Dean Koontz - Your Heart Belongs To Me

The collection of magazines containing articles by Sam proved only that, estranged from her daughter, Rebecca nonetheless remained proud of her.

Spencer Barghest might be perverse, even depraved, and Rebecca might be a terrible judge of men, less than intellectually keen, and morally adrift-but neither she nor her corpse-infatuated lover was scheming against Ryan.

Samantha had never mentioned either that she had met Barghest or that he had been present when her sister, Teresa, had been forced on from this world.

In retrospect, however, her silence on the subject most likely indicated only embarrassment. No one would be quick to reveal that her mother slept with a creepy nihilist who lived with cadavers that he claimed were art.

Following the episode on the surfboard and then the terrifying seizure that same night, which had sent him to Forry Stafford, Ryan had obsessed on one word uttered by the internist- poisoning -to avoid confronting the truth that his body was failing him. He needed instead to identify an external enemy that would be easier to defeat than a disease or a genetic abnormality.

In his desperation, he had retreated from the logic with which he had previously coped with every problem of business and of life. He abandoned reason for unreason.

Forced by Kevin Spurlock’s visit to acknowledge his weakness and his error, Ryan was mortified. Hopeful that the wine would smooth the edges off his humiliation, he poured a second glass.

He was grateful for the pepper-tree patterns of fading sunlight and swelling shadow because they partially masked him. He hoped that at least this once, Sam might find his face more difficult to read than Dr. Seuss.

After a third little story about Miriam, Samantha fetched four votive candles from the kitchen. She arranged them on the table.

As her face brightened in the glow of the butane match and her gaze traveled wick to wick, Ryan said, “I love you,” and felt like a weasel, although like a weasel in rehab.

With the moon still tethered to the eastern horizon but straining higher, with the giant pepper tree occluding most of the eternally receding stars, the time to talk of death had come.

After dinner, with the table clear except for wine and candles, Ryan held Samantha’s left hand and said, “I’ve been happy every moment we’ve been together.”

“Sounds like the next word is going to be but, in which case these slippers aren’t adequate ass-kicking shoes.”

He would not mention his delusional adventure, his fear that he had been poisoned. If he died within a year, he wanted Sam to remember him as a better man than he actually had been.

Because Sam took life the same way that she took the sea when surfing-on her terms but with respect for its unpredictable nature, boldly and without fear-Ryan explained his situation succinctly and directly. He neither made a tragic opera of his news nor pretended that it was a light opera certain to end in flags and flourishes and sparkling arpeggios of harp strings.

Her hand tightened around his, as if she would hold him to this world. Tears pooled in her eyes, shimmered with her effort to retain them, and the shimmering caused the candle flames to quiver more in reflection than they did in the cut-glass cups that held them.

She understood that delivering this news was as hard for him as hearing it was devastating to her. Two things they admired in each other were self-sufficiency and a clear-eyed recognition that life was a struggle requiring optimism and confidence.

Grateful that she did not lose control and weep, pleased that she remained attentive instead of interrupting him with questions, Ryan was also moved by Samantha’s effort to repress her tears and to stay strong.

The intensity of her heart’s response could not be mistaken, for her pulse so strengthened that it grew visible in her slender throat, and quickened. The kimono did not conceal the tremors that shook her body, but instead, even in candlelight, the bells of the sleeves and every slack fold of the lustrous silk made visible her shivering as clearly as the air conveyed his voice.

When Ryan finished, Sam breathed deeply twice, shifted her gaze from his eyes to their entwined hands, and chose to confront the essence of the terror with her first question.

“What’s the likelihood you’ll get a new heart?”

“Four thousand Americans a year need a transplant. Only about two thousand donor hearts become available.”

“Fifty-fifty then,” she said.

“Not that good. The donor’s heart has to be compatible with my immune system. There has to be a match to minimize the chance my body will reject it.”

“What’s the likelihood of a match?”

“I have the most common blood type. That’s good. But there are other criteria. And even if they’re all met, the heart will go to someone higher on the waiting list if he’s a match as well.”

“Are you already on the list?”

“Provisionally. Next week I’ll undergo psychological testing. It all depends on that.”

“Why?”

“They try to detect social and behavioral factors that would interfere with recovery.”

“You mean…like alcoholism?”

“Alcoholism, smoking, attitudinal problems that would make me less likely than some other patient to comply with medications and make lifestyle changes.”

Looking up from their hands, avoiding his eyes, Sam stared at the four candles as if the future might be read in the configurations of their flames. “Intelligence must be something they’re looking for. A smart patient should be a better patient.”

“Maybe.”

“That’s in your favor. What else? What’s the bright side?”

“I’m young and otherwise in good health. If I had multiple organ problems, if I had diabetes, I wouldn’t be an ideal candidate.”

Drawing one candle close, Samantha first gave the flame a breath to grow on, then blew it out. “What else? I want more bright side.”

“I don’t need insurance-company approval. I can pay out of pocket.”

As a pale ribbon of smoke unraveled from the briefly sputtering black wick, Samantha drew a second candle close to her and breathed darkness upon it, as well.

Ryan said, “Sometimes there’s a distance problem. Once a donor is certified brain-dead and surgeons remove his heart, they can keep it cooled to forty degrees in saline solution-but only six hours.”

“So the surgical team-what?-looks for a recipient within a certain radius?”

“In my case, they don’t have to bring it to me. I can go to them by Learjet, while they keep the donor alive on machines.”

She dipped a thumb and forefinger in the last of her wine and pinched out the flame on the third candle.

“The five-year-survival rate for a transplant is slowly but surely creeping toward seventy percent,” he said.

Without wetting her fingers again, Sam extinguished the final flame with a pinch, and hissed as if she felt its heat, but also as if she wanted to feel it.

The kitchen door was closed, and the curtained window poured no light onto the deck.

“If I make five years, then my chances of making five more are good. And so much is happening in medicine. Each year. So much.”

Although the night was not absolutely black, it should have given cover to Samantha. Yet on her face, the quiet grief that she could no longer repress glistered faintly, as though her tears contained a phosphoric salt.

Pushing her chair back from the table, rising, still holding his hand, she said, “Come lie in bed with me.”

He got to his feet.

“Just lie with me,” she said, “and hold me.”

In bed, lying clothed atop the covers, Samantha rested her head on Ryan’s chest, cuddled into him, his right arm around her.