Passage

nurses write down what Mr. Aspinall says.”

“I’ll leave a note for her,” the nurse said, grabbing a pad of Post-it notes. “Still interested… nurses… write down…” she said, writing, and looked up. “Are you sure you mean Mr. Aspinall? He—”

“Yes, I’m aware he’s in a coma,” Joanna said. “Guadalupe will know what the message means.”

She watched the nurse finish writing the message and stick it in Guadalupe’s box and then went down to Coma Carl’s room. His wife was sitting next to his bed, reading aloud from a paperback. “ ‘ “We got him now,” Buck drawled, reining in his horse,’ ” she read. “ ‘ “He can’t get through thataway. Even an Apache tracker’d get lost in among them canyons.” ’ ”

Joanna looked at Carl. In the week since she’d seen him he’d clearly gone downhill. His chest and his face both looked more sunken than before, and grayer. The number of bags on his IV stand had multiplied, and so had the number of monitors.

“Dr. Lander!” Mrs. Aspinall said, surprised and pleased. She closed the book.

“I just thought I’d stop in for a moment and see how Mr. Aspinall was doing,” Joanna said.

“He’s holding his own,” Mrs. Aspinall said, and Joanna wondered if she was as much in denial as Maisie’s mother, but it was obvious from looking at her that she wasn’t. She’d lost weight, too, and strain was apparent in her face. “Carl?” Mrs. Aspinall said, leaning forward to touch his arm. “Carl, Dr. Lander’s here to see you.”

“Hello, Carl,” Joanna said.

Mrs. Aspinall laid the book, which had a picture of a galloping horse and rider on the cover, on the nightstand. “I’ve been reading aloud to Carl,” she said. “The nurses say he can hear my voice. Do you think that’s true?”

No, Joanna thought, remembering the silence of the Boat Deck, the darkness beyond the railing. Even if Tish had taken the headphones off and Richard had shouted in her ear, she couldn’t have heard them.

“Sometimes I think he does hear me,” Mrs. Aspinall said, “but other times he seems so… Still, it can’t hurt,” she said, smiling up at Joanna.

“And it may help,” Joanna said. “Some patients have reported being aware of the presence of their loved ones while they were in a coma.”

“I hope so.” Mrs. Aspinall clasped his unresisting hand. “I hope he knows I’m here, and that I’d do anything for him,” she said fiercely, “anything.”

Joanna thought of Maisie. “I know,” she said, and Mrs. Aspinall looked embarrassed, as if she had forgotten Joanna was there.

“It’s so kind of you to come see Carl,” she said and picked up the book again.

“It was nice to see you, Mrs. Aspinall,” Joanna said, and, even though she was convinced he was somewhere he couldn’t hear her, “You hang in there, Carl.”

She went back up to her office, also using the back way and opening the door of the stairway a crack before she came out. Mr. Mandrake wasn’t there, but he’d left three more messages on her answering machine. There was also one from Mrs. Troudtheim saying she wasn’t getting the flu after all and when did they want her to come in, but none from Kit.

She’d been half-hoping she’d hear from her, though she’d said tonight, and if there had been a message from her, it would most likely have been her canceling because Mr. Briarley was having a bad day. But she’d hoped Kit would call and say, “The Titanic contacted the Baltic and the Frankfurt,” or “The dining saloon had pink lamps and a rose carpet,” so she could convince Richard it was the Titanic, and not an amalgam.

Because it was. It wasn’t just an assortment of ship-related images dredged up out of long-term memory. There was a reason it was the Titanic. Mr. Briarley had slapped the book shut and dropped it on the desk and said… Joanna stared at the answering machine, trying to remember. It was foggy out, she thought, and had a sudden image of a snowy, sunny day, the light from the icicles flashing, glittering…

You’re confabulating, she told herself sternly. Maybe she should take a different tack, not try to remember that particular incident, but what she knew about the Titanic, and maybe that would trigger the memory.

All right. She knew about the ship going full speed ahead, even though there had been dozens of ice messages, and about the men calmly playing bridge in the first-class smoking room after the boats had gone, about Mrs. Straus, who’d refused to leave her husband, and Benjamin Guggenheim, who’d gone below and put on tails and a white waistcoat. “We’ve dressed in our best,” he’d said, “and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.” And about the Californian, who hadn’t seen the Morse-lamp messages the Titanic was sending, hadn’t understood that the rockets it saw were distress signals—

“Dr. Lander?” Tish said, knocking on the door. “Dr. Wright said to tell you he’s ready to begin the session.”

“He is?” Joanna said, glancing at her watch. Good God, it was nearly ten.

“Sorry,” she said, “be right there,” and scrambled to collect her minirecorder, a new tape, and her notebook. “Is Mr. Sage here?”

“Yes,” Tish said. “Talkative, as usual.”

Joanna grinned, shut the door, and locked it, just in case Mr. Mandrake came snooping around. They started back toward the lab.

“But at least Mr. Sage doesn’t have his head in RIPT scans like some people I could name,” Tish said sarcastically, “and he actually listens to you when you talk to him. The reason I came to get you,” she said, leaning confidentially toward Joanna, “was to tell you I’ve given up on Dr. Wright. He’s all yours.”

“He doesn’t listen to me either,” Joanna said, thinking of their conversation at Taco Pierre’s.

“That’s because he spends all his time thinking about NDEs. And I mean all his time. Do you know what he said when I told him I’d rented that Tommy Lee Jones movie that we’d talked about?”

That you talked about, Joanna thought.

“And that I’d bought steaks and made a salad? He said he can’t, that he’s busy tonight. Probably staring at his scans.”

This is probably not a good time to tell her about Dish Night, Joanna thought.

“He’s completely obsessed with those scans. If he doesn’t watch it, he’ll start believing NDEs are real, like Mr. Mandrake.”

“Somehow I can’t see that happening,” Joanna said and went in the lab.

Richard was at the console, staring at the scans, his hand up to his chin. “See?” Tish mouthed to Joanna.

Joanna went over to the examining table, where Mr. Sage was sitting, his hospital gown on. “Good morning, Mr. Sage,” she said. “How are you this morning?”

Mr. Sage thought about it a good forty seconds. “Okay,” he said. Tish gave Joanna a significant look.

At least his account won’t take long to record, Joanna thought, watching Tish prep Mr. Sage. Ten minutes for the session and another fifteen to pry out of him the fact that it was dark.

She was wrong. After two minutes and forty seconds in non-REM sleep, he went into the NDE-state. And stayed there.

After ten minutes, Richard asked, “How long was he under last time?”

“Two minutes, nineteen seconds,” Joanna said.

“Tish, how do his vitals look?”

“Fine,” Tish said. “Pulse 65, BP 110 over 70.”

A minute later, Richard asked, “What about his vitals now?”

“The same,” Tish said. “Pulse 65, BP 110 over 70. Is he in non-REM sleep?”

“No,” Richard said, sounding bemused. “He’s still in the NDE-state. Let’s stop the dithetamine.”

Tish did, but it didn’t change anything. Ten minutes later, Mr. Sage was still in the NDE-state. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Richard said. “His EKG’s fine, his vitals are fine, and the scan patterns aren’t showing any abnormalities. He’s just having a long NDE.”

Joanna looked down at Mr. Sage. What if he can’t find the passage, or the tunnel, or the whatever it is where he is, back? she thought. What if he forgot to wedge his tennis shoe in whatever door or gate or barrier he