The Half-Life of a Broken Heart

by N.R. Lambert

We hear the nursery long before we see it. Feel it too, despite the heavily insulated walls. Deep metronomic concussions roll down the corridor and crash through us. When we reach the entry, marked simply, “Hearts,” the door slides open and a technician ushers us through. The nursery is aggressively antiseptic—shrill LED lighting, a gleaming steel tile floor, and between them, bed after bed of hearts. A chamber of chambers, bumping and pulsing in sync.

“They do that on their own.” The tech says, smiling, glasses glaring back at us.

“We’ve even tried to offset them intentionally, quite drastically, but still…they always sync up somehow. It’s rather uncanny, don’t you think?”

I take in the aortic rows, thrumming with whatever semi-organic solution they pump to sustain themselves. Uncanny isn’t the first word that springs into mind.

“Which one is mine?” I ask.

“You don’t want to guess? We encourage clients to try.” The tech gestures with her tablet. “They choose correctly just slightly above what would be random probability.”

“Huh,” you grumble, a shadow at my elbow. Your black dress a bit too on the nose, I think. You’ve been opposed to this since I first suggested it. Still, I’m glad you’re here. It feels like the first thing we’ve done together in 381 days. Even the sycamore sapling “we” planted in the yard to honor him—a growing thing for the boy who would not—you planted alone.

“Ready?” the tech smiles.

I nod. I am eager to cast off this weight, this damaged core, even if you contend it will make little difference.

The sterile air of the nursery chills me, the door of my chest chamber hanging open between my breasts as the tech retrieves my new synthetic heart—the one in the back right corner, third bed from the door—and brings it to me. She removes my old heart, wipes down the chamber and places the synth inside. I watch her hands make the final connections and wait for some new wonderful feeling to flood in. I expect joy. Or how I think joy might have felt; it’s so hard to recall anything that isn’t anguish. But what rushes in is different. It is…nothing. Still. Nothing is an improvement, isn’t it?

“How does it feel?” The tech asks, snapping the chamber door into place.

I’m unsure how to answer. I look to you across the room, but your eyes skim over my mine, fixed on something, or nothing, behind me.

“I’ll probably need some time to get used to it.” I say as I button my blouse over the new heart beating in the old space.

The tech places my old heart in a temporary organum capsule, then in a bed of other transplants. I wonder when it will sync up with the others. She seems to know what I’m thinking.

“It takes a few days to sync, but old transplants are generally discarded long before that happens.” She helps me to my feet.

“We’ll keep your original here in the nursery for 48 hours. After that we’ll dispose of it, or you can purchase a cormatory to preserve it at home. Do you understand?”

I nod and look for you, but you’ve already slipped out the door.

~

It is too windy for the hovers today, so we take the monorail home. I watch the city flash by my window and wait for something to strike the flint. Something to spark. I touch my chest; the old ache’s absence is a discomfort of its own.

“Does it hurt?” You’ve been watching me watch the world go by. Our new normal, but perhaps not for much longer.

“No. It’s just…different.”

You nod, but your eyes tell me you are unconvinced. You smooth your dress and pretend to look out the window too.

At home, long after you’ve fallen into another envy-inducing sleep, I am restless. It is not because of the synthetic—my new heart beats steadily and it does not hurt. Nothing hurts. I marvel at this for a moment. The grief—that slow poison, which would take eons to degrade out of my system on its own—is suddenly gone. I should be sleeping soundly for the first time in 382 nights. No more haunting the halls for hours, softly crying for him, dragging my pain behind me like a heavy and elaborate train. And yet I still find myself roaming the house. Seeking something. I am uncertain.

And then I know where to go.

~

After he was cremated, we brought him to the beach he loved so much and let the wind and waves take what was left. It is where we…where I, visit him. You stopped coming after the first time.

The heavy thump of the waves against the breakwater reverberates through me as I fight the wind to a quieter spot on the inlet. There is a ritual to this too. I come here. I cry until the salt from the wind whipped waves gradually replaces my own across my cheeks and for a few moments I am calm. Only then can I reach back and touch the old memories without burning my fingertips. Find the comfort in them. This is the closest I get to happiness.

Tonight, I expect I’ll skip the salt. Go right to the peace, crack open and be flooded with that happiness, with relief.

But my new heart knows nothing of loving that little boy. It only offers its sterile beat, which now, I note, is quietly syncing with the lapping of the waves.

~

You return with me to the nursery in the morning. You do not mention how you warned me, that you knew this wouldn’t work. I am grateful for this with the final beats of the false heart, and grateful again with the first beats of my old one as they return it to its spot in my chest.

It is both better and worse having it there. The pain washes through me. I feel my posture change, my shoulders roll forward and I shudder. You take my hand and squeeze it.

I look up. “How do you do it?” I ask again. I ask for the thousandth time. I feel I’ve been asking this question forever.

~

That night, I ache my old familiar ache. But I am adjusting, reintroducing myself to the deep breaths that keep me steady when the waves threaten to consume me, to upend my fragile footing on this damned impermanent sand.

A sound from the garden draws me to the window. You, in the semi-dark of a waxing crescent moon, digging at the foot of the sapling.

It is not deep, whatever you recover, nor is it large when it surfaces, tumbling off the end of your shovel into the soft pile of dirt. You drop to your knees to retrieve it. A flash of metal—a cormatory.

You open it and I hear it—the sound I’ve missed without even realizing it was gone, its absence drowned out by a greater loss. Unsteady and tumbling at first, but a beat for certain. Leaving the shovel and the hole behind you, you stand and head back toward the house.

I rush downstairs to find you at the kitchen sink. The faucet still running, you turn to face me, a trickle of muddy water seeps out from beneath your chest chamber, staining the front of your nightgown. The rhythm is stronger now, the wobbling is new, unfamiliar, but has a cadence of its own.

You look up and meet my gaze, and for the first time since we lost him, you weep.