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 CHANGE

 Of

 HEART

 A NOVEL

 Jodi Picoult

 

 ALSO BY JODl PICOU LT

 Nineteen Minutes

 The Tenth Circle

 Vanishing Acts

 My Sister’s Keeper

 Second Glance

 Perfect Match

 Salem Fal s

 Plain Truth

 Keeping Faith

 The Pact

 Mercy

 Picture Perfect

 Harvesting the Heart

 Songs of the Humpback Whale

 ATRIA BOOKS

 NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY

 A T R I A BOOKS

 A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 1230 Avenue of the Americas

 New York, NY 10020

 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,

 and incidents either are products of the author’s

 imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

 actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is

 entirely coincidental.

 Copyright © 2008 by Jodi Picoult

 Al rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this

 book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For

 information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights

 Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

 10020

 First Atria Books hardcover edition March 2008

 ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of

 Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,

 please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-

 456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com.

 Designed by Jaime Putorti

 Manufactured in the United States of America 1 0 9 8 7 6 5

 4 3 2 1

 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 Picoult, Jodi, 1966-Change of heart: a novel / by Jodi

 Picoult.—1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

 p. cm.

 1. Murderers—Fiction. 2. Transplantation of organs,

 tissues, etc.—Fiction. 3.

 Repentance—Fiction. I. Title.

 PS3566.I372C472008

 813’.54—dc22 2007035721

 ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9674-2

 ISBN-10: 0-7434-9674-4

 

 With love, and too much admiration to fit on these pages To

 my grandfather, Hal Friend, who has

 always been brave enough to question what we believe…

 And to my grandmother, Bess Friend,

 who has never stopped believing in me.

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 Writing this book was its own form of miracle; it’s very hard

 to write about religion responsibly, and that means taking

 the time to find the right people to answer your questions.

 For their time and their knowledge, I must thank Lori

 Thompson, Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, Father Peter Duganscik,

 Jon Saltzman, Katie Desmond, Claire Demarais, and

 Pastor Ted Brayman. Marjorie Rose and Joan Col ison

 were wil ing to theorize about religion whenever I brought it

 up. Elaine Pagels is a bril iant author herself and one of the

 smartest women I’ve ever spoken with—I chased her down

 and begged her for a private tutorial on the Gnostic

 Gospels, one of her academic specialties, and would hang

 up the phone after each conversation with my mind buzzing

 and a thousand more questions to explore—surely

 something the Gnostics would have heartily endorsed.

 Jennifer Sternick is stil the attorney I’d want fighting for me,

 no matter what, Chris Keating provides legal information for

 me at blistering speed, and Chris Johnson’s expertise on

 the appeals process for death penalty cases was

 invaluable.

 Thanks to the medical team that didn’t mind when I asked

 how to kil someone, instead of how to save them—among

 other things: Dr. Paul Kispert, Dr. Elizabeth Martin, Dr.

 David Axelrod, Dr. Vijay Thadani, Dr. Jeffrey Parsonnet, Dr.

 Mary Kay Wolfson, Barb Danson, James Belanger.

 Jacquelyn Mitchard isn’t a doc, but a wonderful writer who

 gave me the nuts and bolts of LD kids.

 And a special thank-you to Dr. Jenna Hirsch, who was so

 generous with her knowledge of cardiac surgery.

 Thanks to Sindy Buzzel , and Kurt Feuer, for their individual

 expertise. Getting to death row was a significant chal enge.

 My New Hampshire law enforcement contacts included

 Police Chief Nick Giaccone, Captain Frank Moran, Kim

 Lacasse, Unit Manager Tim Moquin, Lieutenant Chris

 Shaw, and Jeff Lyons, PIO of the New Hampshire State

 Prison. For finessing my trip to the Arizona State Prison

 Florence, thanks to Sergeant Janice Mal aburn, Deputy

 Warden Steve Gal, CO I Dwight Gaines, and Judy Frigo

 (former warden). Thanks also to Rachel Gross and Dale

 Baich. However, this book would not be what it was without

 the prisoners who opened up to me both in person and via

 mail: Robert Purtel , a former death row inmate; Samuel

 Randolph, currently on death row in Pennsylvania; and

 Robert Towery, currently on death row in Arizona.

 Thanks to my dream team at Atria: Carolyn Reidy, Judith

 Curr, David Brown, Daniel e Lynn, Mel ony Torres, Kathleen

 Schmidt, Sarah Branham, Laura Stern, Gary Urda, Lisa

 Keim, Christine Duplessis, and everyone else who has

 worked so hard on my behalf. Thanks to Camil e McDuffie

 —who was so determined to make people stop asking

 “Jodi Who?” and who exceeded my expectations beyond

 my wildest dreams. To my favorite first reader, Jane

 Picoult, who I was fortunate enough to get as a mom. To

 Laura Gross, without whom I’d be completely adrift. To

 Emily Bestler, who is just so damn good at making me look

 bril iant.

 And of course, thanks to Kyle, Jake, Sammy—who keep

 me asking the questions that might make the world a better

 place—and Tim, who makes it possible for me to do that. It

 just doesn’t get better than al of you, al of this.

 

 Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t

 believe impossible things.”

 “I dare say you haven’t had as much practice,” said the

 Queen. “When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day.

 Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible

 things before breakfast.”

 —Lewis Carrol , Through the Looking-Glass

 CHANGE

 of HEART

 

 PROLOGUE: 1996

 June

 In the beginning, I believed in second chances. How else

 could I account for the fact that years ago, right after the

 accident—when the smoke cleared and the car had

 stopped tumbling end over end to rest upside down in a

 ditch—I was stil alive; I could hear Elizabeth, my little girl,

 crying? The police officer who had pul ed me out of the car

 rode with me to the hospital to have my broken leg set, with

 Elizabeth—completely unhurt, a miracle—sitting on his lap

 the whole time. He’d held my hand when I was taken to

 identify my husband Jack’s body. He came to the funeral.

 He showed up at my door to personal y inform me when the

 drunk driver who ran us off the road was arrested.

 The policeman’s name was Kurt Nealon. Long after the trial

 and the conviction, he kept coming around just to make

 sure that Elizabeth and I were al right. He brought toys for

 her birthday and Christmas. He fixed the clogged drain in

 the upstairs bathroom.

 He came over after he was off duty to mow the savannah

 that had once been our lawn.

 I had married Jack because he was the love of my life; I had

 planned to be with him forever. But that was before the

 definition of forever was changed by a man with a blood

 alcohol level of .22.

 I was surprised that Kurt seemed to understand that you

 might never love someone as hard as you had the first time

 you’d fal en; I was even more surprised to learn that maybe

 you could.

 Five years later, when Kurt and I found out we were going to

 have a baby, I almost regretted it—the same way you stand

 beneath a perfect blue sky on the most glorious day of the

 summer and admit to yourself that al moments from here

 on in couldn’t possibly measure up. Elizabeth had been two

 when Jack died; Kurt was the only father she’d ever known.

 They had a connection so special it sometimes made me

 feel I should turn away, that I was intruding.

 If Elizabeth was the princess, then Kurt was her knight.

 The imminent arrival of this little sister (how strange is it that

 none of us ever imagined the new baby could be anything

 but a girl?) energized Kurt and Elizabeth to fever pitch.

 Elizabeth drew elaborate sketches of what the baby’s room

 should look like.

 Kurt hired a contractor to build the addition. But then the

 builder’s mother had a stroke and he had to move

 unexpectedly to Florida; none of the other crews had time

 to fit our job into their schedules before the baby’s birth. We

 had a hole in our wal and rain leaking through the attic

 ceiling; mildew grew on the soles of our shoes.

 When I was seven months pregnant, I came downstairs to

 find Elizabeth playing in a pile of leaves that had blown past

 the plastic sheeting into the living room. I was deciding

 between crying and raking my carpet when the doorbel

 rang.

 He was holding a canvas rol that contained his tools,

 something that never left his possession, like another man

 might tote around his wal et. His hair brushed his shoulders

 and was knotted.

 His clothes were filthy and he smel ed of snow—although it

 wasn’t the right season. Shay Bourne arrived, unexpected,

 like a flyer from a summer carnival that blusters in on a

 winter wind, making you wonder just where it’s been hiding

 al this time.

 He had trouble speaking—the words tangled, and he had

 to stop and unravel them before he could say what he

 needed to say.

 “I want to … ” he began, and then started over: “Do you, is

 there, because … ” The effort made a fine sweat break out

 on his forehead.

 “Is there anything I can do?” he final y managed, as

 Elizabeth came running toward the front door.

 You can leave, I thought. I started to close the door,

 instinctively protecting my daughter. “I don’t think so …”

 Elizabeth slipped her hand into mine and blinked up at him.

 “There’s a lot that needs to be fixed,” she said.

 He got down to his knees then and spoke to my daughter

 easily—words that had been ful of angles and edges for

 him a minute before now flowed like a waterfal . “I can help,”

 he replied.

 Kurt was always saying people are never who you think

 they are, that it was necessary to get a complete

 background check on a person before you made any

 promises. I’d tel him he was being too suspicious, too

 much the cop. After al , I had let Kurt himself into my life

 simply because he had kind eyes and a good heart, and

 even he couldn’t argue with the results.

 “What’s your name?” I asked.

 “Shay. Shay Bourne.”

 “You’re hired, Mr. Bourne,” I said, the beginning of the end.

 

 S E V E N M O N T H S L A T ER

 M I C HAEL

 Shay Bourne was nothing like I expected.

 I had prepared myself for a hulking brute of a man, one with

 hammy fists and no neck and eyes narrowed into slits. This

 was, after al , the crime of the century—a double murder

 that had captured the attention of people from Nashua to

 Dixvil e Notch; a crime that seemed al the worse because

 of its victims: a little girl, and a police officer who happened

 to be her stepfather. It was the kind of crime that made you

 wonder if you were safe in your own house, if the people

 you trusted could turn on you at any moment—and maybe

 because of this. New Hampshire prosecutors sought the

 death penalty for the first time in fiftyeight years.

 Given the media blitz, there was talk of whether twelve

 jurors who hadn’t formed a reaction to this crime could even

 be found, but they managed to locate us. They unearthed

 me in a study carrel at UNH, where I was writing a senior

 honors thesis in mathematics. I hadn’t had a decent meal in

 a month, much less read a newspaper—and so I was the

 perfect candidate for Shay Bourne’s capital murder case.

 The first time we filed out of our holding pen—a smal room

 in the superior courthouse that would begin to feel as

 familiar as my apartment—I thought maybe some bailiff had

 let us into the wrong courtroom. This defendant was smal

 and delicately proportioned—the kind of guy who grew up

 being the punch line to high school jokes.

 He wore a tweed jacket that swal owed him whole, and the

 knot of his necktie squared away from him at the

 perpendicular, as if it were being magnetical y repel ed. His

 cuffed hands curled in his lap like smal animals; his hair

 was shaved nearly to the skul . He stared down at his lap,

 even when the judge spoke his name and it hissed through

 the room like steam from a radiator.

 The judge and the lawyers were taking care of

 housekeeping details when the fly came in. I noticed this for

 two reasons: in March, you don’t see many flies in New

 Hampshire, and I wondered how you went about swatting

 one away from you when you were handcuffed and chained

 at the waist. Shay Bourne stared at the insect when it

 paused on the legal pad in front of him, and then in a jangle

 of metal, he raised his bound hands and crashed them

 down on the table to kil it.

 Or so I thought, until he turned his palms upward, his fingers

 opened one petal at a time, and the insect went zipping off

 to bother someone else.

 In that instant, he glanced at me, and I realized two things:

 1. He was terrified.

 2. He was approximately the same age that I was.

 This double murderer, this monster, looked like the water

 polo team captain who had sat next to me in an economics

 seminar last semester. He resembled the deliveryman from

 the pizza place that had a thin crust, the kind I liked. He

 even reminded me of the boy I’d seen walking in the snow

 on my way to court, the one I’d rol ed down my window for

 and asked if he wanted a ride. In other words, he didn’t look

 the way I figured a kil er would look, if I ever ran across one.

 He could have been any other kid in his twenties. He could

 have been me.

 Except for the fact that he was ten feet away, chained at the

 wrists and ankles. And it was my job to decide whether or

 not he deserved to live.

 *

 A month later, I could tel you that serving on a jury is nothing

 like you see on TV. There was a lot of being paraded back

 and forth between the courtroom and the jury room; there

 was bad food from a local deli for lunch; there were lawyers

 who liked to hear themselves talk, and trust me, the DAs

 were never as hot as the girl on Law & Order: SVU.

 Even after four weeks, coming into this courtroom felt like

 landing in a foreign country without a guidebook … and yet,

 I couldn’t plead ignorant just because I was a tourist. I was

 expected to speak the language fluently.

 Part one of the trial was finished: we had convicted Bourne.

 The prosecution presented a mountain of evidence proving

 Kurt Nealon had been shot in the line of duty, attempting to

 arrest Shay Bourne after he’d found him with his

 stepdaughter, her underwear in Bourne’s pocket. June

 Nealon had come home from her OB appointment to find

 her husband and daughter dead. The feeble argument

 offered up by the defense—that Kurt had misunderstood a

 verbal y paralyzed Bourne; that the gun had gone off by

 accident—didn’t hold a candle to the overwhelming

 evidence presented by the prosecution. Even worse.

 Bourne never took the stand on his own behalf—which

 could have been because of his poor language skil s … or

 because he was not only guilty as sin but such a wild card

 that his own attorneys didn’t trust him.

 We were now nearly finished with part two of the trial—the

 sentencing phase—or in other words, the part that

 separated this trial from every other criminal murder trial for

 the past half century in New Hampshire. Now that we knew

 Bourne had committed the crime, did he deserve the death

 penalty?

 This part was a little like a Reader’s Digest condensed

 version of the first one. The prosecution gave a recap of

 evidence presented during the criminal trial; and then the

 defense got a chance to garner sympathy for a murderer.

 We learned that Bourne had been bounced around the

 foster care system. That when he was sixteen, he set a fire

 in his foster home and spent two years in a juvenile

 detention facility.

 He had untreated bipolar disorder, central auditory

 processing disorder, an inability to deal with sensory

 overload, and difficulties with reading, writing, and

 language skil s.

 We heard al this from witnesses, though. Once again. Shay

 Bourne never took the stand to beg us for mercy.

 Now, during closing arguments, I watched the prosecutor

 smooth down his striped tie and walk forward. One big

 difference between a regular trial and the sentencing phase

 of a capital punishment trial is who gets the last word in

 edgewise. I didn’t know this myself, but Maureen—a real y

 sweet older juror I was crushing on, in a wish-youwere-my-

 grandma kind of way—didn’t miss a single Law & Order

 episode, and had practical y earned her JD via

 Barcalounger as a result. In most trials, when it was time for

 closing arguments, the prosecution spoke last… so that

 whatever they said was stil buzzing in your head when you

 went back to the jury room to deliberate. In a capital

 punishment sentencing phase, though, the prosecution

 went first, and then the defense got that final chance to

 change your mind.

 Because, after al , it real y was a matter of life or death.

 He stopped in front of the jury box. “It’s been fiftyeight years

 in the history of the state of New Hampshire since a

 member of my office has had to ask a jury to make a

 decision as difficult and as serious as the one you twelve

 citizens are going to have to make. This is not a decision

 that any of us takes lightly, but it is a decision that the facts

 in this case merit, and it is a decision that must be made in

 order to do justice to the memories of Kurt Nealon and

 Elizabeth Nealon, whose lives were taken in such a tragic

 and despicable manner.”

 He took a huge, eleven-by-fourteen photo of Elizabeth

 Nealon and held it up right in front of me. Elizabeth had

 been one of those little girls who seem to be made out of

 something lighter than flesh, with their fil y legs and their

 moonlight hair; the ones you think would float off the jungle

 gym if not for the weight of their sneakers. But this photo

 had been taken after she was shot. Blood splattered her

 face and matted her hair; her eyes were stil wide open. Her

 dress, hiked up when she had fal en, showed that she was

 naked from the waist down. “Elizabeth Nealon wil never

 learn how to do long division, or how to ride a horse, or do

 a back handspring. She’l never go to sleepaway camp or

 her junior prom or high school graduation. She’l never try

 on her first pair of high heels or experience her first kiss.

 She’l never bring a boy home to meet her mother; she’l

 never be walked down a wedding aisle by her stepfather;

 she’l never get to know her sister, Claire. She wil miss al

 of these moments, and a thousand more—not because of a

 tragedy like a car accident or childhood leukemia—but

 because Shay Bourne made the decision that she didn’t

 deserve any of these things.”

 He then took another photo out from behind Elizabeth’s and

 held it up. Kurt Nealon had been shot in the stomach. His

 blue uniform shirt was purpled with his blood, and

 Elizabeth’s. During the trial we’d heard that when the

 paramedics reached him, he wouldn’t let go of Elizabeth,

 even as he was bleeding out. “Shay Bourne didn’t stop at

 ending Elizabeth’s life. He took Kurt Nealon’s life, as wel .

 And he didn’t just take away Claire’s father and June’s

 husband—he took away Officer Kurt Nealon of the Lynley

 Police. He took away the coach of the Grafton County

 championship Little League team. He took away the

 founder of Bike Safety Day at Lynley Elementary School.

 Shay Bourne took away a public servant who, at the time of

 his death, was not just protecting his daughter… but

 protecting a citizen, and a community. A community that

 includes each and every one of you.”

 The prosecutor placed the photos facedown on the table.

 “There’s a reason that New Hampshire hasn’t used the

 death penalty for fiftyeight years, ladies and gentlemen.

 That’s because, in spite of the many cases that come

 through our doors, we hadn’t seen one that merited that

 sentence. However, by the same token, there’s a reason

 why the good people of this state have reserved the option

 to use the death penalty … instead of overturning the

 capital punishment statC

 ute, as so many other states have done. And that reason is

 sitting in this courtroom today.”

 My gaze fol owed the prosecutor’s, coming to rest on Shay

 Bourne.

 “If any case in the past fiftyeight years has ever cried out for

 the ultimate punishment to be imposed,” the attorney said,

 “this is it.”

 Col ege is a bubble. You enter it for four years and forget

 there is a real world outside of your paper deadlines and

 midterm exams and beerpong championships. You don’t

 read the newspaper—you read textbooks.

 You don’t watch the news—you watch Letterman. But even

 so, bits and snatches of the universe manage to leak in: a

 mother who locked her children in a car and let it rol into a

 lake to drown them; an estranged husband who shot his

 wife in front of their kids; a serial rapist who kept a

 teenager tied up in a basement for a month before he slit

 her throat. The murders of Kurt and Elizabeth Nealon were

 horrible, sure—but were the others any less horrible?

 Shay Bourne’s attorney stood up. “You’ve found my client

 guilty of two counts of capital murder, and he’s not

 contesting that. We accept your verdict; we respect your

 verdict. At this point in time, however, the state is asking

 you to wrap up this case—one that involves the death of

 two people—by taking the life of a third person.”

 I felt a bead of sweat run down the val ey between my

 shoulder blades.

 “You’re not going to make anyone safer by kil ing Shay

 Bourne.

 Even if you decide not to execute him, he’s not going

 anywhere. He’l be serving two life sentences without

 parole.” He put his hand on Bourne’s shoulder. “You’ve

 heard about Shay Bourne’s childhood.

 Where was he supposed to learn what al the rest of you

 had a chance to learn from your families? Where was he

 supposed to learn right from wrong, good from bad? For

 that matter, where was he even supposed to learn his

 colors and his numbers? Who was supposed to read him

 bedtime stories, like Elizabeth Nealon’s parents had?”

 The attorney walked toward us. “You’ve heard that Shay

 Bourne has bipolar disorder, which was going untreated.

 You heard that he suffers from learning disabilities, so

 tasks that are simple for us become unbelievably frustrating

 for him. You’ve heard how hard it is for him to communicate

 his thoughts. These al contributed to Shay making poor

 choices—which you agreed with, beyond a reasonable

 doubt.” He looked at each of us in turn. “Shay Bourne made

 poor choices,” the attorney said. “But don’t compound that

 by making one of your own.”

 

 June

 It was up to the jury. Again.

 It’s a strange thing, putting justice in the hands of twelve

 strangers.

 I had spent most of the sentencing phase of the trial

 watching their faces. There were a few mothers; I would

 catch their eye and smile at them when I could. A few men

 who looked like maybe they’d been in the military. And the

 boy, the one who barely looked old enough to shave, much

 less make the right decision.

 I wanted to sit down with each and every one of them. I

 wanted to show them the note Kurt had written me after our

 first official date. I wanted them to touch the soft cotton cap

 that Elizabeth had worn home from the hospital as a

 newborn. I wanted to play them the answering machine

 message that stil had their voices on it, the one I couldn’t

 bear to erase, even though it felt like I was being cut to

 ribbons every time I heard it. I wanted to take them on a

 field trip to see Elizabeth’s bedroom, with its Tinker Bel

 night-light and dress-up clothes; I wanted them to bury their

 faces in Kurt’s pil ow, breathe him in. I wanted them to live

 my life, because that was the only way they’d real y know

 what had been lost.

 That night after the closing arguments, I nursed Claire in the

 middle of the night and then fel asleep with her in my arms.

 But I dreamed that she was upstairs, distant, and crying. I

 climbed the stairs to the nursery, the one that stil smel ed of

 virgin wood and drying paint, and opened the door. “I’m

 coming,” I said, and I crossed the threshold only to realize

 that the room had never been built, that I had no baby, that I

 was fal ing through the air.

 M I CHAEL

 Only certain people wind up on a jury for a trial like this.

 Mothers who have kids to take care of, the accountants with

 deadlines, doctors attending conferences—they al get

 excused. What’s left are retired folks, housewives, disabled

 folks, and students like me, because none of us have to be

 any particular place at any particular time.

 Ted, our foreman, was an older man who reminded me of

 my grandfather. Not in the way he looked or even the way

 he spoke, but because of the gift he had of making us

 measure up to a task. My grandfather had been like that,

 too—you wanted to be your best around him, not because

 he demanded it, but because there was nothing like that

 grin when you knew you’d impressed him.

 My grandfather was the reason I’d been picked for this jury.

 Even though I had no personal experience with murder, I

 knew what it was like to lose someone you loved. You didn’t

 get past something like that, you got through it—and for that

 simple reason alone, I understood more about June Nealon

 than she ever would have guessed. This past winter, four

 years after my grandfather’s death, someone had broken

 into my dorm and stolen my computer, my bike, and the

 only picture I had of my grandfather and me together.

 The thief left behind the sterling silver frame, but when I’d

 reported the theft to the cops, it was the loss of that

 photograph that hurt the most.

 Ted waited for Maureen to reapply her lipstick, for Jack to

 go to the bathroom, for everyone to take a moment for

 themselves before we settled down to the task of acting as

 a unified body. “Wel ,” he said, flat tening his hands on the

 conference table. “I suppose we should just get down to

 business.”

 As it turned out, though, it was a lot easier to say that

 someone deserved to die for what they did than it was to

 take the responsibility to make that happen.

 “I’m just gonna come right out and say it.” Vy sighed. “I

 real y have no idea what the judge told us we need to do.”

 At the start of the testimony, the judge had given us nearly

 an hour’s worth of verbal instructions. I figured there’d be a

 handout, too, but I’d figured wrong. “I can explain it,” I said.

 “It’s kind of like a Chinese food menu. There’s a whole

 checklist of things that make a crime punishable by death.

 Basical y, we have to find one from column A, and one or

 more from column B … for each of the murders to qualify

 for the death penalty. If we check off one from column A, but

 none from column B … then the court automatical y

 sentences him to life without parole.”

 “I don’t understand what’s in column A or B,” Maureen said.

 “I never liked Chinese food,” Mark added.

 I stood up in front of the white board and picked up a dry-

 erase marker, COLUMN A, I wrote, PURPOSE. “The first

 thing we have to decide is whether or not Bourne meant to

 kil each victim.” I turned to everyone else. “I guess we’ve

 pretty much answered that already by convicting him of

 murder.”

 COLUMN B. “Here’s where it gets trickier. There are a

 whole bunch of factors on this list.”

 I began to read from the jumbled notes I’d taken during the

 judge’s instructions:

 Defendant has already been convicted of murder once

 before.

 Defendant has been convicted of two or more different

 offenses for which he’s served imprisonment for more than

 a year—a three-strikes rale.

 Defendant has been convicted of two or more offenses

 involving distribution of drugs.

 In the middle of the capital murder, the defendant risked the

 death of someone in addition to the victims.

 The defendant committed the offense after planning and

 premeditation.

 The victim was vulnerable due to old age, youth, infirmity.

 The defendant committed the offense in a particularly

 heinous, cruel, or depraved manner that involved torture or

 physical abuse to the victim.

 The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding

 lawful arrest.

 Ted stared at the board as I wrote down what I could

 remember.

 “So if we find one from column A, and one from column B,

 we have to sentence him to death?”

 “No,” I said. “Because there’s also a column C.”

 MITIGATING FACTORS. I wrote. “These are the reasons

 the defense gave as excuses.”

 Defendant’s capacity to appreciate what he was doing was

 wrong, or il egal, was impaired.

 Defendant was under unusual and substantial duress.

 Defendant is punishable as an accomplice in the offense

 which was committed by another.

 Defendant was young, although not under the age of 18.

 Defendant did not have a significant prior criminal record.

 Defendant committed the offense under severe mental or

 emotional disturbance.

 Another defendant equal y culpable wil not be punished by

 death.

 Victim consented to the criminal conduct that resulted in

 death.

 Other factors in the defendant’s background mitigate

 against the death sentence.

 Underneath the columns, I wrote, in large red letters: (A +

 B)-C = SENTENCE.

 Marilyn threw up her hands. “I stopped helping my son with

 math homework in sixth grade.”

 “No, it’s easy,” I said. “We need to agree that Bourne

 intended to kil each victim when he picked up that gun.

 That’s column A. Then we need to see whether any other

 aggravating factor fits from column B.

 Like, the youth of the victim—that works for Elizabeth,

 right?”

 Around the table, people nodded.

 “If we’ve got A and B, then we take into account the foster

 care, the mental il ness, stuff like that. It’s just simple math. If A + B is greater than al the things the defense said, we

 sentence him to death. If A + B

 is less than al the things the defense said, then we don’t.” I

 circled the equation. “We just need to see how things add

 up.”

 Put that way, it hardly had anything to do with us. It was just

 plugging in variables and seeing what answer we got. Put

 that way, it was a much easier task to perform.

 

 1 : 1 2 P . M.

 “Of course Bourne planned it,” Jack said. “He got a job with

 them so that he’d be near the girl. He picked this family on

 purpose, and had access to the house.”

 “He’d gone home for the day,” Jim said. “Why else would

 he come back, if he didn’t need to be there?”

 “The tools,” Maureen answered. “He left them behind, and

 they were his prized possessions. Remember what that

 shrink said? Bourne stole them out of other people’s

 garages, and didn’t understand why that was wrong, since

 he needed them, and they were pretty much just gathering

 dust otherwise.”

 “Maybe he left them behind on purpose,” Ted suggested. “If

 they were real y so precious, wouldn’t he have taken them

 with him?”

 There was a general assent. “Do we agree that there was

 substantial planning involved?” Ted asked. “Let’s see a

 show of hands.”

 Half the room, myself included, raised our hands. Another

 few people slowly raised theirs, too. Maureen was the last,

 but the minute she did, I circled that factor on the white

 board.

 “That’s two from column B,” Ted said.

 “Speaking of which … Where’s lunch?” Jack asked. “Don’t

 they usual y bring it by now?”

 Did he real y want to eat? What did you order off a deli

 menu when you were in the process of deciding whether to

 end a man’s life?

 Marilyn sighed. “I think we ought to talk about the fact that

 this poor girl was found without her underpants on.”

 “I don’t think we can,” Maureen said. “Remember when we

 were deliberating over the verdict, and we asked the judge

 about Elizabeth being molested? He said then that since it

 wasn’t being charged, we couldn’t use it to find him guilty. If

 we couldn’t bring it up then, how can we bring it up now?”

 “This is different,” Vy said. “He’s already guilty.”

 “The man was going to rape that little girl,” Marilyn said.

 “That counts as cruel and heinous behavior to me.”

 “You know, there wasn’t any evidence that that’s what was

 happening,”

 Mark said.

 Marilyn raised an eyebrow. “Hel o?! The girl was found

 without her panties. Seven-year-olds don’t go running

 around without their panties.

 Plus, Bourne had the underwear in his pocket… what else

 would he be doing with them?”

 “Does it even matter? We already agree that Elizabeth was

 young when she was kil ed. We don’t need any more from

 column B.” Maureen frowned. “I think I’m confused.”

 Alison, a doctor’s wife who hadn’t said much during the

 original deliberations, glanced at her. “When I get confused,

 I think about that officer who testified, the one who said that

 he heard the little girl screaming when he was running up

 the stairs. Don’t shoot— she was begging. She begged for

 her life.” Alison sighed. “That sort of makes it simple again,

 doesn’t it?”

 As we al fel quiet, Ted asked for a show of hands in favor

 of the execution of Shay Bourne.

 “No,” I said. “We stil have the rest of the equation to figure

 out.” I pointed to column C. “We have to consider what the

 defense said.”

 “The only thing I want to consider right now is where is my

 lunch,”

 Jack said.

 The vote was 8-4, and I was in the minority.

 

 3 : 0 6 P . M.

 I looked around the room. This time, nine people had their

 hands in the air. Maureen, Vy, and I were the only ones who

 hadn’t voted for execution.

 “What is it that’s keeping you from making this decision?”

 Ted asked.

 “His age,” Vy said. “My son’s twentyfour,” she said. “And al

 I can think is that he doesn’t always make the best

 decisions. He’s not done growing up yet.”

 Jack turned toward me. “You’re the same age as Bourne.

 What are you doing with your life?”

 I felt my face flame. “I, um, probably I’l go to graduate

 school. I’m not real y sure.”

 “You haven’t kil ed anyone, have you?”

 Jack got to his feet. “Let’s take a bathroom break,” he

 suggested, and we al jumped at the chance to separate. I

 tossed the dry-erase marker on the table and walked to the

 window. Outside, there were courthouse employees eating

 their lunch on benches. There were clouds caught in the

 twisted fingers of the trees. And there were television vans

 with satel ites on their roofs, waiting to hear what we’d say.

 Jim sat down beside me, reading the Bible that seemed to

 be an extra appendage. “You religious?”

 “I went to parochial school a long time ago.” I faced him.

 “Isn’t there something in there about turning the other

 cheek?”

 Jim pursed his lips and read aloud. “If thy right eye offend

 thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for

 thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy

 whole body should be cast into hel . When one apple’s

 gone bad, you don’t let it ruin the whole bunch.” He passed

 the Bible to me. “See for yourself.”

 I looked at the quote, and then closed the book. I didn’t

 know nearly as much as Jim did about religion, but it

 seemed to me that no matter what Jesus said in that

 passage, he might have taken it back after being

 sentenced to death himself. In fact, it seemed to me that if

 Jesus were here in this jury room, he’d be having just as

 hard a time doing what needed to be done as I was.

 

 4 : 0 2 P . M.

 Ted had me write Yes and No on the board, and then he

 pol ed us, one by one, as I wrote our names in each of the

 columns.

 Jim?

 Yes.

 Alison?

 Yes.

 Marilyn?

 Yes.

 Vy?

 No.

 

 I hesitated, then wrote my own name beneath Vy’s.

 “You agreed to vote for death if you had to,” Mark said.

 “They asked each of us before we got picked for the jury if

 we could do that.”

 “I know.” I had agreed to vote for the death penalty if the

 case merited it. I just hadn’t realized it was going to be this

 difficult to do.

 Vy buried her face in her hands. “When my son used to hit

 his little brother, I didn’t smack him and say ‘Don’t hit.’ It felt

 hypocritical then.

 And it feels hypocritical now.”

 “Vy,” Marilyn said quietly, “what if it had been your seven-

 year-old who was kil ed?” She reached onto the table,

 where we had piled up transcripts and evidence, and took

 the same picture of Elizabeth Nealon that the prosecutor

 had presented during his closing argument. She set it down

 in front of Vy, smoothed its glossy surface.

 After a minute, Vy stood up heavily and took the marker out

 of my hand. She wiped her name off the No column and

 wrote it beneath Marilyn’s, with the ten other jurors who’d

 voted Yes.

 “Michael,” Ted said.

 I swal owed.

 “What do you need to see, to hear? We can help you find

 it.” He reached for the box that held the bul ets from

 bal istics, the bloody clothing, the autopsy reports. He let

 photos from the crime scene spil through his hands like

 ribbons. On some of them, there was so much blood, you

 could barely see the victim lying beneath its sheen.

 “Michael,”

 Ted said, “do the math.”

 I faced the white board, because I couldn’t stand the heat of

 their eyes on me. Next to the list of names, mine standing

 alone, was the original equation I’d set up for us when we

 first came into this jury room: (A + B)-C = SENTENCE.

 What I liked about math was that it was safe. There was

 always a right answer—even if it was imaginary.

 This, though, was an equation where math did not hold up.

 Because A + B—the factors that had led to the deaths of

 Kurt and Eliza beth Nealon—would always be greater than

 C. You couldn’t bring them back, and there was no sob

 story in the world big enough to erase that truth.

 In the space between yes and no, there’s a lifetime. It’s the

 difference between the path you walk and one you leave

 behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be

 and who you real y are; it’s the legroom for the lies you’l tel

 yourself in the future.

 I erased my name on the board. Then I took the pen and

 rewrote it, becoming the twelfth and final juror to sentence

 Shay Bourne to death.

 

 “If Cod did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

 -VOLTAIRE, FOR AND AGAINST

 

 E L E V E N Y E A R S L A T E R

 

 Lucius

 I have no idea where they were keeping Shay Bourne

 before they brought him to us. I knew he was an inmate

 here at the state prison in Concord—I can stil remember

 watching the news the day his sentence was handed down

 and scrutinizing an outside world that was starting to fade in

 my mind: the rough stone of the prison exterior; the golden

 dome of the statehouse; even just the general shape of a

 door that wasn’t made of metal and wire mesh. His

 conviction was the subject of great discussion on the pod

 al those years ago—where do you keep an inmate who’s

 been sentenced to death when your state hasn’t had a

 death row prisoner for ages?

 Rumor had it that in fact, the prison did have a pair of death

 row cel s—not too far from my own humble abode in the

 Secure Housing Unit on I-tier. Crash Vitale—who had

 something to say about everything, although no one usual y

 bothered to listen—told us that the old death row cel s were

 stacked with the thin, plastic slabs that pass for mattresses

 here.

 I wondered for a while what had happened to al those extra

 mattresses after Shay arrived. One thing’s for sure, no one

 offered to give them to us.

 Moving cel s is routine in prison. They don’t like you to

 become too attached to anything. In the fifteen years I’ve

 been here, I have been moved eight different times. The

 cel s, of course, al look alike—what’s different is who’s next

 to you, which is why Shay’s arrival on I-tier was of great

 interest to al of us.

 This, in itself, was a rarity. The six inmates in I-tier were

 radical y dif24

 ferent from one another; for one man to spark curiosity in al

 of us was nothing short of a miracle. Cel 1 housed Joey

 Kunz, a pedophile who was at the bottom of the pecking

 order. In Cel 2 was Cal oway Reece, a cardcarrying

 member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Cel 3 was me, Lucius

 DuFresne. Four and five were empty, so we knew the new

 inmate would be put in one of them—the only question was

 whether he’d be closer to me, or to the guys in the last three

 cel s: Texas Wridel , Pogie Simmons, and Crash, the self-

 appointed leader of I-tier.

 As Shay Bourne was escorted in by a phalanx of six

 correctional officers wearing helmets and flak jackets and

 face shields, we al came forward in our cel s. The COs

 passed by the shower stal , shuffled by Joey and Cal oway,

 and then paused right in front of me, so I could get a good

 look.

 Bourne was smal and slight, with close-cropped brown hair

 and eyes like the Caribbean Sea. I knew about the

 Caribbean, because it was the last vacation I’d taken with

 Adam. I was glad I didn’t have eyes like that. I wouldn’t want

 to look in the mirror every day and be reminded of a place

 I’d never see again.

 Then Shay Bourne turned to me.

 Maybe now would be a good time to tel you what I look like.

 My face was the reason the COs didn’t look me in the eye;

 it was why I sometimes preferred to be hidden inside this

 cel . The sores were scarlet and purple and scaly. They

 spread from my forehead to my chin.

 Most people winced. Even the polite ones, like the eighty-

 year-old missionary who brought us pamphlets once a

 month, always did a double take, as if I looked even worse

 than he remembered. But Shay just met my gaze and

 nodded at me, as if I were no different than anyone else.

 I heard the door of the cel beside mine slide shut, the clink

 of chains as Shay stuck his hands through the trap to have

 his cuffs removed. The COs left the pod, and almost

 immediately Crash started in. “Hey, Death Row,” he yel ed.

 There was no response from Shay Bourne’s cel .

 “Hey, when Crash talks, you answer.”

 “Leave him alone, Crash,” I sighed. “Give the poor guy five

 minutes to figure out what a moron you are.”

 “Ooh, Death Row, better watch it,” Cal oway said. “Lucius is

 kissing up to you, and his last boyfriend’s six feet under.”

 There was the sound of a television being turned on, and

 then Shay must have plugged in the headphones that we

 were al required to have, so we didn’t have a volume war

 with one another. I was a little surprised that a death row

 prisoner would have been able to purchase a television

 from the canteen, same as us. It would have been a

 thirteen-inch one, special y made for us wards of the state

 by Zenith, with a clear plastic shel around its guts and

 cathodes, so that the COs would be able to tel if you were

 extracting parts to make weapons.

 While Cal oway and Crash united (as they often did) to

 humiliate me, I pul ed out my own set of headphones and

 turned on my television. It was five o’clock, and I didn’t like

 to miss Oprah. But when I tried to change the channel,

 nothing happened. The screen flickered, as if it were

 resetting to channel 22, but channel 22 looked just like

 channel 3 and channel 5 and CNN and the Food Network.

 “Hey.” Crash started to pound on his door. “Yo, CO, the

 cable’s down.

 We got rights, you know …”

 Sometimes headphones don’t work wel enough.

 I turned up the volume and watched a local news network’s

 coverage of a fund-raiser for a nearby children’s hospital up

 near Dartmouth Col ege.

 There were clowns and bal oons and even two Red Sox

 players signing autographs.

 The camera zeroed in on a girl with fairy-tale blond hair and

 blue half-moons beneath her eyes, just the kind of child

 they’d televise to get you to open up your wal et. “Claire

 Nealon,” the reporter’s voice-over said, “is waiting for a

 heart.”

 Boo-hoo, I thought. Everyone’s got problems. I took off my

 headphones.

 If I couldn’t listen to Oprah, I didn’t want to listen at al .

 Which is why I was able to hear Shay Bourne’s very first

 word on I-tier.

 “Yes,” he said, and just like that, the cable came back on.

 *

 You have probably noticed by now that I am a cut above

 most of the cretins on I-tier, and that’s because I don’t real y

 belong here. It was a crime of passion-the only discrepancy

 is that I focused on the passion part and the courts focused

 on the crime. But I ask you, what would you have done, if

 the love of your life found a new love of his life—someone

 younger, thinner, better-looking?

 The irony, of course, is that no sentence imposed by a court

 for homicide could trump the one that’s ravaged me in

 prison. My last CD4+ was taken six months ago, and I was

 down to seventy-five cel s per cubic mil imeter of blood.

 Someone without HIV would have a normal T cel count of a

 thousand cel s or more, but the virus becomes part of these

 white blood cel s. When the white blood cel s reproduce to

 fight infection, the virus reproduces, too. As the immune

 system gets weak, the more likely I am to get sick, or to

 develop an opportunistic infection like PCP,

 toxoplasmosis, or CMV. The doctors say I won’t die from

 AIDS—I’l die from pneumonia or TB or a bacterial infection

 in the brain; but if you ask me, that’s just semantics.

 Dead is dead.

 I was an artist by vocation, and now by avocation—although

 it’s been considerably more chal enging to get my supplies

 in a place like this.

 Where I had once favored Winsor Et Newton oils and red

 sable brushes, linen canvases I stretched myself and

 coated with gesso, I now used whatever I could get my

 hands on. I had my nephews draw me pictures on card

 stock in pencil that I erased so that I could use the paper

 over again. I hoarded the foods that produced pigment.

 Tonight I had been working on a portrait of Adam, drawn of

 course from memory, because that was al I had left. I had

 mixed some red ink gleaned from a Skittle with a dab of

 toothpaste in the lid of a juice bottle, and coffee with a bit of

 water in a second lid, and then I’d combined them to get

 just the right shade of his skin-a burnished, deep molasses.

 I had already outlined his features in black—the broad

 brow, the strong chin, the hawk’s nose. I’d used a shank to

 shave ebony curls from a picture of a coal mine in a

 National Geographic and added a dab of shampoo to

 make a chalky paint. With the broken tip of a pencil, I had

 transferred the color to my makeshift canvas.

 God, he was beautiful.

 It was after three a.m., but to be honest, I don’t sleep much.

 When I do, I find myself getting up to go to the bathroom-as

 little as I eat these days, food passes through me at

 lightning speed. I get sick to my stomach; I get headaches.

 The thrush in my mouth and throat makes it hard to swal ow.

 Instead, I use my insomnia to fuel my artwork.

 Tonight, I’d had the sweats. I was soaked through by the

 time I woke up, and after I stripped off my sheets and my

 scrubs, I didn’t want to lie down on the mattress again.

 Instead, I had pul ed out my painting and started re-creating

 Adam. But I got sidetracked by the other portraits I’d

 finished of him, hanging on my cel wal : Adam standing in

 the same pose he’d first struck when he was modeling for

 the col ege art class I taught; Adam’s face when he opened

 his eyes in the morning. Adam, looking over his shoulder,

 the way he’d been when I shot him.

 “I need to do it,” Shay Bourne said. “It’s the only way.”

 He had been utterly silent since this afternoon’s arrival on I-

 tier; I wondered who he was having a conversation with at

 this hour of the night.

 But the pod was empty. Maybe he was having a nightmare.

 “Bourne?” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

 “Who’s … there?”

 The words were hard for him-not quite a stutter; more like

 each syl able was a stone he had to bring forth. “I’m Lucius.

 Lucius DuFresne,” I said.

 “You talking to someone?”

 He hesitated. “I think I’m talking to you.”

 “Can’t sleep?”

 “I can sleep,” Shay said. “I just don’t want to.”

 “You’re luckier than I am, then,” I replied.

 It was a joke, but he didn’t take it that way. “You’re no

 luckier than me, and I’m no unluckier than you,” he said.

 Wel , in a way, he was right. I may not have been handed

 down the same sentence as Shay Bourne, but like him, I

 would die within the wal s of this prison-sooner rather than

 later.

 “Lucius,” he said. “What are you doing?”

 “I’m painting.”

 There was a beat of silence. “Your cel ?”

 “No. A portrait.”

 “Why?”

 “Because I’m an artist.”

 “Once, in school, an art teacher said I had classic lips,”

 Shay said. “I stil don’t know what that means.”

 “It’s a reference to the ancient Greeks and Romans,” I

 explained. “And the art that we see represented on—”

 “Lucius? Did you see on TV today… the Red Sox …”

 Everyone on I-tier had a team they fol owed, myself

 included. We each kept meticulous score of their league

 standings, and we debated the fairness of umpire and ref

 cal s as if they were law and we were Supreme Court

 judges. Sometimes, like us, our teams had their hopes

 dashed; other times we got to share their World Series. But

 it was stil preseason; there hadn’t been any televised

 games today.

 “Schil ing was sitting at a table,” Shay added, stil struggling

 to find the right words. “And there was a little girl—”

 “You mean the fund-raiser? The one up at the hospital?”

 “That little girl,” Shay said. “I’m going to give her my heart.”

 Before I could respond, there was a loud crash and the thud

 of flesh smacking against the concrete floor. “Shay?” I

 cal ed. “Shay?!”

 I pressed my face up against the Plexiglas. I couldn’t see

 Shay at al , but I heard something rhythmic smacking his

 cel door. “Hey!” I yel ed at the top of my lungs. “Hey, we

 need help down here!”

 The others started to wake up, cursing me out for disturbing

 their rest, and then fal ing silent with fascination. Two

 officers stormed into I-tier, stil Velcroing their flak jackets.

 One of them, CO Kappaletti, was the kind of man who’d

 taken this job so that he’d always have someone to put

 down. The other, CO Smythe, had never been anything but

 professional toward me. Kappaletti stopped in front of my

 cel . “DuFresne, if you’re crying wolf—”

 But Smythe was already kneeling in front of Shay’s cel . “I

 think Bourne’s having a seizure.” He reached for his radio

 and the electronic door slid open so that other officers

 could enter.

 “Is he breathing?” one said.

 “Turn him over, on the count of three …”

 The EMTs arrived and wheeled Shay past my cel on a

 gurney-a stretcher with restraints across the shoulders,

 bel y, and legs that was used to transport inmates like

 Crash who were too much trouble even cuffed at the waist

 and ankles; or inmates who were too sick to walk to the

 infirmary.

 I always assumed I’d leave I-tier on one of those gurneys.

 But now I realized that it looked a lot like the table Shay

 would one day be strapped onto for his lethal injection.

 The EMTs had pushed an oxygen mask over Shay’s mouth

 that frosted with each breath he took. His eyes had rol ed

 up in their sockets, white and blind. “Do whatever it takes to

 bring him back,” CO Smythe instructed; and that was how I

 learned that the state wil save a dying man just so that they

 can kil him later.

