sure does now.” Matching hosiery might not be one of Lucy Van Horn’s problems, but Sam bet that she had more than her share. An anorexic daughter and a son with suspiciously dilated pupils and a runny nose, for starters.

  “I can’t believe you eloped,” Stacy said, returning to the earlier subject. “Didja ever regret it? Not having a wedding, I mean.”

  “God,” Sam said. “If we’re going to talk about this, I’m going to need more in my stomach than champagne.” She poked around until she found a bag of potato chips in the cupboard and some leftover buttercream icing in the refrigerator. She dragged a chip through the icing. “Mmmmm. Salt, fat, and sugar. God’s perfect combo.”

  Stacy took a handful of chips. “Didja?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Regret it.”

  “Not the wedding part. Not having one, I mean.” Stone-cold sober, she would not be sharing this with Stacy. But then she was a long way from sober. “The marriage, now that I lived to regret.”

  “How long’d it last?”

  “What? The marriage?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Four years. Which was just about three too many.” She poured them more champagne.

  “What was his name?”

  “Jay. Jay Trumbel.”

  “What was his sign?”

  “Good God, I don’t know.”

  “When was his birthday?”

  “March. March twenty-eighth.”

  “Aries. Fire sign. Impulsive. Born leaders and born fighters.”

  Sam couldn’t argue with that. She was an Aries, too.

  “So was he good-looking?”

  “Only if you count tall, dark, and handsome.”

  “So what happened?”

  Sam yawned, stretched, feigned indifference. “A boring story. Not worth relating.” She’d have had to be a lot drunker than she was to share that part with Stacy. “What about you? Did you have a wedding each time?”

  “The first time, I was only sixteen and we eloped. My period was late and we panicked.” Stacy licked salt from her fingers, then leaned forward and kneaded the arch of her foot. “False alarm, as it turned out. Big whoop. My parents got it annulled and I went back to school. The second time I did it up right. Church, flower girl, the whole nine yards. The next time—with Carl—it didn’t seem worth the bother. New Bedford City Hall seemed good enough.” She shoved her foot into her shoe, wriggling it to get it in. “God, speaking of Carl, I’d better get going. He’ll be pitching a fit, wondering what the hell happened to me.”

  Sam held the bottle high. “This one’s not dead yet.”

  Stacy shook her head. “I’ll be lucky if I can walk as it is.”

  Although they both should have known better—they’d polished off nearly two bottles of champagne between them—Sam drove her home, holding it steady at thirty the whole way.

  When they pulled up to Stacy’s cottage, the porch light was on. Sam saw a shadow behind the front window. “Carl’s still up,” she said.

  “Shit,” Stacy said. “I told him not to wait. I told him I’d be late.” She swiveled toward Sam. “Can ya tell I’m blasted?”

  Sam cocked her head and studied her assistant. “Not a hint,” she said. “Except for the bloodshot eyes.”

  “Oh, shit.” Stacy grabbed for the visor mirror. “You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m kidding.”

  “Not funny.” Stacy ran her fingers through her spiked hair, then climbed out of the car. “Wish me luck.”

  “Always.” Sam watched her walk up the steps, weaving only slightly.

  Without Stacy, the kitchen felt empty. Sam tossed her handbag on the table. On her desk, the phone message light blinked insistently. A call must have come through while she was driving Stacy home. Sam knew at once who it was, and although she’d been expecting it every day since the first call, she was no more prepared to hear Libby’s voice now than she had been then. She wiped up the counters, carried the coffee mugs to the sink, buying time. Finally she crossed to the desk and punched PLAY.

  “Hey, have I reached the cake goddess of Sippican?”

  Lee. She let out a breath, relaxed her shoulders. She leaned toward the machine, as if that could bring him closer. He’d driven up to Maine that morning, an unexpected trip up to Camden to survey a sloop and give an estimate on its restoration.

  “So where are you?” he said. “Should I be worried? Have you run off with an usher? The drummer in the band?”

  She loved the sound of his voice. Every modulation. The way you could hear a smile behind the words.

  He asked how the weddings had gone and told her that he expected he’d be back sometime on Monday. He said that he missed her and that she’d better stock up on whipped cream for his return. He’d hung up without leaving a callback number.

  There was still an inch of champagne in the bottle and she poured it into her cup. She finished the potato chips. She wanted to tell him about the weddings and ask about the sloop. She wanted to hear that he loved her and find out what he planned to do with the whipped cream. Okay, she wanted to have phone sex. God, but she missed him. Feeling like a teenager, she replayed the message. His voice had the expected effect. She couldn’t wait to have him in her bed.

  She thought of Emily Van Horn and Sally Weaver and Lisa Hawkins, brides who were at that very moment abed in hotel rooms with their new husbands. “To your happiness,” she said aloud, meaning it. In spite of the insane extravagance of their weddings, the trite, predictable songs she and Stacy had poked fun at, she admired the brides. It was a courageous thing to trust in love. To stand before family and friends and declare this love. To accept public blessings.

  Would things have turned out differently if she and Jay had had a wedding?

  Sam arrived in Illinois the day before and finally she and Libby have managed to catch some time alone. Richard is at the college. Matthew and Mercedes are playing a video game downstairs. The sounds of their voices and electronic pings and buzzes filter up the stairs.

  They are in Libby’s bedroom, ostensibly to find something in her closet for Sam to get married in, but it’s quickly apparent that Libby has something else on her mind. She closes the door and turns to Sam, cups her face in her hands. “Listen,” she says, her voice serious.

  “What?” Sam says, although she knows what’s coming. They have been through this earlier, when Libby asked if Sam wanted her to go with them. “To be your maid of honor,” Libby said. “Matron,” Sam said. “You’re married. So you’d be my matron of honor.” “So do you want me to come?” Libby asked. “No,” Sam said. She’d already thought this through. If Libby went, then Jay’s sister would be hurt if they didn’t ask her, and she’d want her husband to go, too, and then both sets of parents would have to be included and pretty soon it would turn into a big production. Exactly what Sam wants to avoid.

  Libby draws her toward the bed, sits down next to her. “Listen,” she says again. She has what Sam calls her “responsible big sister” expression, a look she’d developed sometime in the past two years.

  “What?”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Do what? Elope?”

  “Not just elope. Marry Jay.Are you absolutely sure you want to marry Jay?”

  Sam sighs. She’s twenty-eight. She’s not a child.

  “I mean, maybe you should live with him for a while. Try it out. Make sure he’s the one.” />
  “Oh, right, like shacking up with him would make Mother and Dad a lot happier than if I eloped.”

  “I’m not thinking about them.”

  “Well, what are you thinking about?”

  “You. I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” Sam is taken aback. This isn’t what she wants from Libby. She wants her sister to be excited for her, happy for her, not worrying about protecting her.