Your Heart Belongs to Me

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.”
     

 
    TWENTY-SIX

    I n bed, lying clothed atop the covers, Samantha rested her head on Ryan’s chest, cuddled into him, his right arm around her.
    Exhaustion nearly immobilized him. He felt weighed down and wrung out.
    They had endured a rite of passage in their relationship, the acknowledgment that even as young as they were, Death was a presence at their dance, their life together finite.
    Like him, she probably had much she wanted to say but no energy to say it and, at the moment, possessed no words adequate to express her thoughts.
    They dozed but did not sleep deeply, changed positions but held fast to each other.
    When at last she spoke again, Samantha’s voice was small and lacked her usual spirit. “I’m afraid.”
    “Me too. That’s okay. They’ll match me to a donor. I’ll get a heart.”
    “I know you will,” she said.
    “I will.”
    “You will if anyone will. But you’ve got to be careful, Ryan.”
    “I’ll do everything the doctors say.”
    “You especially. You, being you, have to be careful.”
    “I won’t try riding any sharks.”
    “You’ve got to let it happen however it will.”
    “It’ll happen.”
    “I’m afraid.”
    “I won’t just fade away,” he said. “That’s not me. You know that’s not me.”
    “I’m afraid for you,” she said.
    “I’ll handle it, Sam.”
    “Don’t handle it. Just let it develop.”
    “Don’t worry about me. I’m not afraid.”
    “Sometimes it’s good to be afraid,” she said. “It keeps you clear and squared away.”
     

     
    Much later, he said, “Marry me.” She did not reply, but he was sure that she was awake. “I know you’re there.”
    “Yeah. I’m here.”
    “So marry me.”
    “It’ll look like I married you because you’re dying.”
    “I’m not going to die.”
    “Everyone’ll think I married you for your money.”
    “I don’t care what they think. I never have. Why should I now?”
    “I love you. I’ll stay with you through this if you just let it happen. Every step of the way through all of it, but you have to do what Dr. Gupta says.”
    “He’s my doctor. Of course I’ll do what he says.”
    “I know you. I know you so well. I so much want you to be right…to be all right at the end of this.”
    “Then marry me.”
    “I’ll marry you when it’s over, when everything is right.”
    “After the transplant, you’ll marry me?”
    “If you relax. Just relax and accept and let this thing happen like it should.”
    “Then you’re my reward,” he said.
    “I didn’t mean it that way.”
    He said, “You’re all I want, Sam.”
    “It’s got to be right.”
    “We are right. We’re perfect together.”
    “We are, we really are, day to day,” she agreed.
    “So there you go.”
    “So if you’ll just let this happen the way it will, just relax and go with it the way it wants to happen, then I’ll know we’ll also be right not just day to day, but year after year.”
    “Okay. I can chill out. Is that what you want?”
    “You’ve got to be so careful, Dotcom.”
    “Just watch me chill.”
    “So very careful. I’ll be there all the way, but you have to listen to me.”
    “Yes, dear.”
    “I’m serious. You listen to me.”
    “I will.”
    “You listen to me.”
    “I’m listening.”
    Clinging tightly to him, Samantha said, “Oh, God, I’m so afraid.”
     

     
    Dozing, they eased apart. Parting, they woke. Waking, they clung again to each other. That was the rhythm of their night.
    At dawn, she woke once more to a separation, but felt for him and found him with an urgency that suggested she expected him to be gone. Stirred from sleep by her search and her touch, he held her close, but closeness