Midnight

'Two — Guinness Stout.'

'I like Heineken Dark myself.'

'It's okay, but it's not a reason to live. Guinness is a reason to live.'

'What's number three?'

'Goldie Hawn.'

'You know Goldie Hawn?'

'Nope. Maybe I don't want to, 'cause maybe I'd be disappointed. I'm talking about her screen image, the idealized Goldie Hawn.'

'She's your dream girl, huh?'

'More than that. She … hell I don't know … she seems untouched by life, undamaged, vital and happy and innocent and … fun.'

'Think you'll ever meet her?'

'You've got to be kidding.'

She said, 'You know what?'

'What?'

'If you did meet Goldie Hawn, if she walked up to you at a party and said something funny, something cute, and giggled in that way she has, you wouldn't even recognize her.'

'Oh, I'd recognize her, all right.'

'No, you wouldn't. You'd be so busy brooding about how unfair, unjust, hard, cruel, bleak, dismal, and stupid life is that you would not seize the moment. You wouldn't even recognize the moment. You'd be too shrouded in a haze of gloom to see who she was. Now, what's your fourth reason for living?'

He hesitated. 'Fear of death.'

She blinked at him.

'I don't understand. If life's so awful, why is death to be feared?'

'I underwent a near-death experience. I was in surgery, having a bullet taken out of my chest, and I almost bought the farm. Rose out of my body, drifted up to the ceiling, watched the surgeons for a while, then found myself rushing faster and faster down a dark tunnel toward this dazzling light — the whole screwy scenario.'

She was impressed and intrigued. Her clear blue eyes were wide with interest. 'And?'

'I saw what lies beyond.'

'You're serious, aren't you?'

'Damned serious.'

'You're telling me that you know there's an afterlife?'

'Yes.'

'A God?'

'Yes.'

Astonished, she said, 'But if you know there's a God and that we move on from this world, then you know life has purpose, meaning,'

'So?'

'Well, it's doubt about the purpose of life that lies at the root of most people's spells of gloom and depression. Most of us, if we'd experienced what you'd experienced well, we'd never worry again. We'd have the strength to deal with any adversity, knowing there was meaning to it and a life beyond. So what's wrong with you, mister? Why didn't you lighten up after that? Are you just a bullheaded dweeb or what?'

'Dweeb?'

'Answer the question.'

The elevator kicked in and ascended from the first-floor hall.

'Harry's coming,' Sam said.

'Answer the question,' she repeated.

'Let's just say that what I saw didn't give me hope. It scared the hell out of me.'

'Well? Don't keep me hanging. What'd you see on the Other Side?'

'If I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy.'

'You've got nothing to lose. I already think you're crazy.'

He sighed and shook his head and wished that he'd never brought it up. How had she gotten him to open himself so completely?

The elevator reached the third floor and halted.

Tessa stepped away from the kitchen counter, moving closer to him, and said, 'Tell me what you saw, dammit.'

'You won't understand.'

'What am I — a moron?'

'Oh, you'd understand what I saw, but you wouldn't understand what it meant to me.'

'Do you understand what it meant to you?'

'Oh, yes,' he said solemnly.

'Are you going to tell me willingly, or do I have to take a meat fork from that rack and torture it out of you? The elevator had started down from the third floor.'

He glanced toward the hall. 'I really don't want to discuss it.'

'You don't, huh?'

'No.'

'You saw God but you don't want to discuss it.'

'That's right.'

'Most guys who see God — that's the only thing they ever want to discuss. Most guys who see God — they form whole religions based on the one meeting with Him, and they tell millions of people about it.'

'But I—'

'Fact is, according to what I've read, most people who undergo a near-death experience are changed forever by it. And always for the better. If they were pessimists, they become optimists. If they were atheists, they become believers. Their values change, they learn to love life for itself, they're goddamned radiant! But not you. Oh, no, you become even more dour, even more grim, even more bleak.'

The elevator reached the ground floor and fell silent.

'Harry's coming,' Sam said.

'Tell me what you saw.'

'Maybe I can tell you,' he said, surprised to find that he was actually willing to discuss it with her at the right time, in the right place. 'Maybe you. But later.'

Moose padded into the kitchen, panting and grinning at them, and Harry rolled through the doorway a moment later.

'Good morning,' Harry said chipperly.

'Did you sleep well?' Tessa asked, favoring him with a genuine smile of affection that Sam envied.

Harry said, 'Soundly, but not as soundly as the dead — thank God.'

'Pancakes?' Tessa asked him.

'Stacks, please.'

'Eggs?'

'Dozens.'

'Toast?'

'Loaves.'

'I like a man with an appetite.'

Harry said, 'I was running all night, so I'm famished.'

'Running?'

'In my dreams. Chased by Boogeymen.'

While Harry got a package of dog food from under one of the counters and filled Moose's dish in the corner, Tessa went to the griddle, sprayed it with Pam again, told Sam that he was in charge of the eggs, and started to