Passage

“Sixteen years old,” Mr. Wojakowski said. “Damned waste. I still can’t believe it.” He shook his head. “I just saw her that day up in Medicine looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” Richard said and felt a pain in his side, like a knife going in.

“Yeah, and whatever it was she was trying to find you for, it musta been important. She practically ran me over. ‘Did somebody call battle stations?’ I asked her, she was movin’ so fast.”

“When was this?” Richard demanded.

“Monday morning. I was over here seeing a friend of mine—had a stroke square dancing—after I did my hearing-research-sitting-around.”

“What time did you see her?”

“Let’s see,” he said, scratching his cheek, “Musta been around thirteen hundred hours. I came up right after I was done in the arthritis center, and that goes from eleven to twelve forty-five.”

One o’clock, Richard thought. She must have been on her way down to the ER. “And she told you she was looking for me?”

“Yeah, she said she had to find you right away, so she didn’t have time to talk.”

Joanna hadn’t been looking for Vielle. She had been looking for him. He had to tell her, so she wouldn’t go on thinking it was her fault. It was the least he could do.

“Just wanted you to know how bad I feel,” Mr. Wojakowski said, picking up his hat. “She was a great little gal. Reminded me of a navy nurse I dated in Honolulu. Pretty as a picture. Killed off Tarawa. Japs sank the transport she was being shipped home on.”

As soon as Mr. Wojakowski left, he plugged in the phone and called the ER. Vielle wasn’t there. He had her paged, and then sat there by the phone, waiting for her to call. She didn’t, but Mrs. Brightman did. And his old roommate.

“I was just watching CNN,” Davis said, without preamble. “What the hell kind of hospital are you working in? Did you know this Lander person?”

“Yes,” Richard said.

“But you’re all right?” Davis asked, and it was more a statement than a question.

Richard wondered what Davis would say if he said, “No.” If he said, “The NDEs aren’t temporal-lobe hallucinations. They’re real.” He already knew. “You can’t seriously believe that!” And “First Foxx and now you? I knew it was a virus!” and “Have you called the Star yet? Make them pay you for an exclusive, at least. You’re going to need the money now that you’re going to be out of a job.”

“I’m all right,” Richard said.

“You’re sure?” Davis asked, and sounded really concerned.

“Yes,” Richard said, and went down to the ER to talk to Vielle. The crime scene tape had been removed, but there were cops at all the doors. They checked Richard’s ID badge against a computer list before they let him in. Vielle was at the station desk, writing up a chart with her bandaged hand.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “She wasn’t looking for you that day to ask you about Dish Night. She was looking for me.”

“For you?” she said blankly. “But you weren’t—”

“I’d told her I was going to go talk to Dr. Jamison.”

“And Dr. Jamison had just been down here,” she said, and he could see the relief in her face, as if a load had been lifted off her.

“When she asked you about the movie Titanic, did she say what she was trying to—” he said, and saw she wasn’t listening. She had glanced up, toward the door, and gone suddenly stock-still. He looked over at the door.

Joanna was standing in it. Richard’s heart began to beat frantically, like a trapped bird battering its wings against the bars. She wasn’t dead. It was all, all, the blood and the flatline and the White Star Line offices, a dream, it had only felt real because of elevated acetylcholine levels and temporal-lobe stimulation.

“Joanna,” he breathed, and took a step toward her.

“I’m June Wexler, Joanna Lander’s sister,” the woman at the door said, and it was like hearing the news all over again. She’s dead, he thought, and finally believed it. She’s been dead three days.

“I’m glad I found the two of you together,” Joanna’s sister said, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “I understand you both worked with Joanna. I was wondering if I could talk to you about her.”

Her voice sounded like Joanna’s, too, but somehow harsher. That’s from crying, he thought, looking at her reddened eyes, the Kleenex in her hands.

“I hadn’t talked to her in several months, and…” She dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “We always think there’ll be plenty of time, and then suddenly there isn’t any time at all… I was wondering if you knew whether she had been saved?” she said, and Richard wondered if she had somehow found out that he’d gone after her and failed.

“Saved?” Vielle said.

“Accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal savior,” Joanna’s sister said. “I’d tried several times to bring her to the Lord, but each time Satan hardened her heart against me.”

“Satan,” Vielle said.

“Yes. I tried to witness to her, to tell her of the destruction that awaits the unrepentant, of God’s judgment and the fire that shall never be quenched.” She dabbed at her eyes again.

Richard gazed at her. She didn’t look like Joanna at all. It was only a trick of hair color, of the glasses.

“I continued to pray that, in working with you,” she said to Richard, “and in speaking with people who had seen Christ face to face, she might come to believe.”

Richard realized after a moment that she was talking about near-death experiences.

“Did she?” she asked. “Tell you that she had been saved?”

“No,” Vielle snapped.

“And you’re sure she didn’t change her mind at the last minute?” She turned to Vielle. “They told me you were with her when she died. Did she say anything?”

Richard expected her to say “no” again, but instead she hesitated a fraction of a second before she said, “The knife slashed the aorta. Joanna lost consciousness almost immediately.”

“But even if it was in the last second,” Joanna’s sister said. “It’s never too late for Jesus to forgive you for your sins, even if it’s with your last breath that you beg that forgiveness. Did she?” Joanna’s sister said eagerly. “Say anything?”

“No,” Vielle said.

She’s lying, Richard thought. She did say something.

“Are you sure?” Joanna’s sister persisted. “I’ve read about near-death experiences. I know they see Jesus waiting to welcome them into heaven, and ‘they that have seen have believed.’ Surely even Joanna’s heart wasn’t so hardened that she wouldn’t repent when she saw the fate that awaited her.”

“I’m sure,” Vielle said stonily. “She didn’t say anything.”

“Then there’s no hope,” Joanna’s sister said, dabbing at her eyes, “and she is in hell.”

“Joanna?” Vielle said, outraged. “How dare you—!”

“It is not I who have condemned her, but God,” Joanna’s sister said. “For is it not written, ‘But they that do not believe shall be cast into outer darkness, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’?”

“Get out,” Vielle said.

Joanna’s sister looked at Richard, as if expecting support. He wondered how he could have ever thought she looked like Joanna. “I will pray for you both,” she said, and walked away.

“Don’t you dare,” Vielle shouted after her, and one of the police officers over by the door looked up alertly. “You arrogant, wicked, holier-than-thou—”

“What did Joanna say?” Richard cut in.

Vielle turned and looked at him, the anger dying out of her face. “Richard—”

“She did say something, didn’t she? What?”

“I can’t believe she’d come in here like that,” Vielle said. “That bitch! I’ll tell you who the Lord casts into outer darkness. So-called Christians like her.”

“What did Joanna say?”

“Joanna told me she and her sister weren’t all that close,” Vielle said, walking over to the station. “Light-