Passage

wouldn’t feel bad.” She looked belligerently at Joanna. “I don’t think parents should lie to their kids about dying, do you?”

“No,” Joanna said, afraid of where this was going, of what Maisie would ask next. “I don’t.”

“There was a poodle on the Lusitania,” Maisie said, and showed her a picture of it and of bodies washed onto the shore, of the Lusitania foundering helplessly in the water, smoke and fire all around.

“I’ve really got to go, Maisie,” Joanna said. “I told my friend I’d bring some cream cheese, and I’ve got to stop at the store on the way.”

“Cream cheese?” Maisie said. “I thought you said you ate popcorn.”

“We usually do,” Joanna said, wondering again what Vielle was up to and what she wanted to talk about that made it necessary for her to come early. “But this time we’re eating cream cheese, and I’ve got to go pick it up.” She started out.

“Wait!” Maisie yelped. “I have to tell you about Helen first.”

“Helen?”

“This little girl on the Lusitania,” Maisie said, and hurried on before Joanna could stop her, “she looked all over for her mom, but she couldn’t find her anywhere, so she ran up to this man, and said, ‘Please, mister, will you take me with you?’ and he said, ‘Stay right there, Helen,’ and ran to get her a lifejacket.”

And he never saw her again, Joanna thought, knowing the type of story Maisie usually told. But, surprisingly, Maisie was saying, “…and he ran back and tied the lifejacket on her and then he picked her up and took her to look for a lifeboat, but it was already going down the side.” Maisie paused dramatically. “So what do you think he did?”

He tried to save her, but he couldn’t, Joanna thought, looking at Maisie. And she drowned. “I don’t know,” Joanna said.

“He threw Helen into the boat,” Maisie said triumphantly, “and then he jumped in, too, and they both got saved.”

“I like that story,” Joanna said.

“Me, too,” Maisie said, “ ’cause he saved her. And he didn’t tell her everything would be all right.”

“Sometimes people do that because they hope things will be all right,” Joanna said, “or because they’re afraid the person will be frightened or sad if they know the truth. I think that’s probably why the parents lied to their children about Ulla, because they wanted to protect them.”

“They still shouldn’t’ve,” Maisie said, her jaw set. “People should tell you the truth, even if it’s bad. Shouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” Joanna said and waited, holding her breath for the question that was coming, but Maisie merely said, “Will you put my book away first? It goes in my duffel bag. So my room won’t be all messy.” And so your mother won’t catch you with it, Joanna thought. She took the book over to the closet, stuck it in the pink duffel bag, and handed Maisie back Peter Pan.

And just in time. Maisie’s mother appeared in the door with a huge pink teddy bear and a beaming smile. “How’s my Maisie-Daisy? Dr. Lander, doesn’t she look wonderful?” She handed Maisie the teddy bear. “So, what have you two been talking about?”

“Dogs,” Maisie said.

9

“Mildred, why aren’t my clothes laid out? I’ve got a seven o’clock call.”

—Last words of Bert Lahr

It was six forty-five before Joanna made it to Vielle’s. “What happened to you?” Vielle said. “I said six- thirty.”

“I got caught by Maisie. And her mother,” Joanna said, taking off her coat. “She wanted to tell me how well Maisie’s doing.”

“And is she?”

“No.”

Vielle nodded. “Barbara told me they put her on the transplant list. It’s too bad. She’s a great kid.”

“She is,” Joanna said and took her coat into the bedroom.

“Did you bring the cream cheese?” Vielle called from the kitchen.

Joanna brought it in to her. “What are you making?”

“This luscious dip,” Vielle said, leaning over a cookbook with a knife in her hand. “It’s got deviled ham in it. And chiles.” She glanced at the clock. “Listen, the reason I wanted you to come over early was so we’d have a chance to talk before Dr. Wright gets here. So how are you two getting along?”

“You invited Richard to Dish Night?” Joanna said. “No wonder he looked at me funny when I told him I’d see him tomorrow.”

“Richard, huh? So you two are on a first-name basis already?”

“We’re not—” A thought struck her. “That’s what you called from the ER about, wasn’t it? And why you were acting so peculiar.”

“I called to tell you I couldn’t find any movies that didn’t have death in them and did you have any suggestions,” Vielle said, opening the refrigerator and getting out a bunch of green onions, “and you weren’t there, so I told him some of us were getting together for munchies and a movie and did he want to drop by.”

“Some of us!” Joanna said. “And when he gets here, and it’s you and me, you don’t think he’ll realize you’ve been matchmaking? Or were you planning to hand me the deviled ham dip and duck out the back door? I can’t believe you did this.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“I hardly know him. We only started working together two days ago.”

Vielle shook the bunch of onions at her. “And you’ll never get a chance to know him once the nurses of Mercy General get their claws into him. Do you know who asked me if he was single this afternoon? Tish Vanderbeck. You don’t see her waiting around because she ‘hardly knows him.’ If you don’t watch it, you’ll get stuck with somebody like Harvey.”

“Harvey? Who’s Harvey?”

“The driver for Fairhill Mortuaries. He asks me out every time he comes to pick up a body.”

“Is he nice?”

“He tells me embalming stories. Did you know they really like carbon monoxide poisoning over at Fairhill because it turns the corpses a pretty rose-pink, in contrast to the usual gray? He imparted that little gem Tuesday and then asked me out for sushi.”

Tuesday. The day Greg Menotti died. She wondered if his was the body Harvey had picked up. “Did you find out if there was a fifty-eight in Greg Menotti’s health insurance number?”

“Greg Menotti?” Vielle said as if she’d never heard the name before, and then, “Oh, right. Yes, I checked. No fifty-eights. I checked his address, office, home and cell phone numbers, health insurance number—”

“His Social Security number?” Joanna asked.

She nodded. “His license number was on the paramedic’s report. I checked that, too. Ditto his girlfriend’s address and phone numbers. Nothing.” She bent over to get a cutting board out of the cupboard. “Like I told you, people in extremis say things that don’t make any sense. I had a guy who kept calling, ‘Lucille,’ and we all thought it was his wife. Turns out it was his dog.”

“Then it did mean something,” Joanna said.

“That one did, but a lot of them don’t. A head trauma last week kept saying, ‘camel,’ which obviously wasn’t