Passage

went through, and it swung shut behind him and locked?

At twenty-eight minutes and fourteen seconds, Richard said, “All right, that’s long enough,” and told Tish to administer the norepinephrine and bring him out. “One good thing,” he said, watching the scans finally shift to the non-REM and then the waking pattern. “Mr. Sage should have plenty to tell us.”

But he was as noncommunicative as ever. “It was dark…” he said, pausing forever between phrases, “and then there was a light… and then it was dark again.”

“Were you there longer this time?” Joanna asked.

“Longer?”

I honestly think he’s dimwitted, Joanna thought. “Yes,” she said patiently. “Did it feel like more time had passed?”

“When?”

“In the dark,” Joanna said, and when he looked confused, “or in the light.”

“No.”

“Were you in the same place?”

“Place?”

She tried for nearly two and a half hours to get something, anything, out of him, to no avail.

At least his account won’t take long to type up, she thought, and I can run over to Blockbuster, but when she ran the transcript up to Richard, he asked for any and all references to elapsed time in her NDE interviews and any information on the actual time, if documented, of the clinical death. That took all afternoon. Halfway through writing it up, Richard knocked on her door. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to Dish Night tonight,” he said. “I’m not done analyzing Mr. Sage’s scans, and I’ve still got the neurotransmitter analysis to go.”

“What time is it?” Joanna asked, glancing at her watch. “Oh, my gosh, it’s a quarter to six,” she said, hitting “save” and grabbing her coat. She was supposed to pick up Kit at six-thirty. And she still hadn’t gotten the videos.

“Tell Vielle I’m sorry. Maybe next time,” Richard said as she searched for her keys.

“I will,” she said and took off for Blockbuster. All right now, she told herself, skidding into the parking lot, just go in, grab a couple of movies, and go get Kit. Easier said than done. Glory was checked out, and so was Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and when she browsed the aisles, the first movie she picked up was a Woody Allen, the second starred Kevin Costner, and everything else seemed to have been made by demolitions experts.

“Are you finding everything?” a short kid in a blue-and-yellow shirt said.

No, she thought. Do you know where the Grand Staircase is? Or why I’m seeing the Titanic? “Can you suggest a good comedy?” she said.

“You bet,” he said, striding purposefully down the New Releases aisle and picking up a box with a photo of Robin Williams made up as a clown on the cover. “Die Laughing,” he said. “It’s about a man who’s dying of a heart condition.” Joanna shook her head. “Or how about this? Missing Link. It’s a comedy about a man with amnesia who doesn’t know who he is or what his name is —”

“What about Julia Roberts?” Joanna said. “Do you have anything with Julia Roberts in it?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said and walked over to the drama section. “Dying Young. Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott. It’s about a young woman who’s a caregiver for a man dying of leukemia—”

“I meant a Julia Roberts comedy,” Joanna said desperately.

He frowned. “Her new one’s all checked out. How about Runaway Bride?”

“Great,” she said, snatching the blue-and-yellow box from him, and when he started to walk away, “Nobody dies in this, do they? Or loses their memory?”

He shook his head.

“Great,” she said and began rummaging for her Blockbuster card. She knew Dish Night was supposed to be a double feature, but there was no way she could live through another round of this. One would have to do.

There was also no time. She’d promised she’d pick up Kit at six-thirty, and it was already twenty-five after. She took Runaway Bride from the outstretched hand of the short kid and ran, hoping her being late wouldn’t give Kit time to change her mind about going, but Kit met her at the door with her coat on. “Hi, come on in,” she said. “I’m almost ready to go.”

“Where are you going?” Mr. Briarley called sharply from the library.

“I’m going out, Uncle Pat,” Kit called back. “With Joanna. We’re going to watch a movie.”

“I’m sorry,” Joanna whispered. “Should I have waited for you in the car?”

Kit shook her head. “I tried sneaking out a couple of times so he wouldn’t see me leave,” she whispered back, “but it just made it worse. Come on in. I just need to tell the caregiver something. I found the answers to some of your questions.”

She led the way into the library. Mr. Briarley was sitting in his dark red leather chair, reading a book. He didn’t look up when they came in.

A gray-haired woman in a shirtwaist was sitting on the couch. She reminded Joanna of Mrs. Troudtheim. She had the same friendly, no-nonsense, “I can survive anything” manner, and she even had a tote bag full of olive- green-and-bright-purple yarn. What is it with crocheting? Joanna wondered. Do people automatically go color-blind when they learn to crochet?

“Now, you have my cell phone number,” Kit said to her. “I borrowed my cousin’s till I can get one of my own,” she explained to Joanna.

“Right here,” Mrs. Gray said, patting the breast pocket of her dress.

“Do you want Vielle’s number, too?” Joanna asked Kit, and, when she nodded, recited it to Mrs. Gray.

“And you’ll call me if there’s anything?” Kit said anxiously. “Anything at all?”

“I’ll call you,” Mrs. Gray said, pulling out her crocheting. “Now, you go have a nice time, and don’t worry. I’ve got things under control here.”

“Go?” Mr. Briarley said, shutting his book and marking the place with his thumb. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going out, Uncle Pat,” Kit said. “I’m going to watch a movie. With Joanna, Joanna Lander,” she said, presenting Joanna to him.

He gave no sign of recognition. “She was a student of yours at Dry Creek,” Kit said. “We’re going to go watch a movie.”

Joanna thought of the steward, repeatedly starting off down the deck, of the young woman in the nightgown, saying over and over again, “It’s so cold.” Was that what having Alzheimer’s was like, being trapped in a hallucination, in a dream, repeating the same lines, the same actions, over and over again? And how about Kit? She was trapped, too, in an endlessly repeating nightmare, though you couldn’t tell by the quiet, loving way she answered him, patted his arm.

“What about Kevin?” he asked. “Isn’t he going with you?”

“No, Uncle Pat.” She turned to Joanna. “Ready? Oh, wait, I had a book I wanted to show you before we go,” she said, and ran upstairs.

At the word go, Joanna looked apprehensively at Mr. Briarley, but he had returned to his book. Kit reappeared, carrying two textbooks. “I don’t think either of these is it,” she said, handing them to Joanna, “but since you’re here—”

Neither of them was it. Joanna knew as soon as she saw them. “Well, it was worth a try,” Kit said, ran them back upstairs, and came down again, cell phone in hand. “Okay. I’m ready. Good-bye, Uncle Pat.” She kissed him on the cheek.

“ ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ is not, contrary to the way it is popularly taught, a poem about similes and alliteration and onomatopoeia,” Mr. Briarley said, as if he were lecturing to her second-period class. “Neither is it about albatrosses and oddly spelled words. It is a poem about death and despair. And resurrection.” He stood up, walked to the window, and pulled the curtain aside to look out. “Where’s Kevin? He should be here by now.”

Kit went over and led him back to his chair. He sat down. “I’ll be back soon,” she said.

He looked up innocently. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going out with Joanna. We’re going to go watch a movie,” she said and held her cell phone up to show Mrs. Gray, who was contentedly crocheting. “Call me,” she said.