 There was a great deal that I loved about the Church.

 Like the feeling I got when two hundred voices rose to the

 rafters during Sunday Mass in prayer. Or the way my hand

 stil shook when I offered the host to a parishioner. I loved

 the double take on the face of a troubled teenager when he

 drooled over the 1969 Triumph Trophy motorcycle I’d

 restored—and then found out I was a priest; that being cool

 and being Catholic were not mutual y exclusive.

 Even though I was clearly the junior priest at St.

 Catherine’s, we were one of only four parishes to serve al

 of Concord, New Hampshire.

 There never seemed to be enough hours in the day. Father

 Walter and I would alternate officiating at Mass or hearing

 confession; sometimes we’d be asked to drop in and teach

 a class at the parochial school one town over. There were

 always parishioners to visit who were il or troubled or

 lonely; there were always rosaries to be said. But I looked

 forward to even the humblest act—sweeping the vestibule,

 or rinsing the vessels from the Eucharist in the sacrarium

 so that no drop of Precious Blood wound up in the Concord

 sewers.

 I didn’t have an office at St. Catherine’s. Father Walter did,

 but then he’d been at the parish so long that he seemed as

 much a part of it as the rosewood pews and the velveteen

 drapes at the altar. Although he kept tel ing me he’d get

 around to clearing out a spot for me in one of the old

 storage rooms, he tended to nap after lunch, and who was I

 to wake up a man in his seventies and tel him to get a

 move on? After a while, I gave up asking and instead set a

 smal desk up inside a broom closet. Today, I was

 supposed to be writing a homily—if I could get it down to

 seven minutes, I knew the older members of the

 congregation wouldn’t fal asleep—but instead, my mind

 kept straying to one of our youngest members. Hannah

 Smythe was the first baby I baptized at St.

 Catherine’s. Now, just one year later, the infant had been

 hospitalized repeatedly. Without warning, her throat would

 simply close, and her frantic parents would rush her to the

 ER for intubation, where the vicious cycle would start al

 over again. I offered up a quick prayer to God to lead the

 doctors to cure Hannah. I was just finishing up with the sign

 of the cross when a smal , silver-haired lady approached

 my desk.

 “Father Michael?”

 “Mary Lou,” I said. “How are you doing?”

 “Could I maybe talk to you for a few minutes?”

 Mary Lou Huckens could talk not only for a few minutes; she

 was likely to go on for nearly an hour. Father Walter and I

 had an unwritten policy to rescue each other from her

 effusive praise after Mass. “What can I do for you?”

 “Actual y, I feel a little sil y about this,” she admitted. “I just

 wanted to know if you’d bless my bust.”

 I smiled at her. Parishioners often asked us to offer a

 prayer over a devotional item. “Sure. Have you got it with

 you?”

 She gave me an odd look. “Wel , of course I do.”

 “Great. Let’s see it.”

 She crossed her hands over her chest. “I hardly think thafs

 necessary!”

 I felt heat flood my cheeks as I realized what she actual y

 wanted me to bless. “I-I’m sorry …” I stammered. “I didn’t

 mean …”

 Her eyes fil ed with tears. “They’re doing a lumpectomy

 tomorrow.

 Father, and I’m terrified.”

 I stood up and put my arm around her, walked her a few

 yards to the closest pew, offered her Kleenex. I’m sorry,”

 she said. “I don’t know who else to talk to. If I tel my

 husband I’m scared, he’l get scared, too.”

 

 “You know who to talk to,” I said gently. “And you know He’s

 always listening.” I touched the crown of her head.

 “Omnipotent and eternal God, the everlasting Salvation of

 those who believe, hear us on behalf of Thy servant Mary

 Lou, for whom we beg the aid of Thy pitying mercy, that with

 her bodily health restored, she may give thanks to Thee in

 Thy church. Through Christ our Lord, amen.”

 “Amen,” Mary Lou whispered.

 That’s the other thing I love about the Church: you never

 know what to expect.

 

 Lucius

 When Shay Bourne returned to I-tier after three days in the

 hospital infirmary, he was a man with a mission. Every

 morning, when the officers came to pol us to see who

 wanted a shower or time in the yard, Shay would ask to

 speak to Warden Coyne. “Fil out a request,” he was told,

 over and over, but it just didn’t seem to sink in. When it was

 his turn in the little caged kennel that was our exercise yard,

 he’d stand in the far corner, looking toward the opposite

 side of the prison, where the administrative offices were

 housed, and he’d yel his request at the top of his lungs.

 When he was brought his dinner, he’d ask if the warden

 had agreed to talk to him.

 “You know why he was moved to I-tier?” Cal oway said one

 day when Shay was bel owing in the shower for an

 audience with the warden. “Because he made everyone

 else on his last tier go deaf.”

 “He’s a retard,” Crash answered. “Can’t help how he acts.

 Kinda like our own diaper sniper. Right, Joey?”

 “He’s not mental y chal enged,” I said. “He’s probably got

 double the IQ

 that you do, Crash.”

 “Shut the fuck up, fruiter,” Cal oway said. “Shut up, al of

 you!” The urgency in his voice silenced us. Cal oway knelt

 at the door of his cel , fishing with a braided string pul ed

 out of his blanket and tied at one end to a rol ed magazine.

 He cast into the center of the catwalk—risky behavior,

 since the COs would be back any minute. At first we

 couldn’t figure out what he was doing-when we fished, it

 was with one another, tangling our lines to pass along

 anything from a paperback book to a Hershey’s bar—but

 then we noticed the smal , bright oval on the floor. God only

 knew why a bird would make a nest in a hel hole like this,

 but one had a few months back, after flying in through the

 exercise yard. One egg had fal en out and cracked; the

 baby robin lay on its side, unfinished, its thin, wrinkled chest

 working like a piston.

 Cal oway reeled the egg in, inch by inch. “It ain’t gonna live,”

 Crash said. “Its mama won’t want it now.”

 “Wel , I do,” Cal oway said.

 “Put it somewhere warm,” I suggested. “Wrap it up in a

 towel or something.”

 “Use your T-shirt,” Joey added.

 “I don’t take advice from a cho-mo,” Cal oway said, but

 then, a moment later: “You think a T-shirt wil work?”

 While Shay yel ed for the warden, we al listened to

 Cal oway’s playby-play: The robin was wrapped in a shirt.

 The robin was tucked inside his left tennis shoe. The robin

 was pinking up. The robin had opened its left eye for a half

 second.

 We al had forgotten what it was like to care about

 something so much that you might not be able to stand

 losing it. The first year I was in here, I used to pretend that

 the ful moon was my pet, that it came once a month just to

 me. And this past summer, Crash had taken to spreading

 jam on the louvers of his vent to cultivate a colony of bees,

 but that was less about husbandry than his misguided belief

 that he could train them to swarm Joey in his sleep.

 “Cowboys comin’ to lock ‘em up,” Crash said, fair warning

 that the COs were getting ready to enter the pod again. A

 moment later the doors buzzed open; they stood in front of

 the shower cel waiting for Shay to stick his hands through

 the trap to be cuffed for the twenty-foot journey back to his

 own cel .

 “They don’t know what it could be,” CO Smythe said.

 “They’ve ruled out pulmonary problems and asthma.

 They’re saying maybe an al ergy-but there’s nothing in her

 room anymore, Rick, it’s bare as a cel .”

 Sometimes the COs talked to one another in front of us.

 They never spoke to inmates directly about their lives, and

 that actual y was fine. We didn’t want to know that the guy

 strip-searching us had a son who scored the winning goal

 in his soccer game last Thursday. Better to take the

 humanity out of it.

 “They said,” Smythe continued, “that her heart can’t keep

 taking this kind of stress. And neither can I. You know what

 it’s like to see your baby with al these bags and wires

 coming out of her?”

 The second CO, Whitaker, was a Catholic who liked to

 include, on my dinner tray, handwritten scripture verses that

 denounced homosexuality.

 “Father Walter led a prayer for Hannah on Sunday. He said

 he’d be happy to visit you at the hospital.”

 “There’s nothing a priest can say that I want to hear,”

 Smythe muttered.

 “What kind of God would do this to a baby?”

 Shay’s hands slipped through the trap of the shower cel to

 be cuffed, and then the door was opened. “Did the warden

 say he’d meet with me?”

 “Yeah,” Smythe said, leading Shay toward his cel . “He

 wants you to come for high friggin’ tea.”

 “I just need five minutes with him—”

 “You’re not the only one with problems,” Smythe snapped.

 “Fil out a request.”

 “I can’t,” Shay replied.

 I cleared my throat. “Officer? Could I have a request form,

 too, please?”

 He finished locking Shay up, then took one out of his

 pocket and stuffed it into the trap of my cel .

 Just as the officers exited the tier, there was a smal , feeble

 chirp.

 “Shay?” I asked. “Why not just fil out the request slip?”

 “I can’t get my words to come out right.”

 “I’m sure the warden doesn’t care about grammar.”

 “No, it’s when I write. When I start, the letters al get

 tangled.”

 “Then tel me, and I’l write the note.”

 There was a silence. “You’d do that for me?”

 “Wil you two cut the soap opera?” Crash said. “You’re

 making me sick.”

 “Tel the warden,” Shay dictated, “that I want to donate my

 heart, after he kil s me. I want to give it to a girl who needs it

 more than I do.”

 I leaned the ticket up against the wal of the cel and wrote in

 pencil, signed Shay’s name. I tied the note to the end of my

 own fishing line and swung it beneath the narrow opening of

 his cel door. “Give this to the officer who makes rounds

 tomorrow morning.”

 “You know, Bourne,” Crash mused, “I don’t know what to

 make of you.

 I mean, on the one hand, you’re a child-kil ing piece of shit.

 You might as wel be fungus growing on Joey, for what you

 done to that little girl. But on the other hand, you took down

 a cop, and I for one am truly grateful there’s one less pig in

 the world. So how am I supposed to feel? Do I hate you, or

 do I give you my respect?”

 “Neither,” Shay said. “Both.”

 “You know what I think? Baby kil ing beats anything good

 you might have done.” Crash stood up at the front of his cel

 and began to bang a metal coffee mug against the

 Plexiglas. “Throw him out. Throw him out.

 Throw him out!”

 Joey—unused to being even one notch above low-man-on-

 the-totempole—was the first to join in the singing. Then

 Texas and Pogie started in, because they did whatever

 Crash told them to do.

 Throw him out.

 Throw him out.

 Whitaker’s voice bled through the loudspeaker. “You got a

 problem, Vitale?”

 “I don’t got a problem. This punk-ass child kil er here’s the

 one with the problem. I tel you what, Officer. You let me out

 for five minutes, and I’l save the good taxpayers of New

 Hampshire the trouble of getting rid of him-“

 “Crash,” Shay said softly. “Cool off.”

 I was distracted by a whistling noise coming from my tiny

 sink. I had no sooner stood up to investigate than the water

 burst out of the spigot.

 This was remarkable on two counts—normal y, the water

 pressure was no greater than a trickle, even in the showers.

 And the water that was splashing over the sides of the

 metal bowl was a deep, rich red.

 “Fuck!” Crash yel ed. “I just got soaked!”

 “Man, that looks like blood,” Pogie said, horrified. “I’m not

 washing up in that.”

 “It’s in the toilets, too,” Texas added.

 We al knew our pipes were connected. The bad news

 about this was that you literal y could not get away from the

 shit brought down by the others around you. On the bright

 side, you could actual y flush a note down the length of the

 pod; it would briefly appear in the next cel ’s bowl before

 heading through the sewage system. I turned and looked

 into my toilet.

 The water was as dark as rubies.

 “Holy crap,” Crash said. “It ain’t blood. It’s wine.” He started

 to crow like a madman. “Taste it, ladies. Drinks are on the

 house.”

 I waited. I did not drink the tap water in here. As it was, I

 had a feeling that my AIDS medications, which came on a

 punch card, might be some government experiment done

 on expendable inmates… I wasn’t about to imbibe from a

 water treatment system run by the same administration. But

 then I heard Joey start laughing, and Cal oway slurping from

 the faucet, and Texas and Pogie singing drinking songs. In

 fact, the entire mood of the tier changed so radical y that

 CO Whitaker’s voice boomed over the intercom, confused

 by the visions on the monitors. “What’s going on in there?”

 he asked. “Is there a water main leak?”

 “You could say that,” Crash replied. “Or you could say we

 got us a powerful thirst.”

 “Come on in, CO,” Pogie added. “We’l buy the next round.”

 Everyone seemed to find this hilarious, but then, they’d al

 downed nearly a half gal on of whatever this fluid was by

 now. I dipped my finger into the dark stream that was stil

 running strong from my sink. It could have been iron or

 manganese, but it was true—this water smel ed like sugar,

 and dried sticky. I bent my head to the tap and drank

 tentatively from the flow.

 Adam and I had been closet sommeliers, taking trips to the

 California vineyards. To that end, for my birthday that last

 year, Adam had gotten me a 2001 Dominus Estate

 cabernet sauvignon. We were going to drink it on New

 Year’s Eve. Weeks later, when I came in and found them,

 twisted together like jungle vines, that bottle was there, too

 —tipped off the nightstand and staining the bedroom

 carpet, like blood that had already been spil ed.

 If you’ve been in prison as long as I have, you’ve

 experienced a good many innovative highs. I’ve drunk

 hooch distil ed from fruit juice and bread and Jol y Rancher

 candies; I’ve huffed spray deodorant; I’ve smoked dried

 banana peels rol ed up in a page of the Bible. But this was

 like none of those. This was honest-to-God wine.

 I laughed. But before long I began to sob, tears running

 down my face for what I had lost, for what was now literal y

 coursing through my fingers.

 You can only miss something you remember having, and it

 had been so long since creature comforts had been part of

 my ordinary life. I fil ed a plastic mug with wine and drank it

 down; I did this over and over again until it became easier

 to forget the fact that al extraordinary things must come to

 an end—a lesson I could have lectured on, given my history.

 By now, the COs realized that there had been some snafu

 with the plumbing. Two of them came onto the tier, fuming,

 and paused in front of my cel . “You,” Whitaker

 commanded. “Cuffs.”

 I went through the rigmarole of having my wrists bound

 through the open trap so that when Whitaker had my door

 buzzed open I could be secured by Smythe while he

 investigated. I watched over my shoulder as Whitaker

 touched a pinky to the stream of wine and held it up to his

 tongue. “Lucius,” he said, “what is this?”

 “At first I thought it was a cabernet, Officer,” I said. “But now

 I’m leaning toward a cheap merlot.”

 “The water comes from the town reservoir,” Smythe said.

 “Inmates can’t mess with that.”

 “Maybe it’s a miracle,” Crash sang. “You know al about

 miracles, don’t you, Officer Bible-thumper?”

 My cel door was closed and my hands freed. Whitaker

 stood on the catwalk in front of our cel s. “Who did this?” he

 asked, but nobody was listening.

 “Who’s responsible?”

 “Who cares?” Crash replied.

 “So help me, if one of you doesn’t fess up, I’l have

 maintenance turn off your water for the next week,”

 Whitaker threatened.

 Crash laughed. “The ACLU needs a poster child, Whit.”

 As the COs stormed off the tier, we were al laughing.

 Things that weren’t humorous became funny; I didn’t even

 mind listening to Crash. At some point, the wine trickled

 and dried up, but by then, Pogie had already passed out

 cold, Texas and Joey were singing “Danny Boy” in

 harmony, and I was fading fast. In fact, the last thing I

 remember is Shay asking Cal oway what he was going to

 name his bird, and Cal oway’s answer: Batman the Robin.

 And Cal oway chal enging Shay to a chugging contest, but

 Shay saying he would sit that one out. That actual y, he

 didn’t drink.

 For two days after the water on I-tier had turned into wine, a

 steady stream of plumbers, scientists, and prison

 administrators visited our cel s.

 Apparently, we were the only unit within the prison where

 this had happened, and the only reason anyone in power

 even believed it was because when our cel s were tossed,

 the COs confiscated the shampoo bottles and milk

 containers and even plastic bags that we had al

 innovatively used to store some extra wine before it had run

 dry; and because swabs taken in the pipes revealed a

 matching substance. Although nobody would official y give

 us the results of the lab testing, rumor had it that the liquid in

 question was definitely not tap water.

 Our exercise and shower privileges were revoked for a

 week, as if this had been our fault in the first place, and

 forty-three hours passed before I was al owed a visit from

 the prison nurse, Alma, who smel ed of lemons and linen;

 and who had a massive coiled tower of braided hair that, I

 imagined, required architectural intervention in order for her

 to sleep. Normal y, she came twice a day to bring me a

 card ful of pil s as bright and big as dragonflies. She also

 spread cream on inmates’ fungal foot infections, checked

 teeth that had been rotted out by crystal meth, and did

 anything else that didn’t require a visit to the infirmary. I

 admit to faking il ness several times so that Alma would

 take my temperature or blood pressure.

 Sometimes, she was the only person who touched me for

 weeks.

 “So,” she said, as she was let into my cel by CO Smythe. “I

 hear things have been pretty exciting on I-tier. You gonna

 tel me what happened?”

 “Would if I could,” I said, and then glanced at the officer

 accompanying her. “Or maybe I wouldn’t.”

 “I can only think of one person who ever turned water into

 wine,” she said, “and my pastor wil tel you it didn’t happen

 in the state prison this Monday.”

 “Maybe your pastor can suggest that next time, Jesus try a

 nice ful bodied Syrah.”

 Alma laughed and stuck a thermometer into my mouth.

 Over her back, I stared at CO Smythe. His eyes were red,

 and instead of watching me to make sure I didn’t do

 anything stupid, like take Alma hostage, he was staring at

 the wal behind my head, lost in thought.

 The thermometer beeped. “You’re stil running a fever.”

 “Tel me something I don’t know,” I replied. I felt blood pool

 under my tongue, courtesy of the sores that were part and

 parcel of this horrific disease.

 “You taking those meds?”

 I shrugged. “You see me put them in my mouth every day,

 don’t you?”

 Alma knew there were as many different ways for a

 prisoner to kil himself as there were prisoners. “Don’t you

 check out on me, Jupiter,” she said, rubbing something

 viscous on the red spot on my forehead that had led to this

 nickname. “Who else would tel me what I miss on General

 Hospital?”

 “That’s a pretty paltry reason to stick around.”

 “I’ve heard worse.” Alma turned to CO Smythe. “I’m al set

 here.”

 She left, and the control booth slid the door home again, the

 sound of metal ic teeth gnashing shut. “Shay,” I cal ed out.

 “You awake?”

 “I am now.”

 “Might want to cover your ears,” I offered.

 Before Shay could ask me why, Cal oway let out the same

 explosive run of curses he always did when Alma tried to

 get within five feet of him.

 “Get the fuck out, nigger,” he yel ed. “Swear to God, I’l fuck

 “Get the fuck out, nigger,” he yel ed. “Swear to God, I’l fuck

 you up if you put your hand on me—”

 CO Smythe pinned him against the side of his cel . “For

 Christ’s sake, Reece,” he said. “Do we have to go through

 this every single day for a goddamn Band-Aid?”

 “We do if that black bitch is the one putting it on.”

 Cal oway had been convicted of burning a synagogue to

 the ground seven years ago. He sustained head injuries

 and needed massive skin grafts on his arms, but he

 considered the mission a success because the terrified

 rabbi had fled town. The grafts stil needed checking; he’d

 had three surgeries alone in the past year.

 “You know what,” Alma said, “I don’t real y care if his arms

 rot off.”

 She didn’t, that much was true. But she did care about

 being cal ed a nigger. Every time Cal oway hurled that word

 at her, she’d stiffen. And after she visited Cal oway, she

 moved a little more slowly down the pod.

 I knew exactly how she felt. When you’re different,

 sometimes you don’t see the mil ions of people who accept

 you for what you are. Al you notice is the one person who

 doesn’t.

 “I got hep C because of you,” Cal oway said, although he’d

 probably gotten it from the blade of the barber’s razor, like

 the other inmates who’d contracted it in prison. “You and

 your filthy nigger hands.”

 Cal oway was being particularly awful today, even for

 Cal oway. At first I thought he was cranky like the rest of us,

 because our meager privileges had been taken away. But

 then it hit me—Cal oway couldn’t let Alma into his house,

 because she might find the bird. And if she found the bird,

 CO

 Smythe would confiscate it.

 “What do you want to do?” Smythe asked Alma.

 She sighed. “I’m not going to fight him.”

 “That’s right,” Cal oway crowed. “You know who’s boss.

 Rahowal”

 At his cal , short for Racial Holy War, inmates from al over

 the Secure Housing Unit began to hol er. In a state as white

 as New Hampshire, the Aryan Brotherhood ran the prison

 population. They control ed drug deals done behind bars;

 they tattooed one another with shamrocks and lightning

 bolts and swastikas. To be jumped into the gang, you had

 to kil someone sanctioned by the Brotherhood—a black

 man, a Jew, a homosexual, or anyone else whose

 existence was considered an affront to your own.

 The sound became deafening. Alma walked past my cel ,

 Smythe fol owing.

 As they passed Shay, he cal ed out to the officer, “Look

 inside.”

 “I know what’s inside Reece,” Smythe said. “Two hundred

 and twenty pounds of crap.”

 As Alma and the CO left, Cal oway was stil yel ing his head

 off. “For God’s sake,” I hissed at Shay. “If they find

 Cal oway’s stupid bird they’l toss al our cel s again! You

 want to lose the shower for two weeks?”

 “That’s not what I meant,” Shay said.

 I didn’t answer. Instead I lay down on my bunk and stuffed

 more wadded-up toilet paper into my ears. And stil , I could

 hear Cal oway singing his white-pride anthems. Stil , I could

 hear Shay when he told me a second time that he hadn’t

 been talking about the bird.

 That night when I woke up with the sweats, my heart dril ing

 through the spongy base of my throat, Shay was talking to

 himself again. “They pul up the sheet,” he said.

 “Shay?”

 I took a piece of metal I’d sawed off from the lip of the

 counter in the cel —it had taken months, carved with a

 string of elastic from my underwear and a dab of toothpaste

 with baking soda, my own diamond band saw. Ingeniously,

 the triangular result doubled as both a mirror and a shank. I

 slipped my hand beneath my door, angling the mirror so I

 could see into Shay’s cel .

 He was lying on his bunk with his eyes closed and his arms

 crossed over his heart. His breathing had gone so shal ow

 that his chest barely rose and fel . I could have sworn I

 smel ed the worms in freshly turned soil. I heard the ping of

 stones as they struck a grave digger’s shovel.

 Shay was practicing.

 I had done that myself. Maybe not quite in the same way,

 but I’d pictured my funeral. Who would come. Who would be

 wel dressed, and who would be wearing something

 outrageously hideous. Who would cry. Who wouldn’t.

 God bless those COs; they’d moved Shay Bourne right next

 door to someone else serving a death sentence.

 Two weeks after Shay arrived on I-tier, six officers came to

 his cel early one morning and told him to strip. “Bend over,”

 I heard Whitaker say.

 “Spread ‘em. Lift ‘em. Cough.”

 “Where are we going?”

 “Infirmary. Routine checkup.”

 I knew the dril : they would shake out his clothes to make

 sure there was no contraband hidden, then tel him to get

 dressed again. They’d march him out of I-tier and into the

 great beyond of the Secure Housing Unit.

 An hour later, I woke up to the sound of Shay’s cel door

 being opened again as he returned to his cel . “I’l pray for

 your soul,” CO Whitaker said soberly before leaving the

 tier.

 “So,” I said, my voice too light and false to fool even myself.

 “Are you the picture of health?”

 “They didn’t take me to the infirmary. We went to the

 warden’s office.”

 I sat on my bunk, looking up at the vent through which

 Shay’s voice carried. “He final y agreed to meet with-“

 “You know why they lie?” Shay interrupted. “Because

 they’re afraid you’l go bal istic if they tel you the truth.”

 “About what?”

 “It’s al mind control. And we have no choice but to be

 obedient because what if this is the one time that real y-“

 “Shay,” I said, “did you talk to the warden or not?”

 “He talked to me. He told me my last appeal was denied by

 “He talked to me. He told me my last appeal was denied by

 the Supreme Court,” Shay said. “My execution date is May

 twenty-third.”

 I knew that before he was moved to this tier, Shay had been

 on death row for eleven years; it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen

 this coming. And yet, that date was only two and a half

 months away.

 “I guess they don’t want to come in and say hey, we’re

 taking you to get your death warrant read out loud. I mean,

 it’s easier to just pretend you’re going to the infirmary, so

 that I wouldn’t freak out. I bet they talked about how they’d

 come and get me. I bet they had a meeting.”

 I wondered what I would prefer, if it were my death that was

 being announced like a future train departing from a

 platform. Would I want the truth from an officer? Or would I

 consider it a kindness to be spared knowing the inevitable,

 even for those four minutes of transit?

 I knew what the answer was for me.

 I wondered why, considering that I’d only known Shay

 Bourne for two weeks, there was a lump in my throat at the

 thought of his execution. “I’m real y sorry.”

 “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”

 “Po-lice,” Joey cal ed out, and a moment later, CO Smythe

 walked in, fol owed by CO Whitaker. He helped Whitaker

 transport Crash to the shower cel —the investigation into

 our bacchanal tap water had yielded nothing conclusive,

 apparently, except some mold in the pipes, and we were

 now al owed personal hygiene hours again. But afterward,

 instead of leaving I-tier, Smythe doubled back down the

 catwalk to stand in front of Shay’s cel .

 “Listen,” Smythe said. “Last week, you said something to

 me.”

 “Did I?”

 “You told me to look inside.” He hesitated. “My daughter’s

 been sick.

 Real y sick. Yesterday, the doctors told my wife and me to

 say good-bye. It made me want to explode. So I grabbed

 this stuffed bear in her crib, one we’d brought from home to

 make going to the hospital easier for her—and I ripped it

 wide open. It was fil ed with peanut shel s, and we never

 thought to look there.” Smythe shook his head. “My baby’s

 not dying; she was never even sick. She’s just al ergic,” he

 said. “How did you know?”

 “I didn’t-“

 “It doesn’t matter.” Smythe dug in his pocket for a smal

 square of tinfoil, unwrapping it to reveal a thick brownie. “I

 brought this in from home.

 My wife, she makes them. She wanted you to have it.”

 “John, you can’t give him contraband,” Whitakersaid,

 glancing over his shoulder at the control booth.

 “It’s not contraband. It’s just me … sharing a little bit of my

 lunch.”

 My mouth started to water. Brownies were not on our

 canteen forms.

 The closest we came was chocolate cake, offered once a

 year as part of a Christmas package that also included a

 stocking ful of candy and two oranges.

 Smythe passed the brownie through the trap in the cel

 door. He met Shay’s gaze and nodded, then left the tier

 with CO Whitaker.

 “Hey, Death Row,” Cal oway said, “I’l give you three

 cigarettes for half of that.”

 “I’l trade you a whole pack of coffee,” Joey countered.

 “He ain’t going to waste it on you,” Cal oway said. “I’l give

 you coffee and four cigarettes.”

 Texas and Pogie joined in. They would trade Shay a CD

 player. A Playboy magazine. A rol of tape.

 “A teener,” Cal oway announced. “Final offer.”

 The Brotherhood made a kil ing on running the

 methamphetamine trade at the New Hampshire state

 prison; for Cal oway to solicit his own personal stash, he

 must have truly wanted that chocolate.

 As far as I knew, Shay hadn’t even had a cup of coffee

 since coming to I-tier. I had no idea if he smoked or got

 high. “No,” Shay said. “No to al of you.”

 A few minutes passed.

 “For God’s sake, I can stil smel it,” Cal oway said.

 Let me tel you, I am not exaggerating when I say that we

 were forced to inhale that scent—that glorious scent—for

 hours. At three in the morning, when I woke up as per my

 usual insomnia, the scent of chocolate was so strong that

 the brownie might as wel have been sitting in my cel

 instead of Shay’s. “Why don’t you just eat the damn thing,” I

 murmured.

 “Because,” Shay replied, as wide awake as I, “then there

 wouldn’t be anything to look forward to.”

 Maggie

 There were many reasons I loved Oliver, but first and

 foremost was that my mother couldn’t stand him. He’s a

 mess, she said every time she came to visit. He’s

 destructive. Maggie, she said, if you got rid ojhim, you

 could find Someone.

 Someone was a doctor, like the anesthesiologist from

 Dartmouth-Hitchcock they’d set me up with once, who

 asked me if I thought laws against downloading child porn

 were an infringement on civil rights. Or the son of the

 cantor, who actual y had been in a monogamous gay

 relationship for five years but hadn’t told his parents yet.

 Someone was the younger partner in the accounting firm

 that did my father’s taxes, who asked me on our first and

 only date if I’d always been a big girl.

 On the other hand, Oliver knew just what I needed, and

 when I needed it. Which is why, the minute I stepped on the

 scale that morning, he hopped out from underneath the

 bed, where he was diligently severing the cord of my alarm

 clock with his teeth, and settled himself squarely on top of

 my feet so that I couldn’t see the digital readout.

 “Nicely done,” I said, stepping off, trying not to notice the

 numbers that flashed red before they disappeared. Surely

 the reason there was a seven in there was because Oliver

 had been on the scale, too. Besides, if I were going to be

 writing a formal complaint about any of this, I’d have said

 that (a) size fourteen isn’t real y al that big, (b) a size

 fourteen here was a size sixteen in London, so in a way I

 was thinner than I’d be if I had been born British, and (c)

 weight didn’t real y matter, as long as you were healthy.

 Al right, so maybe I didn’t exercise al that much either. But

 I would, one day, or so I told my mother the fitness queen,

 as soon as al the people on whose behalf I worked

 tirelessly were absolutely, unequivocal y rescued. I told her

 (and anyone else who’d listen) that the whole reason the

 ACLU existed was to help people take a stand.

 Unfortunately, the only stands my mother recognized were

 pigeon pose, warrior two, and al the other staples of yoga.

 I pul ed on my jeans, the ones that I admittedly didn’t wash

 very often because the dryer shrank them just enough that I

 had to suffer half a day before the denim stretched to the

 point of comfort again. I picked a sweater that didn’t show

 my bra rol and then turned to Oliver. “What do you think?”

 He lowered his left ear, which translated to, “Why do you

 even care, since you’re taking it al off to put on a spa

 robe?”

 As usual, he was right. It’s a little hard to hide your flaws

 when you’re wearing, wel , nothing.

 He fol owed me into the kitchen, where I poured us both

 bowls of rabbit food (his literal, mine Special K). Then he

 hopped off to the litter box beside his cage, where he’d

 spend the day sleeping.

 I’d named my rabbit after Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr., the

 famous Supreme Court Justice known as the Great

 Dissenter. He once said, “Even a dog knows the difference

 between being kicked and being tripped over.”

 So did rabbits. And my clients, for that matter.

 “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I warned Oliver. “That

 includes chewing the legs of the kitchen stools.”

 I grabbed my keys and headed out to my Prius. I had used

 nearly al my savings last year on the hybrid—to be honest, I

 didn’t understand why car manufacturers charged a

 premium if you were a buyer with a modicum of social

 conscience. It didn’t have al -wheel drive, which was a real

 pain in the neck during a New Hampshire winter, but I

 figured that saving the ozone layer was worth sliding off the

 road occasional y.

 My parents had moved to Lynley—a town twenty-six miles

 east of Concord—seven years ago when my father took

 over as rabbi at Temple Beth Or. The catch was that there

 was no Temple Beth Or: his reform congregation held

 Friday night services in the cafeteria of the middle school,

 because the original temple had burned to the ground. The

 expectation had been to raise funds for a new temple, but

 my father had overestimated the size of his rural New

 Hampshire congregation, and although he assured me that

 they were closing in on buying land somewhere, I didn’t see

 it happening anytime soon. By now, anyway, his

 congregation had grown used to readings from the Torah

 that were routinely punctuated by the cheers of the crowd at

 the basketbal game in the gymnasium down the hal .

 The biggest single annual contributor to my father’s temple

 fund was the ChutZpah, a wel ness retreat for the mind,

 body, and soul in the heart of Lynley that was run by my

 mother. Although her clientele was nondenominational,

 she’d garnered a word-of-mouth reputation among temple

 sisterhoods, and patrons came from as far away as New

 York and Connecticut and even Maryland to relax and

 rejuvenate. My mother used salt from the Dead Sea for her

 scrubs. Her spa cuisine was kosher. She’d been written up

 in Boston magazine, the New York Times, and Luxury

 SpaFinder.

 The first Saturday of every month, I drove to the spa for a

 free massage or facial or pedicure. The catch was that

 afterward, I had to suffer through lunch with my mother. We

 had it down to a routine. By the time we were served our

 passion fruit iced tea, we’d already covered “Why Don’t

 You Cal .” The salad course was “I’m Going to Be Dead

 Before You Make Me a Grandmother.” The entree—fittingly

 —involved my weight.

 Needless to say, we never got around to dessert.

 The ChutZpah was white. Not just white, but scary, I’m-

 afraid-tobreathe white: white carpets, white tiles, white

 robes, white slippers. I have no idea how my mother kept

 the place so clean, given that when I was growing up, the

 house was always comfortably cluttered.

 My father says there’s a God, although for me the jury is stil

 out on that one. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t appreciate a

 miracle as much as the next person—such as when I went

 up to the front desk and the re50

 ceptionist told me my mother was going to have to miss our

 lunch because of a lastminute meeting with a wholesale

 orchid salesman. “But she said you should stil have your

 treatment,” the receptionist said.

 “DeeDee’s going to be your aesthetician, and you’ve got

 locker number two twenty.”

 I took the robe and slippers she handed me. Locker 220

 was in a bank with fifty others, and several toned middle-

 aged women were stripping out of their yoga clothes. I

 breezed into another section of lockers, one that was

 blissful y empty, and changed into my robe. If someone

 complained because I was using locker 664 instead, I

 didn’t think my mother would disown me. I punched in my

 key code—2358, for ACLU—took a bracing breath, and

 tried not to glance in the mirror as I walked by.

 There wasn’t very much that I liked about the outside of me.

 I had curves, but to me, they were in al the wrong places.

 My hair was an explosion of dark curls, which could have

 been sexy if I didn’t have to work so hard to keep them frizz-

 free. I’d read that stylists on the Oprah show would

 straighten the hair of guests with hair like mine, because

 curls added ten pounds to the camera—which meant that

 even my hair made objects like me look bigger than they

 appeared. My eyes were okay—they were mud-colored on

 an average day and green if I felt like embel ishing—but

 most of al , they showed the part of me I was proud of: my

 intel igence. I might never be a cover girl, but I was a girl

 who could cover it al .

 The problem was, you never heard anyone say, “Wow,

 check out the brain on that babe.”

 My father had always made me feel special, but I couldn’t

 even look at my mother without wondering why I hadn’t

 inherited her tiny waist and sleek hair. As a kid I had only

 wanted to be just like her; as an adult, I’d stopped trying.

 Sighing, I entered the whirlpool area: a white oasis

 surrounded by white wicker benches where primarily white

 women waited for their white-coated therapists to cal their

 name.

 DeeDee appeared in her immaculate jacket, smiling. “You

 must be Maggie,” she said. “You look just like your mother

 described you.”

 I wasn’t about to take that bait. “Nice to meet you.” I never

 quite figured out the protocol for this part of the experience

 —you said hel o and then disrobed immediately so that a

 total stranger could lay their hands on you … and you paid

 for this privilege. Was it just me, or was there a great deal

 that spa treatments had in common with prostitution?

 “You looking forward to your Song of Solomon Wrap?”

 “I’d rather be getting a root canal.”

 DeeDee grinned. “Your mom told me you’d say something

 like that, too.”

 If you haven’t had a body wrap, it’s a singular experience.

 You’re lying on a cushy table covered by a giant piece of

 Saran Wrap and you’re naked. Total y, completely naked.

 Sure, the aesthetician tosses a washcloth the size of a

 gauze square over your privates when she’s scrubbing you

 down, and she’s got a poker face that never belies whether

 she’s calculating your body mass index under her palms—

 but stil , you’re painful y aware of your physique, if only

 because someone’s experiencing it firsthand with you.

 I forced myself to close my eyes and remember that being

 washed beneath a Vichy shower by someone else was

 supposed to make me feel like a queen and not a

 hospitalized invalid.

 “So, DeeDee,” I said. “How long have you been doing

 this?”

 She unrol ed a towel and held it like a screen as I rol ed

 onto my back. “I’ve been working at spas for six years, but I

 just got hired on here.”

 “You must be good,” I said. “My mother doesn’t sweat

 amateurs.”

 She shrugged. “I like meeting new people.”

 I like meeting new people, too, but when they’re ful y

 clothed.

 “What do you do for work?” DeeDee asked.

 “My mother didn’t tel you?”

 “No … she just said—” Suddenly she broke off, silent.

 “She said what.”

 “She, um, told me to treat you to an extra helping of

 seaweed scrub.”

 “You mean she told you I’d need twice as much.”

 “She didn’t—”

 “Did she use the word zaftig?” I asked. When DeeDee

 didn’t answer—wisely—I blinked up at the hazy light in the

 didn’t answer—wisely—I blinked up at the hazy light in the

 ceiling, listened to Yanni’s canned piano for a few beats,

 and then sighed. “I’m an ACLU lawyer.”

 “For real?” DeeDee’s hands stil ed on my feet. “Do you

 ever take on cases, like, for free?”

 “That’s al I do.”

 “Then you must know about the guy on death row … Shay

 Bourne?

 I’ve been writing to him for ten years, ever since I was in

 eighth grade and I started as part of an assignment for my

 social studies class. His last appeal just got rejected by the

 Supreme Court.”

 “I know,” I said. “I’ve filed briefs on his behalf.”

 DeeDee’s eyes widened. “So you’re his lawyer?”

 “Wel … no.” I hadn’t even been living in New Hampshire

 when Bourne was convicted, but it was the job of the ACLU

 to file amicus briefs for death row prisoners. Amicus was

 Latin for friend of the court; when you had a position on a

 particular case but weren’t directly a party involved in it, the

 court would let you legal y spel out your feelings if it might

 be beneficial to the decision-making process. My amicus

 briefs il ustrated how hideous the death penalty was;

 defined it as cruel and unusual punishment, as

 unconstitutional. I’m quite sure the judge looked at my hard

 work and promptly tossed it aside.

 “Can’t you do something else to help him?” DeeDee

 asked.

 The truth was, if Bourne’s last appeal had been rejected by

 the Supreme Court, there wasn’t much any lawyer could do

 to save him now.

 “Tel you what,” I promised. “I’l look into it.”

 DeeDee smiled and covered me with heated blankets until

 I was trussed tight as a burrito. Then she sat down behind

 me and wove her fingers into my hair. As she massaged

 my scalp, my eyes drifted shut.

 “They say it’s painless,” DeeDee murmured. “Lethal

 injection.”

 They: the establishment, the lawmakers, the ones

 assuaging their guilt over their own actions with rhetoric.

 “That’s because no one ever comes back to tel them

 otherwise,” I said. I thought of Shay Bourne being given the

 news of his own impending death. I thought of lying on a

 table like this one, being put to sleep.

 Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The blankets were too hot, the

 cream on my skin too thick. I wanted out of the layers and

 began to fight my way free.

 “Whoa,” DeeDee said. “Hang on, let me help you.” She

 pul ed and peeled and handed me a towel. “Your mother

 didn’t tel me you were claustrophobic.”

 I sat up, drawing great gasps of air into my lungs. Of course

 she didn’t, I thought. Because she’s the one who’s

 suffocating me.

 

 Lucius

 It was late afternoon, almost time for the shift change, and I-

 tier was relatively quiet. Me, I’d been sick al day, hazing in

 and out of sleep brought on by fever. Cal oway, who usual y

 played chess with me, was playing with Shay instead.

 “Bishop takes a6,” Cal oway cal ed out. He was a racist

 bigot, but Cal oway was also the best chess player I’d ever

 met.

 During the day, Batman the Robin resided in his breast

 pocket, a smal lump no bigger than a pack of Starburst

 candies. Sometimes it crawled onto his shoulder and

 pecked at the scars on his scalp. At other times, he kept

 Batman in a paperback copy of The Stand that had been

 doctored as a hiding place—starting on chapter six, a

 square had been cut out of the pages of the thick book with

 a pilfered razor blade, creating a little hol ow that Cal oway

 lined with tissues to make a bed. The robin ate mashed

 potatoes; Cal oway traded precious masking tape and

 twine and even a homemade handcuff key for extra

 portions.

 “Hey,” Cal oway said. “We haven’t made a wager on this

 game.”

 Crash laughed. “Even Bourne ain’t dumb enough to bet you

 when he’s losing.”

 “What have you got that I want?” Cal oway mused.

 “Intel igence?” I suggested. “Common sense?”

 “Keep out of this, homo.” Cal oway thought for a moment.

 “The brownie. I want the damn brownie.”

 By now, the brownie was two days old. I doubted that

 Cal oway would even be able to swal ow it. What he’d

 enjoy, mostly, was the act of taking it away from Shay.

 “Okay,” Shay said. “Knight to g6.”

 I sat up on my bunk. “Okay? Shay, he’s beating the pants

 off you.”

 “How come you’re too sick to play, DuFresne, but you don’t

 mind sticking your two cents into every conversation?”

 Cal oway said. “This is between me and Bourne.”

 “What if I win?” Shay asked. “What do I get?”

 Cal oway laughed. “It won’t happen.”

 “The bird.”

 “I’m not giving you Batman—”

 “Then I’m not giving you the brownie.” There was a beat of

 silence.

 “Fine,” Cal oway said. “You win, you get the bird. But you’re

 not going to win, because my bishop takes d3. Consider

 yourself official y screwed.”

 “Queen to h7,” Shay replied. “Checkmate.”

 “What?” Cal oway cried. I scrutinized the mental

 chessboard I’d been tracking—Shay’s queen had come out

 of nowhere, screened by his knight.

 There was nowhere left for Cal oway to go.

 At that moment the door to I-tier opened, admitting a pair of

 officers in flak jackets and helmets. They marched to

 Cal oway’s cel and brought him onto the catwalk, securing

 his handcuffs to a metal railing along the far wal .

 There was nothing worse than having your cel searched. In

 here, al we had were our belongings, and having them

 pored over was a gross invasion of privacy. Not to mention

 the fact that when it happened, you had an excel ent chance

 of losing your best stash, be that drugs or hooch or

 chocolate or art supplies or the stinger rigged from paper

 clips to heat up your instant coffee.

 They came in with flashlights and long-handled mirrors and

 worked systematical y. They’d check the seams of the

 wal s, the vents, the plumbing.

 They’d rol deodorant sticks al the way out to make sure

 nothing was hidden underneath. They’d shake containers of

 powder to hear what might be inside. They’d sniff shampoo

 bottles, open envelopes, and take out the letters inside.

 They’d rip off your bedsheets and run their hands over the

 mattresses, looking for tears or ripped seams.

 Meanwhile, you were forced to watch.

 I could not see what was going on in Cal oway’s cel , but I

 had a pretty good idea based on his reactions. He rol ed

 his eyes as his blanket was checked for unraveled threads;

 his jaw tensed when a postage stamp was peeled off an

 envelope, revealing the black tar heroin underneath. But

 when his bookshelf was inspected, Cal oway flinched. I

 looked for the smal bulge in his breast pocket that would

 have been the bird and realized that Batman the Robin was

 somewhere inside that cel .

 One of the officers held up the copy of The Stand. The

 pages were riffled, the spine snapped, the book tossed

 against the cel wal . “What’s this?” an officer asked,

 focusing not on the bird that had been whipped across the

 cel but on the baby-blue tissues that fluttered down over his

 boots.

 “Nothing,” Cal oway said, but the officer wasn’t about to

 take his word for it. He picked through the tissues, and

 when he didn’t find anything, he confiscated the book with

 its carved hidey-hole.

 Whitaker said something about a write-up, but Cal oway

 wasn’t listening.

 I could not remember ever seeing him quite so unraveled.

 As soon as he was released back into his cel , he ran to the

 rear corner where the bird had been flung.

 The sound that Cal oway Reece made was primordial; but

 then maybe that was always the case when a grown man

 with no heart started to cry.

 There was a crash, and a sickening crunch. A whirlwind of

 destruction as Cal oway fought back against what couldn’t

 be fixed. Final y spent, Cal oway sank down to the floor of

 his cel , cradling the dead bird. “Motherfucker.

 Motherfucker.”

 “Reece,” Shay interrupted, “I want my prize.”

 My head snapped around. Surely Shay wasn’t stupid

 enough to antagonize Cal oway.

 “What?” Cal oway breathed. “What did you say?”

 “My prize. I won the chess game.”

 “Not now,” I hissed.

 “Yes, now,” Shay said. “A deal’s a deal.”

 In here, you were only as good as your word, and Cal oway

 —with his Aryan Brotherhood sensibilities—would have

 known that better than anyone else. “You better make sure

 you’re always behind those bars,” Cal oway vowed,

 “because the next time I get the chance, I’m going to mess

 you up so bad your own mama wouldn’t know you.” But

 even as he threatened Shay, Cal oway gently wrapped the

 dead bird in a tissue and attached the smal , slight bundle

 to the end of his fishing line.

 When the robin reached me, I drew it under the three-inch

 gap beneath the door of my cel . It stil looked half cooked,

 its closed eye translucent blue. One wing was bent at a

 severe backward angle; its neck lol ed sideways.

