'It's not that she can't use it, Shay,' I said quietly. 'It's that she doesn't want to.'
'I did everything you wanted!' Shay cried. 'I did what you asked!'
'I know,' I said. 'But again, this doesn't have to be the end. We can try to see what evidence still exists from the crime scene and-'
'I wasn't talking to you,' Shay said. 'And I don't want you to do anything for me. I don't want that evidence reviewed. How many times do I have to tell you?'
I nodded. 'I'm sorry It's just... hard for me to be riding on the coattails of your death wish.'
Shay glanced at me. 'No one asked you to,' he said flatly.
He was right, wasn't he? Shay didn't ask me to take on his case; I'd swooped down like an avenging angel and convinced him that what I wanted to do could somehow help him do what he wanted to do. And I'd been right-I'd raised the profile of the nature of death penalty cases; I'd secured his right to be hanged. I just hadn't realized that winning would feel, well, quite so much like losing.
'The judge... he's made it possible for you to donate your organs... afterward. And even if Claire Nealon doesn't want them, there are thousands of people in this country who do.'
Shay sank onto the bunk. 'Just give it all away,' he murmured. 'It doesn't matter anymore.'
'I'm sorry, Shay. I wish I knew why she changed her mind.'
He closed his eyes. 'I wish you knew how to change it back.'
M I CHAEL
Priests get used to the business of death, but that doesn't make it any easier. Even now that the judge had ruled in favor of a hanging, that still meant there was a will to be written. A body to be disposed of.
As I stood in the prison waiting room, handing over my license so that I could visit Shay, I listened to the commotion outside. This was nothing new; the mob would grow at leaps and bounds through the date of Shay's execution. 'You don't understand,' a woman was pleading.
'I have to see him.'
'Take a number, sweetheart,' the officer said.
I looked out the open window, trying to see the woman's face. It was obscured by a black scarf; her dress reached from ankle to wrist. I burst through the front door and stood behind the line of correctional officers. 'Grace?'
She looked up, tears in her eyes. 'They won't let me in. I have to see him.'
I reached over the human barrier of guards and pulled her forward.
'She's with me.'
'She's not on Bourne's visitor list.'
'That's because,' I said, 'we're going to see the warden.'
I had no idea how to get someone who had not had a background check done into the prison, but I figured that rules would be relaxed for a death row prisoner. And if they weren't, I was willing to say what I had to to convince the warden.
In the end. Warden Coyne was more amenable than I expected. He looked at Grace's driver's license, made a call to the state's attorney's office, and then offered me a deal. I couldn't take Grace into the tier, but he was willing to bring Shay out to an attorney-client conference room, as long as he remained handcuffed. I'm not going to let you do this again,' he warned, but that hardly mattered. We both knew that
Shay didn't have time for that.
Grace's hands shook as she emptied her pockets to go through the metal detector. We followed the officer to the conference room in silence, but as soon as the door was closed and we were left alone, she started to speak. 'I wanted to come to the courthouse,' Grace said. 'I even drove there. I just couldn't get out of the car.' She faced me. 'What if he doesn't want to see me?'
'I don't know what frame of mind he'll be in,' I said honestly. 'He won his trial, but the mother of the heart recipient doesn't want him to be the donor anymore. I'm not sure if his attorney's told him that yet. If he refuses to see you, that might be why.'
Only a few minutes passed before two officers brought Shay into the room. He looked hopeful, his fists clenched tight. He saw my face, and then turned-expecting Maggie, most likely. He'd probably been told there were two visitors, and figured one of us had managed to change June's mind.
As he saw his sister, however, he froze. 'Gracie? Is that you?'
She took a step forward. 'Shay. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.'
'Don't cry,' he whispered. He went to lift his hand to touch her, but he was handcuffed, and instead just shook his head. 'You grew up.'
'The last time I saw you I was only fifteen.'
He smiled ruefully. 'Yeah. I was fresh out of juvy jail, and you wanted nothing to do with your loser brother. I think your exact words were 'Get the hell away from me.' '
'That's because I didn't-I hadn't-' She was sobbing hard now. 'I don't want you to die.'
'I have to, Grace, to make things right... I'm okay with that.'
'Well, I'm not.' She looked up at him. 'I want to tell someone.
Shay.'
He stared at her for a long moment. 'All right,' Shay said. 'But only one person, and I get to pick. And,' he added, 'I get to do this.' He reached for the tail of the veil wrapped around her face, which was level with his bound hands. Tugging, he unraveled it, until it fluttered to the ground between them.
Grace brought her hands up to cover her face. But Shay reached up as far as he could in his chains until Grace threaded her fingers with his. Her skin was pocked and puckered, a whirlpool in some places, too tight in others, a relief map of the topology of regret.
Shay ran his thumb over the spot where her eyebrow should have been, where her lip twisted, as if he could repaint her. The look on his face was so honest, so replete, that I felt like I was intruding. I had seen it before-I just couldn't place it.
And then it came to me. A Madonna. Shay was staring at his sister the same way Mary looked at Jesus in all the paintings, all the sculptures-a relationship carved out of not what they had, but what they'd been destined to lose.
June
I had never seen the woman who came into Claire's hospital room, but I'd never forget her. Her face was horribly disfigured-the kind that you're always telling your kids not to stare at in the grocery store, and yet, when push came to shove, you found yourself doing that very thing.
'I'm sorry,' I said quietly, standing up from the chair I'd pulled beside Claire's bed. 'I think you must have the wrong room.' Now that I had agreed to Claire's wishes and given up the heart-now that she was dying by degrees-I kept a vigil, 2 4 / 7. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, because years from now, I knew I would miss those minutes.
'You're June Nealon?' the woman asked, and when I nodded, she took a step forward. 'My name is Grace. I'm Shay Bourne's sister.'
You know how when you're driving and skid on ice, or just avoid hitting the deer, you find yourself with your heart racing and your hands shaking and your blood gone to ice? That's what
Grace's words did to me. 'Get out,' I said, my jaw clenched.
'Please. Just hear me out. I want to tell you why I... why I look this way.'
I glanced down at Claire, but who was I kidding? We could scream at the top of our lungs and not disturb her; she was in a medically induced haze. 'What makes you think I want to listen?'
She continued, as if I hadn't spoken at all. 'When I was thir teen, I was in a fire. So was my whole foster family. My foster father, he died.' She took a step forward. 'I ran in to try to get my foster father out. Shay was the one who came to save me.'
'Sorry, but I can't quite think of your brother as a hero.'
'When the police came, Shay told them he'd set the fire,'
