Hearts and Bones

WE DIDN'T SEE OUR NEW HOUSE FOR WEEKS. After doctors had inserted a medicated stent into Mark's artery, they confirmed that he was in the middle of a heart attack -- and that the episode before our wedding had been one, too. He had permanent damage, but with the right medication and lifestyle changes, they hoped he would have a decent recovery. When Mark came home, his leg was a constellation of purple, green and blue bruises, as if someone had spilled little pots of paint under his skin. He was not allowed to lift anything or drive, and the walk up the stairs to our second-floor apartment took a very long time.

The first time we returned to our farmhouse -- warned by a neighbor that something sounded strange in the basement -- we stopped every hour so Mark could stretch his legs to ward off any clots. We had left our thermostat at 64 degrees after some of the locals warned us to keep our house warm, and arrived to discover our propane tank empty and the pipes close to freezing. We needed $2,500 to refill the 500-gallon tank. We still had no furniture and no kitchen, so we sat on the squeaky wicker chairs waiting for the tanker truck to lumber up the driveway. We stayed one uncomfortable night before returning to the city. Mark seemed hollow and cold, like the house.

The rest of winter was quiet. Friends came by our apartment, whose lease we had extended, with baskets of health food, cookbooks and bags of loose tea. Our real-estate agent sent Mark a PajamaGram. Bills arrived for the house (snow plowing, insurance, more propane), and then bills arrived from the hospital. We sent away our mortgage payments, detaching the squares from our little booklet one by one as months passed, but Pennsylvania seemed so far away, like a dream. I couldn't bring myself to say out loud what must have crossed both our minds -- that we had based our budget and mortgage load on the idea that Mark would be able to do most of the renovations, and so should think about selling. That, I thought, would be like saying, "You are broken and can't be fixed."

So instead, we went in the opposite direction. With most of our life savings sunk into the house and bills still mounting -- but with spring around the corner -- Mark and I ordered a real bed, our first, a queen-size mattress with a split box spring so it could make the trip up the steep farmhouse stairs. We had it delivered to the house. And as soon as Mark's leg was healed and a stress test revealed that the stent had held, we packed our trunk with pails of white paint and headed back.

IN THE FRESH AIR AND SUN, MARK'S COLOR IMPROVED, the gray pallor giving way to a healthy pink. Friends came to visit, making long weekends out of their trips, and helped tear out the living room ceiling to reveal a latticework of strong, beautiful beams and old cut nails. Mark worked slowly at first, testing his limits and letting others take over when he needed to rest. He still had chest pains every so often, but the doctor assured him they were probably just muscle spasms, and every day he was able to work 15 minutes longer than the day before.

The next month, we got a giant Dumpster and moved on to the upstairs. As Mark and I ripped out the walls, stores of nuts and birdseed and cakes of tiny black turds spilled out. The source of those small circle stains became clear when we pulled down the low ceiling, and petrified mouse bodies rained down. As we unclogged the house, the structure seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Mark's body, too, was reemerging: His energy returned, and, as extra weight melted off, his muscles surfaced like sandbars. By the end of summer, we'd removed a 4-ton mountain of trash.

By Thanksgiving, the one-year anni-versary of his heart attack and stent, our house had three beds, six kitchen chairs, a couch, two armchairs, a dresser and an armoire. We had a woodstove -- Mark had made the hearth by dragging thin slabs of bluestone in from the property and piecing them together like plates on a turtle's back -- and plenty of firewood to keep us warm. Our winter was much easier than the one before. After all, we know the important numbers now -- 48 degrees for the thermostat, the four-digit code for our house alarm, and the single press of a red button that would dial 911 and immediately dispatch an ambulance from the local hospital. We celebrated New Year's with friends, and as the last snow melted, the heads of hundreds of daffodils poked up across the fields.

Mark and I will be married two years this May, and the house still has no kitchen. It has a long way to go -- and so does Mark. He has been having more pain lately, and after the latest round of tests, his cardiologist used the word "shadow" again. But we've come to understand long-term renovation. We know that all we can do is continue to scrape away at the decades of thickened paint and sister any joists that might need extra support along the way, taking comfort in the knowledge that our home has good bones, trusting it will protect us from the storms that come swirling down from over the next hill.

Kelly McMasters splits her time between Rock Lake, Pa., and New York. She can be reached at km2110@columbia.edu.