 Shay sent out his own line of string, with a weight made of a

 regulation comb on one end. I saw his hands gently slide

 the robin, wrapped in tissue, into his cel . The lights on the

 catwalk flickered.

 I’ve often imagined what happened next. With an artist’s

 eye, I like to picture Shay sitting on his bunk, cupping his

 palms around the tiny bird. I imagine the touch of someone

 who loves you so much, he cannot bear to watch you sleep;

 and so you wake up with his hand on your heart. In the long

 run, though, it hardly matters how Shay did it. What matters

 is the result: that we al heard the piccolo tril of that robin;

 that Shay pushed the risen bird beneath his cel door onto

 the catwalk, where it hopped, like broken punctuation,

 toward Cal oway’s outstretched hand.

 

 June

 If you’re a mother, you can look into the face of your grown

 child and see, instead, the one that peeked up at you from

 the folds of a baby blanket. You can watch your eleven-

 year-old daughter painting her nails with glitter polish and

 remember how she used to reach for you when she wanted

 to cross the street. You can hear the doctor say that the real

 danger is adolescence, because you don’t know how the

 heart wil respond to growth spurts—and you can pretend

 that’s ages away.

 “Best two out of three,” Claire said, and from the folds of

 her hospital johnny she raised her fist again.

 I lifted my hand, too. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

 “Paper.” Claire grinned. “I win.”

 “You total y do not,” I said. “Hel o? Scissors?”

 “What I forgot to tel you is that it’s raining, and the scissors

 got rusty, and so you slip the paper underneath them and

 carry them away.”

 I laughed. Claire shifted slightly, careful not to dislodge al

 the tubes and the wires. “Who’l feed Dudley?” she asked.

 Dudley was our dog—a thirteen-year-old springer spaniel

 who, along with me, was one of the only pieces of continuity

 between Claire and her late sister. Claire may never have

 met Elizabeth, but they had both grown up draping faux

 pearls around Dudley’s neck, dressing him up like the

 sibling they never had.

 “Don’t worry about Dudley,” I said. “I’l cal Mrs. Morrissey if I

 have to.”

 

 Claire nodded and glanced at the clock. “I thought they’d be

 back already.”

 “I know, baby.”

 “What do you think’s taking so long?”

 There were a hundred answers to that, but the one that

 floated to the top of my mind was that in some other

 hospital, two counties away, another mother had to say

 good-bye to her child so that I would have a chance to keep

 mine.

 The technical name for Claire’s il ness was pediatric

 dilated cardiomyopathy. It affected twelve mil ion kids a

 year, and it meant that her heart cavity was enlarged and

 stretched, that her heart couldn’t pump blood out efficiently.

 You couldn’t fix it or reverse it; if you were lucky you could

 live with it. If you weren’t, you died of congestive heart

 failure. In kids, 79 percent of the cases came from an

 unknown origin. There was a camp that attributed its onset

 to myocarditis and other viral infections during infancy; and

 another that claimed it was inherited through a parent who

 was a carrier of the defective gene. I had always assumed

 the latter was the case with Claire. After al , surely a child

 who grew out of grief would be born with a heavy heart.

 At first, I didn’t know she had it. She got tired more easily

 than other infants, but I was stil moving in slow motion

 myself and did not notice. It wasn’t until she was five,

 hospitalized with a flu she could not shake, that she was

 diagnosed. Dr. Wu said that Claire had a slight arrhythmia

 that might improve and might not; he put her on Captopril,

 Lasix, Lanoxin. He said that we’d have to wait and see.

 On the first day of fifth grade, Claire told me it felt like she

 had swal owed a hummingbird. I assumed it was nerves

 about starting classes, but hours later—when she stood up

 to solve a math problem at the chalkboard—she passed

 out cold. Progressive arrhythmias made the heart beat like

 a bag of worms—it wouldn’t eject any blood. Those

 basketbal players who seemed so healthy and then

 dropped dead on the court? That was ventricular fibril ation,

 and it was happening to Claire. She had surgery to implant

 an AICD—an automatic implantable cardioverter-

 defibril ator, or, in simpler terms, a tiny, internal ER resting

 right on her heart, which would fix future arrhythmias by

 administering an electric shock. She was put on the list for

 a transplant.

 The transplant game was a tricky one—once you received

 a heart, the clock started ticking, and it wasn’t the happy

 ending everyone thought it was. You didn’t want to wait so

 long for a transplant that the rest of the bodily systems

 began to shut down. But even a transplant wasn’t a miracle:

 most recipients could only tolerate a heart for ten or fifteen

 years before complications ensued, or there was outright

 rejection. Stil , as Dr. Wu said, fifteen years from now, we

 might be able to buy a heart off a shelf and have it instal ed

 at Best B u y … the idea was to keep Claire alive long

 enough to let medical innovation catch up to her.

 This morning, the beeper we carried at al times had gone

 off.

 We have a heart, Dr. Wu had said when I cal ed. I’l meet

 you at the hospital.

 For the past six hours, Claire had been poked, pricked,

 scrubbed, and prepped so that the minute the miracle

 organ arrived in its little Igloo cooler, she could go straight

 into surgery.

 This was the moment I’d waited for, and dreaded, her

 whole life.

 What if… I could not even let myself say the words.

 Instead, I reached for Claire’s hand and threaded our

 fingers together. Paper and scissors, I thought. We are

 between a rock and a hard place. I looked at the fan of her

 angel hair on the pil ow, the faint blue cast of her skin, the

 fairy-light bones of a girl whose body was stil too much for

 her to handle. Sometimes, when I looked at her, I didn’t see

 her at al ; instead, I pretended that she was—“What do you

 think she’s like?”

 I blinked, startled. “Who?”

 “The girl. The one who died.”

 “Claire,” I said. “Let’s not talk about this.”

 “Why not? Don’t you think we should know al about her if

 she’s going to be a part of me?”

 I touched my hand to her head. “We don’t even know it’s a

 girl.”

 “Of course it’s a girl,” Claire said. “It would be total y gross

 to have a boy’s heart.”

 “I don’t think that’s a qualification for a match.”

 She shuddered. “It should be.” Claire struggled to push

 herself upright so that she was sitting higher in the hospital

 bed. “Do you think I’l be different?”

 I leaned down and kissed her. “You,” I pronounced, “wil

 wake up and stil be the same kid who cannot be bothered

 to clean her room or walk Dudley or turn out the lights when

 she goes downstairs.”

 That’s what I said to Claire, anyway. But al I heard were the

 first four words: You wil wake up.

 A nurse came into the room. “We just got word that the

 harvest’s begun,” she said. “We should have more

 information shortly; Dr. Wu’s on the phone with the team

 that’s on-site.”

 After she left, Claire and I sat in silence. Suddenly, this was

 real—the surgeons were going to open up Claire’s chest,

 stop her heart, and sew in a new one. We had both heard

 numerous doctors explain the risks and the rewards; we

 knew how infrequently pediatric donors came about. Claire

 shrank down in the bed, her covers sliding up to her nose.

 “If I die,” Claire said, “do you think I’l get to be a saint?”

 “You won’t die.”

 “Yeah, I wil . And so wil you. I just might do it a little sooner.”

 

 I couldn’t help it; I felt tears wel ing up in my eyes. I wiped

 them on the edge of the hospital sheets. Claire fisted her

 hand in my hair, the way she used to when she was little. “I

 bet I’d like it,”

 Claire said. “Being a saint.”

 Claire had her nose in a book constantly, and recently, her

 Joan of Arc fascination had bloomed into al things

 martyred.

 “You aren’t going to be a saint.”

 “You don’t know that for sure,” Claire said.

 “You’re not Catholic, for one thing. And besides, they al

 died horrible deaths.”

 “That’s not always true. You can be kil ed while you’re being

 good, and that counts. St. Maria Goretti was my age when

 she fought off a guy who was raping her and was kil ed and

 she got to be one.”

 “That’s atrocious,” I said.

 “St. Barbara had her eyebal s cut out. And did you know

 there’s a patron saint of heart patients? John of God?”

 “The question is, why do you know there’s a patron saint of

 heart patients?”

 “Duh,” Claire said. “I read about it. It’s al you let me do.”

 She settled back against the pil ows. “I bet a saint can play

 softbal .”

 “So can a girl with a heart transplant.”

 But Claire wasn’t listening; she knew that hope was just

 smoke and mirrors; she’d learned by watching me. She

 looked up at the clock. “I think I’l be a saint,” she said, as if

 it were entirely up to her. “That way no one forgets you when

 you’re gone.”

 The funeral of a police officer is a breathtaking thing.

 Officers and firemen and public officials wil come from

 every town in the state and some even farther away. There

 is a procession of police cruisers that precedes the hearse;

 they blanket the highway like snow.

 It took me a long time to remember Kurt’s funeral, because

 I was working so hard at the time to pretend it wasn’t

 happening.

 The police chief, Irv, rode with me to the graveside service.

 There were townspeople lining the streets of Lynley, with

 handmade signs that read PROTECT AND SERVE, and

 THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE.

 It was summertime, and the asphalt sank beneath the heels

 of my shoes where I stood. I was surrounded by other

 policemen who’d worked with Kurt, and hundreds who

 didn’t, a sea of dress blue.

 My back hurt, and my feet were swol en. I found myself

 concentrating on a lilac tree that shuddered in the breeze,

 petals fal ing like rain.

 The police chief had arranged for a twenty-one-gun salute,

 and as it finished, five fighter jets rose over the distant violet

 mountains. They sliced the sky in paral el lines, and then,

 just as they flew overhead, the plane on the far right broke

 off like a splinter, soaring east.

 When the priest stopped speaking—I didn’t listen to a word

 of it; what could he tel me about Kurt that I didn’t already

 know?—Robbie and Vic stepped forward. They were

 Kurt’s closest friends in the department. Like the rest of the

 Lynley force, they had covered their badges with black

 fabric. They reached for the flag that draped Kurt’s coffin

 and began to fold it. Their gloved hands moved so fast—I

 thought of Mickey Mouse, of Donald Duck, with their

 oversized white fists. Robbie was the one who put the

 triangle into my arms, something to hold on to, something to

 take Kurt’s place.

 Through the radios of the other policemen came the voice

 of the dispatcher: Al units stand by for a broadcast.

 Final cal for Officer Kurt Nealon, number 144.

 144, report to 360 West Main for one last assignment.

 It was the address of the cemetery.

 You wil be in the best of hands. You wil be deeply missed.

 244, 20-7. The radio code for end of shift.

 I have been told that afterward, I walked up to Kurt’s coffin. It

 was so highly polished I could see my own reflection,

 pinched and unfamiliar. It had been special y made, wider

 than normal, to accommodate Elizabeth, too.

 She was, at seven, stil afraid of the dark. Kurt would lie

 down beside her, an elephant perched among pink pil ows

 and satin blankets, until she fel asleep; then he’d creep out

 of the room and turn off the light. Sometimes, she woke up

 at midnight shrieking.

 You turned it off, she’d sob into my shoulder, as if I had

 broken her heart.

 The funeral director had let me see them. Kurt’s arms were

 wrapped tight around my daughter; Elizabeth rested her

 head on his chest. They looked the way they looked on

 nights when Kurt fel asleep waiting for Elizabeth to do that

 very thing. They looked the way I wished I could: smooth

 and clear and peaceful, a pond with a stone unthrown. It

 was supposed to be comforting that they would be

 together. It was supposed to make up for the fact that I

 couldn’t go with them.

 “Take care of her,” I whispered to Kurt, my breath blowing a

 kiss against the gleaming wood. “Take care of my baby.”

 As if I’d summoned her, Claire moved inside me then: a

 slow tumble of butterfly limbs, a memory of why I had to stay

 behind.

 There was a time when I prayed to saints. What I liked

 about them were their humble beginnings: they were

 human, once, and so you knew that they just got it in a way

 Jesus never would. They understood what it meant to have

 your hopes dashed or your promises broken or your

 feelings hurt. St.

 Therese was my favorite—the one who believed you could

 be perfectly ordinary, but that great love could somehow

 transport you. However, this was al a long time ago. Life

 has a way of pointing out, with great sweeping signs, that

 you are looking at the wrong things, doesn’t it? It was when I

 started to admit to myself that I’d rather be dead that I was

 given a child who had to fight to stay alive.

 In the past month, Claire’s arrhythmias had worsened. Her

 AICD was going off six times a day. I’d been told that when

 it fired, it felt like an electric current running through the

 body. It restarted your heart, but it hurt like hel . Once a

 month would be devastating; once a day would be

 debilitating. And then there was Claire’s frequency.

 There were support groups for adults who had to live with

 AICDs; there were stories of those who preferred the risk of

 dying from an arrhythmia to the sure knowledge that they

 would be shocked by the device sooner or later. Last week,

 I had found Claire in her room reading the Guinness Book

 of World Records.

 “Roy Sul ivan was struck by lightning seven times over

 thirty-six years,” she’d said. “Final y, he kil ed himself.” She

 lifted her shirt, staring down at the scar on her chest.

 “Mom,” she begged, “please make them turn it off.”

 I did not know how long I would be able to convince Claire

 to stay with me, if this was the way she had to do it.

 Claire and I both turned immediately when the hospital door

 opened. We were expecting the nurse, but it was Dr. Wu.

 He sat down on the edge of the bed and spoke directly to

 Claire, as if she were my age instead of eleven. “The heart

 we had in mind for you had something wrong with it. The

 team didn’t know until they got inside … but the right

 ventricle is dilated. If it isn’t functioning now, chances are it

 wil only get worse by the time the heart’s transplanted.”

 “So … I can’t have it?” Claire asked.

 “No. When I give you a new heart, I want it to be the

 healthiest heart possible,” the doctor explained.

 My body felt stiff. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

 Dr. Wu turned. “I’m sorry, June. Today’s not going to be the

 day.”

 “But it could take years to find another donor,” I said. I didn’t

 add the rest of my sentence, because I knew Wu could hear

 it anyway: Claire can’t last that long.

 “We’l just hope for the best,” he said.

 After he left, we sat in stunned silence for a few moments.

 Had I done this? Had the fear I’d tried to quash—the one

 that Claire wouldn’t survive this operation—somehow bled

 into reality?

 Claire began to pul the cardiac monitors off her chest.

 “Wel ,”

 she said, but I could hear the hitch in her voice as she

 struggled not to cry. “What a total waste of a Saturday.”

 “You know,” I said, forcing the words to unrol evenly, “you

 were named for a saint.”

 “For real?”

 I nodded. “She founded a group of nuns cal ed the Poor

 Clares.”

 She glanced at me. “Why did you pick her?”

 Because, on the day you were born, the nurse who handed

 you to me shook her head and said, “Now there’s a sight

 for sore eyes.” And you were. And she is the patron saint of

 that very thing. And I wanted you protected, from the very

 first moment I spoke your name.

 “I liked the way it sounded,” I lied, and I held up Claire’s shirt

 so that she could shimmy into it.

 We would leave this hospital, maybe go get chocolate

 Fribbles at Friendly’s and rent a movie with a happy

 ending. We’d take Dudley for a walk and feed him. We’d

 act like this was an ordinary day. And after she went to

 sleep, I would bury my face in my pil ow and let myself feel

 everything I wasn’t letting myself feel right now: shame over

 knowing that I’ve had five more years in Claire’s company

 than I did with Elizabeth, guilt over being reC

 lieved this transplant did not happen, since it might just as

 easily kil Claire as save her.

 Claire stuffed her feet into her pink Converse high-tops.

 “Maybe I’l join the Poor Clares.”

 “You stil can’t be a saint,” I said. And added silently,

 Because I wil not let you die.

 

 Lucius

 Shortly after Shay brought Batman the Robin back to life,

 Crash Vitale lit himself on fire.

 He’d created a makeshift match the way we al do—by

 pul ing the fluorescent bulb out of its cradle and holding the

 metal tines just far enough away from the socket to have the

 electricity arc to meet it. Stick a piece of paper in the gap,

 and it becomes a torch. Crash had crumpled up pages of a

 magazine and set them around himself in a circle. By the

 time Texas started screaming for help, smoke was fil ing

 the pod. The COs held the fire hose at ful spray as they

 opened his cel door; we could hear Crash being knocked

 against the far wal by the stream. Dripping wet, he was

 strapped onto a gurney to be transported, his hair a matted

 mess, his eyes wild. “Hey, Green Mile,” he yel ed as he was

 wheeled off the tier, “how come you didn’t save me?”

 “Because I like the bird,” Shay murmured.

 I was the first one to laugh, then Texas snickered. Joey, too-

 but only because Crash wasn’t present to shut him up.

 “Bourne,” Cal oway said, the first words any of us had heard

 from him since the bird had hopped back to his cel .

 “Thanks.”

 There was a beat of silence. “It deserved another chance,”

 Shay said.

 The pod door buzzed open, and this time CO Smythe

 walked in with the nurse, doing her evening rounds. Alma

 came to my cel first, holding out my card of pil s. “Smel s

 like someone had a barbecue in here and forgot to invite

 me,” she said. She waited for me to put the pil s in my

 mouth, take a swal ow of water. “You sleep wel , Lucius.”

 As she left, I walked to the front of the cel . Rivulets of water

 ran down the cement catwalk. But instead of leaving the

 tier, Alma stopped in front of Cal oway’s cel . “Inmate

 Reece, are you going to let me take a look at that arm?”

 Cal oway hunched over, protecting the bird he held in his

 hand. We al knew he was holding Batman; we al held our

 col ective breath. What if Alma saw the bird? Would she rat

 him out?

 I should have known Cal oway would never let that happen

 —he’d be offensive enough to scare her off before she got

 too close. But before he could speak, we heard a fluted

 chirp—not from Cal oway’s cel but from Shay’s.

 There was an answering cal -the robin looking for its own

 kind. “What the hel ’s that?” CO Smythe asked, looking

 around. “Where’s it coming from?”

 Suddenly, a twitter rose from Joey’s cel , and then a higher

 cheep from Pogie’s. To my surprise, I even heard a tweet

 come from the vicinity of my own bunk. I wheeled around,

 tracing it to the louvers of the vent. Was there a whole

 colony of robins in here? Or was it Shay, a ventriloquist in

 addition to a magician, this time throwing his voice?

 Smythe moved down the tier, hands covering his ears as

 he peered at the skylight and into the shower cel to find the

 source of the noise. “Smythe?”

 an officer said over the control booth intercom. “What the

 hel ’s going on?”

 A place like this wears down everything, and tolerance is

 no exception.

 In here, coexistence passes for forgiveness. You do not

 learn to like something you abhor; you come to live with it.

 It’s why we submit when we are told to strip; it’s why we

 deign to play chess with a child molester; it’s why we quit

 crying ourselves to sleep. You live and let live, and

 eventual y that becomes enough.

 Which maybe explains why Cal oway’s muscled arm

 snaked through the open trap of his door, his “Anita Bryant”

 patch shadowing his biceps.

 Alma blinked, surprised.

 “I won’t hurt you,” she murmured, peering at the new skin

 growing where it had been grafted, stil pink and evolving.

 She took a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket and

 snapped them on, making her hands just as lily-white as

 Cal oway’s. And wouldn’t you know it—the moment Alma

 touched him, al of that crazy noise fel dead silent.

 M I CHAEL

 A priest has to say Mass every day, even if no one shows

 up, although this was rarely the case. In a city as large as

 Concord there were usual y at least a handful of

 parishioners, already praying the rosary by the time I came

 out in my vestments.

 I was just at the part of the Mass where miracles occurred.

 “For this is my body, which wil be given up for you,” I said

 aloud, then genuflected and lifted the host.

 Next to “How the heck is one God also a Holy Trinity?” the

 most common question I got asked as a priest by non-

 Catholics was about transubstantiation: the belief that at

 consecration, the elements of bread and wine truly became

 the Body and Blood of Christ. I could see why people were

 baffled—if this was true, wasn’t Holy Communion

 cannibalistic? And if a change real y occurred, why couldn’t

 you see it?

 When I went to church as a kid, long before I came back to

 it, I received Holy Communion like everyone else, but I

 didn’t real y give much thought to what I received. It looked,

 to me, like a cracker and a cup of wine … before and after

 the priest consecrated it. I can tel you now that it stil looks

 like a cracker and a cup of wine. The miracle part comes

 down to philosophy. It isn’t the accidents of an object that

 make it what it is … it’s the essential parts. We’d stil be

 human even if we didn’t have limbs or teeth or hair; but if we

 suddenly stopped being mammals, that wouldn’t be the

 case. When I consecrated the host and the wine at Mass,

 the very substance of the elements changed; it was the

 other properties—the shape, the taste, the size—that

 remained the same. Just like John the Baptist saw a man

 and knew, right away, that he was looking at God; just like

 the wise men came upon a baby and knew He was our

 Savior … every day I held what looked like crackers and

 wine but actual y was Jesus.

 For this very reason, from this point on in the Mass, my

 fingers and thumb would be kept pinched together until

 washed after the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Not even the

 tiniest particle of the consecrated host could be lost; we

 went to great pains to make sure of this when disposing of

 the leftovers from Holy Communion. But just as I was

 thinking this, the wafer slipped out of my hand.

 I felt the way I had when, in third grade, during the Little

 League play-offs, I’d watched a pop fly come into my corner

 of left field too fast and too high—knotted with the need to

 catch it, sick with the knowledge that I wouldn’t. Frozen, I

 watched the host tumble, safely, into the bel y of the chalice

 of wine.

 “Five-second rule,” I murmured, and I reached into the

 chalice and snagged it.

 The wine had already begun to soak into the wafer. I

 watched, amazed, as a jaw took shape, an ear, an

 eyebrow.

 Father Walter had visions. He said that the reason he

 became a priest in the first place was because, as an altar

 boy, a statue of Jesus had reached for his robe and

 tugged, tel ing him to stay the course.

 More recently, Mary had appeared to him in the rectory

 kitchen when he was frying trout, and suddenly they began

 leaping in the pan. Don’t let a single one fal to the floor,

 she’d warned, and then disappeared.

 There were hundreds of priests who excel ed at their cal ing

 but never received this sort of divine intercession—and yet,

 I didn’t want to fal among their ranks. Like the teens I

 worked with, I understood the need for miracles—they kept

 reality from paralyzing you. So I stared at the wafer, hoping

 the wine-sketched features would solidify into a portrait of

 Jesus … and instead I found myself looking at something

 else entirely. The shaggy dark hair that looked more like a

 grunge-band drummer than a priest, the nose broken while

 wrestling in junior high.

 the razor stubble. Engraved onto the surface of the host,

 with a printmaker’s delicacy, was a picture of me.

 What is my head doing on the body of Christ? I thought as I

 placed the host on the paten, plum-stained and dissolving

 already. I lifted the chalice. “This is my blood,” I said.

 

 June

 When Shay Bourne was working at our house as a

 carpenter, he gave Elizabeth a birthday present. Made of

 scrap wood and crafted after hours wherever he went when

 he left our house, it was a smal , hinged chest. He had

 carved it intricately, so that each face portrayed a different

 fairy, dressed in the trappings of the seasons.

 Summer had bright peony wings, and a crown made of the

 sun. Spring was covered in climbing vines, and a bridal

 train of flowers swept beneath her. Autumn wore the jewel

 tones of sugar maples and aspen trees, the cap of an

 acorn balanced on her head.

 And Winter skated across a frozen lake, leaving a trail of

 silver frost in her wake. The cover was a painted picture of

 the moon, rising through a field of stars with its arms

 outstretched toward a sun that was just out of reach.

 Elizabeth loved that box. The night that Shay gave it to her,

 she lined it with blankets and slept inside. When Kurt and I

 told her she couldn’t do that again—what if the top fel on

 her while she was sleeping?—she turned it into a cradle for

 her dol s, then a toy chest. She named the fairies.

 Sometimes I heard her talking to them.

 After Elizabeth died, I took the box out to the yard, planning

 to destroy it. There I was, eight months pregnant and

 grieving, swinging Kurt’s axe, and at the last minute, I could

 not do it. It was what Elizabeth had treasured; how could I

 stand to lose that, too? I put the box in the attic, where it

 remained for years.

 knew it was there, buried behind our luggage and old

 toddler clothes and paintings with broken frames. When

 Claire was about ten, I found her trying to lug the box

 downstairs. “It’s so pretty,”

 she said, winded with the effort. “And no one’s using it.” I

 snapped at her and told her to go lie down and rest.

 But Claire kept asking about it, and eventual y I brought the

 box to her room, where it sat at the end of her bed, just like

 it had for Elizabeth. I never told her who’d carved it. And yet

 sometimes, when Claire was at school, I found myself

 peeking inside. I wondered if Pandora, too, wished she had

 scrutinized the contents first—heartache, cleverly disguised

 as a gift.

 

 Lucius

 It had been said, among those on I-tier, that I had achieved

 Bassmaster status when it came to fishing. My equipment

 was a sturdy line made from yarn I’d stored up over the

 years, tempered by weight—a comb, or a deck of cards,

 depending on what I was angling for. I was known for my

 ability to fish from my cel into Crash’s, at the far end of the

 tier; and then down to the shower cel at the other end. I

 suppose this was why, when Shay cast out his own line, I

 found myself watching out of curiosity.

 It was after One Life to Live but before Oprah, the time of

 day when most of the guys napped. I myself was not feeling

 so wel . The sores in my mouth made it difficult to speak; I

 had to keep using the toilet. The skin around my eyes,

 stained by Kaposi’s sarcoma, had swol en to the point

 where I could barely see. Then suddenly, Shay’s fishing line

 whizzed into the narrow space beneath my cel door. “Want

 some?” he asked.

 When we fish, it’s to get something. We trade magazines;

 we barter food; we pay for drugs. But Shay didn’t want

 anything, except to give.

 Wired to the end of his line was a piece of Bazooka bubble

 gum.

 It’s contraband. Gum can be used as putty to build al sorts

 of things, and to tamper with locks. God only knew where

 Shay had come across this bounty—and, even more

 astounding, why he wouldn’t just hoard it.

 I swal owed, and my throat nearly split along a fault line. “No

 thanks,”

 I rasped.

 I sat up on my bunk and peeled the sheet off the plastic

 mattress. One of the seams had been careful y doctored by

 me. The thread, laced like a footbal , could be loosened

 enough for me to rummage around inside the foam

 padding. I jammed my forefinger inside, scooping out my

 stash.

 There were the 3TC pil s—Epivir—and the Sustiva.

 Retrovir. Lomotil for my diarrhea. Al the medications that,

 for weeks, Alma had watched me place on my tongue and

 apparently swal ow—when in fact they were tucked up high

 in the purse of my cheek.

 I had not yet made up my mind whether I would use these to

 kil myself … or if I’d just continue to save them instead of

 ingest them: a slower but stil sure suicide.

 It’s funny how when you are dying, you stil fight for the upper

 hand.

 You want to pick the terms; you want to choose the date.

 You’l tel yourself anything you have to, to pretend that

 you’re stil the one in control.

 “Joey,” Shay said. “Want some?” He cast again, his line

 arcing over the catwalk.

 “For real?” Joey asked. Most of us just pretended Joey

 wasn’t around; it was safer for him. No one went out of their

 way to acknowledge him, much less offer him something as

 precious as a piece of gum.

 “I want some,” Cal oway demanded. He must have seen the

 bounty going by, since his cel was between Shay’s and

 Joey’s.

 “Me, too,” Crash said.

 Shay waited for Joey to take the gum, and then pul ed his

 line gently closer, until it was within reach of Cal oway.

 “There’s plenty.”

 “How many pieces you got?” Crash asked.

 “Just the one.”

 Now, you’ve seen a piece of Bazooka gum. Maybe you can

 split it with a friend. But to divvy up one single piece among

 seven greedy men?

 Shay’s fishing line whipped to the left, past my cel en route

 to Crash’s.

 “Take some and pass it on,” Shay said.

 “Maybe I want the whole thing.”

 “Maybe you do.”

 “Fuck,” Crash said. “I’m taking it al .”

 “If that’s what you need,” Shay replied.

 I stood up, unsteady, and crouched down as Shay’s fishing

 line reached Pogie’s cel . “Have some,” Shay offered.

 “But Crash took the whole piece—”

 “Have some.”

 I could hear paper being unwrapped, the ful ness of Pogie

 speaking around the bounty softening in his mouth. “I ain’t

 had chewing gum since 2001.”

 By now, I could smel it. The pinkness, the sugar. I began to

 salivate.

 “Oh, man,” Texas breathed, and then everyone chewed in

 silence, except for me.

 Shay’s fishing line swung between my own feet. “Try it,” he

 urged.

 I reached for the packet on the end of the line. Since six

 other men had already done the same, I expected to see

 only a fragment remaining, a smidgen of gum, if anything at

 al —yet, to my surprise, the piece of Bazooka was intact. I

 ripped the gum in half and put a piece into my mouth.

 The rest I wrapped up, and then I tugged on Shay’s line. I

 watched it zip away, back to his own cel .

 At first I could barely stand it—the sweetness against the

 sores in my mouth, the sharp edges of the gum before it

 softened. It brought tears to my eyes to so badly want

 something that I knew would cause great pain. I held up my

 hand, ready to spit the gum out, when the most remarkable

 thing happened: my mouth, my throat, they stopped aching,

 as if there were an anesthetic in the gum, as if I were no

 longer an AIDS patient but an ordinary man who’d picked

 up this treat at the gas station counter after fil ing his tank in

 preparation for driving far, far away. My jaw moved,

 rhythmic. I sat down on the floor of my cel , crying as I

 chewed—not because it hurt, but because it didn’t.

 We were silent for so long that CO Whitaker came in to see

 what we were up to; and what he found, of course, was not

 what he had expected.

 Seven men, imagining childhoods that we al wished we’d

 had. Seven men, blowing bubbles as bright as the moon.

 For the first time in nearly six months, I slept through the

 night. I woke up rested and relaxed, without any of the

 stomach knotting that usual y con78

 sumed me for the first two hours of every day. I walked to

 the basin, squeezed toothpaste onto the stubby brush they

 gave us, and glanced up at the wavy sheet of metal that

 passed for a mirror.

 Something was different.

 The sores, the Kaposi’s sarcoma that had spotted my

 cheeks and inflamed my eyelids for a year now, were gone.

 My skin was clear as a river.

 I leaned forward for a better look. I opened up my mouth,

 tugged my lower lip, searching in vain for the blisters and

 cankers that had kept me from eating.

 “Lucius,” I heard, a voice spil ing from the vent over my

 head. “Good morning.”

 I glanced up. “It is, Shay. God, yes, it is.”

 In the end, I didn’t have to cal for a medical consult. Officer

 Whitaker was shocked enough at my improved

 appearance to cal Alma himself. I was taken into the

 attorney-client cel so that she could draw my blood, and an

 hour later, she came back to my own cel to tel me what I

 already knew.

 “Your CD4+ is 1250,” Alma said. “And your viral load’s

 undetectable.”

 “That’s good, right?”

 “It’s normal. It’s what someone who doesn’t have AIDS

 would look like if we drew his blood.” She shook her head.

 “Looks to me like your drug regimen’s kicked in in a big

 way—”

 “Alma,” I said, and I glanced behind her at Officer Whitaker

 before peeling the sheet off my mattress and ripping open

 my hiding place for pil s. I brought them to her, spil ed

 several dozen into her hand. “I haven’t been taking my

 meds for months.”

 Color rose in her cheeks. “Then this isn’t possible.”

 “It’s not probable,” I corrected. “Anything’s possible.”

 She stuffed the pil s into her pocket. “I’m sure there’s a

 medical explanation—”

 “It’s Shay.”

 “Inmate Bourne?”

 “He did this,” I said, wel aware of how insane it sounded,

 and yet desperate to make her understand. “I saw him bring

 a dead bird back to life.

 And take one piece of gum and turn it into enough for al of

 us. He made wine come out of our faucets the first night he

 was here …”

 “Okey-dokey. Officer Whitaker, let me see if we can get a

 psych consult for-“

 “I’m not crazy, Alma; I’m—wel , I’m healed.” I reached for her

 hand.

 “Haven’t you ever seen something with your own eyes that

 you never imagined possible?”

 She darted a glance at Cal oway Reece, who had

 submitted to her ministrations now for seven days straight.

 “He did that, too,” I whispered. “I know it.”

 Alma walked out of my cel and stood in front of Shay’s. He

 was listening to his television, wearing headphones.

 “Bourne,” Whitaker barked.

 “Cuffs.”

 After his wrists were secured, the door to his cel was

 opened. Alma stood in the gap with her arms crossed.

 “What do you know about Inmate DuFresne’s condition?”

 Shay didn’t respond.

 “Inmate Bourne?”

 “He can’t sleep much,” Shay said quietly. “It hurts him to

 eat.”

 “He’s got AIDS. But suddenly, this morning, that’s al

 changed,” Alma said. “And for some reason, Inmate

 DuFresne thinks you had something to do with it.”

 “I didn’t do anything.”

 Alma turned to the CO. “Did you see any of this?”

 ‘Traces of alcohol were found in the plumbing on I-tier,”

 Whitaker admitted.

 “And believe me, it was combed for a leak, but nothing

 conclusive was found. And yeah, I saw them al chewing

 gum. But Bourne’s cel ’s been tossed religiously—and

 we’ve never found any contraband.”

 “I didn’t do anything,” Shay repeated. “It was them.”

 Suddenly, he stepped toward Alma, animated. “Are you

 here for my heart?”

 “What?”

 “My heart. I want to donate it, after I die.” I heard him

 rummaging around in his box of possessions. “Here,” he

 said, giving Alma a piece of paper. “This is the girl who

 needs it. Lucius wrote her name down for me.”

 “I don’t know anything about that…”

 “But you can find out, right? You can talk to the right

 people?”

 Alma hesitated, and then her voice went soft, the flannel-

 bound way she used to speak to me when the pain was so

 great that I could not see past it. “I can talk,” she said.

 It is an odd thing to be watching television and know that in

 reality, it is happening right outside your door. Crowds had

 flooded the parking lot of the prison. Camping out on the

 stairs of the parole office entrance were folks in

 wheelchairs, elderly women with walkers, mothers clutching

 sick infants to their chests. There were gay couples, mostly

 one man supporting another frail, il partner; and crackpots

 holding up signs with scriptural references about the end of

 the world. Lining the street that led past the cemetery and

 downtown were the news vans—local affiliates, and even a

 crew from FOX in Boston.

 Right now, a reporter from ABC 22 was interviewing a

 young mother whose son had been born with severe

 neurological damage. She stood beside the boy, in his

 motorized wheelchair, one hand resting on his forehead.

 “What would I like?” she said, repeating the reporter’s

 question. “I’d like to know that he knows me.” She smiled

 faintly. “That’s not too greedy, is it?”

 The reporter faced the camera. “Bob, so far there’s been

 no confirmation or denial from the administration that any

 miraculous behavior has in fact taken place within the

 Concord state prison. We have been told, however, by an

 unnamed source, that these occurrences stemmed from the

 desire of New Hampshire’s sole death row inmate, Shay

 Bourne, to donate his organs post-execution.”

 I yanked my headphones down to my neck. “Shay,” I cal ed

 out. “Are you listening to this?”

 

 “We got us our own celebrity,” Crash said.

 The brouhaha began to upset Shay. “I’m who I’ve always

 been,” he said, his voice escalating. “I’m who I’l always be.”

 Just then two officers arrived, escorting someone we rarely

 saw: Warden Coyne. A burly man with a flattop on which

 you could have served dinner, he stood beside the cel

 while Officer Whitaker told Shay to strip.

 His scrubs were shaken out, and then he was al owed to

 dress again before he was shackled to the wal across from

 our cel s.

 The officers started to toss Shay’s house-upending the

 meal he hadn’t finished, yanking his headphones out of the

 television, overturning his smal box of property. They

 ripped his mattress, bal ed up his sheets. They ran their

 hands along the edges of his sink, his toilet, his bunk.

 “You got any idea, Bourne, what’s going on outside?” the

 warden said, but Shay just stood with his head tucked into

 his shoulder, like Cal oway’s robin did when he slept “You

 care to tel me what you’re trying to prove?”

 At Shay’s pronounced silence, the warden began to walk

 the length of our tier. “What about you?” he cal ed out to the

 rest of us. “And I wil inform you that those who cooperate

 with me wil not be punished. I can’t promise anything for

 the rest of you.”

 Nobody spoke.

 Warden Coyne turned to Shay. “Where did you get the

 gum?”

 “There was only one piece,” Joey Kunz blurted, the snitch.

 “But it was enough for al of us.”

 “You some kind of magician, son?” the warden said, his

 face inches away from Shay’s. “Or did you hypnotize them

 into believing they were getting something they weren’t? I

 know about mind control, Bourne.”

 “I didn’t do anything,” Shay murmured.

 Officer Whitaker stepped closer. “Warden Coyne, there’s

 nothing in his cel . Not even in his mattress. His blanket’s

 intact-if he’s been fishing with it, then he managed to weave

 the strings back together when he was done.”

 I stared at Shay. Of course he’d fished with his blanket; I’d

 seen the line he’d made with my own eyes. I’d untied the

 bubble gum from the braided blue strand.

 “I’m watching you, Bourne,” the warden hissed. “I know what

 you’re up to. You know damn wel your heart isn’t going to

 be worth anything once it’s pumped ful of potassium

 chloride in a death chamber. You’re doing this because

 you’ve got no appeals left, but even if you get Barbara

 freaking Walters to do an interview with you, the sympathy

 vote’s not going to change your execution date.”

 The warden stalked off I-tier. Officer Whitaker released

 Shay’s handcuffs from the bar where he was tethered and

 led him back to his cel .

 “Listen, Bourne. I’m Catholic.”

 “Good for you,” Shay replied.

 “I thought Catholics were against the death penalty,” Crash

 said.

 “Yeah, don’t do him any favors,” Texas added.

 Whitaker glanced down the tier, where the warden stood

 outside the soundproof glass, talking to another officer.

 “The thing i s … if you want…

 I could ask one of the priests from St. Catherine’s to visit.”

 He paused.

 “Maybe he can help with the whole heart thing.”

 Shay stared at him. “Why would you do that for me?”

 The officer fished inside the neck of his shirt, pul ing out a

 length of chain and the crucifix that was attached to the end

 of it. He brought it to his lips, then let it fal beneath his

 uniform again. “He that believeth on me,” Whitaker

 murmured, “believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.”

 I did not know the New Testament, but I recognized a

 biblical passage when I heard one—and it didn’t take a

 rocket scientist to realize that he was suggesting Shay’s

 antics, or whatever you wanted to cal them, were heaven-

 sent. I realized then that even though Shay was a prisoner,

 he had a certain power over Whitaker. He had a certain

 power over al of us. Shay Bourne had done what no brute

 force or power play or gang threat had been able to do al

 the years I’d been on I-tier: he’d brought us together.

 Next door, Shay was slowly putting his cel to rights. The

 news pro gram was wrapping up with another bird’s-eye

 view of the state prison.

 From the helicopter footage, you could see how many

 people had gathered, how many more were heading this

 way.

 I sat down on my bunk. It wasn’t possible, was it?

 My own words to Alma came back to me: It’s not probable.

 Anything’s possible.

 I pul ed my art supplies out of my hiding spot in the

 mattress, riffling through my sketches for the one I’d done of

 Shay being wheeled off the tier after his seizure. I’d drawn

 him on the gurney, arms spread and tied down, legs

 banded together, eyes raised to the ceiling. I turned the

 paper ninety degrees. This way, it didn’t look like Shay was

 lying down. It looked like he was being crucified.

 People were always “finding” Jesus in jail. What if he was

 already here?

 

 “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want

 to achieve immortality through not dying.”

 -WOODY ALLEN, QUOTED IN WOODY ALLEN AND HIS

 COMEDY, BY ERIC LAX

 

 Maggie

 There were many things I was grateful for, including the fact

 that I was no longer in high school. Let’s just say it wasn’t a

 walk in the park for a girl who didn’t fit into the smorgasbord

 of clothing at the Gap, and who tried to become invisible so

 she wouldn’t be noticed for her size. Today, I was in a

 different school and it was ten years later, but I was stil

 suffering from a flashback anxiety attack. It didn’t matter

 that I was wearing my Jones New York I’m-going-to-court

 suit; it didn’t matter that I was old enough to be mistaken for

 a teacher instead of a student—I stil expected a footbal

 jock to turn the corner, at any moment, and make a fat joke.

 Topher Renfrew, the boy who was sitting beside me in the

 lobby of the high school, was dressed in black jeans and a

 frayed T-shirt with an anarchy symbol, a guitar pick strung

 around his neck on a leather lanyard.

 Cut him, and he’d bleed antiestablishment. His iPod

 earphones hung down the front of his shirt like a doctor’s

 stethoscope; and as he read the decision handed down by

 the court just an hour before, his lips mouthed the words.

 “So, what does al this bul shit mean?” he asked.

 “That you won,” I explained. “If you don’t want to say the

 Pledge of Al egiance, you don’t have to.”

 “What about Karshank?”

 His homeroom teacher, a Korean War veteran, had sent

 Topher to detention every time he refused to say the

 Pledge. It had led to a letterwriting campaign by my office

 (wel , me) and then we’d gone to court to protect his civil

 liberties.

 Topher handed me back the decision. “Sweet,” he said.

 “Any chance you can get pot legalized?”

 “Uh, not my area of expertise. Sorry.” I shook Topher’s

 hand, congratulated him, and headed out of the school.

 It was a day for celebration—I unrol ed the windows of the

 Prius, even though it was cold outside, and turned up

 Aretha on the CD player.

 Mostly, my cases got shot down by the courts; I spent more

 time fighting than I did getting a response. As one of three

 ACLU attorneys in New Hampshire, I was a champion of

 the First Amendment—freedom of speech, freedom of

 religion, freedom to organize. In other words, I looked real y

 great on paper, but in reality, it meant I had become an

 expert letter writer. I wrote on behalf of the teenagers who

 wanted to wear their Hooters shirts to school, or the gay kid

 who wanted to bring his boyfriend to the prom; I wrote to

 take the cops to task for enforcing DWB—driving while

 black—when statistics showed they corral ed more

 minorities than whites for routine traffic stops. I spent

 countless hours at community meetings, negotiating with

 local agencies, the AG’s office, the police departments, the

 schools. I was the splinter they couldn’t get rid of, the thorn

 in their side, their conscience.

 I took out my cel phone and dialed my mother’s number at

 the spa.

 “Guess what,” I said when she picked up. “I won.”

 “Maggie, that’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you.” There was

 the slightest beat. “What did you win?”

 “My case! The one I was tel ing you about last weekend at

 dinner?”

 “The one against the community col ege whose mascot is

 an Indian?”

 “Native American. And no,” I said. “I lost that one, actual y. I

 was talking about the Pledge case. And”—I pul ed out my

 trump card—“I think I’m going to be on the news tonight.

 There were cameras al over the courthouse.”

 I listened to my mother drop the phone, yel ing to her staff

 about her famous daughter. Grinning, I hung up, only to

 have the cel ring against my palm again. “What were you

 wearing?” my mother asked.

 “My Jones New York suit.”

 My mother hesitated. “Not the pin-striped one?”

 “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 “I’m just asking.”

 “Yes, the pin-striped one,” I said. “What’s wrong with it?”

 “Did I say there was anything wrong with it?”

 “You didn’t have to.” I swerved to avoid a slowing car. “I

 have to go,”

 I said, and I hung up, tears stinging.

 It rang again. “Your mothers crying,” my father said.

 “Wel , that makes two of us. Why can’t she just be happy for

 me?”

 “She is, honey. She thinks you’re too critical.”

 Tin too critical? Are you kidding?”

 “I bet Marcia Clark’s mother asked her what she was

 wearing to the O.J. trial,” my father said.

 “I bet Marcia Clark’s mother doesn’t get her daughter

 exercise videos for Chanukah.”

 “I bet Marcia Clark’s mother doesn’t get her anything for

 Chanukah,”

 my father said, laughing. “Her Christmas stocking, though

 … I hear it’s ful of The Firm DVDs.”

 A smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. In the

 background, I could hear the rising strains of a crying baby.

 “Where are you?”

 “At a bris,” my father said. “And I’d better go, because the

 mohel’s giving me dirty looks, and believe me, I don’t want

 to upset him before he does a circumcision. Cal me later

 and tel me every last detail. Your mothers going to TiVo the

 news for us.”

 I hung up and tossed my phone into the passenger seat. My

 father, who had made a living out of studying Jewish law,

 was always good at seeing the gray areas between the

 black-and-white letters. My mother, on the other hand, had

 a remarkable talent for taking a celebratory day and ruining

 it. I pul ed into my driveway and headed into my house,

 where Oliver met me at the front door. “I need a drink,” I told

 him, and he cocked an ear, because after al it was only

 11:45 a.m. I went straight to the refrigerator—in spite of

 what my mother likely imagined, the only food inside of it

 was ketchup, a jar of pimientos, Ol ies carrots, and yogurt

 with an expiration date from Bil Clinton’s administration—

 and poured myself a glass of Yel ow Tail chardonnay I

 wanted to be pleasantly buzzed before I turned on the

 television set, where no doubt my fifteen minutes of fame

 was now going to be marred by a suit with stripes that

 made my already plus-size butt look positively planetary.

 Oliver and I settled onto the couch just as the theme song

 for the midday news spil ed into my living room. The anchor,

 a woman with a blond helmet head, smiled into the camera.

 Behind her was a graphic of an American flag with a line

 through it, and the caption NO PLEDGE? “In today’s top

 story, a winning decision was handed down in the case of

 the high school student who refused to say the Pledge of

 Al egiance.” The screen fil ed with a video of the courthouse

 steps, where you could see my face with a bouquet of

 microphones thrust under my nose.

 Dammit, I did look fat in this suit.

 “In a stunning victory for individual civil liberties,” I began

 onscreen, and then a bright blue BREAKING NEWS

 banner obliterated my face. The picture switched to a live

 feed in front of the state prison, where there were squatters

 with tents and people holding placards and … was that a

 chorus line of wheelchairs?

 The reporter’s hair was being whipped into a frenzy by the

 wind. “I’m Janice Lee, reporting live from the New

 Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, which houses

 the man other inmates are cal ing the Death Row Messiah.”

 I picked up Oliver and sat down, cross-legged, in front of

 the television.

 Behind the reporter were dozens of people—I couldn’t tel if

 they were picketing or protesting. Some stuck out from the

 crowd: the man with the sandwich board that read JOHN

 3:16, the mother clutching a limp child, the smal knot of

 nuns praying the rosary.

 “This is a fol ow-up to our initial report,” the reporter said, “in

 which we chronicled the inexplicable events that have

 occurred since inmate Shay Bourne—New Hampshire’s

 only death row inhabitant—expressed his desire to donate

 his organs post-execution. Today there might be scientific

 proof that these incidents aren’t magic … but something

 more.”

 The screen fil ed with a uniformed officer’s face—

 Correctional Officer Rick Whitaker, according to the

 caption beneath him. “The first one was the tap water,” he

 said. “One night, when I was on duty, the inmates got

 intoxicated, and sure enough the pipes tested positive for

 alcohol residue one day, although the water source tested

 perfectly normal. Some of the inmates have mentioned a

 bird being brought back to life, although I didn’t witness that

 myself. But I’d have to say the most dramatic change

 involved Inmate DuFresne.”

 The reporter again: “According to sources, inmate Lucius

 DuFresne—an AIDS patient in the final stages of the

 disease—has been miraculously cured. On tonight’s six

 o’clock report, we’l talk to physicians at Dartmouth-

 Hitchcock Medical Center about whether this can be

 explained medical y … but for the newly converted fol owers

 of this Death Row Messiah,” the reporter said, gesturing to

 the crowds behind her, “anything’s possible. This is Janice

 Lee, reporting from Concord.”

 Then I saw a familiar face in the crowd behind the reporter

 —DeeDee, the spa technician who’d given me my body

 wrap. I remembered tel ing her that I’d look into Shay

 Bourne’s case.

 I picked up the phone and dialed my boss at the office. “Are

 you watching the news?”

 Rufus Urqhart, the head of the ACLU in New Hampshire,

 had two televisions on his desk that he kept tuned to

 different channels so that he didn’t miss a thing. “Yeah,” he

 said. “I thought you were supposed to be on.”

 “I got preempted by the Death Row Messiah.”

 “Can’t beat divinity,” Rufus said.

 “Exactly,” I replied. “Rufus, I want to work on his behalf.”.

 “Wake up, sweetheart, you already are. At least, you were

 supposed to be filing amicus briefs,” Rufus said.

 “No—I mean, I want to take him on as a client. Give me a

 week,” I begged.

 “Listen, Maggie, this guy’s already been through the state

 court, the first circuit of the federal court, and the Supreme

 Court. If I remember correctly, they punted last year and

 denied cert. Bourne’s exhausted al his appeals … I don’t

 real y see how we can reopen the door.”

 “If he thinks he’s the Messiah,” I said, “he just gave us a

 crowbar.”

 The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

 of 2000 didn’t actual y come into play until five years later,

 when the Supreme Court upheld the decision in the case of

 Cutter v. Wilkinson, where a bunch of Ohio prisoners who

 were Satanists sued the state for not accommodating their

 religious needs. As long as a prison guaranteed the right to

 practice religion—without forcing religion on those who

 didn’t want to practice it—the law was constitutional.

 “Satanists?” my mother said, putting down her knife and

 fork. “That’s what this guy is?”

 I was at their house, having dinner, like I did every Friday

 night before they went to Shabbat services. My mother

 would invite me on Monday, and I’d tel her I’d have to wait

 and see whether anything came up—like a date, or

 Armageddon, both of which had the same likelihood of

 occurring in my life. And then, of course, by Friday, I’d find

 myself passing the roasted potatoes and listening to my

 father say the kiddush over the wine.

 “I have no idea,” I told her. “I haven’t met with him.”

 “Do Satanists have messiahs?” my father asked.

 “You’re missing the point, both of you. Legal y, there’s a

 statute that says that even prisoners have a right to practice

 their religion as long as it doesn’t interfere with the running

 of the prison.” I shrugged. “Besides, what if he is the

 Messiah? Aren’t we moral y obligated to save his life if he’s

 here to save the world?”

 My father cut a slice of his brisket. “He’s not the Messiah.”

 “And you know this because … ?”

 “He isn’t a warrior. He hasn’t maintained the sovereign

 state of Israel.

 He hasn’t ushered in world peace. And okay, so maybe

 he’s brought something dead back to life, but if he was the

 Messiah he would have resurrected everyone. And if that

 was the case, your grandparents would be here right now

 asking if there was more gravy.”

 “There’s a difference between a Jewish messiah, Dad, and

 … wel …

 the other one.”

 “What makes you think that there might be more than one?”

 he asked.

 “What makes you think there might not?” I shot back.

 My mother threw her napkin down. “I’m getting a Tylenol,”

 she said, and left the table.

 My father grinned at me. “You would have made such a

 good rabbi, Mags.”

 “Yeah, if only that pesky religion thing didn’t keep getting in

 the way.”

 I had, of course, been raised Jewish. I would sit through

 Friday night services and listen to the soaring, rich voice of

 the cantor; I would watch my father reverently carry the

 Torah and it would remind me of how he looked in my baby

 pictures when he held me. But I’d also grow so bored that

 I’d find myself memorizing the names of who begat whom in

 Numbers.

 The more I learned about Jewish law the more I felt that, as

 a girl, I was bound to be considered unclean or limited or

 lacking. I had my bat mitzvah, like my parents wanted; and

 the day after I read from the Torah and celebrated my

 transition into adulthood, I told my parents I was never going

 to temple again.

 Why? my father had asked when I told him.

 Because I don’t think God real y cares whether or not I’m

 sitting there every Friday night. Because I don’t buy into a

 religion that’s based on what thou shalt not do, instead of

 what thou ought to be doing for the greater good. Because I

 don’t know what I believe.

 I didn’t have the heart to tel him the truth: that I was much

 closer to an atheist than an agnostic, that I doubted there

 was a God at al . In my line of work, I’d seen too much

 injustice in the world to buy into the belief that a merciful, al -

 powerful deity would continue to al ow such atrocities to

 exist; and I downright detested the party line that there was

 some divine grand plan for humanity’s bumbling existence.

 It was a little like a parent watching her children playing with

 hre and thinking, Wel , let them burn. That’l teach ‘em.

 Once, when I was in high school, I asked my father about

 religions that were, with the passage of time, considered to

 be false. The Greeks and Romans, with al their gods,

 thought they were making sacrifices and praying at temples

 in order to receive favor from their deities; but today, pious

 people would scoff. How do you know, I’d asked my father,

 that five hundred years from now, some alien master race

 won’t be picking over the artifacts of your Torah and their

 crucifix and wondering how you could be so naive?

 My father, who was the first to take a controversial situation

 and say “Let’s think about that,” had been speechless.

 Because, he’d said final y, a religion doesn’t last two

 thousand years if it’s based on a lie.

 Here’s my take on it: I don’t think religions are based on

 lies, but I don’t think they’re based on truths, either. I think

 they come about because of what people need at the time

 that they need them. Like the World Series player who

 won’t take off his lucky socks, or the mother of the sick child

 who believes that her baby can sleep only if she’s sitting by

 the crib—believers need, by definition, something to

 believe in.

 “So what’s your plan?” my father asked, bringing my

 attention back.

 I glanced up. “I’m going to save him.”

 “Maybe you’re the Messiah,” he mused.

 My mother sat down again, popped two pil s into her mouth,

 and swal owed them dry. “What if he’s creating this whole

 to-do so that somebody like you wil come out of the

 woodwork and keep him from being executed?”

 Wel , I’d already considered that. “It doesn’t matter if it’s al

 a big ruse,” I said. “As long as I can get the court to buy it,

 it’s stil a blow against the death penalty.” I imagined myself

 being interviewed by Stone Phil ips. Who, when the

 cameras cut, would ask me out to dinner.

 “Promise me you won’t be one of these lawyers who fal s

 for the criminal and marries him in the prison …”

 “Mom!”

 “Wel , it happens, Maggie. Felons are very persuasive

 people.”

 “And you know this because you’ve personal y spent so

 much time in prison?”

 She held up her hands. “I’m just saying.”

 “Rachel, I think Maggie’s got this under control,” my father

 said.

 “Why don’t we get ready to go?”

 My mother started clearing the dishes, and I fol owed her

 into the kitchen. We fel into a familiar routine: I’d load the

 dishwasher and rinse off the big platters; she’d dry. “I can

 finish,” I said, like I did every week.

 “You don’t want to be late for temple.”

 She shrugged. “They can’t start without your father.” I

 passed her a dripping serving bowl, but she set it on the

 counter and examined my hand instead. “Look at your nails,

 Maggie.”

 I pul ed away. “I’ve got more important things to do than

 make sure my cuticles are trimmed, Ma.”

 “It’s not about the manicure,” she said. “It’s about taking

 forty-five minutes where the most important thing in the

 world is not someone else … but you.”

 That was the thing about my mother: just when I thought I

 was ready to kil her, she’d say something that made me

 want to cry. I tried to curl my hands into fists, but she

 threaded our fingers together. “Come to the spa next week.

 We’l have a nice afternoon, just the two of us.”

 A dozen comments sprang to the back of my tongue: Some

 of us have to work for a living. It won’t be a nice afternoon if

 it’s just the two of us. I may be a glutton, but not for

 punishment. Instead, I nodded, even though we both knew I

 had no intention of showing up.

 

 When I was tiny, my mother would have spa days in the

 kitchen, just for me. She’d concoct hair conditioners out of

 papaya and banana; she’d rub coconut oil into the skin of

 my shoulders and arms; she’d lay slices of cucumber on my

 eyes and sing Sonny & Cher songs to me. Afterward, she

 would hold a hand mirror up to my face. Look at my

 beautiful girl, she would say, and for the longest time, I

 believed her.

 “Come to temple,” my mother said. “Just tonight. It would

 make your father so happy.”

 “Maybe next time,” I answered.

 I walked them out to their car. My father turned the ignition

 and unrol ed his window. “You know,” he said. “When I was

 in col ege, there was a homeless guy who used to hang out

 near the subway. He had a pet mouse that used to sit on

 his shoulder and nibble at the col ar of his coat, and he

 never took that coat off, not even when it was ninety-five

 degrees out. He knew the entire first chapter of Moby-Dick

 by heart. I always gave him a quarter when I passed by.”

 A neighbor’s car zoomed past—someone from my father’s

 congregation, who honked a hel o.

 My father smiled. “The word Messiah isn’t in the Old

 Testament …

 just the Hebrew word for anointed. He’s not a savior; he’s a

 king or a priest with a special purpose. But the Midrash—

 wel , it mentions the moshiach a lot, and he looks different

 every time. Sometimes he’s a soldier, sometimes he’s a

 politician, sometimes he’s got supernatural powers. And

 sometimes he’s dressed like a vagrant. The reason I gave

 that bum a quarter,”

 he said, “is because you never know.”

 Then he put the car in reverse and pul ed out of the

 driveway. I stood there until I couldn’t see them anymore,

 until there was nothing left to do but go home.

 M I CHAEL

 Before you can go into a prison, you’re stripped of the

 trappings that make you you. Take off your shoes, your belt.

 Remove your wal et, your watch, your saint’s medal. Loose

 change in your pockets, cel phone, even the crucifix pin on

 your lapel. Hand over your driver’s license to the uniformed

 officer, and in return, you become one of the faceless

 people who has entered a place the residents aren’t

 al owed to leave.

 “Father?” an officer said. “Are you okay?”

 I tried to smile and nod, imagining what he saw: a big tough

 guy who was shaking at the thought of entering this prison.

 Sure, I rode a Triumph Trophy, volunteered to work with

 gang youth, and broke the stereotype of a priest any

 chance I got—but inside here was the man whose life I had

 voted to end.

 And yet.

 Ever since I had taken my vows and asked God to help me

 offset what I had done to one man with what I might yet be

 able to do for others—I knew this would happen one day. I

 knew I’d wind up face-toface with Shay Bourne.

 Would he recognize me?

 Would I recognize hurt?

 I walked through the metal detector, holding my breath, as if

 I had something to hide. And I suppose I did, but my secrets

 wouldn’t set off those alarms. I started to weave my belt into

 the loops of my trousers again, to tie the laces of my

 Converse sneakers. My hands were stil trembling. “Father

 Michael?” I glanced up to find another officer waiting for

 me. “Warden Coyne’s expecting you.”

 “Right.” I fol owed the officer through dul gray hal ways.

 When we passed inmates, the officer pivoted his body so

 that he stood between us—a shield.

 I was delivered to an administrative office that overlooked

 the interior courtyard of the state prison. A conga line of

 prisoners was walking from one building to another. Behind

 them was a double line of fencing, capped with razor wire.

 “Father.”

 The warden was a stocky man with silver hair who offered a

 handshake and a grimace that was supposed to pass for a

 smile. “Warden Coyne. Nice to meet you.”

 He led me into his private office, a surprisingly modem, airy

 space with no desk—just a long, spare steel table with files

 and notes spread across it. As soon as he sat down, he

 unwrapped a piece of gum. “Nicorette,”

 he explained. “My wife’s making me quit smoking and to be

 honest, I’d rather cut off my left arm.” He opened a file with

 a number on its side—Shay Bourne had been stripped of

 his name in here as wel . “I do appreciate you coming.

 We’re a little short on chaplains right now.”

 The prison had one ful -time chaplain, an Episcopal priest

 who had flown to Australia to be with his dying father. Which

 meant that if an inmate requested to speak to a clergyman,

 one of the locals would be cal ed in.

 “It’s my pleasure,” I lied, and mental y marked the rosary I’d

 say later as penance.

 He pushed the file toward me. “Shay Bourne. You know

 him?”

 I hesitated. “Who doesn’t?”

 “Yeah, the news coverage is a bitch, pardon my French. I

 could do without al the attention. Bottom line is the inmate

 wants to donate his organs after execution.”

 “Catholics support organ donation, as long as the patient is

 braindead and no longer breathing by himself,” I said.

 Apparently, it was the wrong answer. Coyne lifted up a

 tissue.

 frowned, and spit his gum into it. “Yeah, great, I get it. That’s

 the party line. But the reality of the situation is that this guy’s

 at the twenty-third hour. He’s a convicted murderer, two

 times over. You think he’s suddenly developed a

 humanitarian streak … or is it more likely that he’s trying to

 gain public sympathy and stop his execution?”

 “Maybe he just wants something good to come out of his

 death…”

 “Lethal injection is designed to stop the inmate’s heart,”

 Coyne said flatly.

 I had helped a parishioner earlier this year when she made

 the decision to donate her son’s organs after a motorcycle

 accident that had left him braindead. Brain death, the

 doctor had explained, was different from cardiac death. Her

 son was stil irrevocably gone—he would not eventual y

 recover, like people in a coma—but thanks to the

 respirator, his heart was stil beating. If cardiac death had

 occurred, the organs wouldn’t be viable for transplant.

 I sat back in the chair. “Warden Coyne, I was under the

 impression that Inmate Bourne had requested a spiritual

 advisor …”

 “He did. And we’d like you to advise him against this crazy

 idea.”

 The warden sighed. “Look, I know what this must sound like

 to you.

 But Bourne’s going to be executed by the state. That’s a

 fact. Either it can become a sideshow … or it can be done

 with discretion.” He stared at me. “Are we clear on what you

 need to do?”

 “Crystal,” I said quietly.

 I had once before let myself be led by others, because I

 assumed they knew more than me. Jim, another juror, had

 used the “eye for an eye” line from Jesus’s Sermon on the

 Mount to convince me that repaying a death with a death

 was just. But now, I understood that Jesus had actual y

 been saying the opposite—criticizing those who let the

 punishment compound the crime.

 No way was I going to let Warden Coyne tel me how to

 advise Shay Bourne.

 In that instant, I realized that if Bourne didn’t recognize me, I

 wasn’t going to tel him I’d met him before. This wasn’t

 about my salvation; it was about his. And even if I’d been

 instrumental in ruining his life, now—as a priest—it was my

 job to redeem him.

 “I’d like to meet Mr. Bourne,” I said.

 The warden nodded. “I figured.” He stood up and led me

 back through the administrative offices. We took a turn and

 came to a control booth, a set of double-barred doors. The

 warden raised his hand and the officer inside unlocked the

 first steel door with a buzz and a sound of metal scraping

 metal. We stepped into the midchamber, and that same

 door automatical y sealed.

 So this was what it felt like to be locked in.

 Before I could begin to panic, the interior door buzzed

 open, and we walked along another corridor. “You ever

 been in here?” the warden asked.

 “No.”

 “You get used to it.”

 I looked around at the cinder-block wal s, the rusting

 catwalks. “I doubt that.”

 We stepped through a fire door marked I-TIER. “This is

 where we keep the most hard-core inmates,” Coyne said. “I

 can’t promise they’l be on their best behavior.”

 In the center of the room was a control tower. A young

 officer sat there, watching a television monitor that seemed

 to have a bird’s-eye view of the inside of the pod. It was

 quiet, or maybe the door that led inside was soundproof.

 I walked up to the door and peered inside. There was an

 empty shower stal closest to me, then eight cel s. I could

 not see the faces of the men and wasn’t sure which one

 was Bourne. “This is Father Michael,”

 the warden said. “He’s come to speak with Inmate Bourne.”

 He reached into a bin and handed me a flak jacket and

 protective goggles, as if I were going to war instead of

 death row.

 “You can’t go in unless you’ve got the right equipment,” the

 warden said.

 “Go in?”

 “Wel , where’d you think you were going to meet Inmate

 Bourne, Father? Starbucks?”

 I had thought there would be some kind of … room, I guess.

 Or the chapel. Til be alone with him? In a cel ?”

 “Hel , no,” Warden Coyne said. “You stand out on the

 catwalk and talk through the door.”

 Taking a deep breath, I slipped the jacket on over my

 clothes and fitted the goggles to my face. Then I winged a

 quick prayer and nodded.

 “Open up,” Warden Coyne said to the young officer.

 “Yes, sir,” the kid said, clearly flustered to be under Coyne’s

 regard.

 He glanced down at the control panel before him, a myriad

 display of buttons and lights, and pushed one near his left

 hand, only to realize at the last minute it was the wrong

 choice. The doors of al eight cel s opened at once.

 “Ohmygod,” the boy said, his eyes wide as saucers, as the

 warden shoved me out of the way and began punching a

 series of levers and buttons on the control panel.

 “Get him out of here,” the warden yel ed, jerking his head in

 my direction.

 Over the loudspeaker came his radio cal : Multiple inmates

 released on I-tier; need officer assistance immediately.

 I stood, riveted, as the inmates spil ed out of their

 respective cel s like poison. And then … wel … al hel

 broke loose.

 

 Lucius

 When the doors released in unison, like al the strings

 tuning up in an orchestra and magical y hitting the right note

 the first time the bow was raised, I didn’t run out of the cel

 like the others. I stopped for a beat, paralyzed by freedom.

 I quickly tucked my painting beneath the mattress of the

 bunk and stashed my ink in a rol of dirty laundry. I could

 hear Warden Coyne’s voice on the loudspeakers, cal ing

 over the radio for the SWAT team. This had happened only

 once before when I was in prison; a new officer screwed up

 and two cel s were opened simultaneously. The inmate

 who’d been accidental y freed rushed into the other’s cel

 and cracked his skul open against the sink, a gang hit that

 had been waiting for years to come to pass.

 Crash was the first one out of his cel . He ran past mine with

 his fist curled around a shank, making a beeline for Joey

 Kunz—a child molester was fair game for anyone. Pogie

 and Texas fol owed him like the dogs they were. “Grab him,

 boys,” Crash hol ered. “Let’s just cut it right off.”

 Joey’s voice escalated as he was cornered. “For God’s

 sake, someone help!”

 There was the sound of a fist hitting flesh, of Cal oway

 swearing. By now, he was in Joey’s cel , too.

 “Lucius?” I heard, a slow ribbon of a voice, as if it had come

 from underwater, and I remembered that Joey wasn’t the

 only one on the tier who’d hurt a child. If Joey was Crash’s

 first victim, Shay could very wel be the second.

 There were people outside the prison praying to Shay;

 there were reli gious pundits on TV who promised hel and

 damnation to those who worshipped a false messiah. I

 didn’t know what Shay was or wasn’t, but I credited him for

 my health one hundred percent. And there was something

 about him that just didn’t fit in here, that made you stop and

 look twice, as if you’d come across an orchid growing in a

 ghetto.

 “Stay where you are,” I cal ed out. “Shay, you hear me?”

 But he didn’t answer. I stood at the threshold of my cel ,

 trembling. I stared at that invisible line between here and

 now, no and yes, if and when.

 With one deep breath, I stepped outside.

 Shay was not in his cel ; he was moving slowly toward

 Joey’s. Through the door of I-tier, I could see the officers

 suiting up in flak jackets and shields and masks. There was

 someone else, too—a priest I’d never seen before.

 I reached for Shay’s arm to stop him. That’s al , just that

 smal heat, and it nearly brought me to my knees. Here in

 prison we did not touch; we were not touched. I could have

 held on to Shay, at the innocent crook of his elbow, forever.

 But Shay turned, and I remembered the first unwritten rule

 of being in prison: you did not invade someone’s space. I

 let go. “It’s okay,” Shay said softly, and he took another step

 toward Joey’s cel .

 Joey was spread-eagled on the floor, sobbing, his pants

 pul ed down.

 His head was twisted away, and blood streamed from his

 nose. Pogie had one of his arms, Texas the other;

 Cal oway sat on his fighting feet. From this angle, they were

 obscured from the view of the officers who were mobilizing

 to subdue everyone. “You heard of Save the Children?”

 Crash said, brandishing his homemade blade. “I’m here to

 make a donation.”

 Just then, Shay sneezed.

 “God bless,” Crash said automatical y.

 Shay wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Thanks.”

 The interruption made Crash lose some of his momentum.

 He glanced out at the army on the other side of the door,

 screaming commands we couldn’t hear. He rocked back

 on his heels and surveyed Joey, shivering against the

 cement floor.

 “Let him go,” Crash said.

 “Let him … ?” Cal oway echoed.

 “You heard me. Al of you. Go back.”

 Pogie and Texas listened; they always did what Crash

 said. Cal oway was slower to leave. “We ain’t done here,”

 he said to Joey, but then he left.

 “What the fuck are you waiting for?” Crash said to me, and I

 hurried back to my own cel , forgetting entirely anyone

 else’s welfare except my own.

 I do not know what it was that led to Crash’s change of

 plan-if it was knowing that the officers would storm the tier

 and punish him; if it was Shay’s wel -timed sneeze; if it was

 a prayer— God bless—on the lips of a sinner like Crash.

 But by the time the SWAT team entered seconds later, al

 seven of us were sitting in our cel s even though the doors

 were stil wide open, as if we were angels, as if we had

 nothing to hide.

 There’s a flower I can see from the exercise yard. Wel , I

 can’t realiy see it—I have to sort of hook my fingers on the

 ledge of the only window and spider-walk up the cement

 wal , but I can glimpse it then before I fal back down. It’s a

 dandelion, which you might think is a weed, but it can be

 put into salads or soups. The root can be ground up and

 used as a coffee substitute.

 The juices can get rid of warts or be used as an insect

 repel ent. I learned al this from a Mother Earth News

 magazine piece that I keep wrapped around my treasures

 —my shank, my Q-tips, the tiny Visine bottles where I keep

 the ink I manufacture. I read the article every time I take my

 supplies out for inventory, which is daily. I keep my cache

 behind a loosened cinder block beneath my cot, refil ing the

 mortar with Metamucil and toothpaste, mixed, so that the

 officers don’t get suspicious when they toss the cel .

 I never gave it much thought before I came in here, but I

 wish I knew more about horticulture. I wish I’d taken the time

 to learn what makes things grow. Hel , if I had, maybe I

 could have started a water melon plant from a seedling.

 Maybe I’d have vines hanging al over the place by now.

 Adam had the green thumb in our household. I used to find

 him outside at the crack of dawn, rooting around in the dirt

 between our daylilies and sedums. The weeds shal inherit

 the earth, he had said.

 Meek, I’d corrected. The meek shal inherit it.

 No way, Adam had said, and laughed. The weeds wil blow

 right by them.

 He used to say that if you picked a dandelion, two would

 grow back in its place. I guess they are the botanical

 equivalent of the men in this prison. Take one of us off the

 street, and more wil sprout up in his wake.

 With Crash back in solitary, and Joey in the infirmary, I-tier

 was oddly quiet. In the wake of Joey’s beating, our

 privileges had been suspended, so al showers and

 exercise yard visits were canceled for the day. Shay was

 pacing. Earlier, he’d been complaining that his teeth were

 vibrating with the air-conditioning unit; sometimes sounds

 got to be too much for him—usual y when he was agitated.

 “Lucius,” he said. “Did you see that priest today?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Do you think he came for me?”

 I didn’t want to give him false hope. “I don’t know, Shay.

 Maybe someone was dying on another tier and needed last

 rites.”

 “The dead aren’t alive, and the living don’t die.”

 I laughed. “Thanks for that, Yoda.”

 “Who’s Yoda?”

 He was talking crazy, the way Crash had a year ago when

 he’d started to peel the lead paint from the cinder blocks

 and eat it, hoping it would serve as a hal ucinogen. “Wel , if

 there is a heaven, I bet it’s ful of dandelions.”

 (Actual y, I think heaven’s ful of guys who look like

 Wentworth Mil er from Prison Break, but for right now, I was

 only talking landscaping.) “Heaven’s not a place.”

 “I didn’t say it had map coordinates …”

 “If it was in the sky, then birds would get there before you. If

 it was under the sea, fish would be first.”

 “Then where is it?” I asked.

 “It’s inside you,” Shay said, “and outside, too.”

 If he wasn’t eating the lead paint, then he’d been making

 hooch I didn’t know about. “If this is heaven, I’l take a rain

 check.”

 “You can’t wait for it, because it’s already here.”

 “Wel , you’re the only one of us who got rose-colored

 glasses when he was booked, I guess.”

 Shay was silent for a while. “Lucius,” he asked final y. “Why

 did Crash go after Joey instead of me?”

 I didn’t know. Crash was a convicted murderer; I had no

 doubt he could and would kil again if given the opportunity.

 Technical y, both Joey and Shay had sinned equal y in

 Crash’s code of justice; they had harmed children.

 Maybe Crash figured Joey would be easier to kil . Maybe

 Shay had gained a modicum of respect through his

 miracles. Maybe he’d just gotten lucky.

 Maybe even Crash thought there was something special

 about Shay.

 “He’s not any different than Joey…” Shay said.

 “Teensy suggestion? Don’t let Crash hear you say that.”

 “… and we’re not any different than Crash,” he finished.

 “You don’t know what would make you do what Crash did,

 just like you didn’t know what would make you kil Adam,

 until it happened.”

 I drew in my breath. No one in prison talked about another

 person’s crime, even if you secretly believed they were

 guilty. But I had kil ed Adam.

 It was my hand holding the gun; it was his blood on my

 clothes. It wasn’t what had been done that was at issue for

 me in court; it was why.

 “It’s okay to not know something,” Shay said. “That’s what

 makes us human.”

 No matter what Mr. Philosopher Next Door thought, there

 were things I knew for sure: That I had been loved, once,

 and had loved back.

 That a person could find hope in the way a weed grew. That

 the sum of a man’s life was not where he wound up but in

 the details that brought him there.

 That we made mistakes.

 I closed my eyes, sick of the riddles, and to my surprise al I

 could see were dandelions—as if they had been painted on

 the fields of my imagination, a hundred thousand suns. And

 I remembered something else that makes us human: faith,

 the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.

 

 June

 They say God won’t give you any more than you can handle,

 but that begs a more important question: why would God let

 you surfer in the first place?

 “No comment,” I said into the phone, and I slammed down

 the receiver loud enough that Claire—on the couch with her

 iPod on—sat up and took notice. I reached beneath the

 table and yanked out the cord completely so that I would not

 have to hear the phone ring.

 They had been cal ing al morning; they had set up camp

 outside my home. How does it feel to know that there are

 protesters outside the prison, hoping to free the man who

 murdered your child and your husband?

 Do you think Shay Bourne’s request to be an organ donor

 is a way to make up for what he’s done?

 What I thought was that nothing Shay Bourne could do or

 say would ever make up for the lives of Elizabeth and Kurt. I

 knew firsthand how wel he could lie and what might come

 of it—this was nothing more than some publicity stunt to

 make everyone feel badly for him, because after a decade,

 who even remembered feeling badly for that police officer,

 that little girl?

 Idid.

 There are people who say that the death penalty isn’t just

 because it takes so long to execute a man. That it’s

 inhumane to have to wait eleven years or more for

 punishment. That at least for Elizabeth and Kurt, death

 came quickly.

 Let me tel you what’s wrong with that line of reasoning: it

 assumes that Elizabeth and Kurt were the only victims. It

 leaves out me; it leaves out Claire. And I can promise you

 that every day for the last eleven years I’ve thought of what I

 lost at the hands of Shay Bourne. I’ve been anticipating his

 death just as long as he has.

 I heard voices coming from the living room and realized that

 Claire had turned on the television. A grainy photograph of

 Shay Bourne fil ed the screen. It was the same photo that

 had been used in the newspapers, although Claire would

 not have seen those, since I’d thrown them out immediately.

 Bourne’s hair was cut short now, and there were

 parenthetical lines around his mouth and fanning from the

 corners of his eyes, but he otherwise did not look any

 different.

 “That’s him, isn’t it?” Claire asked.

 God, Complex? read the caption beneath the photograph.

 “Yes.” I walked toward the television, intentional y blocking

 her view, and turned it off.

 Claire looked up at me. “I remember him,” she said.

 I sighed. “Honey, you weren’t even bom yet.”

 She unfolded the afghan that sat on the couch and wrapped

 it around her shoulders, as if she’d suddenly taken a chil . “I

 remember him,” Claire repeated.

 M I CHAEL

 I would have had to be living under a rock to not know what

 was being said about Shay Bourne, but I was the last

 person in the world who would ever have believed him to be

 messianic. As far as I was concerned, there was one Son

 of God, and I knew who He was. As for Bourne’s

 showmanship—wel , I’d seen David Blaine make an

 elephant disappear on Fifth Avenue in New York City, but

 that wasn’t a miracle, either. Plain and simple: my job here

 wasn’t to feed into Shay Bourne’s delusional beliefs … only

 to help him accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior

 before his execution so that he’d wind up in the Kingdom of

 Heaven.

 And if I could help him donate his heart somewhere along

 the way, so be it.

 Two days after the incident at I-tier had occurred, I parked

 my Trophy outside the prison. My mind kept tripping over a

 verse from Matthew where Jesus spoke to his disciples: I

 was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed

 me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you

 came unto me. The disciples—who were, to be brutal y

 honest, a thick bunch—were confused. They couldn’t

 remember Jesus being lost or naked or sick or imprisoned.

 And Jesus told them: Inasmuch as you have done it unto

 one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.

 Inside, I was handed a flak jacket and goggles again. The

 door to I-tier opened, and I was led down the hal way to

 Shay Bourne’s cel .

 It wasn’t al that different from being in the confessional. The

 same Swiss-cheese holes perforated the metal door of the

 cel , so I could get a glimpse of Shay. Although we were the

 same age, he looked like he’d aged a lifetime. Now gray at

 the temples, he stil was slight and wiry. I hesitated, silent,

 waiting to see if his eyes would go wide with recognition, if

 he would start banging on the door and demand to get

 away from the person who’d set the wheels of his execution

 in motion.

 But a funny thing happens when you’re in clerical dress: you

 aren’t a man. You’re somehow more than one, and also

 less. I’ve had secrets whispered in front of me; I’ve had

 women hike up their skirts to fix their panty hose. Like a

 physician, a priest is supposed to be unflappable, an

 observer, a fly on the wal . Ask ten people who meet me

 what I look like, and eight of them won’t be able to tel you

 the color of my eyes. They simply don’t look past the col ar.

 Shay walked directly up to the door of the cel and started to

 grin.

 “You came,” he said.

 I swal owed. “Shay, I’m Father Michael.”

 He flattened his palms against the door of the cel . I

 remembered a photograph from the crime evidence, those

 fingers dark with a little girl’s blood. I had changed so much

 in the past eleven years, but what about Shay Bourne? Was

 he remorseful? Had he matured? Did he wish, like me, that

 he could erase his mistakes?

 “Hey, Father,” a voice yel ed out—I would later learn it was

 Cal oway Reece—“you got any of those wafers? I’m near

 starving.”

 I ignored him and focused on Shay. “So … I understand

 you’re Catholic?”

 “A foster mother had me baptized,” Shay said. “A thousand

 years ago.” He glanced at me. “They could put you in the

 conference room, the one they use for lawyers.”

 “The warden said we’d have to talk here, at your cel .”

 Shay shrugged. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

 Do you? I heard, although he hadn’t said it.

 “Anyway, that’s where they give us hep C,” Shay said.

 “Give you hep C?”

 “On haircut day. Every other Wednesday. We go to the

 conference room and they buzz us. Number two blade,

 even if you want it longer for winter. They don’t make it this

 hot in here in the winter. It’s freezing from November on.”

 He turned to me. “How come they can’t make it hot in

 November and freezing now?”

 “I don’t know.”

 “It’s on the blades.”

 “Pardon?”

 “Blood,” Shay said. “On the razor blades. Someone gets

 nicked, someone else gets hep C.”

 Fol owing his conversation was like watching a SuperBal

 bounce.

 “Did that happen to you?”

 “It happened to other people, so sure, it happened to me.”

 Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of my

 brethren, you have done it unto me.

 My head was swimming; I hoped it was Shay’s nonlinear

 speech, and not a panic attack coming on. I’d been

 suffering those for eleven years now, ever since the day

 we’d sentenced Shay. “But for the most part, you’re al

 right?”

 After I said it, I wanted to kick myself. You didn’t ask a dying

 man how he was feeling. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I

 thought, how was the play?

 “I get lonely,” Shay answered.

 Automatical y, I replied, “God’s with you.”

 “Wel ,” Shay said, “he’s lousy at checkers.”

 “Do you believe in God?”

 “Why do you believe in God?” He leaned forward, suddenly

 intense.

 “Did they tel you I want to donate my heart?”

 “That’s what I came to talk about. Shay.”

 “Good. No one else wants to help.”

 “What about your lawyer?”

 “I fired him.” Shay shrugged. “He lost al the appeals, and

 then he started talking about going to the governor. The

 governor’s not even from New Hampshire, did you know

 that? He was born in Mississippi. I always wanted to see

 that river, take one of those gambling boats down it like

 some kind of cardsharp. Or maybe that’s shark. Do they

 have those in rivers?”

 “Your lawyer …”

 “He wanted the governor to commute my sentence to life,

 but that’s just another death sentence. So I fired him.”

 I thought about Warden Coyne, how sure he was that this

 was al just a ploy to get Shay Bourne’s execution cal ed off.

 Could he have been wrong? “Are you saying that you want

 to die. Shay?”

 “I want to live,” he said. “So I have to die.”

 Final y, something I could latch onto. “You wil live,” I said. “In

 the Kingdom of the Father. No matter what happens here.

 Shay. And no matter whether or not you can donate your

 organs.”

 Suddenly his face went dark. “What do you mean, whether

 or not?”

 “Wel , it’s complicated …”

 “I have to give her my heart. I have to.”

 “Who?”

 “Claire Nealon.”

 My jaw dropped. This specific part of Shay’s request had

 not made it to the broadcast news. “Nealon? Is she related

 to Elizabeth?” Too late I realized that the average person—

 one who hadn’t been on Shay’s jury—might not recognize

 that name and identify it as quickly. But Shay was too

 agitated to notice.

 “She’s the sister of the girl who was kil ed. She has a heart

 problem; I saw it on TV. What’s inside me is going to save

 me,” Shay said.

 “If I don’t bring it forward, it’s going to kil me.”

 We were making the same mistake. Shay and I. We both

 believed that you could right a former wrong by doing a

 good deed later on. But giving Claire Nealon his heart

 wasn’t going to bring her sister back to life. And being Shay

 Bourne’s spiritual advisor wasn’t going to erase the fact

 that I was part of the reason he was here.

 “You can’t get salvation by donating your organs. Shay. The

 only way to find salvation is to admit your guilt and seek

 absolution through Jesus.”

 “What happened then doesn’t matter now.”

 “You don’t have to be afraid to take responsibility; God

 loves us, even when we screw up.”

 “I couldn’t stop it,” Shay said. “But this time, I can fix it.”

 “Leave that to God,” I suggested. Tel Him you’re sorry for

 what you did, and He’l forgive you.”

 “No matter what?”

 “No matter what.”

 “Then why do you have to say you’re sorry first?”

 I hesitated, trying to find a better way to explain sin and

 salvation to Shay. It was a bargain: you made an

 admission, you got redemption in return. In Shay’s

 economy of salvation, you gave away a piece of yourself—

 and somehow found yourself whole again.

 Were the two ideas real y so different?

 I shook my head to clear it.

 “Lucius is an atheist,” Shay said. “Right, Lucius?”

 From next door, Lucius mumbled, “Mm-hmm.”

 “And he didn’t die. He was sick, and he got better.”

 The AIDS patient; I’d heard about him on the news. “Did

 you have something to do with it?”

 “I didn’t do anything.”

 “Lucius, do you believe that, too?”

 I leaned back so that I could make eye contact with this

 other inmate, a slim man with a shock of white hair. “I think

 Shay had everything to do with it,” he said.

 “Lucius should believe whatever he needs to,” Shay said.

 “What about the miracles?” Lucius added.

 “What miracles?” Shay said.

 Two facts struck me: Shay Bourne was not claiming to be

 the Messiah, or Jesus, or anyone but himself. And through

 some misguided belief, he truly felt that he wouldn’t rest in

 peace unless he could donate his heart to Claire Nealon.

 “Look,” Lucius said. “Are you or are you not going to help

 him?”

 Maybe none of us could compensate for what we’d done

 wrong in the past, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t make

 our futures matter more. I closed my eyes and imagined

 being the last person Shay Bourne spoke with before he

 was executed by the State of New Hampshire. I imagined

 picking a section of the Bible that would resonate with him,

 a balm of prayer during those last few minutes. I could do

 this for him. I could be who he needed me to be now,

 because I hadn’t been who he needed me to be back then.

 “Shay,” I said, “knowing that your heart is beating in some

 other person isn’t salvation. It’s altruism. Salvation is

 coming home. It’s understanding that you don’t have to

 prove yourself to God.”

 “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Lucius snorted. “Don’t listen to him.

 Shay.”

 I turned to him. “Do you mind?” Then I shifted position, so

 that I blocked Lucius from my sight, focusing on Shay. “God

 loves you—whether or not you give up your organs, whether

 or not you’ve made mistakes in the past. And the day of

 your execution, he’l be waiting for you. Christ can save you.

 Shay.”

 “Christ can’t give Claire Nealon a heart.” Suddenly Shay’s

 gaze was piercing and lucid. “I don’t need to find God. I

 don’t want catechism,”

 he said. “Al I want to know is whether, after I’m kil ed, I can

 save a little girl.”

 “No,” I said bluntly. “Not if you’re given a lethal injection. The

 drugs are meant specifical y to stop your heart, and after

 that, it’s worthless for donation.”

 The light in his eyes dimmed, and I drew in my breath. “I’m

 sorry.

 Shay. I know you were hoping to hear something different,

 and your intentions are good … but you need to channel

 those good intentions to make peace with God another

 way. And that is something I can make happen.”

 Just then a young woman burst onto I-tier. She had a

 cascade of black curls tumbling down her back, and

 peeking out from her flak jacket was the ugliest striped suit

 I’d ever seen. “Shay Bourne?” she said. “I know a way you

 can donate your organs.”

 Maggie

 Some people may find it tough to break out of prison, but

 for me, it was equal y as hard to get in. Okay, so I wasn’t

 official y Shay Bourne’s attorney—but the prison officials

 didn’t know that. I could argue the technicality with Bourne

 himself, if and when I reached him.

 I hadn’t counted on how difficult it would be to get through

 the throng outside the prison. It’s one thing to shove your

 way past a group of col ege kids smoking pot in a tent, their

 MAKE PEACE NOT MIRACLES signs littering the muddy

 ground; it’s another thing entirely to explain to a mother and

 her smooth-scalped, cancer-stricken toddler why you

 deserved to cut their place in line. In the end, the only way I

 could edge forward was by explaining to those who’d been

 waiting (in some cases, for days) that I was Shay Bourne’s

 legal advisor and that I would pass along their pleas: from

 the elderly couple with knotted hands, whose twin

 diagnoses—breast cancer and lymphatic cancer—came

 within a week of each other; to the father who carried

 pictures of the eight children he couldn’t support since

 losing his job; to the daughter pushing her mother’s

 wheelchair, wishing for just one more lucid moment in the

 fog of Alzheimer’s so that she could say she was sorry for a

 transgression that had happened years earlier. There is so

 much pain in this world, I thought, how do any of us manage

 to get up in the morning?

 When I reached the front gate, I announced that I had come

 to see Shay Bourne, and the officer laughed at me. “You

 and the rest of the free world.”

 “I’m his lawyer.”

 He looked at me for a long moment, and then spoke into

 his radio. A moment later, a second officer arrived and

 escorted me past the blockade.

 As I left, a cheer went up from the crowd.

 Stunned, I turned around, waved hesitantly, and then hurried

 to catch up.

 I had never been to the state prison. It was a large, old brick

 building; its courtyard stretched out behind the razor-wire

 fencing. I was told to sign in on a clipboard and to take off

 my jacket before I went through the metal detector.

 “Wait here,” the officer said, and he left me sitting in a smal

 anteroom.

 There was an inmate mopping the floor who did not make

 eye contact with me. He was wearing white tennis shoes

 that squelched every time he stepped forward. I watched

 his hands on the mop and wondered if they’d been part of a

 murder, a rape, a robbery.

 There was a reason I didn’t become a criminal defense

 attorney: this setting freaked me out. I had been to the

 county jail to meet with clients, but those were smal -

 potatoes crimes: picketing outside a ral y for a political

 candidate, flag burning, civil disobedience. None of my

 clients had ever kil ed anyone before, much less a child and

 a police officer. I found myself considering what it would be

 like to be locked in here forever.

 What if my dress clothes and day clothes and pajamas

 were al the same orange scrubs? What if I was told when

 to shower, when to eat, when to go to bed? Given that my

 career was about maintaining personal freedoms, it was

 hard to imagine a world where they’d al been stripped

 away.

 As I watched the inmate mop beneath a bank of seats, I

 wondered what would be the hardest luxury to leave behind.

 There were the trivial things: losing chocolate practical y

 qualified as cruel and unusual punishment; I couldn’t

 sacrifice my contact lenses; I’d sooner die than relinquish

 the Ouidad Climate Control gel that kept my hair from

 becoming a frizzy rat’s nest. But what about the rest—

 missing the dizzying choice of al the cereals in the grocery

 store aisle, for example? Not being able to receive a phone

 cal ? Granted, it had been so long since I was intimate with

 a man that I had spiderwebs between my legs, but what

 would it be like to give up being touched casual y, even a

 handshake?

 I bet I’d even miss fighting with my mother.

 Suddenly a pair of boots appeared on the floor before me.

 “You’re out of luck. He’s got his spiritual advisor with him,”

 the officer said. “Bourne’s pretty popular today.”

 “That’s fine,” I bluffed. “The spiritual advisor can join us

 during our meeting.” I saw the slightest flicker of uncertainty

 on the face of the officer.

 Not al owing an inmate to see his attorney was a big no-no,

 and I was planning to capitalize on that.

 The officer shrugged and led me down a hal way. He

 nodded to a man in a control booth, and a door scraped

 open. We stepped into a smal metal midroom, and I

 sucked in my breath as the steel door slid home. “I’m a little

 claustrophobic,” I said.

 The officer smiled. “Too bad.”

 The inner door buzzed, and we entered the prison. “It’s

 quiet in here,” I remarked.

 “That’s because it’s a good day.” He handed me a flak

 jacket and goggles and waited for me to put them on. For

 one brief moment, I panicked—what if a man’s jacket like

 this didn’t zip shut on me? How embarrassing would that

 be? But there were Velcro straps and it wasn’t an issue,

 and as soon as I was outfitted, the door to a long tier

 opened.

 “Have fun,” the officer said, and that was when I realized I

 was supposed to go in alone.

 Wel . I wasn’t going to convince Shay Bourne I was brave

 enough to save his life if I couldn’t muster the courage to

 walk through that door.

 There were whoops and catcal s. Leave it to me to find my

 only appreciative audience in the maximum-security tier of

 the state prison.

 “Baby, you here for me?” one guy said, and another pul ed

 down his scrubs so that I could see his boxer shorts, as if

 I’d been waiting for that kind of peep show al my life. I kept

 my eyes focused on the priest who was standing outside

 one of the cel s.

 I should have introduced myself. I should have explained

 why I had lied my way into this prison. But I was so flustered

 that nothing came out the way it should have. “Shay

 Bourne?” I said. “I know a way that you can donate your

 organs.”

 The priest frowned at me. “Who are you?”

 “His lawyer.”

 He turned to Shay. “I thought you said you didn’t have a

 lawyer.”

 Shay tilted his head. He looked at me as if he were sifting

 through the grains of my thoughts, separating the wheat

 from the chaff. “Let her talk,” he said.

 My streak of bravery widened after that: leaving the priest

 with Shay, I went back to the officers and demanded a

 private attorney-client conference room. I explained that

 legal y, they had to provide one and that due to the nature of

 our conversation, the priest should be al owed into the

 meeting. Then the priest and I were taken into a smal

 cubicle from one side, while Shay was escorted through a

 different entrance by two officers.

 When the door was closed, he backed up to it, slipping his

 hands through the trap to have his handcuffs removed.

 “Al right,” the priest said. “What’s going on?”

 I ignored him and faced Shay. “My name is Maggie Bloom.

 I’m an attorney for the ACLU, and I think I know a way to

 save you from being executed.”

 “Thanks,” he said, “but that’s not what I’m looking for.”

 I stared at him. “What?”

 “I don’t need you to save al of me. Only my heart.”

 ” I … I don’t understand,” I said slowly.

 “What Shay means,” the priest said, “is that he’s resigned

 to his execution.

 He just wants to be an organ donor, afterward.”

 “Who are you, exactly?” I asked.

 “Father Michael Wright.”

 “And you’re his spiritual advisor?”

 “Yes.”

 “Since when?”

 “Since ten minutes before you became his lawyer,” the

 priest said.

 I turned back to Shay. “Tel me what you want.”

 “To give my heart to Claire Nealon.”

 Who the hel was Claire Nealon? “Does she want your

 heart?”

 I looked at Shay, and then I looked at Michael, and I

 realized that I had just asked the one question no one had

 considered up til this point.

 “I don’t know if she wants it,” Shay said, “but she needs it.”

 “Wel , has anyone talked to her?” I turned to Father Michael.

 “Isn’t that your job?”

 “Look,” the priest said, “the state has to execute him by

 lethal injection.

 And if that happens, organ donation isn’t viable.”

 “Not necessarily,” I said slowly.

 A lawyer can’t care more about the case than the client

 does. If I couldn’t convince Shay to enter a courtroom

 hoping for his life to be spared, then it would be foolish for

 me to take this on. However, if his mission to donate his

 heart dovetailed with mine—to strike down the death

 penalty—then why not use the same loophole law to get

 what we both wanted? I could fight for him to die on his own

 terms—donate his organs—and in the process, raise

 enough awareness about the death penalty to make more

 people take a stand against it.

 I glanced up at my new client and smiled.

 M I C HAEL

 The crazy woman who’d barged in on our little pastoral

 counseling session was now promising Shay Bourne happy

 endings she could not deliver. “I need to do a little

 research,” she explained. I’m going to come back to see

 you in a few days.”

 Shay, for what it was worth, was staring at her as if she had

 just handed him the moon. “But you think … you think I’l be

 able to donate my heart to her?”

 “Yes,” she said. “Maybe.”

 Yes. Maybe. Mixed signals, that’s what she was giving him.

 As opposed to my message: God. Jesus. One true course.

 She knocked on the window, in just as big a hurry to get out

 of the conference room as she’d been to enter it. As an

 officer buzzed open the door, I grasped her upper arm.

 “Don’t get his hopes up,” I whispered.

 She raised a brow. “Don’t cut them down.”

 The door closed behind Maggie Bloom, and I watched her

 walk away through the oblong window in the conference

 room. In the faint reflection, I could see Shay watching, too.

 “I like her,” he announced.

 “Wel ,” I sighed. “Good.”

 “Did you ever notice how sometimes it’s a mirror, and

 sometimes it’s glass?”

 It took me a moment to realize that he was talking about the

 reflection.

 “It’s the way the light hits,” I explained.

 “There’s light inside a man of light,” Shay murmured. “It can

 light up the whole world.” He met my gaze. “So, what were

 you saying is impossible?”

 *

 My grandmother had been so fervently Catholic that she

 was on the committee of women who would come to scrub

 down the church, sometimes taking me along. I’d sit in the

 back, setting up a traffic jam of Matchbox cars on the

 kneeler. I’d watch her rub Murphy Oil Soap into the scarred

 wooden pews and sweep down the aisle with a broom; and

 on Sunday when we went to Mass she’d look around—from

 the entryway to the arched ceilings to the flickering candles

 —and nod with satisfaction. On the other hand, my

 grandfather never went to church.

 Instead, on Sundays, he fished. In the summer, he went out

 flyfishing for bass; in the winter, he cut a hole in the ice and

 waited, drinking from his thermos of coffee, with steam

 wreathing his head like a halo.

 It wasn’t until I was twelve that I was al owed to skip a

 Sunday Mass to tag along with my grandfather. My

 grandmother sent me off with a bag lunch and an old

 basebal hat to keep the sun off my face.

 “Maybe you can talk some sense into him,” she said. I had

 heard enough sermons to understand what happened to

 those who didn’t truly believe, so I climbed into his little

 aluminum boat and waited until we had stopped underneath

 the reaching arm of a wil ow tree along the shoreline. He

 took out a fly rod and handed it to me, and then started

 casting with his own ancient bamboo rod.

 One two three, one two three. There was a rhythm to

 flyfishing, like a bal room dance. I waited until we had both

 unspooled the long tongue of line over the lake, until the

 flies that my grandfather laboriously tied in his basement

 had lightly come to rest on the surface.

 “Grandpa,” I asked, “you don’t want to go to hel , do you?”

 “Aw, Christ,” he had answered. “Did your grandmother put

 you up to this?”

 “No,” I lied. “I just don’t understand why you never go to

 Mass with us.”

 “I have my own Mass,” he had said. “I don’t need some guy

 in a col ar and a dress tel ing me what I should and

 shouldn’t believe.”

 

 Maybe if I’d been older, or smarter, I would have left it alone

 at that. Instead, I squinted into the sun, up at my

 grandfather. “But you got married by a priest.”

 He sighed. “Yeah, and I even went to parochial school, like

 you.”

 “What made you stop?”

 Before he could answer, I felt that tug on my line that always

 felt like Christmas, the moment before you opened the

 biggest box under the tree. I reeled in, fighting the whistle

 and snap of the fish on the other end, certain that I’d never

 caught anything quite like this before.

 Final y, it burst out of the water, as if it were being born

 again.

 “A salmon!” my grandfather crowed. “Ten pounds, easy …

 imagine al the ladders it had to climb to make its way back

 here from the ocean to spawn.” He held the fish aloft,

 grinning. “I haven’t seen one in this lake since the sixties!”

 I looked down at the fish, stil on my line, thrashing in

 splendor. It was silver and gold and crimson al at once.

 My grandfather held the salmon, stil ing it enough to unhook

 the fly, and set the fish back into the lake. We watched the

 flag of its tail, the ruddy back as it swam away. “Who says

 that if you want to find God on a Sunday morning, you ought

 to be looking in church?” my grandfather murmured.

 For a long time after that, I believed my grandfather had it

 right: God was in the details. But that was before I learned

 that the requirements of a true believer included Mass

 every Sunday and holy day of obligation, receiving the

 Eucharist, reconciliation once a year, giving money to the

 poor, observing Lent. Or in other words—just because you

 say you’re Catholic, if you don’t walk the walk, you’re not.

 Back when I was at seminary, I imagined I heard my

 grandfather’s voice: I thought God was supposed to love

 you unconditional y Those sure sound like a lot of

 conditions to me.

 The truth is, I stopped listening.

 *

 By the time I left the prison, the crowd outside had doubled

 in size.

 There were the il , the feeble, the old and the hungry, but

 there was also a smal cadre of nuns from a convent up in

 Maine, and a choir singing “Holy Holy Holy.” I was surprised

 at how hearsay about a socal ed miracle could produce so

 many converts, so quickly.

 “You see?” I heard a woman say, pointing to me. “Even

 Father Michael’s here.”

 She was a parishioner, and her son had cystic fibrosis. He

 was here, too, in a wheelchair being pushed by his father.

 “Is it true, then?” the man asked. “Can this guy real y work

 miracles?”

 aGod can,” I said, heading that question off at the pass. I

 put my hand on the boy’s forehead. “Dear St. John of God,

 patron saint of those who are il , I ask for your intercession

 that the Lord wil have mercy on this child and return him to

 health. I ask this in Jesus’s name.”

 Not Shay Bourne’s, I thought.

 “Amen,” the parents murmured.

 “If you’l excuse me,” I said, turning away.

 The chances of Shay Bourne being Jesus were about as

 likely as me being God. These people, these falsely faithful,

 didn’t know Shay Bourne—they’d never met Shay Bourne.

 They were imposing the face of our Savior on a man with a

 tendency to talk to himself; a man whose hands had been

 covered with the blood of two innocent people. They were

 confusing showmanship and inexplicable events with

 divinity. A miracle was a miracle only until it could be

 proved otherwise.

 I started pushing through the mob, moving in the opposite

 direction, away from the prison gates, a man on a mission.

 Maggie Bloom wasn’t the only one who could do research.

 Maggie

 In retrospect, it would have been much simpler to place a

 phone cal to a medical professional who might lecture me

 on the ins and outs of organ donation.

 But it could take a week for a busy doctor to cal me back,

 and my route home from the prison skirted the grounds of

 the Concord hospital, and I was stil buzzing with righteous

 legal fervor. These are the only grounds I can offer for why I

 decided to stop in the emergency room. The faster I could

 speak to an expert, the faster I could start building Shay’s

 case.

 However, the triage nurse—a large graying woman who

 looked like a battleship—compressed her mouth into a flat

 line when I asked to talk to a doctor. “What’s the problem?”

 she asked.

 “I’ve got a few questions—”

 “So does everyone else in that waiting room, but you’l stil

 have to explain the nature of the il ness to me.”

 “Oh, I’m not sick …”

 She glanced around me. “Then where’s the patient?”

 “At the state prison.”

 The nurse shook her head. “The patient has to be present

 for registration.”

 I found that hard to believe. Surely someone knocked

 unconscious in a car accident wasn’t left waiting in the hal

 until he came to and could recite his Blue Cross group

 number.

 “We’re busy,” the nurse said. “When the patient arrives,

 sign in again.”

 “But I’m a lawyer—”

 “Then sue me,” the nurse replied.

 I walked back to the waiting room and sat down next to a

 col ege-age boy with a bloody washcloth wrapped around

 his hand. “I did that once,”

 I said. “Cutting a bagel.”

 He turned to me. “I put my hand through a plate-glass

 window because my girlfriend was screwing my

 roommate.”

 A nurse appeared. “Whit Romano?” she said, and the boy

 stood up.

 “Good luck with that,” I cal ed after him, and I speared my

 fingers through my hair, thinking hard. Leaving a message

 with the nurse didn’t guarantee a doctor would see it

 anytime in the next mil ennium—I had to find another way in.

 Five minutes later I was standing in front of the battleship

 again.

 “The patients arrived?” she asked.

 “Wel . Yes. It’s me.”

 She put down her pen. “You’re sick now. You weren’t sick

 before.”

 I shrugged. “I’m thinking appendicitis …”

 The nurse pursed her lips. “You know you’l be charged a

 hundred and fifty dol ars for an emergency room visit, even

 a fabricated one.”

 “You mean insurance doesn’t—”

 “Nope.”

 I thought of Shay, of the sound the steel doors made when

 they scraped shut in prison. “It’s my abdomen. Sharp

 pains.”

 “Which side?”

 “My left… ?” The nurse narrowed her eyes. “I meant my

 other left.”

 “Take a seat,” she said.

 I settled in the waiting room again and read two issues of

 People nearly as old as I was before being cal ed into an

 exam room. A nurse—younger, wearing pink scrubs—took

 my blood pressure and temperature.

 She wrote down my health history, while I mental y reviewed

 whether you could be brought up on criminal charges for

 falsifying your own medical records.

 I was lying on the exam table, staring at a Where’s Waldo?

 poster on the ceiling, when the doctor came in.

 “Ms. Bloom?” he said.

 Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it—he was

 stunning. He had black hair and eyes the color of the

 blueberries that grew in my parents’

 garden—almost purple in a certain light, and translucent the

 next moment.

 He could have sliced me wide open with his smile. He was

 wearing a white coat and a denim col ared shirt with a tie

 that had Barbie dol s al over it.

 He probably had a real live one of those at home, too—a

 38-22-36 fiancee who had double-majored in law and

 medicine, or astrophysics and political science.

 Our whole relationship was over, and I hadn’t even said a

 word to him.

 “You are Ms. Bloom?”

 How had I not noticed that British accent? “Yes,” I said,

 wishing I was anyone but.

 “I’m Dr. Gal agher,” he said, sitting down on a stool. “Why

 don’t you tel me what’s been going on?”

 “Wel ,” I began. “Actual y, I’m fine.”

 “For the record, appendicitis rates as pretty il .”

 I I. I loved that. I bet he said things like flat and loo and lift,

 too.

 “Let’s just check you out,” he said. He stood and hooked

 his stethoscope into his ears, then settled it under my shirt. I

 couldn’t remember the last time a guy had slipped his hand

 under my shirt. “Just breathe,”

 he said.

 Yeah, right.

 “Real y,” I said. “I’m not sick.”

 “If you could just lie back … ?”

 That was enough to bring me crashing down to reality. Not

 only would he realize, the moment he palpated my stomach,

 that I didn’t have appendicitis … he’d also probably be able

 to tel that I had the twodonut combo at Dunkin’ Donuts for

 breakfast, when everyone knows they take three days—

 each—to digest.

 “I don’t have appendicitis,” I blurted out. “I just told the nurse

 I did because I wanted to talk to a doctor for a few minutes

 —”

 “Al right,” he said gently. “I’m just going to cal in Dr.

 Tawasaka. I’m sure she’l talk to you al you like … ” He

 stuck his head out the door.

 “Sue? Page psych …”

 Oh, excel ent, now he thought I had a mental health

 problem. “I don’t need a psychiatrist,” I said. “I’m an attorney

 and I need a medical consultation about a client.”

 I hesitated, expecting him to cal in security, but instead he

 sat down and folded his arms. “Go on.”

 “Do you know anything about heart transplants?”

 “A bit. But I can tel you right now that if your client requires

 one, he’l have to register with UNOS and get in line like

 everyone else …”

 “He doesn’t need a heart. He wants to donate one.”

 I watched his face transform as he realized that my client

 had to be the death row inmate. There just weren’t a lot of

 prisoners in New Hampshire clamoring to be organ donors

 these days. “He’s going to be executed,”

 Dr. Gal agher said.

 “Yes. By lethal injection.”

 “Then he won’t be able to donate his heart. A heart donor

 has to be braindead; lethal injection causes cardiac death.

 In other words, once your client’s heart stops beating during

 that execution, it’s not going to work in someone else.”

 I knew this; Father Michael had told me this, but I hadn’t

 wanted to believe it.

 “You know what’s interesting?” the doctor said. “I believe

 it’s potassium that’s used in lethal injection—the chemical

 that stops the heart. That’s the same chemical we use in

 cardioplegia solution, which is perfused into the donor

 heart just prior to sewing it into the patient. It keeps the

 heart arrested while it’s not receiving a normal blood flow,

 until al the suturing’s finished.” He looked up at me. “I don’t

 suppose the prison would agree to a surgical cardiectomy

 —a heart removal—as a method of execution?”

 I shook my head. “The execution has to happen within the

 wal s of the prison.”

 He shrugged. “I cannot believe I’m saying this, but it’s too

 bad that they don’t use a firing squad anymore. A wel -

 placed shot could leave an inmate a perfect organ donor.

 Even hanging would work, if one could hook up a respirator

 after brain death was confirmed.” He shuddered.

 “Pardon me. I’m used to saving patients, not theoretical y

 kil ing them.”

 “I understand.”

 “Then again, even if he could donate his heart, chances are

 it would be too large for a child’s body. Has anyone

 addressed that yet?”

 I shook my head, feeling even worse about Shay’s odds.

 The doctor glanced up. “The bad news, I’m afraid, is that

 your client is out of luck.”

 “Is there any good news?”

 “Of course.” Dr. Gal agher grinned. “You don’t have

 appendicitis, Ms.

 Bloom.”

 “Here’s the thing,” I said to Oliver when I had gotten us

 enough Chinese takeout to feed a family of four (you could

 keep the leftovers, and Oliver real y did like vegetable moo

 shu, even if my mother said that rabbits didn’t eat real

 food). “It’s been sixty-nine years since anyone’s been

 executed in the state of New Hampshire. We’re assuming

 that lethal injection is the only method, but that doesn’t

 mean we’re right.”

 I picked up the carton of lo mein and spooled the noodles

 into my mouth. “I know it’s here somewhere,” I muttered as

 the rabbit hopped across another stack of legal texts

 scattered on the floor of the living room. I was not in the

 habit of reading the New Hampshire Criminal Code; going

 through the sections and subsections was like navigating

 through molasses. I’d turn back a page, and the spot I’d

 been reading a moment before would disappear in the run

 of text.

 Death.

 Death penalty.

 Capital murder.

 Injection, lethal.

 630:5 (XXl l). When the penalty of death is imposed, the

 sentence shal be that the defendant is imprisoned in the

 state prison at Concord until the day appointed for his

 execution, which shal not be within one year from the day

 sentence is passed.

 Or in Shays case, eleven years.

 The punishment of death shal be inflicted by continuous,

 intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of an ultra-

 short-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical

 paralytic agent until death is pronounced by a licensed

 physician according to accepted standards of medical

 practice.

 Everything I knew about the death penalty I had learned at

 the ACLU. Prior to working there, I hadn’t given the death

 penalty much thought, beyond when someone was

 executed and the media made a huge story out of it. Now I

 knew the names of those who were kil ed. I heard about

 their lastminute appeals. I knew that, after death, some

 inmates were found to be innocent.

 Lethal injection was supposed to be like putting a dog to

 sleep—a drowsiness overcame you, and then you just

 never woke up. No pain, no stress. It was a cocktail of three

 drugs: Sodium Pentothal, a sedative to put the inmate to

 sleep; Pavulon, to paralyze the muscular system and stop

 breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart. The

 Sodium Pentothal was ultra-short-acting—which meant that

 you could recover quickly from its effects. It also meant that

 a subject might have feeling in his nerves, yet be just

 sedated enough to be unable to communicate or move.

 The British medical journal the Lancet published a 2005

 study of the toxicology reports of forty-nine executed

 inmates in four U.S. states; forty-three of the inmates had a

 level of anesthesia lower than required Anesthesiologists

 say that if a person were conscious at the time potassium

 chloride is administered, it would feel like boiling oil in the

 veins.

 An inmate might feel as if he were being burned alive from

 the inside, but be unable to move or speak because of the

 muscle paralysis and minimal sedation caused by the other

 two drugs. The Supreme Court had even had its doubts:

 although they stil ruled that capital punishment was

 constitutional, they’d halted executions of two inmates on a

 narrower issue: whether the excessive pain caused by

 lethal injection was a civil rights infraction that could be

 argued in a lower court.

 Or—to put it simply—lethal injection might not be as

 humane as everyone wanted to believe.

 630:5 (XIV). The commissioner of corrections or his

 designee shal determine the substance or substances to

 be used and the procedures to be used in any execution,

 provided, however, that if for any reason the commissioner

 finds it to be impractical to carry out the punishment of

 death by administration of the required lethal substance or

 substances, the sentence of death may be carried out by

 hanging under the provisions of law for the death penalty by

 hanging in effect on December 31,1986.

 Oliver settled on my lap as I read the words again.

 Shay didn’t have to be executed by lethal injection, if I could

 make the commissioner—or a court—find it impractical. If

 you coupled that with the RLUIPA—the law that said a

 prisoner’s religious freedoms had to be protected in prison

 —and if I could prove that part of Shay’s belief system for

 redemption included organ donation, then lethal injection

 was impractical.

 In which case, Shay would be hanged.

 And—here was the real miracle—according to Dr.

 Gal agher, that meant Shay Bourne could donate his heart.

 

 Lucius

 The day the priest returned, I was working on pigments. My

 favorite substance was tea—it made a stain you could vary

 in intensity from an almost white to a yel owish brown.

 MEtM’s were vibrant, but they were the hardest to work

 with-you had to moisten a Q-tip and rub it over the surface

 of the MftM, you couldn’t just soak off the pigment like I was

 doing this morning with Skittles.

 I set my jar lid on the table and added about fifteen drops of

 warm water. The green Skittle went in next, and I rol ed it

 around with my finger, watching the food dye coating come

 off. The trick here was to pul the candy out just as I started

 to see the white sugar beneath the coating—if the sugar

 melted into the paint, it wouldn’t work as wel .

 I popped the bleached button of candy into my mouth—I

 could do that these days, now that the thrush was gone. As I

 sucked on it, I poured the contents of the lid (green, like the

 grass I had not walked on with my bare feet in years; like

 the color of a jungle; like Adam’s eyes) into an aspirin bottle

 for safekeeping. Later, I could vary the pigment with a dab

 of white toothpaste, diluted with water to make the right

 hue.

 It was a laborious process, but then again … I had time.

 I was just about to repeat the endeavor with a yel ow

 jawbreaker-the yield of paint was four times as much as a

 Skittle—when Shay’s priest walked up to my cel door in his

 flak jacket. I had, of course, seen the priest briefly the day

 he first visited Shay, but only at a distance. Now, with him

 directly in front of my cel door, I could see that he was

 younger than I would have expected, with hair that seemed

 decidedly un-priestlike and eyes as soft as gray flannel.

 “Shay’s getting his hair cut,” I said, because it was barber

 day, and that’s where he had been taken about ten minutes

 before.

 “I know, Lucius,” the priest said. “That’s why I was hoping to

 talk to you.”

 Let me tel you, the last thing I wanted to do was chat with a

 priest. I hadn’t asked for one, certainly, and in my previous

 experience, the clergy only wanted to give a lecture on how

 being gay was a choice, and how God loved me (but not

 my pesky habit of fal ing in love with other men). Just

 because Shay had come back to his cel convinced that his

 new teamsome lawyer girl and this priest—were going to

 move mountains for him didn’t mean that I shared his

 enthusiasm. In spite of the fact that he’d been incarcerated

 for eleven years, Shay was stil the most naive inmate I’d

 ever met. Just last night, for example, he’d had a fight with

 the correctional officers because it was laundry day and

 they’d brought new sheets, which Shay refused to put on

 the bed. He said he could feel the bleach, and instead

 insisted on sleeping on the floor of the cel .

 “I appreciate you seeing me, Lucius,” the priest said. “I’m

 happy to hear you’re feeling better these days.”

 I stared at him, wary.

 “How long have you known Shay?”

 I shrugged. “Since he was put in the cel next to me a few

 weeks ago.”

 “Was he talking about organ donation then?”

 “Not at first,” I said. “Then he had a seizure and got

 transferred to the infirmary. When he came back, donating

 his heart was al he could talk about.”

 “He had a seizure?” the priest repeated, and I could tel this

 was news to him. “Has he had any more since then?”

 “Why don’t you just ask Shay these questions?”

 “I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

 “What you want,” I corrected, “is for me to tel you whether or

 not he’s real y performing miracles.”

 The priest nodded slowly. “I guess that’s true.”

 Some had already been leaked to the press; I imagined the

 rest would be brought to light sooner or later. I told him what

 I’d seen with my own eyes, and by the time I was finished,

 Father Michael was frowning slightly.

 “Does he go around saying he’s God?”

 “No,” I joked. “That would be Crash.”

 “Lucius,” the priest asked, “do you believe Shay is God?”

 “You need to back up, Father, because I don’t believe in

 God. I quit around the same time one of your esteemed

 col eagues told me that AIDS

 was my punishment for sinning.” To be honest, I had split

 religion along the seam of secular and nonsecular;

 choosing to concentrate on the beauty of a Caravaggio

 without noticing the Madonna and child; or finding the best

 lamb recipe for a lavish Easter dinner, without thinking

 about the Passion.

 Religion gave hope to people who knew the end wasn’t

 going to be pretty. It was why inmates started praying in

 prison and why patients started praying when the doctors

 said terminal. Religion was supposed to be a blanket

 drawn up to your chin to keep you warm, a promise that

 when it came to the end, you wouldn’t die alone—but it

 could just as easily leave you shivering out in the cold, if

 what you believed became more important than the fact

 that you believed.

 I stared at him. “I don’t believe in God. But I do believe in

 Shay.”

 “Thank you for your time, Lucius,” the priest said softly, and

 he walked down the tier.

 He may have been a priest, but he was looking for his

 miracles in the wrong place. That day with the gum, for

 example. I had seen the coverage on the news—it was

 reported that Shay had somehow taken one tiny rectangle

 of Bazooka gum and multiplied it. But ask someone who’d

 been there—like me, or Crash, or Texas—and you’d know

 there weren’t suddenly seven pieces of bubble gum. It was

 more like this: when the piece was fished underneath our

 cel doors, instead of taking as much as we could, we

 made do with less instead.

 The gum was magical y replicated. But we—the blatantly

 greedybalanced the needs of the other seven guys and in

 that instant found them just as worthy as our own.

 Which, if you asked me, was an even greater miracle.

 The Holy Father has an entire office at the Vatican devoted

 to analyzing al eged miracles and passing judgment on

 their authenticity. They scrutinize statues and busts, scrape

 Crisco out of the corners of supposedly bleeding eyes,

 track scented oil on wal s that emit the smel of roses. I was

 nowhere as experienced as those priests, but then again,

 there was a crowd of nearly five hundred people outside the

 state prison cal ing Shay Bourne a savior—and I wasn’t

 going to let people give up on Jesus that easily.

 To that end, I was now ensconced in a lab on the Dartmouth

 campus, with a graduate student named Ahmed who was

 trying to explain to me the results of the test he’d run on the

 soil sample taken from the vicinity of the pipes that ran into

 I-tier. “The reason the prison couldn’t get a conclusive

 explanation is because they were looking in the pipes, not

 outside them,” Ahmed said. “So the water tested positive

 for something that looked like alcohol, but only in certain

 pipes. And you’l never guess what’s growing near those

 pipes: rye.”

 “Rye? Like the grain?”

 “Yeah,” Ahmed said. “Which accounts for the concentration

 of ergot into the water. It’s a fungal disease of rye. I’m not

 sure what brings it on—I’m not a botanist—but I bet it had

 something to do with the amount of rain we’ve had, and

 there was a hairline crack in the piping they found when

 they first investigated, which accounts for the transmission

 in the first place. Ergot was the first kind of chemical

 warfare. The Assyrians used it in the seventh century B.C.

 to poison water supplies.” He smiled. “I double-majored in

 chemistry and ancient history.”

 “It’s deadly?”

 Ahmed shrugged. “In repeated doses. But at first, it’s a

 hal ucinogen that’s related to LSD.”

 “So, the prisoners on I-tier might not have been drunk …” I

 said careful y.

 “Right,” Ahmed replied. “Just tripping.”

 I turned over the vial with the soil sample. “You think the

 water got contaminated?”

 “That would be my bet.”

 But Shay Bourne, in prison, would not have been able to

 know that there was a fungus growing near the pipes that

 led into I-tier, would he?

 I suddenly remembered something else: the fol owing

 morning, those same inmates on I-tier had ingested the

 same water and had not acted out of the ordinary. “So how

 did it get uncontaminated?”

 “Now that,” Ahmed said, “I haven’t quite figured out.”

 “There are a number of reasons that an advanced AIDS

 patient with a particularly low CD4 count and high viral load

 might suddenly appear to get better,” Dr. Perego said. An

 autoimmune disease specialist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock

 Medical Center, he also served as the doctor for HIV/AIDS

 patients at the state prison and knew al about Lucius and

 his recovery. He didn’t have time for a formal talk, but was

 perfectly wil ing to chat if I wanted to walk with him from his

 office to a meeting at the other end of the hospital—as long

 as I realized that he couldn’t violate doctor-patient

 confidentiality. “If a patient is hoarding meds, for example,

 and suddenly decides to start taking them, sores wil

 disappear and health wil improve. Although we draw blood

 every three months from AIDS patients, sometimes we’l

 get a guy who refuses to have his blood drawn—and again,

 what looks like sudden improvement is actual y a slow turn

 for the better.”

 “Alma, the nurse at the prison, told me Lucius hasn’t had his

 blood drawn in over six months,” I said.

 “Which means we can’t be quite sure what his recent viral

 count was.” We had reached the conference room. Doctors

 in white coats mil ed into the room, taking their seats. I’m

 not sure what you wanted to hear,” Dr. Perego said, smiling

 rueful y. “That he’s special… or that he’s not.”

 I’m not sure either,” I admitted, and I shook his hand.

 “Thanks for your time.”

 The doctor slipped into the meeting, and I started back

 down the hal toward the parking garage. I was waiting at

 the elevator, grinning down at a baby in a strol er with a

 patch over her right eye, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

 Dr. Perego was standing there. I’m glad I caught you,” he

 said. “Have you got a moment?”

 I watched the baby’s mother push the strol er onto the

 yawning elevator.

 “Sure.”

 “This is what I didn’t tel you,” Dr. Perego said. “And you

 didn’t hear it from me.”

 I nodded, understanding.

 “HIV causes cognitive impairment—a permanent loss of

 memory and concentration. We can literal y see this on an

 MRI, and DuFresne’s brain scan showed irreparable

 damage when he first entered the state prison. However,

 another MRI brain scan was done on him yesterday—and it

 shows a reversal of that atrophy.” He looked at me, waiting

 for this to sink in. “There’s no physical evidence of

 dementia anymore.”

 “What could cause that?”

 Dr. Perego shook his head. “Absolutely nothing,” he

 admitted.

 The second time I went to meet with Shay Bourne, he was

 lying on his bunk, asleep. Not wanting to disturb him, I

 started to back away, but he spoke to me without opening

 his eyes. I’m awake,” he said. “Are you?”

 “Last time I checked,” I answered.

 C He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk.

 “Wow. I dreamed that I was struck by lightning, and al of a

 sudden I had the power to locate anyone in the world,

 anytime. So the government cut a deal with me—find bin

 Laden, and you’re free.”

 “I used to dream that I had a watch, and turning the hands

 could take you backward in time,” I said. “I always wanted

 to be a pirate, or a Viking.”

 “Sounds pretty bloodthirsty for a priest.”

 “Wel , I wasn’t born with a col ar on.”

 He looked me in the eye. “If I could turn back time, I’d go out

 flyfishing with my grandfather.”

 I glanced up. “I used to do that with my grandfather, too.”

 I wondered how two boys—like Shay and me—could begin

 our lives at the same point and somehow take turns that

 would lead us to be such different men. “My grandfather’s

 been gone a long time, and I stil miss him,” I admitted.

 “I never met mine,” Shay said. “But I must have had one,

 right?”

 I looked at him quizzical y. What kind of life had he suffered,

 I looked at him quizzical y. What kind of life had he suffered,

 to have to craft memories from his imagination? “Where

 did you grow up.

 Shay?” I asked.

 “The light,” Shay replied, ignoring my question. “How does

 a fish know where it is? I mean, things shift around on the

 floor of the ocean, right? So if you come back and

 everything’s changed, how can it real y be the place you

 were before?”

 The door to the tier buzzed, and one of the officers came

 down the catwalk, carrying a metal stool. “Here you go.

 Father,” he said, settling it in front of Shay’s cel door. “Just

 in case you want to stay awhile.”

 I recognized him as the man who had sought me out the

 last time I’d been here, talking to Lucius. His baby daughter

 had been critical y il ; he credited Shay with her recovery. I

 thanked him, but waited until he’d left to talk to Shay again.

 “Did you ever feel like that fish?”

 Shay looked at me as if I were the one who couldn’t fol ow a

 linear conversation. “What fish?” he said.

 “Like you can’t find your way back home?”

 I knew where I was heading with this topic—straight to true

 salvation—but Shay took us off course. “I had a bunch of

 houses, but only one home.”

 He’d been in the foster care system; I remembered that

 much from the trial. “Which place was that?”

 “The one where my sister was with me. I haven’t seen her

 since I was sixteen. Since I got sent to prison.”

 I remembered he’d been sent to a juvenile detention center

 for arson, but I hadn’t remembered anything about a sister.

 “Why didn’t she come to your trial?” I asked, and realized

 too late that I had made a grave mistake—that there was

 no reason for me to know that, unless I had been there.

 But Shay didn’t notice. “I told her to stay away. I didn’t want

 her to tel anyone what I’d done.” He hesitated. “I want to

 talk to her.”

 “Your sister?”

 “No. She won’t listen. The other one. She’l hear me, after I

 die.

 Every time her daughter speaks.” Shay looked up at me.

 “You know how you said you’d ask her if she wants the

 heart? What if I asked her myself?”

 Getting June Nealon to come visit Shay in prison would be

 like moving Mt. Everest to Columbus, Ohio. “I don’t know if

 it wil work…”

 But then again, maybe seeing June face-to-face would

 make Shay see the difference between personal

 forgiveness and divine forgiveness.

 Maybe putting the heart of a kil er into the chest of a child

 would showliteral y—how good might blossom from bad.

 And the beat of Claire’s pulse would bring June more

 peace than any prayer I could offer.

 Maybe Shay did know more about redemption than I.

 He was standing in front of the cinder-block wal now,

 trailing his fingertips over the cement, as if he could read

 the history of the men who’d lived there before him.

 Til try,” I said.

 There was a part of me that knew I should tel Maggie

 Bloom that I had been on the jury that convicted Shay

 Bourne. It was one thing to keep the truth from Shay; it was

 another to compromise whatever legal case Maggie was

 weaving together. On the other hand, it was up to me to

 make sure that Shay found peace with God before his

 death. The minute I told Maggie about my past involvement

 with Shay, I knew she’d tel me to get lost, and would find

 him another spiritual advisor the judge couldn’t find fault

 with. I had prayed long and hard about this, and for now, I

 was keeping my secret. God wanted me to help Shay, or

 so I told myself, because it kept me from admitting that I

 wanted to help Shay, too, after failing him the first time.

 The ACLU office was above a printing shop and smel ed

 like fresh ink and toner. It was fil ed with plants in various

 stages of dying, and filing cabinets took up most of the floor

 space. A paralegal sat at a reception desk, typing so

 furiously that I almost expected her computer screen to

 detonate. “How can I help,” she said, not bothering to look

 up.

 I’m here to see Maggie Bloom.”

 The paralegal lifted her right hand, stil typing with her left,

 and hooked a thumb overhead and to the left. I wound down

 the hal way, stepping over boxes of files and stacks of

 newspapers, and found Maggie sitting at her desk,

 scribbling on a legal pad. When she saw me, she smiled.

 “Listen,” she said, as if we were old friends. “I have some

 fantastic news. I think Shay can be hanged.” Then she

 blanched. “I didn’t mean fantastic news, real y. I meant…

 wel , you know what I meant.”

 “Why would he want to do that?”

 “Because then he can donate his heart.” Maggie frowned.

 “But first we need to get the prison to agree to send him for

 tests, to make sure I drew in my breath. “Look. We need to

 talk.”

 “It’s not often I get a priest who wants to confess.”

 She didn’t know the half of it. This is not about you, I

 reminded myself, and firmly settled Shay in the front of my

 mind. “Shay wants to be the one to ask June Nealon if she’l

 take his heart. Unfortunately, visiting him is not on her top-

 ten list of things to do. I want to know if there’s some kind of

 court-ordered mediation we can ask for.”

 Maggie raised a brow. “Do you real y think he’s the best

 person to relay this information to her? I don’t see how that

 wil help our case…”

 “Look, I know you’re doing your job,” I said, “but I’m doing

 mine, too. And saving Shay’s soul may not be important to

 you, but it’s critical to me. Right now. Shay thinks that

 donating his heart is the only way to save himself—but

 there’s a big difference between mercy and salvation.”

 Maggie folded her hands on her desk. “Which is?”

 “Wel , June can forgive Shay. But only God can redeem him

 —and it has nothing to do with giving up his heart. Yes,

 organ donation would be a beautiful, selfless final act on

 earth—but it’s not going to cancel out his debt with the

 victim’s family, and it’s not necessary to get him special

 brownie points with God. Salvation’s not a personal

 responsibility.

 You don’t have to get salvation. You’re given it, by Jesus.”

 You don’t have to get salvation. You’re given it, by Jesus.”

 “So,” she said. “I guess you don’t think he’s the Messiah.”

 “No, I think that’s a pretty rash judgment.”

 “You’re preaching to the choir. I was raised Jewish.”

 My cheeks flamed. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

 “But now I’m an atheist.”

 I opened my mouth, snapped it shut.

 “Believe me,” Maggie said, “I’m the last person in the world

 to buy into the belief that Shay Bourne is Jesus incarnate

 —”

 “Wel , of course not-“

 “—but not because a messiah wouldn’t inhabit a criminal,”

 she qualified. “I can tel you right now that there are plenty of

 innocent people on death row in this country.”

 I wasn’t about to tel her that I knew Shay Bourne was guilty.

 I had studied the evidence; I had heard the testimony; I had

 convicted him.

 “It’s not that.”

 “Then how can you be so sure he’s not who everyone thinks

 he is?” Maggie asked.

 “Because,” I replied, “God only had one son to give us.”

 “Right. And—correct me if I’m wrong—he was a thirty-three-

 yearold carpenter with a death sentence on his head, who

 was performing miracles left and right. Nah, you’re right.

 That’s nothing like Shay Bourne.”

 I thought of what I’d heard from Ahmed and Dr. Perego and

 the correctional officers. Shay Bourne’s socal ed miracles

 were nothing like Jesus’s … or were they? Water into wine.

 Feeding many with virtual y nothing. Healing the sick.

 Making the blind—or in Cal oway’s case, the prejudiced—

 see.

 Like Shay, Jesus didn’t take credit for his miracles. Like

 Shay, Jesus had known he was going to die. And the Bible

 even said Jesus was supposed to be returning. But

 although the New Testament is very clear about this coming

 to pass, it is a bit muddier on the details: the when, the why,

 the how.

 “He’s not Jesus.”

 “Okey-dokey.”

 “He’s not.” I pressed.

 Maggie held up her hands. “Got it.”

 “If he was Jesus … if this was the Second Coming … wel ,

 there’d be rapture and destruction and resurrections and

 we wouldn’t be sitting here having a normal conversation.”

 Then again, there was nothing in the Bible that said before

 the Second Coming, Jesus wouldn’t pop in to see how

 things were going here on earth.

 I suppose in that case, it would make sense to be incognito

 —to pose as the least likely person anyone would ever

 assume to be the Messiah.

 For the love of God, what was I thinking? I shook my head,

 clearing it. “Let him meet with June Nealon once before you

 petition for organ donation, that’s al I’m asking. I want the

 same things you do—Shay’s voice to be heard, a little girl

 to be saved, and capital punishment to be put in the hot

 seat. I just also want to make sure that if and when Shay

 does donate his heart, he does it for al the right reasons.

 And that means untangling Shay’s spiritual health from the

 whole legal component of this mess.”

 “I can’t do that,” Maggie said. “It’s the crux of my case.

 Look, it doesn’t matter to me whether you think Shay is

 Jesus or Shay thinks Shay is Jesus or if he’s just plain off

 his rocker. What does matter is that Shay’s rights don’t get

 shuffled aside in the grand mechanism of capital

 punishment—and if I have to use the fact that other people

 seem to think he’s God to do it, I wil .”

 I raised a brow. “You’re using Shay to spotlight an issue you

 find reprehensible, in the hopes that you can change it.”

 “Wel ,” Maggie said, coloring, “I guess that’s true.”

 “Then how can you criticize me for having an agenda

 because of what I believe in?”

 Maggie raised her gaze and sighed. “There’s something

 cal ed restorative justice,” she said. “I don’t know if the

 prison wil even al ow it, much less Shay or the Nealons. But

 it would let Shay sit down in a room with the family of his

 victims and ask for forgiveness.”

 I exhaled the breath I had not even realized I was holding.

 “Thank you,” I said.

 Maggie picked up her pen and began to write on the legal

 pad again.

 “Don’t thank me. Thank June Nealon—if you get her to

 agree to it.”

 Motivated, I started out of the ACLU office, then paused.

 “It’s the right thing to do.”

 Maggie didn’t look up. “If June won’t meet with him,” she

 said, “I’m stil filing the suit.”

 

 June

 At first, when the victim’s assistance advocate asked me if

 I’d attend a restorative justice meeting with Shay Bourne, I

 started to laugh. “Yeah,” I said. “And maybe after that, I

 could get dunked in boiling oil or drawn and quartered.”

 But she was serious, and I was just as serious when I

 refused.

 The last thing in the world I wanted to do was sit down with

 that monster to make him feel better about himself so that

 he could die at peace.

 Kurt didn’t. Elizabeth didn’t. Why should he?

 I thought that was that, until one morning when there was a

 knock on the door. Claire was lying on the couch with

 Dudley curled over her feet, watching the Game Show

 Network. Our days were spent waiting for a heart with the

 shades drawn, both of us pretending there was nowhere we

 wanted to go, when in reality, neither of us could stand

 seeing how even the smal est trips exhausted Claire. “I’l

 get it,” she cal ed out, although we both knew she couldn’t

 and wouldn’t. I put down the knife I was using to chop celery

 in the kitchen and wiped my hands on my jeans.

 “I bet it’s that creepy guy who was sel ing magazines,”

 Claire said as I passed her.

 “I bet it’s not.” He’d been a corn-fed Utah boy, pitching

 subscriptions to benefit the Church of Jesus Christ of

 Latter-Day Saints. I’d been upstairs in the shower; Claire

 had been talking to him through the screen door—for which

 I’d read her the riot act. It was that word Saints that had

 intrigued her; she didn’t know it was a fancy word for

 Mormon. I had suggested that he try a town where there

 hadn’t been a double murder committed by a young man

 who’d come around door to door looking for work, and after

 he left, I’d cal ed the police.

 No, I was sure it wasn’t the same guy.

 To my surprise, though, a priest was standing on my porch.

 His motorcycle was parked in my driveway. I opened the

 door and tried to smile politely. “I think you have the wrong

 house.”

 “I’m sure I don’t, Ms. Nealon,” I replied. “I’m Father Michael,

 from St. Catherine’s. I was hoping I could speak to you for a

 few minutes.”

 “I’m sorry … do I know you?”

 He hesitated. “No,” he said. “But I was hoping to change

 that.”

 My natural inclination was to slam the door. (Was that a

 mortal sin? Did it matter, if you didn’t even believe in mortal

 sins?) I could tel you the exact moment I had given up on

 religion.

 Kurt and I had been raised Catholic. We’d had Elizabeth

 baptized, and a priest presided over their burials. After that,

 I had promised myself I would never set foot in a church

 again, that there was nothing God could do for me that

 would make up for what I’d lost. However, this priest was a

 stranger. For al I knew, though, this was not about saving

 my soul but about saving Claire’s life. What if this priest

 knew of a heart that UNOS

 didn’t?

 “The house is a mess,” I said, but I opened the door so that

 he could walk inside. He stopped as we passed the living

 room, where Claire was stil watching television. She

 turned, her thin, pale face rising like a moon over the back

 of the sofa. “This is my daughter,” I said as I turned to him,

 and faltered—he was looking at Claire as if she were

 already a ghost.

 I was just about to throw him out when Claire said hel o and

 propped her elbows on the back of the sofa. “Do you know

 anything about saints?”

 “Claire!”

 She rol ed her eyes. “I’m just asking, Mom.”

 “I do,” the priest said. “I’ve always sort of liked St. Ulric.

 He’s the patron saint who keeps moles away.”

 “Get out.”

 “Have you ever had a mole in here?”

 “No.”

 “Then I guess he’s doing his job,” he said, and grinned.

 Because he’d made Claire smile, I decided to let him in

 and give him the benefit of the doubt. He fol owed me into

 the kitchen, where I knew we could talk without Claire

 overhearing. “Sorry about the third degree,” I said. “Claire

 reads a lot. Saints are her latest obsession. Six months

 ago, it was blacksmithing.” I gestured to the table, offering

 him a seat.

 “About Claire,” he said. “I know she’s sick. That’s why I’m

 here.”

 Although I’d hoped for this, my own heart stil leapfrogged.

 “Can you help her?”

 “Possibly,” the priest said. “But I need you to agree to

 something first.”

 I would have become a nun; I would have walked over

 burning coals. “Anything,” I vowed.

 “I know the prosecutor’s office already asked you about

 restorative justice—”

 “Get out of my house,” I said abruptly, but Father Michael

 didn’t move.

 My face flamed—with anger, and with shame that I had not

 connected the dots: Shay Bourne wanted to donate his

 organs; I was actively searching for a heart for Claire. In

 spite of al the news coverage from the prison, I had never

 linked them. I wondered whether I had been naive, or

 whether, even subconsciously, I’d been trying to protect my

 daughter.

 It took al my strength to lift my gaze to the priest’s. “What

 makes you think I would want a part of that man stil walking

 around on this earth, much less inside my child?”

 “June—please, just listen to me. I’m Shay’s spiritual

 advisor. I talk to him. And I think you should talk to him, too.”

 “Why? Because it rubs your conscience the wrong way to

 give sympathy to a murderer? Because you can’t sleep at

 night?”

 “Because I think a good person can do bad things.

 Because God forgives, and I can’t do any less.”

 Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a

 breakdown, the world pounds in your ears—a rush of blood,

 of consequence?

 Do you know how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to

 ribbons, and stil you have to speak it? “Nothing he says to

 me could make any difference.”

 “You’re absolutely right,” Father Michael said. “But what you

 say to him might.”

 There was one variable that the priest had left out of this

 equation: I owed Shay Bourne nothing. It already felt like a

 second, searing death to watch the broadcasts each night,

 to hear the voices of supporters camping out near the

 prison, who brought their sick children and their dying

 partners along to be healed. You fools, I wanted to shout to

 them. Don’t you know he’s conned you, just like he conned

 me? Don’t you know that he kil ed my love, my little girl?

 “Name one person John Wayne Gacy kil ed,” I demanded.

 ” I … I don’t know,” Father Michael said.

 “Jeffrey Dahmer?”

 He shook his head.

 “But you remember their names, don’t you?”

 He got out of his chair and walked toward me slowly. “June,

 people can change.”

 

 My mouth twisted. “Yeah. Like a mild-mannered, homeless

 carpenter who becomes a psychopath?”

 Or a silver-haired fairy of a girl whose chest, in a heartbeat,

 blooms with a peony of blood. Or a mother who turns into a

 woman she never imagined being: bitter, empty, broken.

 I knew why this priest wanted me to meet with Shay Bourne.

 I knew what Jesus had said: Don’t pay back in kind, pay

 back in kindness.

 If someone does wrong to you, do right by them.

 I’l tel you this: Jesus never buried his own child.

 I turned away, because I didn’t want to give him the

 satisfaction of seeing me cry, but he put his arm around me

 and led me to a chair. He handed me a tissue. And then his

 voice, a murmur, clotted into individual words.

 “Dear St. Felicity, patron saint of those who’ve suffered the

 death of a child, I ask for your intercession that the Lord wil

 help this woman find peace …”

 With more strength than I knew I had, I shoved him away.

 “Don’t you dare,” I said, my voice trembling. “Don’t you pray

 for me. Because if God’s listening now, he’s about eleven

 years too late.” I walked toward the refrigerator, where the

 only decoration was a picture of Kurt and Elizabeth, held up

 by a magnet Claire had made in kindergarten. I had

 fingered the photo so often that the edges had rounded; the

 color had bled onto my hands. “When it happened,

 everyone said that Kurt and Elizabeth were at peace.

 That they’d gone someplace better. But you know what?

 They didn’t go anywhere. They were taken. I was robbed.”

 “Don’t blame God for that, June,” Father Michael said. “He

 didn’t take your husband and your daughter.”

 “No,” I said flatly. “That was Shay Bourne.” I stared up at him

 coldly. “I’d like you to leave now.”

 I walked him to the door, because I didn’t want him saying

 another word to Claire—who twisted around on the couch

 to see what was going on but must have picked up enough

 nonverbal cues from my stiff spine to know better than to

 make a peep. At the threshold, Father Michael paused. “It

 may not be when we want, or how we want, but eventual y

 God evens the score,” he said. “You don’t have to be the

 one to seek revenge.”

 I stared at him. “It’s not revenge,” I said. “It’s justice.”

 After the priest left, I was so cold that I could not stop

 shivering. I put on a sweater and then another, and

 wrapped a blanket around myself, but there’s no way of

 warming up a body whose insides have turned to stone.

 Shay Bourne wanted to donate his heart to Claire so that

 she’d live.

 What kind of mother would I be if I let that happen?

 And what kind of mother would I be if I turned him down?

 Father Michael said Shay Bourne wanted to balance the

 scales: give me one daughter’s life because he had taken

 another’s. But Claire wouldn’t replace Elizabeth; I should

 have had them both.

 And yet, this was the simplest of equations: You can have

 one, or you can have neither. What do you choose?

 I was the one who hated Bourne—Claire had never met

 him. If I did not take the heart, was I making that choice

 because of what I thought was best for Claire … or what I

 could withstand myself?

 I imagined Dr. Wu removing Bourne’s heart from an Igloo

 cooler. There it was, a withered nut, a crystal black as coal.

 Put one drop of poison into the purest water, and what

 happens to the rest?

 If I didn’t take Bourne’s heart, Claire would most likely die.

 If I did, it would be like saying I could somehow be

 compensated for the death of my husband and daughter.

 And I couldn’t—not ever.

 I believe a good person can do bad things, Father Michael

 had said.

 Like make the wrong decision for the right reasons. Sign

 your daughter’s life away, because she can’t have a

 murderer’s heart.

 Forgive me, Claire, I thought, and suddenly I wasn’t cold

 anymore.

 I was burning, seared by the tears on my cheeks.

 I couldn’t trust Shay Bourne’s sudden altruistic turnaround;

 and maybe that meant he had won: I had gone just as bitter

 and rotten as he was. But that only made me more certain

 that I had the stamina to tel him, face-to-face, what

 balancing the scales real y meant. It wasn’t giving me a

 heart for Claire; it wasn’t offering a future that might ease

 the weight of the past. It was knowing that Shay Bourne

 badly wanted something, and that this time, I’d be the one

 to take his dream away.

 Maggie

 Stunned, I hung up the phone and stared at the receiver

 again. I was tempted to *69 the cal , just to make sure it

 hadn’t been some kind of prank.

 Wel , maybe miracles did happen.

 But before I could mul over this change of events, I heard

 footsteps heading toward my desk. Father Michael turned

 the corner, looking like he’d just been through Dante’s

 Inferno. “June Nealon wants nothing to do with Shay.”

 “That’s interesting,” I said, “since June Nealon just got off

 the phone with me, agreeing to a restorative justice

 meeting.”

 Father Michael blanched. “You’ve got to cal her back. This

 isn’t a good idea.”

 “You’re the one who came up with it.”

 “That was before I spoke to her. If she goes to that meeting,

 it’s not because she wants to hear what Shay has to say.

 It’s because she wants to run him through before the state

 finishes him off.”

 “Did you real y think that whatever Shay has to say to her is

 going to be any less painful than what she says to him?”

 “I don’t know … I thought that maybe if they saw each other

 …”

 He sank down into a chair in front of my desk. “I don’t know

 what I’m doing. I guess there are just some things you can’t

 make amends for.”

 I sighed. “You’re trying. That’s the best any of us can do.

 Look, it’s not like I fight death penalty cases al the time—

 but my boss used to. He worked down in Virginia before he

 came up north. They’re emotional minefields—you get to

 know the inmate, and you excuse some heinous crime with

 a lousy childhood or alcoholism or an emotional upheaval

 or drugs, until you see the victims family and a whole

 different level of suffering.

 And suddenly you start to feel a little ashamed of being in

 the defendant’s camp.”

 I walked to a smal cooler next to a file cabinet and took out

 a bottle of water for the priest. “Shay’s guilty, Father. A

 court already told us that.

 June knows it. I know it. Everyone knows that it’s wrong to

 execute an innocent man. The real question is whether it’s

 stil wrong to execute someone who’s guilty.”

 “But you’re trying to get him hanged,” Father Michael said.

 “I’m not trying to get him hanged,” I corrected. “I want to

 champion his civil liberties, and at the same time, bring

 front and center what’s wrong with the death penalty in this

 country The only way to do both is to find a way for him to

 die the way he wants to. That’s the difference between you

 and me. You’re trying to find a way for him to die the way

 you want him to.”

 “You’re the one who said Shay’s heart might not be a viable

 match.

 And even if it is, June Nealon wil never agree to taking it,”

 the priest said.

 That was, of course, entirely possible. What Father Michael

 had conveniently put out of his mind when he dreamed up a

 meeting between June and Shay was that in order to

 forgive, you have to remember how you were hurt in the first

 place. And that in order to forget, you had to accept your

 role in what had happened.

 “If we don’t want Shay to lose hope,” I said, “then we’d

 better not lose it either.”

 

 M I C H A EL

 Every day when I wasn’t running the noon Mass, I went to

 visit Shay.

 Sometimes we talked about television shows we’d seen—

 we were both pretty upset with Meredith on Grey’s

 Anatomy, and thought the girls on The Bachelor were hot

 but dumb as bricks. Sometimes we talked about carpentry,

 how a piece of wood would tel him what it needed to be,

 how I could say the same of a parishioner in need.

 Sometimes we talked about his case—the appeals he’d

 lost, the lawyers he’d had over the years. And sometimes,

 he was less lucid. He’d run around his cel like a caged

 animal; he’d rock back and forth; he’d swing from topic to

 topic as if it was the only way to cross the jungle of his

 thoughts.

 One day. Shay asked me what was being said about him

 outside.

 “You know,” I told him. “You watch the news.”

 “They think I can save them,” Shay said.

 “Wel . Yeah.”

 “That’s pretty fucking selfish, isn’t it? Or is it selfish of me if I don’t try?”

 “I can’t answer that for you. Shay,” I said.

 He sighed. “I’m tired of waiting to die,” he said. “Eleven

 years is a long time.”

 I pressed my stool up close to the cel door; it was more

 private that way. It had taken me a week, but I had

 managed to separate out the way I felt about Shay’s case

 from the way that he felt. I had been stunned to learn that

 Shay believed he was innocent—although Warden Coyne

 told me that everyone in prison believed they were

 innocent, regardless of the conviction. I wondered if his

 memory of the events, over time, had blurred—me, I could

 stil remember that awful evidence as if it had been

 presented to me yesterday. When I pushed a

 bitencouraged him to tel me more about his wrongful

 conviction, suggested that Maggie might be able to use the

 information in court, asked him why he was wil ing to go

 along with an execution so passively if he wasn’t guilty—he

 shut down. He’d say, over and over, that what had

 happened then didn’t matter now. I began to understand

 that proclaiming his innocence had a lot less to do with the

 reality of his case and more to do with the fragile

 connection between us. I was becoming his confidant—and

 he wanted me to think the best of him.

 “What do you think is easier?” Shay asked. “Knowing

 you’re going to die on a certain date and time, or knowing it

 might happen any moment when you least expect it?”

 A thought swam through my mind like a minnow: Did you

 ask Elizabeth that? “I’d rather not know,” I said. “Live every

 day like it’s your last, and al that. But I think if you do know

 you’re going to die, Christ showed the way to do it with

 grace.”

 Shay smirked. “Just think. It took you a whole forty-two

 minutes to bring up good ol’ Jesus today.”

 “Sorry. Professional hazard,” I said. “When He says, in

 Gethsemane, ‘0 my Father, if it be possible, let this cup

 pass from me…’ He’s wrestling with destiny… but

 ultimately. He accepts God’s wil .”

 “Sucks for him,” Shay said.

 “Wel , sure. I bet His legs felt like Jel -0 when He was

 carrying the Cross. He was human, after al . You can be

 brave, but that doesn’t keep your stomach from doing

 somersaults.”

 I finished speaking to find Shay staring at me. “Did you ever

 wonder if you’re dead wrong?”

 “About what?”

 “Al of it. What Jesus said. What Jesus meant. I mean, he

 didn’t even write the Bible, did he? In fact, the people who

 did write the Bible weren’t even alive when Jesus was.” I

 must have looked absolutely stricken, because Shay

 hurried to continue. “Not that Jesus wasn’t a real y cool guy

 —great teacher, excel ent speaker, yadda yadda yadda.

 But… Son of God? Where’s the proof?”

 “That’s what faith is,” I said. “Believing without seeing.”

 “Okay,” Shay argued. “But what about the folks who think

 Al ah’s the one to put your money on? Or that the right path

 is the eightfold one? I mean, how can a guy who walked on

 water even get baptized?”

 “We know Jesus was baptized because—”

 “Because it’s in the Bible?” Shay laughed. “Someone wrote

 the Bible, and it wasn’t God. Just like someone wrote the

 Quran, and the Talmud. And he must have made decisions

 about what went in and what didn’t. It’s like when you write a

 letter, and you put in al the stuff you did during vacation but

 you leave out the part where your wal et got stolen and you

 got food poisoning.”

 “Do you real y need to know if Jesus got food poisoning?” I

 asked.

 “You’re missing the point. You can’t take Matthew 26:39 or

 Luke 500:43 or whatever and read it as fact.”

 “See, Shay, that’s where you’re wrong. I can take Matthew

 26:39

 and know it’s the word of God. Or Luke 500:43, if it went up

 that high.”

 By now, other inmates on the pod were eavesdropping.

 Some of them—like Joey Kunz, who was Greek Orthodox,

 and Pogie, who was Southern Baptist—liked to listen when

 I visited Shay and read scripture; a few of them had even

 asked if I’d stop by and pray with them when I came in to

 see Shay. “Shut your piehole. Bourne,” Pogie yel ed out.

 “You’re going to hel as soon as they push that needle in

 your arm.”

 “I’m not saying I’m right,” Shay said, his voice escalating.

 “I’m just saying that if you’re right, it stil doesn’t mean I’m

 wrong.”

 “Shay,” I said, “you have to stop shouting, or they’re going

 to ask me to leave.”

 He walked toward me, flattening his hands on the other

 side of the steel mesh door. “What if it didn’t matter if you

 were a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or a Wiccan or a

 … a transcendentalist? What if al those roads led to the

 same place?”

 “Religion brings people together,” I said.

 “Yeah, right. You can track every polarizing issue in this

 country to religion. Stem cel research, the war in Iraq, the

 right to die, gay marriage, abortion, evolution, even the

 death penalty—what’s the fault line? That Bible of yours.”

 Shay shrugged. “You real y think Jesus would be happy with

 the way the world’s turned out?”

 I thought of suicide bombers, of the radicals who stormed

 into Planned Parenthood clinics. I thought of the news

 footage of the Middle East. “I think God would be horrified

 by some of the things that are done in His name,” I

 admitted. “I think there are places His message has been

 distorted. Which is why I think it’s even more important to

 spread the one He meant to give.”

 Shay pushed away from the cel door. “You look at a guy

 like Cal oway—”

 “Fuck you. Bourne,” Reece cal ed out. “I don’t want to be

 part of your speech. I don’t even want your filthy-ass mouth

 speaking my name—”

 “—an AB guy, who burned down a temple—”

 “You’re dead. Bourne,” Reece said. “D-E-A-D.”

 “—or the CO who walks you to the shower and knows he

 can’t look you in the eye, because if his life had gone just a

 little different, he might be the one wearing the cuffs. Or the

 politicians who think that they can take someone they don’t

 real y want in society anymore and lock him away—”

 At this, the other inmates began to cheer. Texas and Pogie

 picked up their dinner trays and began to bang them

 against the steel doors of their cel s. On the intercom, an

 officer’s voice rang through. “What’s going on in there?”

 Shay was standing at the front of his house now, preaching

 to his congregation, disconnected from linear thought and

 everything but his moment of grandstanding. “And the ones

 who are real y monsters, the ones they don’t ever want

 walking around near their wives and children again—the

 ones like me—wel , those they get to dispose of. Because

 it’s easier than admitting there isn’t much difference

 between them and me.”

 There were catcal s; there were cheers. Shay backed up as

 if he were on a stage, bent at the waist, bowed. Then he

 came back for his encore.

 “The joke’s on them. One little hypodermic won’t be

 enough. Split a piece of wood, and they’l find me. Lift up a

 stone, and they’l find me.

 Look in the mirror, and they’l find me.” Shay gazed

 squarely at me. “If you real y want to know what makes

 someone a kil er,” he said, “ask vourself what would make

 you do it.”

 My hands tightened on the Bible I always brought when I

 came to visit Shay. As it turned out. Shay wasn’t railing

 about nothing. He wasn’t disconnected from reality.

 That would have been me.

 Because, as Shay was suggesting, we weren’t as different

 as I would have liked to think. We were both murderers.

 The only distinction was that the death I’d caused had yet to

 happen.

 

 Maggie

 That week, when I showed up at the ChutZpah for lunch with

 my mother, she was too busy to see me. “Maggie,” she

 said when I was standing at the threshold of her office door.

 “What are you doing here?”

 It was the same day, the same time, we met for our habitual

 lunch—the same lunch I never wanted to go to. But today, I

 was actual y looking forward to zoning out while my cuticles

 were being cut and shaped. Ever since Father Michael had

 barreled into my office talking about a meeting between

 Shay and June Nealon, I’d been doubting myself and my

 intentions.

 By trying to make it possible for Shay to donate his heart,

 was I carrying out what was in his best interests, or my

 own? Sure, it would be a media boon for the anti-death

 penalty movement if Shay’s last act on earth was as

 selfless as organ donation … but wasn’t it moral y wrong to

 try to legal y hasten a man’s execution, even if it was what

 he’d asked for?

 After three sleepless nights, al I wanted was to close my

 eyes, soak my hands in warm water, and think of anything

 but Shay Bourne.

 My mother was wearing a cream-colored skirt so tiny it

 might as wel have come from the American Girl dol store,

 and her hair was twisted up in a chignon. “I have an investor

 coming in,” she said. “Remember?”

 What I remembered was her vague mention of adding

 another wing to the ChutZpah. And that there was some

 very rich lady from Woodbury, New York, who wanted to talk

 about financing it.

 “You never told me it was going to be today,” I said, and I

 sank down in one of the chairs opposite her desk.

 “You’re crushing the pil ows,” my mother said. “And I did tel

 you. I cal ed you at work, and you were typing, like you

 always do when I cal even though you think I can’t hear it in

 the background. And I told you I had to postpone lunch til

 Thursday, and you yessed me and said you were real y

 busy, and did I have to cal you at work?”

 My face flushed. “I don’t type while I’m on the phone with

 you.”

 Okay, I do. But it’s my mother. And she cal s for the most

 ridiculous reasons: Is it okay if she makes Chanukah dinner

 on Saturday, December 16, never mind that it’s currently

 March? Do I remember the name of the librarian in my

 elementary school, because she thinks she ran into her at

 the grocery store? In other words, my mother phones for

 reasons that are completely trivial compared to writing up a

 brief to save the life of a man who’s going to be executed.

 “You know, Maggie, I realize that nothing I do here could

 possibly be as important as what you do, but it does hurt

 me to know that you don’t even listen when I talk *o vou.”

 Her eyes were tearing up. “I can’t believe you came here to

 upset me before I have to sit down with Alicia Goldman-

 Hirsch.”

 “I didn’t come here to upset you! I came here because I

 always come here the second Tuesday of every month! You

 can’t blame me because of a stupid phone conversation

 we probably had six months ago!”

 “A stupid phone conversation,” my mother said quietly.

 “Wel , it’s good to know what you real y think of our

 relationship, Maggie.”

 I held up my hands. “I can’t win here,” I said. “I hope your

 meeting goes wel .” Then I stormed out of her office, past

 the white secretary’s desk with the white computer and the

 nearly albino receptionist, al the way to my car in the

 parking lot, where I tried to tel myself that the reason I was

 crying had nothing to do with the fact that even when I

 wasn’t trying, al I did was let people down.

 I found my father in his office—a rental space in a strip mal ,

 since he was a rabbi without a temple—writing his sermon

 for Shabbat. As soon as I walked in, he smiled, then lifted a

 finger to beg a moment’s time to finish whatever bril iant

 thought he was scribbling down. I wandered around, trailing

 my fingers over the spines of books written in Hebrew and

 Greek, Old Testaments and New Testaments, books on

 theurgy and theology and philosophy. I palmed an old

 paperweight I’d made him in nursery school—a rock

 painted to look like a crab, although now it seemed to more

 closely resemble an amoeba, and then took down one of

 my baby photos, tucked in an acrylic frame.

 I had fat cheeks, even then.

 My father closed his laptop. “To what do I owe this

 surprise?”

 I set the photo back on the mahogany shelf. “Did you ever

 wonder if the person in the picture is the same one you see

 when you look in the mirror?”

 He laughed. “That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? Are we

 born who we are, or do we make ourselves that way?” He

 stood up and came around his desk, kissed my cheek.

 “Did you come here to argue philosophy with your old

 man?”

 “No, I came here because … I don’t know why I came here.”

 That was the truth; my car had sort of pointed itself in the

 direction of his office, and even when I realized where it

 was headed I didn’t correct my course. Everyone else

 came to my father when they were troubled or wanted

 counseling, why shouldn’t I? I sank down onto the old

 leather couch that he’d had for as long as I could

 remember. “Do you think God forgives murderers?”

 My father sat down next to me. “Isn’t your client Catholic?”

 “I was talking about me.”

 “Wel , gosh, Mags. I hope you got rid of the weapon.”

 I sighed. “Daddy, I don’t know what to do. Shay Bourne

 doesn’t want to become the poster child against capital

 punishment, he wants to die. And yeah, I can tel myself a

 dozen times that we can both have our cake and eat it, too

 —Shay gets to die on his own terms; I get the death penalty

 put under a microscope and maybe even repealed by the

 Supreme Court—but it doesn’t cancel out the fact that at

 the end of the day, Shay wil be dead, and I’l be just as

 responsible as the state that signed the warrant in the first

 place. Maybe I should be trying to convince Shay to get his

 conviction overturned, to fight for his life, instead of his

 death.”

 “I don’t think he’d want that,” my father said. “You’re not

 murdering him, Maggie. You’re fulfil ing his last wishes—to

 help him make amends for what he’s done wrong.”

 “Repentance through organ donation?”

 “More like teshuvah.”

 I stared at him.

 “Oh, right,” he smirked. “I forgot about the post-Hebrew

 School amnesia.

 For Jews, repentance is about conduct—you realize you’ve

 done something wrong, you resolve to change it in the

 future. But teshuvah means return. Inside each of us is

 some spark of God—the real us. It’s there whether you’re

 the most pious Jew or the most marginal. Sin, evil, murder

 —al those things have the ability to cover up our true

 selves.

 Teshuvah means turning back to the part of God that’s

 gotten concealed.

 When you repent, usual y, you feel sad—because of the

 regret that led you there. But when you talk about teshuvah,

 about making that connection with God again—wel , it

 makes you happy,” my father said. “Happier even than you

 were before, because your sins separated you from God …

 and distance always makes the heart grow fonder, right?”

 He walked toward the baby picture I’d put back on the shelf.

 “I know Shay’s not Jewish, but maybe that’s what’s at the

 root of this desire to die, and to give up his heart. Teshuvah

 is al about reaching for something divine—something

 beyond the limitations of a body.” He glanced at me.

 “That’s the answer to your question about the photo, by the

 way. You’re a different person on the outside than you were

 when this picture was snapped, but not on the inside. Not at

 the core. And not only is that part of you the same as it was

 when you were six months old … it’s also the same as me

 and your mother and Shay Bourne and everyone else in this

 world. It’s the part of us that’s connected to God, and at that

 level, we’re al identical.”

 I shook my head. “Thanks, but that didn’t real y make me

 feel any better. I want to save him, Daddy, and he—he

 doesn’t want that at al .”

 “Restitution is one of the steps a person has to take for

 teshuvah,” my father said. “Shay has apparently taken a

 very literal interpretation of this—he took a child’s life;

 therefore he owes that mother the life of a child.”

 “Its not a perfect equation,” I said. “He’d have to bring

 Elizabeth Nealon back for that.”

 My father nodded. “That’s something rabbis have talked

 about for years since the Holocaust—if the victim is dead,

 does the family real y have the power to forgive the kil er?

 The victims are the ones with whom he has to make

 amends. And those victims—they’re ashes.”

 I sat up, rubbing my temples. “It’s real y complicated.”

 “Then ask yourself what’s the right thing to do.”

 “I can’t even answer that much.”

 “Wel ,” my father said, “then maybe you should ask Shay.”

 I blinked up at him. It was that simple. I hadn’t seen my

 client since that first meeting in the prison; the work I’d been

 doing to set up a restorative justice meeting had been on

 the phone. Maybe what I real y needed was to find out why

 Shay Bourne was so sure he’d come to the right decision,

 so that I could start explaining it to myself.

 I leaned over and gave him a hug. “Thanks, Daddy.”

 “I didn’t do anything.”

 “Stil , you’re a better conversationalist than Oliver.”

 “Don’t tel the rabbit that,” he said. “He’d scratch me twice

 as hard as he already does.”

 I stood up, heading for the door. “I’l cal you later. Oh, and

 by the way,” I said, “Mom’s mad at me again.”

 I was sitting under the harsh fluorescent lights of the

 attorney-client conference room when Shay Bourne was

 brought in to meet with me. He backed up to the trap so

 that his handcuffs could be removed, and he sat down

 across the table. His hands were smal , I realized, maybe

 even smal er than mine.

 “Hows it going?” he asked.

 “Fine. How’s it going with you?”

 “No, I meant my lawsuit. My heart.”

 “Wel , we’re waiting until after you speak to June Nealon

 tomorrow.”

 I hesitated. “Shay, I need to ask you a question, as your

 lawyer.” I waited until he looked me in the eye. “Do you

 real y believe that the only way to atone for what you’ve

 done is to die?”

 “I just want to give her my heart—”

 “I get that. But in order to do that, you’ve basical y agreed to

 your own execution.”

 He smiled faintly. “And here I thought my vote didn’t count.”

 “I think you know what I mean,” I said. “Your case is going to

 shine a beacon on the issue of capital punishment, Shay—

 but you’l be the sacrificial lamb.”

 His head snapped up. “Who do you think I am?”

 I hesitated, not quite sure what he was asking.

 “Do you believe what they al believe?” he asked. “Or what

 Lucius believes? Do you think I can make miracles

 happen?”

 “I don’t believe anything I haven’t seen,” I said firmly.

 “Most people just want to believe what someone else tel s

 them,”

 Shay said.

 He was right. It was why, in my father’s office, I’d had a

 breakdown: because even as a confirmed atheist, I

 sometimes found it just too frightening to think that there

 might not be a God who was watching out for our greater

 good. It was why a country as enlightened as the United

 States could stil have a death penalty statute in place: it

 was just too frightening to think about what justice—or lack

 of it—would prevail if we didn’t. There was comfort in facts,

 so much so that we stopped questioning where those facts

 had come from.

 Was I trying to figure out who Shay Bourne was for myself?

 Proba bly. I didn’t buy the fact that he was the Son of God,

 but if it was getting him media attention, then I thought he

 was bril iant for encouraging that line of thought. “If you can

 get June to forgive you at this meeting, Shay, maybe you

 don’t have to give up your heart. Maybe you’l feel good

 about connecting with her again, and then we can get her to

 talk to the governor on your behalf to commute your

 sentence to life in prison—”

 “If you do that,” Shay interrupted, “I wil kil myself.”

 My jaw dropped. “Why?”

 “Because,” he said, “I have to get out of here.”

 At first I thought that he was talking about the prison, but

 then I saw he was clutching his own arms, as if the

 penitentiary he was referring to was his own body. And that,

 of course, made me think of my father and teshuvah. Could

 I truly be helping him by letting him die on his own terms?

 “Let’s take it one step at a time,” I conceded. “If you can get

 June Nealon to understand why you want to do this, then I’l

 work on making a court understand it, too.”

 But Shay was suddenly lost in his thoughts, wherever they

 happened to be taking him. “I’l see you tomorrow, Shay,” I

 said, and I went to touch his shoulder to let him know I was

 leaving. As soon as I stretched out my arm, though, I found

 myself flat on the floor. Shay stood over me, just as

 shocked by the blow he’d dealt me as I was.

 An officer bolted into the room, driving Shay down to the

 floor with a knee in the smal of his back so that he could be

 handcuffed. “You al right?” he cal ed out to me.

 “I’m fine … I just slipped,” I lied. I could feel a welt rising on

 my left cheekbone, one that I was sure the officer would see

 as wel . I swal owed the knot of fear in my throat. “Could you

 just give us a couple more minutes?”

 I did not tel the officer to remove Shay’s handcuffs; I wasn’t

 quite that brave. But I struggled to my feet and waited until

 we were alone in the room again. “I’m sorry,” Shay blurted

 out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I sometimes, when you …”

 “Shay,” I ordered. “Sit down.”

 “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t see you coming. I thought you

 were—would—” He broke off, choking on the words. “I’m

 sorry.”

 I was the one who’d made the mistake. A man who had

 been locked up alone for a decade, whose only human

 contact was having his handcuffs chained and removed,

 would be completely unprepared for a smal act of

 kindness. He would have instinctively seen it as a threat to

 his personal space, which was how I’d wound up sprawled

 on the floor.

 “It won’t happen again,” I said.

 He shook his head fiercely. “No.”

 “See you tomorrow, Shay.”

 “Are you mad at me?”

 “No.”

 “You are. I can tel .”

 “I’m not,” I said.

 “Then wil you do something for me?”

 I had been warned about this by other attorneys who

 worked with inmates: they wil bleed you dry. Beg you for

 stamps, for money, for food.

 For phone cal s, made by you to their family, on their behalf.

 They are the ultimate con artists; no matter how much

 sympathy you feel for them, you have to remind yourself that

 they wil take whatever they can get, because they have

 nothing.

 “Next time, wil you tel me what it feels like to walk barefoot

 on grass?” he asked. “I used to know, but I can’t remember

 anymore.” He shook his head. “I just want to … I want to

 know what that’s like again.”

 I folded my notebook beneath my arm. “I’l see you

 tomorrow, Shay,”

 I repeated, and I motioned to the officer who would set me

 free.

 M I C HAEL

 Shay Bourne was pacing in his cel . Every fifth rum, he

 pivoted and started circling the other way. “Shay,” I said, to

 calm myself down as much as him, “it’s going to be al

 right.”

 We were awaiting his transportation down to the room

 where our restorative justice meeting with June Nealon

 would take place, and we were both nervous.

 “Talk to me,” Shay said.

 “Al right,” I said. “What do you want to talk about?”

 “What I’m going to say. What she’s going to say… the

 words won’t come out right, I just know it.” He looked up at

 me. “I’m going to fuck this up.”

 “Just say what you need to. Shay. Words are hard for

 everyone.”

 “Wel , it’s worse when you know the person you’re talking to

 thinks you’re ful of shit.”

 “Jesus managed to do it,” I pointed out, “and it wasn’t like

 He was attending the Tuesday Toastmasters meeting in

 Nineveh.” I opened my Bible to the book of Isaiah. “The

 Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to

 preach good news …”

 “Could we just this once nor have a Bible study moment?”

 Shay groaned.

 “It’s an example,” I said. “Jesus said that when He came

 back to the synagogue where He’d grown up. Let me tel

 you, that congregation had a lot of questions—after al ,

 they’d grown up with Him, and knew Him before He started

 the miracle train—so before they could doubt Him, what did

 He do? He gave them the words they’d been waiting to

 hear. He gave them hope.” I looked at Shay. “That’s what

 you need to do, with June.”

 The door to I-tier opened, and six officers in flak jackets

 and ful face shields entered. “Don’t talk until the mediator

 asks you to. And make sure you tel her why this is so

 important to you,” I urged, lastminute quarterbacking.

 Just then the first officer reached the cel door. “Father,” he

 said, “we’re going to have to ask you to meet us down

 there.”

 I watched them move Shay down the tier. Speak from your

 heart, I thought, watching him go. So that she knows ifs

 worth taking.

 I had already been told what they would do with him. He’d

 be handcuffed and cuffed at the ankles. Both of these would

 be linked to a bel y chain, so that he’d shuffle along inside

 the human box of officers. He would be taken to the

 cafeteria, which was now set up for offender counseling.

 Basical y, the warden had explained, when they needed to

 have group sessions with violent offenders, they bolted

 several individual metal boxes to the floor—and prisoners

 were put into these miniature cel s along with a counselor,

 who would sit on a chair in the cafeteria with them. “It’s

 group therapy,” Warden Coyne had proudly explained, “but

 they’re stil incarcerated.”

 Maggie had lobbied for a face-to-face visit. Failing that,

 she wanted to know if we could meet on opposite sides of

 a glass visiting booth.

 But there were too many of us, when you added in the

 moderator and June, or so the administration said (never

 mind I’d seen families of ten cram into one of those little

 noncontact booths for a visit with an inmate). Although I—

 like Maggie—thought that we were starting at a grave

 disadvantage if one of the participants was restrained and

 bolted to the floor like Hannibal Lecter, this was the best we

 were going to get.

 The mediator was a woman named Abigail Herrick, who’d

 come from the attorney general’s victim’s assistance office

 and had been trained to do this kind of thing. She and June

 were talking quietly on one side of the anteroom. I walked

 up to June as soon as I entered.

 “Thank you. This means a lot to Shay.”

 “Which is the last reason I’d ever do it,” June said, and she

 turned back to Abigail.

 I slunk across the room to the seat beside Maggie. She

 was painting a run in her stocking with pink nail polish. “We

 are in serious trouble,”

 I said.

 “Yeah? How’s he doing?”

 “He’s panicked.” I squinted in the dim light as she lifted her

 head.

 “How’d you get that shiner?”

 “In my spare time I’m the welterweight champion of New

 Hampshire.”

 There was a buzzing, and Warden Coyne walked in.

 “Everything’s set.”

 He led us into the cafeteria by way of the metal detector.

 Maggie and I had already emptied our pockets and taken

 off our jackets before June and Abigail even realized what

 was going on; this is the difference between someone who

 has intimate experience with a detention facility and those

 who lead normal lives. An officer, stil dressed in ful riot

 gear, opened a door for June, who continued to stare at

 him in horror as she walked inside.

 Shay was sitting in what looked like a telephone booth

 permanently sealed shut with nuts and bolts and metal.

 Bars vivisected his face; his eyes searched for mine as

 soon as I walked into the room.

 When he saw us, he stood up.

 At that moment, June froze.

 Abigail took her arm and led her to one of the four chairs

 that were arranged in a semicircle in front of the booth.

 Maggie and I fil ed in the remaining seats. Two officers

 stood behind us; in the distance I could hear the sizzle of

 something cooking on a gril .

 “Wel . Let’s get started,” Abigail said, and she introduced

 herself.

 “Shay, I’m Abigail Herrick. I’m going to be the mediator

 today. Do you understand what that means?”

 He hesitated. He looked like he was going to faint.

 “Victim-offender mediation is a process that gives a victim

 the chance to meet her offender in a safe and structured

 setting,” Abigail explained. “The victim wil be able to tel the

 offender about the crime’s physical, emotional, and

 financial impact. The victim also has the chance to receive

 answers to any lingering questions about the crime, and to

 be directly involved in trying to develop a plan for the

 offender to pay back a debt if possible—emotional or

 monetary. In return, the offender gets the opportunity to take

 responsibility for his behavior and actions. Everyone with

 me so far?”

 I started to wonder why this wasn’t used for every crime

 committed.

 Granted, it was labor-intensive for both the AG’s office and

 the prison, but wasn’t it better to come face-to-face with the

 opposing party, instead of having the legal system be the

 intermediary?

 “Now, the process is strictly voluntary. That means if June

 wants to leave at any time, she should feel free to do so.

 But,” Abigail added, “I also want to point out that this

 meeting was initiated by Shay, which is a very good first

 step.”

 She glanced at me, at Maggie, and then at June, and final y

 Shay.

 “Right now. Shay,” Abigail said, “you need to listen to June.”

 

 June

 They say you get over your grief, but you don’t real y, not

 ever. It’s been eleven years, and it hurts just as much as it

 did that first day.

 Seeing his face—sliced into segments by those metal

 bars, like he was some kind of Picasso portrait that

 couldn’t be put together again—brought it al back. That

 face, his fucking face, was the last one Kurt and Elizabeth

 saw.

 When it first happened, I used to make bargains with

 myself.

 I’d say that I could handle their deaths, as long as—and

 here I’d fil in the blank. As long as they had been quick and

 painless. As long as Elizabeth had died in Kurt’s arms. I’d

 be driving, and I’d tel myself that if the light turned green

 before I reached the intersection, surely these details were

 true. I did not admit that sometimes I slowed down to stack

 the odds.

 The only reason I was able to drag myself out of bed at al

 those first few months was because there was someone

 more needy than I was. As a newborn, Claire didn’t have a

 choice. She had to be fed and diapered and held. She kept

 me so grounded in the present that I had to let go of my

 hold on the past. I credit her with saving my life. Maybe

 that’s why I am so determined to reciprocate.

 But even having Claire to care for was not foolproof. The

 smal est things would send me into a downward spiral:

 while pressing seven birthday candles into her cake, I’d

 think of Elizabeth, who would have been fourteen. I’d open

 a box in the garage and breathe in the scent of the

 miniature cigars Kurt liked to smoke every now and then. I’d

 open up a pot of Vaseline and see Elizabeth’s tiny

 fingerprint, preserved on the surface. I would pul a book off

 a shelf and a shopping list would flutter out of it, in Kurt’s

 handwriting: thumbtacks, milk, rock salt.

 What I would like to tel Shay Bourne about the impact this

 crime had on my family is that it erased my family, period.

 What I would like to do is bring him back to the moment

 Claire, four, perched on the stairs to stare at a picture of

 Elizabeth and asked where the girl who looked like her

 lived. I would like him to know what it feels like to have to

 run your hand up the terrain of your own body, and

 underneath your nightshirt, only to realize that you cannot

 surprise yourself with your own touch.

 I would like to show him the spot in the room he built,

 Claire’s old nursery, where there is a bloodstain on the

 floorboards that I cannot scrub clean. I’d like to tel him that

 even though I carpeted the room years ago and turned it

 into a guest bedroom, I stil do not walk across it, but

 instead tiptoe around the perimeter when I have to go

 inside.

 I would like to show him the bil s that came from the hospital

 every time Claire was sent there, which quickly consumed

 the money we received from the insurance company after

 Kurt died.

 I’d like him to come with me to the bank, the day I broke

 down in front of the tel er and told her that I wanted to

 liquidate the col ege fund of Elizabeth Nealon.

 I would like to feel that moment when Elizabeth was sitting

 in my lap and I was reading to her, and she went boneless

 and soft, asleep in my arms. I would like to hear Kurt cal

 me Red again, for my hair, and tangle his fingers in it as we

 watch television in the bedroom at night. I would like to pick

 up the dirty socks that Elizabeth strewed about the house, a

 tiny tornado, the same reason I once yel ed at her. I would

 love to fight with Kurt over the size of If they had to die, I

 would have loved to have known in advance, so that I could

 take each second spent with them and know to hold on to it,

 instead of assuming there would be a mil ion more. If they

 had to die, I would have loved to have been there, to be the

 last face they saw, instead of his.

 I would like to tel Shay Bourne to go to hel , because

 wherever he winds up after he dies, it had better not be

 anywhere close to my daughter and my husband.

 M IC HAEL

 “Why?” June Nealon asked. Her voice was striped with rust

 and sorrow, and in her lap, her hands twisted. “Why did you

 do it?” She lifted her gaze, staring at Shay. “I let you into my

 home. I gave you a job. I trusted you. And you, you took

 everything I had.”

 Shay’s mouth was working silently. He moved from side to

 side in his little booth, hitting his forehead sometimes. His

 eyes fluttered, as if he was trying hard to organize what he

 had to say. “I can fix it,” he said final y.

 “You can’t fix anything,” she said tightly.

 “Your other little girl-“

 June stiffened. “Don’t you talk about her. Don’t you even

 breathe her name. Just tel me. I’ve waited eleven years to

 hear it. Tel me why you did this.”

 He squeezed his eyes shut; sweat had broken out on his

 brow. He was whispering, a litany meant to convince

 himself, or maybe June. I leaned forward, but the noise from

 the kitchen obliterated his words.

 And then whatever had been sizzling was taken off the gril ,

 and we al heard Shay, loud and clear: “She was better off

 dead.”

 June shot to her feet. Her face was so pale that I feared she

 would fal over, and I rose just in case. Then blood rushed,

 hot, into her cheeks. “You bastard,” she said, and she ran

 outside.

 Maggie tugged on my jacket. “Go,” she mouthed.

 I fol owed June past the two officers and through the

 anteroom.

 She burst through the double doors and into the parking lot

 without even bothering to pick up her driver’s license at the

 control booth, trad ing back her visitor’s pass. I was certain

 she would rather go to the DMV and pay for a replacement

 than set foot in this prison again.

 “June,” I yel ed. “Please. Wait.”

 I final y cornered her at her car, an old Ford Taurus with duct

 tape around the rear bumper. She was sobbing so hard

 that she couldn’t get the key into the lock.

 “Let me.” I opened the door and held it for her so that she

 could sit down, but she didn’t. “June, I’m sorry—”

 “How could he say that? She was a little girl. A beautiful,

 smart, perfect little girl.”

 I gathered her into my arms and let her cry on my shoulder.

 Later, she would regret doing this; later, she would feel that

 I had manipulated the situation. But for right now, I held her

 until she could catch her breath.

 Redemption had very little to do with the big picture, and far

 more to do with the particulars. Jesus might forgive Shay,

 but what good was that if Shay didn’t forgive himself? It was

 that impetus that drove him to give up his heart, just as I

 was driven to help him do it because it would cancel out my

 vote to execute him in the first place. We couldn’t erase our

 mistakes, so we did the next best thing and tried to do

 something that distracted attention from them.

 “I wish I could have met your daughter,” I said softly.

 June pul ed away from me. “I wish you could have, too.”

 “I didn’t ask you here to hurt you al over again. Shay truly

 does want to make amends. He knows the one good thing

 to come out of his life might be his death.” I looked at the

 Constantine wire running along the top of the prison fence:

 a crown of thorns for a man who wanted to be a savior.

 “He’s taken away the rest of your family,” I said. “If nothing

 else, let him help you keep Claire.”

 June ducked into her car. She was crying again as she

 lurched out of the parking spot. I watched her pause at the

 exit of the prison, her blinker marking time.

 Then, suddenly, her brake lights came on. She sped

 backward, stopping beside me with only inches to spare.

 She unrol ed the window on the driver’s side. TU take his

 heart,” June said, her voice thick. TU

 take it, and I’l watch that son of a bitch die, and we stil

 won’t be even.”

 Too stunned to find any words, I nodded. I watched June

 drive off, her tail ights winking as red as the eyes of any

 devU.

 Maggie

 “Wel ,” I said when I saw Father Michael walking back into

 the prison, dazed, “that sucked.”

 At the sound of my voice, he looked up. “She’s taking the

 heart.”

 My mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”

 “No. She’s taking it for al the wrong reasons … but she’s

 taking it.”

 I could not believe it. Fol owing the debacle in the

 restorative justice meeting, I would have more easily

 accepted that she’d gone out to buy an Uzi to exact her own

 justice against Shay Bourne. My mind began to kick into

 high gear: if June Nealon wanted Shay’s heart—for

 whatever reason—then there was a great deal I had to do.

 “I’l need you to write an affidavit, saying that you’re Shay’s

 spiritual advisor and that his religious beliefs include

 donating his heart.”

 He drew in his breath. “Maggie, I can’t put my name on a

 court document about Shay—”

 “Sure you can. Just lie,” I said, “and go to confession

 afterward.

 You’re not doing this for you; you’re doing it for Shay. And

 we’l need a cardiologist to examine Shay, to see if his

 heart’s even a match for Claire.”

 The priest closed his eyes and nodded. “Should I go in and

 tel him?”

 “No,” I said, smiling. “Let me.”

 After a slight detour, I walked through the metal detectors

 again and was taken to the attorney-client room outside I-

 tier. A few minutes later, a grumbling officer showed up with

 Shay. “He keeps getting moved around like this, the state’s

 going to have to hire him a chauffeur.”

 I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, the worlds

 smal est violin.

 Shay ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end;

 the shirt of his prison scrubs was untucked. “I’m sorry” he

 said immediately.

 “I’m not the one who could have used the apology,” I

 replied.

 “I know.” He squinched his eyes shut, shook his head.

 “There were eleven years of words in my head, and I

 couldn’t get them out the way I wanted.”

 “Amazingly, June Nealon is wil ing to accept your heart for

 Claire.”

 A few times in my career, I’d been the messenger of

 information that would change a clients life: the victim of a

 hate crime whose store was destroyed, receiving

 reparation and damages that would al ow him to build a

 bigger, better venue; the gay couple who were given the

 legal stamp of approval to be listed as parents in the

 elementary school directory. A smile blossomed across

 Shay’s face, and I remembered, at that moment, that

 gospel is another word for good news.

 “It’s not a done deal yet,” I said. “We don’t know, medical y,

 if this is viable. And there are a whole bunch of legal hoops

 to jump through …

 which is what I need to talk to you about, Shay.”

 I waited until he sat down across from me at the table, and

 was calm enough to stop grinning and look me in the eye. I

 had gotten to this point with clients before: you drew them a

 map and explained where the exit hatch was, and then you

 waited to see if they understood you needed them to crawl

 there on their own. That was legitimate, in law; you were not

 tel ing them to alter their truth, just explaining the way the

 courts worked, and hoping they would choose to massage

 it themselves. “Listen careful y,” I said. “There’s a law in this

 country that says the state has to let you practice your own

 religion, as long as it doesn’t interfere with safety in the

 prison. There’s also a law in New Hampshire that says

 even though the court has sentenced you to die by lethal

 injection, which wouldn’t al ow you to donate your heart … in

 certain circumstances, death row inmates can be hanged

 instead. And if you’re hanged, you’d be able to donate your

 organs.”

 It was a lot for him to take in, and I could see him ingesting

 the words as if they were being fed on a conveyor.

 “I might be able to convince the state to hang you,” I said, “if

 I can prove to a judge in federal court that donating your

 organs is part of your religion. Do you understand what I’m

 saying?”

 He winced. “I didn’t like being Catholic.”

 “You don’t have to say you’re Catholic.”

 “Tel that to Father Michael.”

 “Gladly.” I laughed.

 “Then what do I have to say?”

 “There are a lot of people outside this prison, Shay, who

 have no trouble believing that what you’re doing in here has

 some sort of religious basis. But I need you to believe it,

 too. If this is going to work, you have to tel me donating

 your organs is the only way to salvation.”

 He stood up and started to pace. “My way of saving myself

 may not be someone else’s way.”

 “That’s okay,” I said. “The court doesn’t care about anyone

 else. They just want to know if you think that giving your

 heart to Claire Nealon is going to redeem you in God’s

 eyes.”

 When he stopped in front of me and caught my eye, I saw

 something that surprised me. Because I had been so busy

 crafting an escape hatch for Shay Bourne, I had forgotten

 that sometimes the outrageous is actual y the truth. “I don’t

 think it,” he said. “I know it.”

 “Then we’re in business.” I slipped my hands into my suit

 pockets and suddenly remembered what else I had to tel

 Shay. “It’s prickly,” I said. “Like walking on a board ful of

 needles. But somehow it doesn’t hurt. It smel s like Sunday

 morning, like a mower outside your window when you’re

 trying to pretend the sun’s not up yet.”

 As I spoke, Shay closed his eyes. “I think I remember.”

 “Wel ,” I said. “Just in case you don’t.” I withdrew the

 handfuls of grass I’d torn from outside the prison grounds

 and sprinkled the tufts onto the floor.

 A smile broke over Shays face. He kicked off his prison-

 issued tennis shoes and began to move back and forth,

 barefoot, over the grass. Then he bent down to gather the

 cuttings and funneled them into the breast pocket of his

 scrubs, against a heart that was stil beating strong. “I’m

 going to save them,” he said.

 

 “I know God wil not give me anything I can’t handle.

 I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

 -MOTHER TERESA

 June

 Everything comes with a price.

 You can have the man of your dreams, but only for a few

 years.

 You can have the perfect family, but it turns out to be an

 il usion.

 You can keep your daughter alive, but only if she hosts the

 heart of the person you hate most in this world.

 I could not go straight home from the prison. I was shaking

 so hard that at first, I couldn’t even drive; and even

 afterward, I missed the exit off the highway twice. I had

 gone to that meeting to tel Shay Bourne we didn’t want his

 heart. So why had I changed my mind? Maybe because I

 was angry. Maybe because I was so shocked by what Shay

 Bourne had said. Maybe because if we waited for UNOS to

 find Claire a heart, it could be too late.

 Besides, I told myself, this was al likely a moot point. The

 chance of Bourne even being a good physical match for

 Claire was negligible; his heart was probably far too large

 for a child’s body; there could be al sorts of compromising

 diseases or long-term drug use that would prohibit him from

 being a donor.

 And yet, there was another part of me that kept thinking: But

 what if?

 Could I let myself hope? And could I stand it if, once again,

 that hope was shattered by Shay Bourne?

 By the time I felt calm enough to drive home and face

 Claire, it was late at night. I had arranged for a neighbor to

 check on her hourly throughout the afternoon and evening,

 but Claire flatly refused a formal babysitter. She was fast

 asleep on the couch, the dog curled over her feet. Dudley

 lifted his head when I walked in, a worthy sentry. Where

 were you when Elizabeth was taken? I thought, not for the

 first time, rubbing Dudley between the ears. For days after

 the murders, I had held the puppy, staring into his eyes and

 pretending he could give me the answers I so desperately

 needed.

 I turned off the television that was chattering to nobody and

 sat down beside Claire. If she received Shay Bourne’s

 heart, would I look at my daughter but see him staring back

 at me?

 Could I survive that?

 And if I couldn’t… would Claire survive at al ?

 I fitted myself around Claire’s body, stretching beside her

 on the couch. In her sleep, she curled against me, a puzzle

 piece fitting back where it belonged. I kissed my daughter’s

 forehead, unconsciously reading it for fever. This was my

 life now, and Claire’s: a waiting game. Like Shay Bourne

 sitting in his cel , waiting for his turn to die, we sat

 imprisoned by the limitations of Claire’s body, waiting for

 her turn to live.

 So don’t judge me, unless you’ve fal en asleep on a couch

 with your il child, thinking this night might be her last.

 Ask instead: would you do it?

 Would you give up your vengeance against someone you

 hate if it meant saving someone you love?

 Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant

 granting your enemy’s dying wish?

 Maggie

 In school, I was the kind of kid who crossed her t’s and

 dotted her is. I made sure to right-justify my papers, so that

 the type didn’t look ragged. I’d craft elaborate covers—a

 tiny, two-dimensional working guil otine for my essay on A

 Tale of Two Cities; a science lab on prisms with the header

 rainbowed in multiple colors; a scarlet letter for … wel , you

 get the picture.

 To that end, putting together a letter to the commissioner of

 corrections reminded me a little of my days as a student.

 There were multiple parts involved: the transcript of Shay

 Bourne attesting that he wanted to donate his heart to the

 sister of his victim; an affidavit from Claire Nealon’s cardiac

 surgeon, stating that she did indeed need a heart to

 survive.

 I had made a cal to facilitate a medical visit for Shay, to

 see if he was a match for Claire; and I had spent an hour on

 the phone with a UNOS coordinator, to confirm that if Shay

 gave up his heart, he could pick the recipient.

 I fastened al these letters together with a shiny silver

 butterfly clip and then turned back to the computer to finish

 my note to Commissioner Lynch.

 As evidenced by the letter from the defendant’s spiritual

 advisor, Father Michael Wright, execution by lethal injection

 wil not only prevent the defendant from his intention of

 donating his heart to Claire Nealon—it also interferes with

 his practice of religion—a blatant violation of his First

 Amendment rights. Therefore, under the New Hampshire

 criminal code 630:5, subsection XIV, it would be

 impractical for the commissioner of corrections to carry out

 the punishment of death by lethal injection. A sentence of

 death carried out by hanging, however, would not only he

 al owed by the criminal code, but also would al ow the

 defendant to practice his religion up to the moment of his

 execution.

 I could imagine, at this moment, the commissioners jaw

 dropping as he realized that I had managed to piece

 together two disparate laws in a way that would make the

 next few weeks a living hel .

 Furthermore, this office would be pleased to work in

 conjunction with the commissioner of corrections to

 facilitate what needs to be done, as there are tissue

 matches and medical testing to be completed prior to the

 donation, and because time is of the essence during the

 organ harvest.

 Not to mention—I don’t trust you.

 It is imperative to settle this matter swiftly, for obvious

 reasons.

 We don’t have a lot of time to work this out. Because

 neither Shay Bourne nor Claire Nealon have a lot of time

 left, period.

 Sincerely,

 Maggie Bloom, Attorney

 I printed out the letter and slipped it into a manila envelope

 I’d already addressed. As I licked the envelope, I thought:

 Please make this work.

 Who was I talking to?

 I didn’t believe in God. Not anymore.

 I was an atheist.

 Or so I told myself, even if there was a secret part of me

 that hoped I’d be proven wrong.

 

 Lucius

 People always think they know what they’d miss the most if

 they had to trade places with me in this cel . Food, fresh air,

 your favorite pair of jeans, sex-believe me, I’ve heard them

 al , and they’re al wrong. What you miss the most in prison

 is choice. You have no free wil : your hair is cut in one style,

 like everyone else’s. You eat what’s being served when it is

 given to you. You are told when you can shower, shit, shave.

 Even our conversations are prescribed: If someone bumps

 into you in the real world, he says “Excuse me.” If someone

 bumps into you in here, you say “What the fuck,

 motherfucker” before he can even speak. If you don’t do

 this, you become a mark.

 The reason we have no choice now is because we made a

 bad one in the past—which is why we were al energized by

 Shay’s attempt to die on his own terms. It was stil an

 execution, but even that tiny sliver of preference was more

 than we had on a daily basis. I could only imagine how my

 world would change if we were given an option to choose

 between orange scrubs and yel ow ones; if we were asked

 whether we’d like a spoon or a fork with our meal trays,

 instead of the universal plastic “spork.” But the more

 animated we got at the possibility of, wel , possibility… the

 more depressed Shay grew.

 “Maybe,” he said to me one afternoon when the air-

 conditioning had broken and we were al wilting in our cel s,

 “I should just let them do what they want.”

 The officers, in an act of mercy, had opened the door that

 led to the exercise cel . It was supposed to afford us a

 breeze, but that hadn’t happened.

 “Why would you say that?”

 “Because it feels like I’ve started a war,” Shay said.

 “Wel , imagine that,” Crash laughed. “Since I’m over here

 practicing my shooting.”

 This afternoon Crash had been injecting Benadryl. Many of

 the inmates here had made their own points—homemade

 hypodermics that could be sharpened every few uses by

 scraping them against a matchbook. Benadryl was given

 out by the prison nurse; you could accumulate a stash and

 open up a capsule, then cook down the tiny beads of

 medicine in a spoon over a soda-can stove. It was a speed

 high, but the buffers used in the medicine would also make

 you crazy.

 “Whaddya say, Mistah Messiah … you want a hit?”

 “He most certainly does not,” I answered.

 “I don’t think he was talking to you,” Shay said. And then, to

 Crash: “Give it to me.”

 Crash laughed. “Guess you don’t know him as wel as you

 think you do, Liberace. Ain’t that right, Death Row?”

 Crash had no moral compass. He aligned himself with the

 Aryan Brotherhood when it suited his needs. He talked of

 terrorist attacks; he’d cheered when we were watching the

 news footage of the World Trade Center col apsing.

 He had a list of victims, should he ever get out. He wanted

 his kids to grow up to be addicts or dealers or whores, and

 said he would be disappointed if they turned out to be

 anything else. Once, I heard him describing a visit with his

 three-year-old daughter: he told her to punch another kid at

 school to make him proud, and not to come back til she

 did. Now I watched him fish Shay the hype kit, hidden neatly

 inside a dismantled battery, ready for a hit with the liquefied

 Benadryl inside it. Shay put the needle to the crook of his

 elbow, set his thumb on the plunger.

 And squirted the precious drug onto the floor of the catwalk.

 “What the fuck!” Crash exploded. “Gimme that back.”

 “Haven’t you heard? I’m Jesus. I’m supposed to save you,”

 Shay said.

 “I don’t want to be saved,” Crash yel ed. “I want my kit

 back!”

 “Come and get it,” Shay said, and he pushed the kit under

 his door, so that it landed square on the catwalk. “Hey, CO,”

 he yel ed. “Come see what Crash made.”

 As the COs entered to confiscate the hype kit—and write

 him a ticket that would include a stay in solitary—Crash

 slammed his hand against the metal door. “I swear, Bourne,

 when you least expect i t … “

 He was interrupted by the sound of Warden Coyne’s voice

 out in the courtyard. “I just bought a goddamn death

 gurney,” the warden cried, conversing with someone we

 could not see. “What am I supposed to do with that?” And

 then, when he stopped speaking, we al noticed something

 —or the lack of something. The incessant hammering and

 sawing that had been going on outside for months, as the

 prison built a death chamber to accommodate Shay’s

 sentence, had fal en silent. Al we heard was a simple,

 blissful quiet.

 “… you’re gonna wind up dead,” Crash finished, but now

 we were starting to wonder if that would stil be true.

 MICHAEL

 The Reverend Arbogath Justus preached at the Drive-in

 Church of Christ in God in Heldratch, Michigan. His

 congregation arrived in their cars on Sunday mornings and

 received a blue flyer with the day’s scripture, and a note to

 tune in to AM 1620 in order to hear the good reverend

 when he took the pulpit—formerly the snack bar, when it

 was a movie theater. I would have ridiculed this, but his

 flock was six hundred strong, which led me to believe that

 there were enough people in this world who wanted to tuck

 their prayer requests beneath windshield wipers to be

 col ected, and to receive Communion from altar girls on

 rol er skates.

 I suppose it wasn’t a big stretch to go from the movie

 screen to the smal one, which is why Reverend Justus ran

 a television ministry site, too, on a cable station cal ed SOS

 (Save Our Souls). I’d caught it a few times, while I was

 flipping through channels. It was fascinating to me, in the

 same way Shark Week was fascinating on the Discovery

 Channel—I was curious to learn more, but from a nice,

 secure distance. Justus wore eyeliner on television, and

 suits in a range of lol ipop colors. His wife played the

 accordion when it came time to sing hymns. It al seemed

 like a parody of what faith was supposed to be—quiet and

 heart-settling, not grandiose and dramatic—which is why I

 always eventual y changed the channel.

 always eventual y changed the channel.

 One day, when I went to visit Shay, my car was stopped in

 traffic leading to the prison. Shiny, scrubbed Midwestern

 faces worked their way from car to car. They were wearing

 green Tshirts with the name of Justus’s church on the back,

 scrawled above a rudimentary drawing of a ‘57 Chevy

 convertible. When one girl approached, I unrol ed the

 window.

 “God bless you!” she said, and offered me a slip of yel ow

 paper.

 There was a picture of Jesus, arms outstretched and palms

 raised, floating in the oval of a sideview car mirror. The

 caption read: OBJECTS IN

 MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.

 And then below it: Shay Bourne: A Wolf in Sheep’s

 Clothing? Don’t Let a False Prophet Lead You Astray!

 The line of cars chugged forward, final y, and I turned into

 the parking lot. I had to pul my car onto the grass; it was

 that crowded.

 The throngs of people waiting for Shay, and the media

 covering his story, had not dissipated.

 However, by the time I came close to the prison, I realized

 that the attention of most of these people was not held by

 Shay at that moment, but by a man in a three-piece lime-

 green suit, wearing a clerical col ar.

 I got close enough to see the pancake makeup and the

 eyeliner, and realized that Reverend Arbogath Justus had

 now moved into the realm of satel ite ministries … and had

 chosen the prison as his first stop.

 “Miracles mean nothing,” Justus announced. “The world is

 ful of false prophets. In Revelations, we’re told of a beast

 that uses miracles to fool men into worshipping it. Do you

 know what happens to that beast on Judgment Day? He

 and the people who were fooled are al thrown into a lake of

 fire. Is that what you want?”

 A woman fel forward from the cliff-edge of the crowd. “No,”

 she sobbed. “I want to go with God.”

 “Jesus can hear you, sister,” Reverend Justus said.

 “Because He’s here, with us. Not inside that prison, like the

 false prophet Shay Bourne!”

 There was a roar from his converts. But just as quickly, it

 was matched by those who hadn’t given up on Shay. “How

 do we know you’re not the false prophet?” one young man

 cal ed out.

 Beside me, a mother tucked her sick child into her arms

 more tightly. She looked at my col ar and frowned. “Are you

 with him?”

 

 “No,” I said. “Definitely not.”

 She nodded. “Wel , I’m not taking advice from a man whose

 church has a concession stand.”

 I started to agree, but was distracted by a burly man who

 grabbed the reverend from his makeshift pulpit and yanked

 him into the crowd.

 The cameras, of course, were al rol ing.

 Without thinking twice about what I was doing, or that I was

 doing it on film, I pushed forward and rescued Reverend

 Arbogath Justus from the clutches of the mob. He wrapped

 his arms around me, gasping, as I pul ed us both up onto a

 granite ledge that ran along the edge of the parking lot.

 In retrospect, I didn’t know why I had chosen to play the

 hero. And I real y didn’t know why I said what I did next.

 Philosophical y, Reverend Justus and I were on the same

 team—even if we pitched religion with very different styles.

 But I also knew that Shay was—maybe for the first time in

 his life—attempting to do something honorable. He didn’t

 deserve to be slandered for that.

 I might not believe in Shay—but I believed him.

 I felt the wide, white eye of a television camera swing

 toward me, and a herd of others fol owed. “Reverend Justus

 came here, I’m sure, because he thinks he’s tel ing you the

 truth. Wel , so does Shay Bourne.

 He wants to do one thing in this world before he leaves it:

 save the life of a child. The Jesus I know would endorse

 that, I think. And,” I said, turning to the reverend, “the Jesus I

 know wouldn’t send people to some fiery hel if they were

 trying to atone for their sins. The Jesus I know believed in

 second chances.”

 As Reverend Justus realized that I might have saved him

 from the mob to sacrifice him al over again, his face

 reddened. “There’s one true word of God,” he proclaimed

 in his camera-ready voice, “and Shay Bourne isn’t

 speaking it.”

 Wel , I couldn’t argue with that. In al the time I’d been with

 Shay, he had never quoted the New Testament. He was far

 more likely to swear or go off on a tangent about Hanta

 virus and government conspiracy. “You’re absolutely right,” I

 said. “He’s trying to do something that’s never been done

 before. He’s asking questions of the status quo. He’s trying

 to suggest another way—a better way.

 And he’s wil ing to die for it to happen.” I raised a brow.

 “Come to think of it, I bet Jesus might find a lot in common

 with a guy like Shay Bourne.”

 I nodded, stepped down from the granite ledge, and

 shoved my way through the crowd to the security partition,

 where a correctional officer let me through. “Father,” he

 said, shaking his head, “you got no idea how big a pile of

 you-know-what you just stepped into.” And as if I needed

 proof, my cel phone rang: Father Walter’s angry summons

 back to St. Catherine’s, immediately.

 I sat in the front pew of the church as Father Walter paced

 in front of me. “What if I blamed it al on being moved by the

 Holy Spirit?” I offered, and received a withering glare.

 “I don’t understand,” Father Walter said. “Why would you

 say something like that… on live television, for the love of

 God—”

 “I didn’t mean to-“

 “—when you had to know that it was going to bring the heat

 down on St. Catherine’s?” He sank down beside me and

 tipped his head back, as if he were praying to the carved

 statue of Jesus on the Cross that rose above us. “Michael,

 seriously, what were you thinking?” he said softly. “You’re a

 young, handsome, smart, straight guy. You could write your

 ticket in the Church—get your own parish, wind up in Rome

 … be whatever you want. And instead, I get a copy of an

 affidavit from the attorney general’s office, saying that as

 Shay Bourne’s spiritual advisor you believe in salvation

 through organ donation? And then I turn on the midday

 news and see you on a soapbox, sounding like some kind

 of… some kind of…”

 “What?”

 He shook his head, but stopped short of cal ing me a

 heretic.

 “You’ve read Tertul ian,” he said.

 We al had, in seminary. He was a famous orthodox

 Christian historian whose text The Prescription Against

 Heretics was a forerunner of the Nicene Creed. Tertul ian

 had coined the idea of a deposit of faith—that we take what

 Christ taught and believe it as is, without adding to or

 taking away from it.

 “You want to know why Catholicism’s been around for two

 thousand years?” Father Walter said. “Because of people

 like Tertul ian, who understood that you can’t mess around

 with truth. People were upset with the changes of Vatican I .

 The Pope’s even reinstated the Latin Mass.”

 I took a deep breath. “I thought being a spiritual advisor

 meant doing what Shay Bourne needs to face his death

 with peace—not what we need him to do, as a good

 Catholic.”

 “Good Lord,” Father Walter said. “He’s conned you.”

 I frowned. “He hasn’t conned me.”

 “He’s got you eating out of the palm of his hand! Look at

 you—you practical y acted like his press secretary today on

 the news—”

 “Do you think Jesus died for a reason?” I interrupted.

 “Of course.”

 “Then why shouldn’t Shay Bourne be al owed to do the

 same?”

 “Because,” Father Walter said, “Shay Bourne is not dying

 for anyone’s sins, except his own.”

 I flinched. Wel , didn’t I know that better than anyone else?

 Father Walter sighed. “I don’t agree with the death penalty,

 but I understand this sentence. He murdered two people. A

 police officer, and a little girl.” He shook his head. “Save his

 soul, Michael. Don’t try to save his life.”

 I glanced up. “What do you think would have happened if

 just one of the apostles had stayed awake in the garden

 with Jesus? If they’d kept Him from being arrested? If they’d

 tried to save Hi’s life?”

 Father Walter’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t real y think

 Shay Bourne is Jesus, do you?”

 I didn’t.

 Did I?

 Father Walter sank down onto the pew and took off his

 glasses. He rubbed his eyes. “Mikey,” he said, “take a

 couple weeks off. Go somewhere and pray. Think about

 what you’re doing—what you’re saying.”

 He looked up at me. “And in the meantime. I don’t want you

 going to the prison on behalf of St. Catherine’s.”

 I looked around this church, which I had grown to love—with

 its polished pews and the spatter of light from the stained

 glass, the whispering silk of the chalice veil, the dancing

 flames on the candles lit in offering. Where your treasure is,

 there your heart wil be.

 “I won’t go to the prison on behalf of St. Catherine’s,” I said,

 “but I wil go on behalf of Shay.”

 I walked down the aisle, past the holy water, past the

 bul etin board with the information about the young boy from

 Zimbabwe the congregation supported with their donations.

 When I stepped outside the double doors of the church, the

 world was so bright that for a moment, I couldn’t see where I

 was headed.

 Maggie

 There were four ways to hang someone. The short drop

 involved a prisoner fal ing just a few inches; their body

 weight and physical struggling tightened the noose and

 caused death by strangulation. Suspension hanging

 required the prisoner to be raised upward and strangled.

 Standard drop hanging—popular in America in the late

 nineteenth and twentieth centuries—meant the prisoner fel

 four to six feet, which might or might not break his neck.

 Long drop hanging was a more personal execution: the

 distance the prisoner fel was determined by weight and

 body type. The body was stil accelerating due to gravity at

 the end of the drop, but the head was restricted by the

 noose—which broke the neck and ruptured the spinal cord,

 rendering instant unconsciousness, and a quick death.

 I’d learned that next to shooting, hanging was the world’s

 most popular form of execution. It was introduced in Persia

 twentyfive hundred years ago for male criminals (females

 were strangled at the stake, because it was less indecent)

 —a nice alternative to the blood and guts of a typical

 beheading, with al the same punch as any public

 spectacle.

 It was not, however, foolproof. In 1885, a British murderer

 named Robert Goodale was hanged, but the force of the

 drop decapitated him.

 Most recently, Saddam Hussein’s half brother had suffered

 the same grisly fate in Iraq. This was a legal conundrum: if

 the sentence of death was to be carried out by hanging,

 then the prisoner could not be decapitated, or the sentence

 wasn’t fulfil ed.

 I had to do my homework—which explained why I was

 reading the Official Table of Drops and estimating Shay

 Bourne’s weight when Father Michael came into my office.

 “Oh, good,” I said, motioning to the seat across from my

 desk. “If the noose is positioned right—there’s something

 about a brass eyelet—the fal causes an instant fracture of

 the C2 vertebra.

 It says here brain death occurs in six minutes, and whole-

 body death within ten to fifteen minutes. That means we’ve

 got a four-minute window to get him back on a respirator

 before the heart stops beating and oh, I almost forgot—I

 heard back from the AG’s office. They denied our request

 to have Shay hanged instead of executed with lethal

 injection.

 They even included the original sentence, as if I haven’t

 read it a bazil ion times, and told me if I wanted to chal enge

 it, I had to file the appropriate motions. Which,” I said, “I did

 five hours ago.”

 Father Michael didn’t even seem to hear me. “Listen,” I said

 gently, “it’s easier if you think about this hanging business

 as science … and stop connecting it personal y to Shay.”

 “I’m sorry,” the priest said, shaking his head. “It’s just—it’s

 been a pretty bad day”

 “You mean the showdown you had with the televangelist?”

 “You saw that?”

 “You’re the talk of the town, Father.”

 He closed his eyes. “Great.”

 “I’m sure Shay saw it, too, if that’s any consolation.”

 Father Michael looked up at me. “Thanks to Shay, my

 supervising priest thinks I’m a heretic.”

 I thought about what my father would say if a member of his

 congregation came to him to ease his soul. “Do you think

 you’re a heretic?”

 “Does any heretic?” he said. “Honestly, I’m the last person

 who ought to be helping you win Shay’s case, Maggie.”

 “Hey,” I said, trying to boost his spirits. “I was just about to

 go to my parents’ house for dinner. It’s a standing

 engagement on Friday nights.

 Why don’t you come with me?”

 “I couldn’t impose—”

 “Believe me, there’s always enough food to feed a third

 world country.”

 “Wel , then,” the priest said, “that would be great.”

 I switched off my desk lamp. “We can take my car,” I said.

 “Can I leave my motorcycle parked in the lot here?”

 “You’re al owed to ride a motorcycle, but you can’t eat meat

 on Friday?”

 He stil looked as if the world had been pul ed out from

 beneath him.

 “I guess the Church forefathers found it easier to abstain

 from beef than Harleys.”

 I led him through the maze of file cabinets in the ACLU

 office and headed outside. “Guess what I found out today,” I

 said. “The trapdoor from the old gal ows at the state prison

 is in the chaplain’s office.”

 When I glanced at Father Michael, I was pretty sure I saw

 the ghost of a smile.

 

 June

 One of the things I liked about Dr. Wu’s office was the wal

 of pictures.

 An enormous corkboard held photographs of patients who

 had beaten the odds after having Dr. Wu operate on their

 failing hearts.

 There were babies propped up on pil ows, Christmas card

 portraits, and boys wielding Little League bats. It was a

 mural of success.

 When I’d first come to tel Dr. Wu about Shay Bourne’s

 offer, he listened careful y and then said that in his

 twentythree years of practice, he had yet to see a grown

 man’s heart that would be a good match for a child. Hearts

 grew to fit the needs of their host body—which was why

 every other potential organ that had been offered to Claire

 for transplant had come from another child. “I’l examine

 him,” Dr. Wu promised, “but I don’t want you to get your

 hopes up.”

 Now I watched Dr. Wu take a seat and flatten his palms on

 the desk. I always marveled at the fact that he walked

 around shaking hands and waving as if the appendages

 were total y normal, instead of miraculous. Those ridiculous

 celebrities who insured their breasts and their legs had

 nothing on Dr. Wu and his hands.

 “June…”

 “Just say it quickly,” I said, ful of false cheer.

 Dr. Wu met my gaze. “He’s a perfect match for Claire.”

 I had already gathered the strap of my purse in my fist,

 planning to thank him hastily and beat a retreat out of the

 office before I started crying again over yet another lost

 heart; but these words rooted me to my seat. ” I … I’m

 sorry?”

 “They have the same blood type—B positive. The tissue

 crossmatch we did of their blood was nonreactive. But—

 here’s the remarkable part—his heart is just the right size.”

 I knew they looked for a donor who was within 20 percent of

 the patient’s weight—which for Claire meant anyone

 between sixty and a hundred pounds. Shay Bourne was a

 smal man, but he was stil an adult. He had to weigh 120 or

 130 pounds.

 “Medical y, it doesn’t make sense. Theoretical y, his heart is

 too tiny to be doing the job his own body needs … and yet

 he seems to be healthy as a horse.” Dr. Wu smiled. “It looks

 like Claire’s got herself a donor.”

 I stil ed. This was supposed to be wonderful news—but I

 could barely breathe. How would Claire react if she knew

 the circumstances behind the donation? “You can’t tel her,”

 I said.

 “That she’s going to have a transplant?”

 I shook my head. “Where it came from.”

 Dr. Wu frowned. “Don’t you think she’l find out? This is al

 over the news.”

 “Organ donations are always done anonymously. Plus, she

 doesn’t want a boy’s heart. She always says that.”

 “That’s not real y the issue here, is it?” The cardiologist

 stared at me. “It’s a muscle, June. Nothing more, and

 nothing less. What makes a heart worthy for transplant has

 nothing to do with the donor’s personality.”

 I looked up at him. “What would you do, if she was your

 daughter?”

 “If she was my daughter,” Dr. Wu replied, “I would already

 have scheduled the surgery.”

 

 Lucius

 I tried to tel Shay that he was the topic on Larry King Live

 that night, but either he was asleep or he just didn’t feel like

 answering me. Instead, I took out my stinger from where it

 was hidden behind a cement block in the wal and heated

 up some water for tea. The guests that night were the

 nutcase reverend that Father Michael had sparred with

 outside the prison, and some stuffed-shirt academic

 named Ian Fletcher. It was hard to tel who had the more

 intriguing backstory—Reverend Justus with his drive-in

 church, or Fletcher—who’d been a television atheist until

 he’d run across a little girl who could apparently perform

 miracles and raise the dead. He wound up marrying the

 girl’s single mother, which in my opinion, greatly diluted the

 credibility of his commentary.

 Stil , he was a better speaker than Reverend Justus, who

 kept rising out of his seat as if he were fil ed with helium.

 “There’s an old proverb, Larry,” the reverend said. “You

 can’t keep trouble from coming, but you don’t have to make

 out a place card.”

 Larry King tapped his pen on the desk twice. “And by that

 you mean … ?”

 “Miracles don’t make a man into God. Dr. Fletcher ought to

 know that better than anyone.”

 Unrattled, Ian Fletcher smiled. “The more you think you’re

 right, the likelier you are to be wrong. That’s a proverb

 Reverend Justus probably hasn’t encountered yet.”

 “Tel us about being a television atheist,” Larry said.

 “Wel , I used to do what Jerry Falwel did, except instead of

 saying there’s a God, I said there wasn’t one. I went around

 debunking claims of miracles al over the country.

 Eventual y, when I found one that I couldn’t discredit, I

 started wondering if it was real y God I objected to … or just

 the sense of entitlement that seems to be part of affiliating

 with a religious group. Like the way you’l hear that a person

 is a good Christianwel , who says Christians corner the

 market on virtue? Or when the president ends a speech

 with ‘God bless the United States of America’…

 why just us?”

 “Are you stil an atheist?” King asked.

 “Technical y, I suppose you’d cal me an agnostic.”

 Justus scoffed. “Splitting hairs.”

 “Not true; an atheist’s got more in common with a Christian,

 since he believes you can know whether or not God exists-

 but where a Christian says absolutely, the atheist says

 absolutely not. For me, and any other agnostic—the jury’s

 stil out. Religion is intriguing, but in a historical sense.

 A man should live his life a certain way not because of

 some divine authority, but because of a personal moral

 obligation to himself and others.”

 Larry King turned to Reverend Justus. “And you, sir, your

 congregation meets in a former drive-in movie theater?

 Don’t you think that takes some of the pomp and

 circumstance out of religion?”

 “What we’ve found, Larry, is that for some people the

 obligation of getting up and going to church is too

 overwhelming. They don’t like having to see or be seen by

 others; they don’t enjoy being indoors on a beautiful

 Sunday; they prefer to worship in private. Coming to the

 Drive-ln Church al ows a person to do whatever it is he

 needs to do while communing with God-whether that’s

 wearing pajamas, or eating an Egg McMuffin, or dozing off

 during my sermon.”

 “Now, Shay Bourne isn’t the first person to come along and

 stir the pot,” King said. “Few years back, a Florida State

 footbal quarterback was found lying in the street, claiming

 to be God. And a fel ow in Virginia wanted his driver’s

 license changed to reflect that he was a resident of the

 Kingdom of Heaven. What do you think it is about Shay

 Bourne that makes people believe he might be the real

 deal?”

 “As far as I understand,” Fletcher said, “Bourne’s not

 claiming to be the Messiah or Mary Poppins or Captain

 America—it’s the people supporting him who have

 christened him, no pun intended. Ironical y, that’s very

 similar to what we see in the Bible—Jesus doesn’t go

 around claiming to be God.”

 ” ‘ I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto

 the Father, but by me,’” Justus quoted. “John, 14:6.”

 “There’s also evidence in the gospels that Jesus appeared

 in different forms to different people,” Fletcher said. “The

 apostle James talks about seeing Jesus standing on the

 shore in the form of a child. He points it out to John, who

 thinks he’s nuts, because the person on the shore isn’t a

 child but a handsome young man. They go to investigate,

 and although one sees an old, bald man, the other sees a

 young guy with a beard.”

 Reverend Justus frowned. “I can quote the Gospel of John

 forward and backward,” he said, “and that’s not in there.”

 Fletcher smiled. “I never said it was from the Gospel of

 John. I said it was from a gospel. A Gnostic one, cal ed the

 Acts of John.”

 “There’s no Acts of John in the Bible,” Justus huffed. “He’s

 making this up.”

 “The reverend’s right—it’s not in the Bible. And there are

 dozens of others like it. Through a series of editorial

 decisions, they were excluded—and considered heresy by

 the early Christian church.”

 “That’s because the Bible is the Word of God, period,”

 Justus said.

 “Actual y, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren’t even

 written by the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 They were written in Greek, by authors who had a modicum

 of education—unlike Jesus’s fishermen disciples, who

 were il iterate, like ninety percent of the population. Mark is

 based on the apostle Peter’s preaching. Matthew’s author

 was probably a Jewish Christian from Antioch, Syria. The

 Gospel of Luke was al egedly written by a doctor. And the

 author of the Gospel of John never mentions his own name

 … but it was the latest of the four synoptic gospels to be

 written, roughly around A.D. 100. If the apostle John was

 the author, he would have been extremely old.”

 “Smoke and mirrors,” Reverend Justus said. “He’s using

 rhetoric to distract us from the basic truth here.”

 “Which is?” King asked.

 “Do you truly believe that if the Lord chose to grace us with

 his earthly presence again—and that is a big if, in my

 humble opinion—he would wil ingly choose to inhabit a

 convicted murderer, two times over?”

 My hot water started to boil, and I disconnected the stinger.

 Then I turned off the television without hearing Fletcher’s

 answer. Why would God choose to inhabit any of us?

 What if it was the other way around … if we were the ones

 who inhabited God?

 

 M I C H A EL

 During the drive to Maggie’s parents’ home, I wal owed in

 various degrees of guilt. I had let down Father Walter and

 St. Catherine’s. I’d made a fool of myself on TV. And

 although I’d started to tel Maggie that Shay and I had some

 history between us that he didn’t know about—I had

 chickened out. Again.

 “So here’s the thing,” Maggie said, distracting me from my

 thoughts as we pul ed into the driveway. “My parents are

 going to be a little excited when they see you in my car.”

 I glanced around at the quiet, wooded retreat. “Don’t get

 much company here?”

 “Don’t get many dates is more like it.”

 “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I’m not exactly

 boyfriend material.”

 Maggie laughed. “Yeah, thanks, but I’d like to think even I’m

 not that desperate. It’s just that my mother’s got radar or

 something—she can sniff out a Y chromosome from miles

 away.”

 As if Maggie had conjured her, a woman stepped out of the

 house. She was petite and blond, with her hair cut into a

 neat bob and pearls at her neck. Either she’d just come

 home from work, or she was headed out—my mother, on a

 Friday night, would have been wearing one of my dad’s

 flannel shirts with the sleeves rol ed up, and what she cal ed

 her Weekend Fat Jeans. She squinted, glimpsing me

 through the windshield. “Maggie!” she cried. “You didn’t tel

 us you were bringing a Mend for dinner.”

 Just the way she said the word friend made me feel a rush

 of sympathy for Maggie.

 “Joel!” she cal ed into the house behind her. “Maggie’s

 brought a guest!”

 I stepped out of the car and adjusted my col ar. “Hel o,” I

 said. I’m Father Michael.”

 Maggie’s mother’s hand went to her throat. “Oh, God.”

 “Close,” I replied, “but no cigar.”

 At that moment, Maggie’s father came hurrying out the front

 door, tucking in his dress shirt. “Mags,” he said, folding her

 into a bear hug, which was when I noticed his yarmulke.

 Then he turned to me and held out a hand. I’m Rabbi

 Bloom.”

 “You could have told me your father was a rabbi,” I

 whispered to Maggie.

 “You didn’t ask.” She looped her arm through her father’s.

 “Daddy, this is Father Michael. He’s a heretic.”

 “Please tel me you’re not dating him,” Mrs. Bloom

 murmured.

 “Ma, he’s a priest. Of course I’m not.” Maggie laughed as

 they headed toward the house. “But I bet that street

 performer who asked me out is starting to look a lot more

 palatable to you …”

 That left two of us, men of God, standing awkwardly on the

 driveway.

 Rabbi Bloom led the way into the house, toward his study.

 “So,”

 he said. “Where’s your congregation?”

 “Concord,” I said. “St. Catherine’s.”

 “And you met my daughter how?”

 I’m Shay Bourne’s spiritual advisor.”

 He glanced up. “That must be unnerving.”

 “It is,” I said. “On many levels.”

 “So is he or isn’t he?”

 “Donating his heart? That’s going to be up to your daughter,

 I think.”

 The rabbi shook his head. “No, no. Maggie, she could

 move a mountain if she wanted to, one molecule at a time. I

 meant is he or isn’t he Jesus?”

 I blinked. “I never figured I’d hear that question from a

 rabbi.”

 “Jesus was a Jewish man, after al . Just look at the

 evidence: he lived at home, went into his dad’s business,

 thought his mother was a virgin, and his mother thought he

 was God.” Rabbi Bloom grinned, and I started to smile.

 “Wel , Shay’s not preaching what Jesus did.”

 The rabbi laughed. “And you were around the first time to

 know this for sure?”

 “I know what it says in scripture.”

 “I never understood people—Jewish or Christian—who

 read the Bible as if it were hard evidence. Gospel means

 good news. It’s a way to update the story, to fit the audience

 you’re tel ing it to.”

 “I don’t know if I’d say that Shay Bourne’s here to update

 the story of Christ for the modem generation,” I replied.

 “It makes you wonder, then, why so many people have

 jumped on his bandwagon. It’s almost like who he is

 matters less than what al of them need him to be.” Rabbi

 Bloom began to scour his bookshelves, final y lighting on

 one dusty tome, which he skimmed through until he found a

 certain page. “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Compare me to

 someone and tel me whom I am like.’ Simon Peter said to

 him, ‘You are like a righteous angel.’ Matthew said to him,

 ‘You are like a wise philosopher.’

 Thomas said to him, ‘Master, my mouth is whol y incapable

 of saying whom you are like.’ Jesus said, ‘I am not your

 master. Because you have drunk, you have become

 intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured

 out.’”

 He snapped the book shut again as I tried to place the

 scripture.

 “History’s always written by the winners,” Rabbi Bloom

 said. “This was one of the losers.” He handed me the book

 just as Maggie poked her head into the room.

 “Dad, you’re not trying to pawn off another copy of The Best

 Jewish Knock-Knock Jokes, are you?”

 “Unbelievably, Father Michael already has a signed copy. Is

 dinner ready?”

 “Yes.”

 “Thank goodness. I was beginning to think your mother had

 cremated the tilapia.” As Maggie ducked back into the

 kitchen. Rabbi Bloom turned to me. “Wel , in spite of how

 Maggie introduced you, you don’t seem like a heretic to

 me.”

 “It’s a long story.”

 “I’m sure you already know that heresy comes from the

 Greek word for choice.” He shrugged. “Makes you wonder.

 What if the ideas that have always been considered

 sacrilegious aren’t sacrilegious at al —just ideas we

 haven’t come across before? Or ideas we haven’t been

 al owed to come across?”

 In my hands, the book the rabbi had given me felt as if it

 were burning. “You hungry?” Bloom asked.

 “Starving,” I admitted, and I let him lead the way.

 

 June

 When I was pregnant with Claire, I was told that I had

 gestational diabetes. I stil don’t think that was true, frankly

 —an hour before I had the test, I’d taken Elizabeth to

 McDonald’s and finished her orange Hi-C drink, which is

 enough to put anyone into a sugar coma. However, when

 the obstetrician told me the results, I did what I had to do:

 stuck to a strict diet that left me hungry al the time, got

 blood drawn twice a week, held my breath at every visit

 while my doctor checked the baby’s growth.

 The silver lining? I was treated to numerous ultrasounds.

 Long after most moms-to-be had gotten their twenty-week

 preview of the baby inside them, I continued to get updated

 portraits.

 It got to be so commonplace for Kurt and I to see our baby

 that he stopped coming to the weekly OB visits. He’d watch

 Elizabeth while I drove to the hospital, lifted up my shirt, and

 let the wand rol over my bel y, il uminating on a monitor a

 foot, an elbow, the slope of this new child’s nose. By then,

 in my eighth month, the picture wasn’t the stick-figure

 skeleton you see at twenty weeks—you could see her hair,

 the ridges on her thumb, the curve of her cheek. She looked

 so real on the ultrasound screen that sometimes I’d forget

 she was stil inside me.

 “Not much longer,” the technician had said to me that last

 day as she wiped the gel off my bel y with a warm

 washcloth.

 “Easy for you to say,” I told her. “You’re not the one chasing

 around a seven-year-old in your eighth month.”

 “Been there done that,” she said, and she reached beneath

 the screen to hand me that day’s printout of the baby’s face.

 When I saw it, I drew in my breath: that’s how much this new

 baby looked like Kurt—completely unlike me, unlike

 Elizabeth.

 This new baby had his wide-set eyes, his dimples, the point

 of his chin. I folded the picture into my purse so that I could

 show it to him, and then I drove home.

 There were cars backed up on the street leading to mine. I

 assumed it was construction; they’d been repaving the

 roads around here. We sat in a line, idling, listening to the

 radio. After five minutes, I started to worry—Kurt was on

 duty today, and had taken his lunch break early so that I

 could go to the ultrasound without dragging Elizabeth along.

 If I didn’t get home soon, he’d be late for work.

 “Thank God,” I said when the traffic slowly began to move.

 But as I drew closer, I saw the detour signs set up at the

 end of my block, the police car sprawled sideways across

 the street. I felt that smal tumble in my heart, the way you do

 when you see a fire engine racing toward the general

 vicinity of your home.

 Roger, an officer I knew only marginal y, was diverting

 traffic.

 I unrol ed my window. “I live here,” I said. “I’m married to

 Kurt Nea—”

 Before I could finish, his face froze, and that was how I

 knew something had happened. I’d seen Kurt’s face do the

 same thing when he’d told me that my first husband had

 been kil ed in the car wreck.

 I snapped off my seat belt and pushed my way out of the

 car, ungainly and awkward in my pregnancy. “Where is

 she?” I cried, the car stil running. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

 “June,” Roger said as he wrapped an arm around me

 firmly.

 “Why don’t you just come with me?”

 He walked me down the road where I lived, until I could see

 what I hadn’t been able to from the crossroads: the glare of

 police cruiser lights, blinking like a holiday. The yawning

 mouths of the ambulances. The door to my house wide

 open. One officer held the dog in his arms; when Dudley

 saw me, he began to bark like mad.

 “Elizabeth!” I yel ed, and I shoved away from Roger, running

 as fast as I could given my shape and size. “Elizabeth!!”

 I was intercepted by someone who knocked the breath

 from me—the chief of police. “June,” he said softly. “Come

 with me.”

 I struggled against Irv—scratching, kicking, pleading. I

 thought maybe if I put up a fight, it would keep me from

 hearing what he was about to say. “Elizabeth?” I whispered.

 “She’s been shot, June.”

 I waited for him to say But she’l be just fine, except he

 didn’t.

 He shook his head. Later, I would remember that he had

 been crying.

 “I want to see her,” I sobbed.

 “There’s something else,” Irv said, and as I watched, a

 brace of paramedics wheeled Kurt out on a stretcher. His

 face was white, leached of blood—al of which seemed to

 be soaking the makeshift bandage around his midsection.

 I reached for Kurt’s hand, and he turned toward me, his

 eyes glassy. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m so sorry.”

 “What happened?” I shrieked, frantic. “Sorry for what? What

 happened to her!”

 “Ma’am,” a paramedic said, “we’ve got to get him to a

 hospital.”

 Another paramedic pul ed me back. I watched them take

 Kurt away from me.

 As Irv led me to the steps of another ambulance, he spoke,

 words that at the time felt as solid and square as bricks,

 layered sentence upon sentence to build a wal between life

 as I’d known it and the one I would now be forced to lead.

 Kurt gave us a statement…found the carpenter sexual y

 abusing Elizabeth … standoff…

 shots were fired … Elizabeth got in the way.

 Elizabeth, I used to say, when she was fol owing me around

 the tiny kitchen as I cooked dinner, I’m tripping over you.

 Elizabeth, your father and I are trying to have a

 conversation.

 Elizabeth, not now.

 Never.

 My legs were numb as Irv led me into a second ambulance.

 “She’s the mother,” he said as one of the paramedics

 came forward.

 A smal form lay on a stretcher in the central cavity of the

 ambulance, covered with a thick gray blanket. I reached

 out, shaking, and pul ed the cloth down. As soon as I saw

 Elizabeth, my knees gave out; if not for Irv, I would have

 fal en.

 She looked like she was sleeping. Her hands were tucked

 on either side of her body; her cheeks were flushed.

 They’d made a mistake, that was al .

 I leaned over the stretcher, touching her face. Her skin was

 stil warm. “Elizabeth,” I whispered, the way I did on school

 days to wake her. “Elizabeth, time to get up.”

 But she didn’t stir; she didn’t hear me. I broke down over

 her body, pul ing her against me. The blood on her chest

 was garish. I tried to draw her closer, but I couldn’t—this

 baby inside me was in the way. “Don’t go,” I whispered.

 “Please don’t go.”

 “June,” Irv said, touching my shoulder. “You can ride with

 them if you want, but you’l have to put her down.”

 I did not understand the great hurry to take her to a hospital;

 later, I would learn that only a doctor could pronounce

 Elizabeth dead, no matter how obvious it was.

 The paramedics gently strapped Elizabeth to the gurney

 and offered me a seat beside it. “Wait,” I said, and I

 unclasped a barrette from my hair. “She doesn’t like her

 bangs in her eyes,” I mur mured, and I clipped them back. I

 left my hand on her forehead for a moment, a benediction.

 On the interminable ride to the hospital, I looked down at

 my shirt. It was stained with blood, a Rorschach of loss. But

 I was not the only one who had been marked, permanently

 changed. It was no surprise when a month later I gave birth

 to Claire—an infant who looked nothing like her father, as

 she had that day at the ultrasound, but who instead was the

 spitting image of the sister she would never meet.

 Maggie

 Oliver and I were enjoying a glass of Yel ow Tail and a

 TiVo’d Grey’s Anatomy when there was a knock on the

 door. Now, this was alarming on several counts:

 1. It was Friday night, and no one ever stopped by on

 Friday night.

 2. People who ring the doorbel at ten p.m. are either a.

 stranded with a dead battery in their car b. serial kil ers

 c. al of the above

 3. I was in my pajamas.

 4. The ones with a hole on the butt, so that my underwear

 showed.

 I looked at the rabbit. “Let’s not get it,” I said, but Oliver

 hopped off my lap and began to sniff around the bottom of

 the door.

 “Maggie?” I heard. “I know you’re in there.”

 “Daddy?” I got off the couch and unlocked the door to let

 him in.

 “Shouldn’t you be at services?”

 He took off his coat and hung it on an antique rack that my

 mother had given me for my birthday one year, and that I

 real y hated, but that she looked for every time she came to

 my house (Oh, Maggie, I’m so glad you’ve stil got this!). “I

 stayed for the important parts. Your mother’s kibitzing with

 Carol; I’l probably make it home before she wil .”

 Carol was the cantor—a woman with a voice that made me

 think of fal ing asleep in the summertime sun: strong, steady

 utterly relaxing. When she wasn’t singing, she col ected

 thimbles. She went to conventions as far away as Seattle to

 trade them, and had one entire forty-foot wal of her house

 divvied up by a contractor into minuscule display shelves.

 Mom said that Carol had more than five thousand thimbles.

 I didn’t think I had five thousand of anything, except maybe

 daily calories.

 He walked into the living room and glanced at the

 television. “I wish that skinny girl would just ditch

 McDreamy.”

 “You watch Grey’s AnatomyT

 “Your mother watches. I absorb by osmosis.” He sat down

 on the couch, while I mul ed over the fact that I actual y did

 have something in common with my mother.

 “I liked your friend the priest,” my father said.

 “He’s not my friend. We work together.”

 “I can stil like him, can’t I?”

 I shrugged. “Something tel s me you didn’t come al the way

 here to tel me how fabulous Father Michael is.”

 “Wel , in part. How come you brought him over tonight?”

 “Why?” I bristled. “Did Mom complain?”

 “Wil you just stop with the Mom thing?” My father sighed.

 “I’m asking you a question.”

 “He had a hard day. Being on Shay’s side isn’t easy for

 him.”

 My father looked at me careful y. “How about for you?”

 “You told me to ask Shay what he wanted,” I said. “He

 doesn’t want his life saved. He wants his death to mean

 something.”

 My father nodded. “A lot of Jews think you can’t donate

 organs, because it violates Jewish law—you’re not

 supposed to mutilate the body after death; you’re supposed

 to bury it as soon as possible. But pikkuah nefesh takes

 precedence over that. It says that the duty to save life

 trumps everything. Or in other words—a Jew is required to

 break the law, if it means saving a life.”

 “So it’s okay to commit murder in order to save someone

 else?” I asked.

 “Wel , God’s not stupid; He sets parameters. But if there’s

 any karmic pikkuah nefesh in the world—”

 “To mix metaphors, no less religions …”

 “—then the fact that you can’t stop an execution is at least

 balanced by the fact that you’l be saving a life.”

 “At what cost, Daddy? Is it okay to kil someone who’s a

 criminal, someone society real y doesn’t want around

 anymore, so that a little girl can live? What if it wasn’t a little

 girl who needed that heart? What if it was some other

 criminal? Or what if it wasn’t Shay who had to die in order

 to donate his organs? What if it was me?”

 “God forbid,” my father said.

 “It’s semantics.”

 “It’s morality. You’re doing good.”

 “By doing bad.”

 My father shook his head. “There’s something else about

 pikkuah nefesh … it clears the slate of guilt. You can’t feel

 remorse about breaking the law, because ethical y, you’re

 obligated to do it.”

 “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I can feel remorse.

 Because we’re not talking about not fasting on Yom Kippur

 since you happen to be sick …

 we’re talking about a man dying.”

 “And saving your life.”

 I looked up at him. “Claire’s life.”

 “Two birds with one stone,” my father said. “Maybe it’s not

 literal in your case, Maggie. But this lawsuit—it’s fired you

 up. It’s given you something to look forward to.” He looked

 around my home—the place setting for one, the bowl of

 popcorn on the table, the rabbit cage.

 I suppose there was a point in my life when I wanted the

 package deal—the chuppah, the husband, the kids, the

 carpools—but somewhere along the line, I’d just stopped

 hoping. I had gotten used to living alone, to saving the other

 half of the can of soup for the next night’s dinner, to only

 changing the pil owcases on my side of the bed. I had

 become overly comfortable with myself, so much so that

 anyone else would have felt like an intrusion.

 Pretending, it turned out, took much less effort than hoping.

 One of the reasons I loved my parents—and hated them—

 is that they stil thought I had a chance at al that. They only

 wanted me to be happy; they didn’t see how on earth I

 could be happy by myself. Which, if you read between the

 lines, meant they found me just as lacking as I did.

 I could feel my eyes fil ing with tears. “I’m tired,” I said. “You

 should go now.”

 “Maggie—”

 When he reached for me, I ducked away. “Good night.”

 I punched buttons on the remote control until the television

 went black. Oliver crept out from behind my desk to

 investigate, and I scooped him up. Maybe this was why I

 chose to spend my free time with a rabbit: he didn’t offer

 unwanted advice. “You forgot one little detail,” I said.

 “Pikkuah nefesh doesn’t apply to an atheist.”

 My father paused in the act of taking his coat from the

 world’s ugliest coat rack. He slipped it over his arm and

 walked toward me. “I know it sounds strange for a rabbi,”

 he said, “but it’s never mattered to me what you believe in,

 Mags, as long as you believe in yourself as much as I do.”

 He settled his hand on top of Oliver’s back. Our fingers

 brushed, but I didn’t look up at him. “And that’s not

 semantics.”

 “Daddy—”

 He held up a hand to shush me and opened the door. “I’l

 tel your mother to get you new pajamas for your birthday,”

 he said, pausing at the threshold. “Those have a hole in the

 butt.”

 M I C HAEL

 In 1945, two brothers were digging beneath cliffs in Nag

 Hammadi, Egypt, trying to find fertilizer. One—Mohammed

 Ali—struck something hard as he dug. He unearthed a

 large earthenware jug, covered with a red dish. Afraid that

 a jinn would be inside it, Mohammed Ali didn’t want to open

 the jar. Final y, the curiosity of finding gold instead led him

 to break it open—only to find thirteen papyrus books inside,

 bound in gazel e leather.

 Some of the books were burned for firewood. The others

 made their way to religious scholars, who dated them to

 have been written around A.D. 140, about thirty years after

 the New Testament—and deciphered them to find the

 names of gospels not found in the Bible, ful of sayings that

 were in the New Testament… and many that weren’t. In

 some, Jesus spoke in riddles; in others, the Virgin birth and

 bodily resurrection were dismissed. They came to be

 known as the Gnostic gospels, and even today, they are

 given short shrift by the Church.

 In seminary, we learned about the Gnostic gospels.

 Namely, we learned that they were heresy. And let me tel

 you, when a priest hands you a text and tel s you this is what

 nor to believe, it colors the way you read it. Maybe I

 skimmed the text, saving the careful close analysis for the

 Bible. Maybe I whiffed completely and told the priest who

 was teaching that course that I’d done my homework when

 in fact I didn’t.

 Whatever the excuse, that night when I cracked open Joel

 Bloom’s book, it was as if I’d never seen the words before,

 and although I planned to only read the foreword by the

 scholar who’d compiled the texts—a man named Ian

 Fletcher—I found myself devouring the pages as if it were

 the latest Stephen King novel and not a col ection of ancient

 gospels.

 The book had been earmarked to the Gospel of Thomas.

 Any mentions of Thomas I knew from the Bible certainly

 weren’t flattering: He doesn’t believe Lazarus wil rise from

 the dead. When Jesus tel s His disciples to fol ow Him,

 Thomas points out that they don’t know where to go. And

 when Jesus rises after the crucifixion, Thomas isn’t even

 there—and won’t believe it until he can touch the wounds

 with his own hands. He’s the very definition of faithless—

 and the origin of the term doubting Thomas.

 Yet in Rabbi Bloom’s book, this page began:

 These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke,

 and the twin, Didymos Judas Thomas, wrote them down.

 Twin? Since when did Jesus have a twin?

 The rest of the “gospel” was not a narrative of Jesus’s life,

 like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but a col ection of

 quotes by Jesus, al beginning with the words Jesus said.

 Some were lines similar to those in the Bible. Others were

 completely unfamiliar and sounded more like logic puzzles

 than any scripture:

 If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you wil

 save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what is

 within you wil destroy you.

 I read the line over twice and rubbed my eyes. There was

 something about it that made me feel as if I’d heard it

 before.

 Then I realized where.

 Shay had said it to me the first time I’d met with him, when

 he’d explained why he wanted to donate his heart to Claire

 Nealon.

 I kept reading intently, hearing Shay’s voice over and over

 again: The dead aren’t alive, and the living won’t die.

 We come from the light.

 Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone; you wil

 find me there.

 The first time I had gone on a rol er coaster, I felt like this—

 like the ground had been pul ed out from beneath my feet,

 like I was going to be sick, like I needed something to grab

 hold of.

 If you asked a dozen people on the street if they’d ever

 heard of the Gnostic gospels, eleven would look at you as if

 you were crazy. In fact most people today couldn’t even

 recite the Ten Commandments. Shay Bourne’s religious

 training had been minimal and fragmented; the only thing I’d

 ever seen him “read” was the Sports Il ustrated Swimsuit

 Issue.

 He couldn’t write; he could barely fol ow a thought through to

 the end of one sentence. His formal schooling ended at a

 GED he’d gotten while at the juvenile detention facility.

 How, then, could Shay Bourne have memorized the Gospel

 of Thomas? Where would he even have stumbled across it

 in his lifetime?

 The only answer I could come up with was that he hadn’t.

 It could have been coincidence.

 I could have been remembering the conversations

 incorrectly.

 Or—maybe—I could have been wrong about him.

 The past three weeks, I had pushed past the throngs of

 people camped out in front of the prison. I had turned off the

 television when yet another pundit suggested that Shay

 might be the Messiah. After al , I knew better. I was a priest;

 I had taken vows; I understood that there was one God. His

 message had been recorded in the Bible, and above al

 else, when Shay spoke, he did not sound like Jesus in any

 of the four gospels.

 But here was a fifth. A gospel that hadn’t made it into the

 Bible but was equal y as ancient. A gospel that espoused

 the beliefs of at least some people during the birth of

 Christianity. A gospel that Shay Bourne had quoted to me.

 What if the Church forefathers had gotten it wrong?

 What if the gospels that had been dismissed and

 debunked were the real ones, and the ones that had been

 picked for the New Testament were the embel ished

 versions? What if Jesus had actual y said It would mean

 that the al egations being made about Shay Bourne might

 not be that far off the mark.

 And it would explain why a Messiah might return in the

 guise of a convicted murderer—to see if this time, we might

 get it right.

 I got out of my chair, folding the book by my side, and

 started to pray.

 Heavenly Father, I said silently, help me understand.

 The telephone rang, making me jump. I glanced at the clock

 —who would cal after three in the morning?

 “Father Michael? This is CO Smythe, from the prison. Sorry

 to disturb you at this hour, but Shay Bourne had another

 seizure. We thought you’d want to know.”

 “Is he al right?”

 “He’s in the infirmary,” Smythe said. “He asked for you.”

 At this hour, the vigilant masses outside the prison were

 tucked into their sleeping bags and tents, underneath the

 artificial day created by the enormous spotlights that

 flooded the front of the building. I had to be buzzed in; when

 I entered the receiving area, CO Smythe was waiting for

 me. “What happened?”

 “No one knows,” the officer said. “It was Inmate DuFresne

 who alerted us again. We couldn’t see what happened on

 the security cameras.”

 We entered the infirmary. In a distant, dark corner of the

 room.

 Shay was propped up in a bed, a nurse beside him. He

 held a cup of juice that he sipped through a straw; his other

 hand was cuffed to the bed’s railing. There were wires

 coming out from beneath his medical johnny. “How is he?” I

 asked.

 “He’l live,” the nurse said, and then, realizing her mistake,

 blushed fiercely. “We hooked him up to monitor his heart.

 So far, so good.”

 I sat down on a chair beside Shay and looked up at Smythe

 and the “That’s about al you’ve got,” the nurse said. “We

 just gave him something to knock him out.”

 They moved to the far side of the room, and I leaned closer

 to Shay.

 “Are you okay?”

 “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

 “Oh, try me,” I said.

 He glanced over to make sure no one else was listening. “I

 was just watching TV, you know? This documentary on how

 they make movie theater candy, like Dots and Milk Duds.

 And I started to get tired, so I went to turn it off. But before I

 could push the burton, al the light in the television, it shot

 into me like electricity. I mean, I could feel those things

 inside my blood moving around, what are they cal ed again,

 corporals?”

 “Corpuscles.”

 “Yeah, right, those. I hate that word. Did you ever see that

 Star Trek where those aliens are sucking the salt out of

 everything? I always thought they should be cal ed

 corpuscles. You say the word, and it sounds like you’re

 eating a lemon …”

 “Shay. You were talking about the light.”

 “Oh, right, yeah. Wel , it was like I started boiling inside, and

 my eyes, they were going to jel y, and I tried to cal out but

 my teeth were wired shut and then I woke up in here, feeling

 like I’d been sucked dry.” He looked up at me. “By a

 corpuscle.”

 “The nurse said it was a seizure. Do you remember

 anything else?”

 “I remember what I was thinking,” Shay said. “This was what

 it would feel like.”

 “What?”

 “Dying.”

 I took a deep breath. “Remember when you were little, a kid

 —and you’d fal asleep in the car? And someone would

 carry you out and put you into bed, so that when you woke

 up in the morning, you knew automatical y you were home

 again? That’s what I think it’s like to die.”

 “That would be good,” Shay said, his voice deeper, groggy.

 “It’l be nice to know what home looks like.”

 A phrase I’d read just an hour ago slipped into my mind like

 a splinter: The Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the

 earth, and people don’t see it.

 Although I knew it wasn’t the right time, although I knew I

 was supposed to be here for Shay, instead of the other way

 around, I leaned closer, until my words could fal into the

 shel of his ear. “Where did you find the Gospel of

 Thomas?” I whispered.

 Shay stared at me blankly. “Thomas who?” he said, and

 then his eyes drifted shut.

 As I drove away from the prison, I heard Father Walter’s

 voice: He’s conned you. But when I’d mentioned the Gospel

 of Thomas, I hadn’t seen even the slightest flicker of

 recognition in Shay’s eyes, and he’d been drugged—it

 would have been awful y hard to keep dissembling.

 Was this what it had felt like for the Jews who met Jesus

 and recognized him as more than just a gifted rabbi? I had

 no point of comparison.

 I’d grown up Catholic; I’d become a priest. I could not

 remember a time that I hadn’t believed Jesus was the

 Messiah.

 I knew someone, though, who could.

 Rabbi Bloom didn’t have a temple, because it had burned

 down, but he did rent office space close to the school

 where services were held. I was waiting in front of the

 locked door when he arrived just before eight a.m.

 “Wow,” he said, taking in the vision in front of him—a red-

 eyed, rumpled priest clutching a motorcycle helmet and the

 Nag Hammadi texts. “I would have let you borrow it longer

 than one night.”

 “Why don’t Jews believe Jesus was the Messiah?”

 He unlocked the door to the office. “That’s going to take at

 least a cup and a half of coffee,” Bloom said. “Come on in.”

 He started brewing a pot and offered me a seat. His office

 looked a lot like Father Walter’s at St. Catherine’s—

 inviting, comfortable. A place you’d want to sit and talk.

 Unlike Father Walter’s, though. Rabbi Bloom’s plants were

 the real thing. Father Walter’s were plastic, bought by the

 Ladies’ Aid, when he kept kil ing everything from a ficus to

 an African violet.

 “It’s a wandering Jew,” the rabbi said when he saw me

 checking out the flowerpot. “Maggie’s little idea of a joke.”

 “I just got back from the prison. Shay Bourne had another

 seizure.”

 “Did you tel Maggie?”

 “Not yet.” I looked at him. “You didn’t answer my question.”

 “I haven’t had my coffee.” He got up and poured us each a

 cup, putting milk and sugar in mine without asking first.

 “Jews don’t think Jesus was the Messiah because he didn’t

 fulfil the criteria for a Jewish messiah.

 It’s real y pretty simple, and it’s al laid out by Maimonides.

 A Jewish moshiach wil bring the Jews back to Israel and

 set up a government in Jerusalem that’s the center of

 political power for the world, for both Jews and Gentiles.

 He’l rebuild the Temple and reestablish Jewish law as the

 governing law of the land. He’l raise the dead—al of the

 dead—and usher in a great age of peace, when everyone

 believes in God. He’l be a descendant of David, a king and

 a warrior, a judge, and a great leader … but he’l also be

 firmly, unequivocal y human.”

 Bloom set the cup down in front of me. “We believe that in

 every generation, a person’s born with the potential to

 become the moshiach.

 But if the messianic age doesn’t come and that person

 dies, then that person isn’t him.”

 “Like Jesus.”

 “Personal y, I’ve always seen Jesus as a great Jewish

 patriot. He was a good Jew, who probably wore a yarmulke

 and obeyed the Tbrah, and never planned to start a new

 religion. He hated the Romans and wanted to get them out

 of Jerusalem. He got charged with political rebel ion,

 sentenced to execution. Yes, a Jewish high priest carried it

 out—Caiaphas—but most Jews back then hated Caiaphas

 anyway be cause he was the henchman for the Romans.”

 He looked up at me over the edge of his coffee mug. “Was

 Jesus a good guy? Yeah. Great teacher? Sure. Messiah?

 Dunno.”

 “A lot of the Bible’s predictions for the messianic era were

 fulfil ed by Jesus—”

 “But were they the crucial ones?” Rabbi Bloom asked.

 “Let’s say you didn’t know who I was and I asked you to

 meet me. I told you I’d be standing outside the Steeplegate

 Mal at ten o’clock wearing a Hawaiian shirt and that I’d

 have curly red hair and be listening to Outkast on my iPod.

 And at ten o’clock, you saw someone standing outside the

 Steeplegate Mal who had curly red hair and was wearing a

 Hawaiian shirt and listening to Outkast on an iPod… but it

 was a woman. Would you stil think it was me?”

 He stood up to refil his coffee. “Do you know what I heard

 on NPR

 on the way over here today? Another bus blew up in Israel.

 Three more kids from New Hampshire died in Iraq. And the

 cops just arrested some guy in Manchester who shot his

 ex-wife in front of their two kids. If Jesus ushered in the

 messianic era, and the world I hear about on the news is

 one of peace and redemption … wel , I’d rather wait for a

 different moshiach.” He glanced back at me. “Now, if you

 don’t mind me asking you a question … what’s a priest

 doing at a rabbi’s office at eight in the morning asking

 questions about the Jewish Messiah?”

 I got up and began to walk around the little room. “The book

 you loaned me—it got me thinking.”

 “And that’s a bad thing?”

 “Shay Bourne has said things, verbatim, that I read last

 night in the Gospel of Thomas.”

 “Bourne? He’s read Thomas? I thought Maggie said he—”

 “—has no religious training to speak of, and a minimal

 education.”

 “It’s not like the Gideons leave the Gospel of Thomas in

 hotel rooms,” Rabbi Bloom said. “Where would he have—”

 “Exactly.”

 

 He steepled his fingers. “Huh.”

 I placed the book he’d loaned me on his desk. “What would

 you do if you began to second-guess everything you

 believed?”

 Rabbi Bloom leaned forward and riffled through his

 Rolodex. “I would ask more questions,” he said. He

 scribbled down something on a Post-it and handed it to

 me.

 Ian Fletcher. I read. 603-555-1367.

 

 Lucius

 The night Shay had his second seizure, I was awake,

 gathering ink that I planned to use to give myself another

 tattoo. If I do say so myself, I’m rather proud of my

 homemade tattoos. I had five—my rationale being that my

 body, up until three weeks ago, wasn’t worth much more

 than being a canvas for my art; plus the threat of getting

 AIDS from a dirty needle was obviously a moot point. On

 my left ankle was a clock, with the hands marking the

 moment of Adam’s death. On my left shoulder was an

 angel, and below it an African tribal design. On my right leg

 was a bul , because I was a Taurus; and swimming beside

 it was a fish, for Adam, who was a Pisces. I had grand

 plans for this sixth one, which I planned to put right on my

 chest: the word BELIEVE, in Gothic letters. I’d practiced the

 art in reverse multiple times in pencil and pen, until I felt

 sure that I could replicate it with my tattoo gun as I worked

 in the mirror.

 My first gun had been confiscated by the COs, like Crash’s

 hype kit. It had taken me six months to amass the parts for

 the new one. Making ink was hard to do, and harder to get

 away with—which was why I had chosen to work on this

 during the deadest hours of the night. I had lit a plastic

 spoon on fire, keeping the flame smal so I could catch the

 smoke in a plastic bag. It stank horribly, and just as I was

 getting certain the COs would literal y get wind of it and shut

 down my operation, Shay Bourne col apsed next door.

 This time, his seizure had been different. He’d screamed—

 so loud that he woke up the whole pod, so loud that the

 finest dust of plaster drifted down from the ceilings of our

 cel s. To be honest, Shay was such a mess when he was

 wheeled off I-tier that none of us were sure whether or not

 he’d be returning—which is why I was stunned to see him

 being led back to his cel the very next day.

 “Po-lice,” Joey Kunz yel ed, just in time for me to hide the

 pieces of my tattoo gun underneath the mattress. The

 officers locked Shay into his cel , and as soon as the door

 to I-tier shut behind them, I asked Shay how he was feeling.

 “My head hurts,” he said. “I have to go to sleep.”

 With Crash stil off the tier after the hype kit transgression,

 things were quieter. Cal oway slept most days and stayed

 up nights with his bird; Texas and Pogie played virtual

 poker; Joey was listening to his soaps. I waited an extra

 few minutes to make sure the officers were otherwise

 occupied out in the control booth and then I reached

 underneath my mattress again.

 I had unraveled a guitar string to its central core, a

 makeshift needle.

 This was inserted into a pen whose ink cartridge had been

 removed—and a smal piece of its tip sawed off and

 attached to the other end of the needle, which was attached

 to the motor shaft of a cassette player. The pen was taped

 to a toothbrush bent into an L shape, which let you hold the

 contraption more easily. You could adjust the needle length

 by sliding the pen casing back and forth; al that was left

 was plugging in the AC adapter of the cassette player, and

 I had a functional tattoo gun again.

 The soot I’d captured the previous night had been mixed

 with a few drops of shampoo to liquefy it. I stood in front of

 the stainless steel panel that served as a mirror, and

 scrutinized my chest. Then, gritting my teeth against the

 pain, I turned on the gun. The needle moved back and forth

 in an el iptical orbit, piercing me hundreds of times per

 minute.

 There it was, the letter B.

 “Lucius?” Shay’s voice drifted into my house.

 “I’m sort of busy, Shay.”

 “What’s that noise?”

 “None of your business.” I lifted it to my skin again, felt the

 needle working against me, a thousand arrows striking.

 “Lucius? I can stil hear that noise.”

 I sighed. “It’s a tattoo gun, Shay, al right? I’m giving myself

 a tattoo.”

 There was a hesitation. “Wil you give me one?”

 I had done this for multiple inmates when I was housed on

 different tiers-ones that had a bit more freedom than I-tier,

 which offered twentythree rol icking hours of lockdown. “I

 can’t. I can’t reach you.”

 “That’s okay,” Shay said. “I can reach you.”

 “Yeah, whatever,” I said. I squinted back into the mirror and

 set the tattoo gun against my skin. Holding my breath, I

 careful y formed the curves and flourishes around the letters

 E and L

 I thought I heard Shay whimpering when I started on the

 letter I, and surely he cried out when I tattooed the V. My

 gun must not have been helping his headache any.

 Shrugging off his moans, I stepped closer to the mirror and

 surveyed my handiwork.

 God, it was gorgeous. The letters moved with every breath I

 took; even the angry red swel ing of my skin couldn’t take

 away from the clean lines of the letters.

 “B-believe,” Shay stammered.

 I turned around, as if I could see him through the wal

 between our cel s. “What did you say?”

 “It’s what you said,” Shay corrected. “I read it right, didn’t I?”

 I had not told anyone of my plans for my sixth tattoo. I hadn’t

 shared the prototype artwork. I knew for a fact that Shay,

 from where he stood, could not have seen into my cel as I

 worked.

 Fumbling behind the brick that served as my safe, I took out

 the shank that I used as a portable mirror. I stepped up to

 the front of my cel and angled it so that I could see Shay’s

 beaming face in the reflection. “How did you know what I

 was writing?”

 Shay smiled wider, and then raised his fist. He unfolded his

 fingers, one at a time.

 His palm was red and inflamed, and printed across it, in

 Gothic script, was the same exact tattoo I’d just given

 myself.

 Shay paced his cel in figure eights. “Did you see him?” he

 asked, wildeyed.

 I sank down on the stool I’d dragged in from the control

 booth. I was sluggish today—not only was my head buzzing

 with questions about what I’d read, but I was also—for the

 first time in a year—not officiating at this evening’s midnight

 Mass. “See who?” I replied, distracted.

 “Sul y. The new guy. Next door.”

 I glanced into the other cel . Lucius DuFresne was stil on

 Shay’s left; on his right, the formerly empty cel now had

 someone occupying it. Sul y, however, wasn’t there. He was

 in the rec yard, repeatedly running ful tilt across the little

 square yard and leaping up against the far wal , hands

 splayed, as if hitting it hard enough meant he’d go right

 through the metal.

 “They’re going to kil me,” Shay said.

 “Maggie’s working on writing a motion at this very—”

 “Not the state,” Shay said. “One of them.”

 I did not know anything about prison politics, but there was

 a fine line between Shay’s paranoia and what might pass

 for the truth. Shay was receiving more attention than any

 other inmate at the prison, as a result of his lawsuit and the

 media frenzy. There was every chance he might be

 targeted by the general prison population.

 Behind me, CO Smythe passed in his flak jacket, carrying a

 broom and some cleaning supplies. Once a week, the

 inmates were required to clean their own cel s. It was one-

 at-a-time, supervised cleaning: after an inmate came in

 from rec, the supplies would be waiting for him in his cel ,

 and a CO would stand guard at the doorway until the work

 was finished—close by, because even Windex could

 become a weapon in here. I watched the empty cel door

 open, so that Smythe could leave the spray bottles and the

 toweling and the broom; then he walked to the far end of the

 tier to get the new inmate from the rec yard. Til talk to the

 warden. I’l make sure you’re protected,” I told Shay, which

 seemed to mol ify him. “So,” I said, changing the subject,

 “what do you like to read?”

 “What, you’re Oprah now? We’re having a book club?”

 “No.”

 “Good, because I’m not reading the Bible.”

 “I know that,” I said, seizing this inroad. “Why not?”

 “It’s lies.” Shay waved a hand, a dismissal.

 “What do you read that isn’t a lie?”

 “I don’t,” he replied. “The words get al knotted up. I have to

 stare at a page for a year before I can make sense of it.”

 ” ‘There’s light inside a person of light,’” I quoted, ” ‘and if

 shines on the whole world.’”

 Shay hesitated. “Can you see it, too?” He held his hands up

 in front of his face, scrutinizing his fingertips. “The light from

 the television—the stuff that went into me—it’s stil there. It

 glows, at night.”

 I sighed. “It’s from the Gospel of Thomas.”

 “No, I’m pretty sure it came from the television …”

 “The words. Shay. The ones I just said. They came from a

 gospel I was reading last night. And so does a lot of stuff

 you’ve been saying to me.”

 His eyes met mine. “What do you know,” he said softly, and

 I couldn’t tel if it was a statement or a question.

 “I don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s why I’m here.”

 “That’s why we’re al here,” Shay said.

 If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you wil

 save you. It was one of Jesus’s sayings in the Gospel of

 Thomas; it was one of the first things Shay Bourne had ever

 told me, when he was explaining why he needed to donate

 his heart. Could it real y be this simple?

 Could salvation be not a passive acceptance, like I’d been

 led to believe, but an active pursuit?

 Maybe it was saying the rosary, for me, and receiving Holy

 Communion, and serving God. Maybe for Maggie’s father,

 it was meeting with a bunch of die-hard congregants who

 wouldn’t let the lack of a physical temple dissuade them

 from prayer. Maybe for Maggie, it was mending whatever

 kept her focused on her faults instead of her strengths.

 Maybe for Shay, maybe it was offering his heart—literal y

 and figuratively—to the mother who’d lost hers years ago

 because of him.

 Then again. Shay Bourne was a kil er; his sentences curled

 like a puppy chasing its tail; he thought he had something

 phosphorescent coursing through his veins because a

 television had zapped him in the middle of the night. He did

 not sound messianic—just delusional.

 Shay looked at me. “You should go,” he said, but then his

 attention was distracted by the sound of the rec yard door

 being opened. Officer Smythe led the new inmate back

 onto I-tier.

 He was an enormous tower of muscle with a swastika

 tattooed on his scalp. His hair, sprouting out from a buzz

 cut, grew over it like moss.

 The inmate’s cel door was closed, and his handcuffs

 removed. “You know the dril . Sul y,” the officer said. He

 stood in the doorway as Sul y slowly picked up the spray

 bottle and washed down his sink. I heard the squeak of

 paper toweling on metal.

 “Hey, Father—you watch the game last night?” CO Smythe

 said, and then he rol ed his eyes. “Sul y, what are you

 doing? You don’t need to sweep the—”

 Suddenly the broom in Sul y’s hands was no longer a

 broom but a broken spear that he jutted into the officer’s

 throat. Smythe grabbed his neck, gurgling. His eyes rol ed

 back in his head; he stumbled toward Shay’s cel . As he fel

 beside me, I clasped my hands over the wound and

 screamed for help.

 The tier came to life. The inmates were al clamoring to see

 what had happened; CO Whitaker was suddenly there and

 hauling me to my feet, taking my place as another officer

 started CPR. Four more officers ran past me with pepper

 spray and shot it into Sul y’s face. He was dragged out of

 the tier shrieking as the closest physician arrived—a

 psychiatrist I’d seen around the prison. But by now, Smythe

 had stopped moving.

 No one seemed to notice that I was there; there was far too

 much happening, too much at stake. The psychiatrist tried

 to find a pulse in Smythe’s neck, but his hand came away

 slick with blood. He lifted the CO’s wrist and, after a

 moment, shook his head. “He’s gone.”

 The tier had gone absolutely silent; the inmates were al

 staring in shock at the body in front of them. Blood had

 stopped flowing from Smythe’s neck; he was perfectly stil .

 To my right, I could see an argument going on in the control

 booth—the EMTs who’d arrived too late and were trying to

 gain admission to the tier. They were buzzed in, stil

 shrugging into their flak jackets, and knelt beside Smythe’s

 body, repeating the same ineffective tests that the

 psychiatrist had.

 Behind me, I heard weeping.

 I turned around to find Shay crouched on the floor of his cel .

 His face was streaked with tears and blood; his hand

 slipped beneath his cel door so that his fingers brushed

 Smythe’s.

 “You here for last rites?” one of the medics asked, and for

 the first time, everyone seemed to realize I was stil present.

 “I, uh-“

 “What’s he doing here?” CO Whitaker barked.

 “Who the hel is he?” another officer said. “I don’t even work

 this tier.”

 “I can go,” I said. “I’l … just go.” I glanced once more at

 Shay, who was curled into a bal , whispering. If I hadn’t

 known better, I would have thought he was praying.

 As the two EMTs got ready to move the body onto a

 stretcher, I prayed over Smythe. “In the Name of God the

 Father Almighty who created you … in the Name of Jesus

 Christ who redeemed you; in the Name of the Holy Spirit

 who sanctifies you. May your rest be this day in peace, and

 your dwel ing place in the Paradise of God. Amen.”

 I made the sign of the cross and started to get to my feet.

 “On three,” the first EMT said.

 The second one nodded, his hands on the slain officer’s

 ankles.

 “One, two … holy shir,” he cried as the dead man began to

 struggle against him.

 “One of the proofs of the immortality

 of the soul is that myriads have believed it.

 They also believed the world was flat.”

 -MARK. TWAIN, NOTEBOOK

 

 June

 Claire would be cut in half, her sternum buzzed open with a

 saw and held open with a metal spreader so that she could

 be made, literal y, heartless—and this was not what terrified

 me the most.

 No, what scared me to death was the idea of cel ular

 memory.

 Dr. Wu had said that there was no scientific evidence that

 the personality traits of heart donors transferred to their

 recipients.

 But science could only go so far, I figured. I’d read the

 books and done the research, and I didn’t see why it was

 such a stretch to think that living tissue might have the

 ability to remember. After al , how many of us had tried to

 forget something traumatic…

 only to find it printed on the back of our eyelids, tattooed on

 our tongues?

 There were dozens of cases. The baby with a clubfoot who

 drowned and gave his heart to another infant, who began to

 drag her left leg. The rapper who started playing classical

 music, and then learned his donor had died clutching a

 violin case. The cattle rancher who received the heart of a

 sixteen-year-old vegetarian, and could not eat meat again

 without getting violently il .

 Then there was the twenty-year-old organ donor who wrote

 music in his spare time. A year after he died, his parents

 found a CD of a love song he’d recorded, about losing his

 heart to a girl named Andi. His recipient, a twenty-year-old

 girl, was named Andrea. When the boy’s parents played

 the song for her, she could complete the chorus, without

 ever having heard it.

 Most of these stories were benign—a strange coincidence,

 an intriguing twist. Except for one: a little boy received the

 heart of another boy who’d been murdered. He began to

 have nightmares about the man who kil ed his donor—with

 details about the clothing the man wore, how he’d abducted

 the boy, where the murder weapon had been stashed.

 Using this evidence, the police caught the kil er.

 If Claire received Shay Bourne’s heart, it would be bad

 enough if she were to harbor thoughts of murder. But what

 would absolutely wreck me was if, with that heart in her, she

 had to feel her own father and sister being kil ed.

 In that case, better to have no heart at al .

 

 Maggie

 Today, I decided, I was going to do everything right. It was

 Sunday, and I didn’t have to go to work. Instead, I got up

 and unearthed my One Minute Workout video (which was

 not nearly as slacker as it sounds—you could add minutes

 to your own liking, and no one was here to notice if I chose

 the four-minute option over the more grueling eight-minute

 one). I picked Focus on Abs, instead of the easier Upper

 Arm. I sorted my recyclables and flossed and shaved my

 legs in the shower. Downstairs, I cleaned Olivers cage and

 let him have the run of the living room while I made myself

 scrambled egg whites for breakfast.

 With wheat germ.

 Wel . I lasted forty-seven minutes, anyway, before I had to

 break out the Oreos that I hid in the box with my skinny

 jeans, a last-ditch attempt at utter guilt before I ripped open

 the package and indulged.

 I gave Oliver an Oreo, too, and was starting my third cookie

 when the doorbel rang.

 As soon as I saw the bright pink T-shirt of the man standing

 on the porch, with the words JOYOUS FOR JESUS printed

 boldly across it, I knew this was my punishment for fal ing off

 the wagon into the snack foods.

 “If you’re not gone in the next ten seconds, I’m cal ing 911,” I

 said.

 He grinned at me, a big platinum orthodontical y enhanced

 grin.

 “I’m not a stranger,” he said. “I’m a friend you haven’t met

 yet.”

 I rol ed my eyes. “Why don’t we just cut to the chase—you

 give me the pamphlets, I politely refuse to talk to you, and

 then I close the door and throw them in the trash.”

 He held out his hand. “I’m Tom.”

 “You’re leaving,” I corrected.

 “I used to be bitter, too. I’d go to work in the mornings and

 come home to an empty house and eat half a can of soup

 and wonder why I had even been put on this earth. I thought

 I had no one, but myself—”

 “And then you offered Jesus the rest of your soup,” I

 finished. “Look, I’m an atheist.”

 “It’s not too late to find your faith.”

 “What you real y mean is that it’s not too late for me to find

 your faith,”

 I answered, scooping up Oliver as he made a mad dash for

 the open door.

 “You know what I believe? That religion served its historical

 purpose—it was a set of laws to live by, before we had a

 justice system. But even when it starts out with the best of

 intentions, things get screwed up, don’t they? A group

 bands together because they believe the same things, and

 then somehow that gets perverted so that anyone who

 doesn’t believe those things is wrong. Honestly, even if

 there was a religion founded on the principle of doing good

 for other people, or helping them with their personal rights,

 like I do every day, I wouldn’t join … because it would stil

 be a religion”

 I had rendered Tom speechless. This was probably the

 most heated debate he’d had in months; mostly, he’d have

 doors closed in his face.

 Inside my house, the phone began to ring.

 Tom pushed a pamphlet into my hand and beat a hasty

 retreat off my porch. As I closed the door behind him I

 glanced down at the cover.

 GOD + YOU = oo

 “If there’s any math to religion,” I muttered, “it’s division.” I

 slipped the pamphlet onto the liner of newspaper beneath

 Oliver’s cage as I hurried to the phone, which was on the

 verge of rol ing over to the answering machine. “Hel o?”

 The voice was unfamiliar, halting. “Is Maggie Bloom there?”

 “Speaking.” I geared up for a zinger to put a telemarketer in

 her place for disturbing me on a Sunday morning.

 As it turned out, she wasn’t a telemarketer. She was a

 nurse at Concord Hospital, and she was cal ing because I

 had been listed as Shay Bourne’s emergency contact, and

 an emergency had occurred.

 

 Lucius

 You would not have believed it possible, but when CO

 Smythe came back to life, things actual y got worse.

 The remaining officers had to give statements to the

 warden about the stabbing. We were kept in lockdown, and

 the next day a team of officers who did not normal y work on

 I-tier were brought in on duty. They started our one-hour

 rotations on the exercise yard and the shower, and Pogie

 was the first to go.

 I hadn’t showered since the stabbing, although the COs had

 given both Shay and me a fresh set of scrubs. We had

 gotten Smythe’s blood on us, and a quick wash in our cel

 basins didn’t go very far to making me feel clean. While we

 were waiting for our turns in the shower, Alma showed up to

 give us both blood tests. They tested anyone who came in

 contact with an inmate’s blood, and since that included CO

 Smythe, his blood apparently was only one step removed

 from questionable. Shay was moved in handcuffs, ankle

 cuffs, and a bel y chain to a holding room outside the tier,

 where Alma was waiting.

 In the middle of al this, Pogie slipped in the shower. He lay

 there, moaning about his back. Two more COs dragged in

 the backboard and handcuffed Pogie to it, then carried him

 to a gurney so he could be transported al the way to

 Medical. But because they were not used to I-tier, and

 because COs are supposed to fol ow us, not lead, they did

 not realize that Shay was already being brought back to the

 tier at the same time Pogie was going out.

 Tragedies happen in a split second in prison; that’s al it

 took for Pogie to use the handcuff key he’d hidden to free

 himself, jump off the backboard, grab it, and slam it into

 Shay’s skul , so that he flew face-first into the brick wal .

 “Weiss machtr Pogie yel ed— White pridel—which was

 how I realized Crash-from where he was stil being kept in

 solitary-had used his connections to order a hit on Shay in

 retaliation for ratting him out and giving his hype kit to the

 COs. Sul y’s attack on CO Smythe had just been col ateral

 damage, meant to shake up the staffing on our tier so that

 part two of the plan could be carried out. And Pogie—a

 probate—had jumped at the chance to earn his bones by

 carrying out a murder sanctioned by the Aryan

 Brotherhood.

 Six hours after this fiasco, Alma returned to finish drawing

 my blood. I was taken to the holding cel and found her stil

 shaken by what had happened, although she would not tel

 me anything-except that Shay had been taken to the

 hospital.

 When I saw something silver winking at me, I waited until

 Alma drew the needle from my arm. Then I put my head

 down between my knees.

 “You al right, sugar?” Alma asked.

 “Just feeling a little dizzy.” I let my fingers trail along the

 floor.

 If magicians are the best at sleight of hand, then inmates

 have to be a close second. As soon as I was back in my

 cel , I pul ed my booty out of the seam in my scrubs where

 I’d hidden it. Pogie’s handcuff key was tiny, shiny, formed

 from the fastener of a manila envelope.

 I crawled beneath my bunk and wriggled the loose brick

 that concealed my prized possessions. In a smal

 cardboard box were my bottles of paint and my Q-tip

 brushes. There were packets of candy, too, that I planned to

 extract pigment from in the future-a half-empty pack of

 M&M’s, a rol of LifeSavers, a few loose Starbursts. I

 unwrapped one of the Starbursts, the orange one that

 tasted like St. Joseph children’s aspirin, and kneaded the

 square with my thumbs until the taffy became pliable. I

 pressed the handcuff key into the center, then reshaped a

 careful square and folded it into its original wrapping.

 I did not like the thought of profiting in some way from an

 incident that had hurt Shay so badly, but I was also a realist.

 When Shay ran out of his nine lives and I was left alone, I

 would need al the help I could get.

 Maggie

 Even if I hadn’t been listed as Shay Bourne’s emergency

 contact, I would have found him quickly enough at the

 hospital: he was the only patient with armed guards

 standing outside his door. I glanced at the officers, then

 turned my attention to the nurse at the desk. “Is he al right?

 What happened?”

 Father Michael had cal ed me after the attack on CO

 Smythe and told me Shay hadn’t been hurt. Somewhere

 between now and then, however, something must have

 gone drastical y wrong. I had tried cal ing the priest now, but

 he wasn’t answering his cel —I assumed he was on his

 way, that he’d been cal ed, too.

 If Shay hadn’t been treated at the prison hospital, whatever

 had happened must’ve been pretty awful. Inmates weren’t

 moved off-site unless absolutely necessary, because of

 cost and security. With the hoopla Shay had generated

 outside the prison wal s, it must have been a matter of life

 or death.

 Then again, maybe everything was when it came to Shay.

 Here I was literal y shaking over the news that he’d been

 seriously injured, when I had spent yesterday filing motions

 that would streamline his execution.

 The nurse looked up at me. “He’s just come back from

 surgery.”

 “Surgery?”

 “Yes,” said a clipped British voice behind me. “And no, it

 wasn’t an appendectomy.”

 When I turned around, Dr. Gal agher was standing there.

 “Are you the only doctor who works here?”

 “It certainly feels that way sometimes. I’m happy to answer

 your questions. Mr. Bourne is my patient.”

 “He’s my client.”

 Dr. Gal agher glanced at the nurse and at the armed

 officers. “Why don’t we go somewhere to talk?”

 I fol owed him down the hal to a smal family waiting lounge

 that was empty. When the doctor gestured for me to take a

 seat, my heart sank. Doctors only made you sit down when

 they delivered bad news.

 “Mr. Bourne is going to be fine,” Dr. Gal agher said. “At

 least in terms of this injury.”

 “What injury?”

 “I’m sorry, I thought you knew—apparently, it was an inmate

 fight.

 Mr. Bourne sustained a severe blow to the maxil ary sinus.”

 I waited for him to translate.

 “His maxil a’s broken,” Dr. Gal agher said, and he leaned

 forward, touching my face. His fingers brushed over the

 bone below my eye socket, tracing toward my mouth.

 “Here,” he said, and I absolutely, positively stopped

 breathing. “There was a bit of a trauma during the

 operation.

 As soon as we saw the injuries we knew that the

 anesthesia would be intravenous, instead of inhalational.

 Needless to say, when Mr. Bourne heard the

 anesthesiologist say that she’d begun Sodium Pentothal

 drip, he grew quite agitated.” The doctor looked up at me.

 “He asked if this was a dry run for the real thing.”

 I tried to imagine how it would feel to be Shay—hurt,

 aching, and confused—whisked away to an unfamiliar

 place for what seemed to be a prelude to his own

 execution. “I want to see him.”

 “If you can tel him, Ms. Bloom, that if I’d realized who he

 was—what his circumstances are, I mean—wel , I would

 never have al owed the anesthesiologist to use that drug,

 much less an IV tube. I’m deeply sorry for putting him

 through that.”

 I nodded and stood up.

 “One more thing,” Dr. Gal agher said. “I real y admire you.

 For doing this sort of thing.”

 I was halfway to Shay’s room when I realized that Dr.

 Gal agher had remembered my name.

 It took several cel phone cal s to the prison before I was

 al owed in to see Shay, and even then, the warden insisted

 that the officer inside the room would have to stay. I walked

 inside, acknowledged the CO, and sat down on the edge of

 Shay’s bed. His eyes were blackened, his face bandaged.

 He was asleep, and it made him look younger.

 Part of what I did for a living meant championing the causes

 of my clients. I was the strong arm, fighting on their behalf,

 the bul horn broadcasting their voices. I could feel the angry

 discomfort of the Abenaki boy whose school team was

 cal ed the Redskins; I could identity with the passion of the

 teacher who’d been fired for being Wiccan. Shay, though,

 had sent me reeling. Although this was arguably the most

 important case I would ever bring to court, and although—

 as my father pointed out—I hadn’t been this motivated in

 my career in ages, there was an inherent paradox. The

 more I got to know him, the better chance I had of winning

 his organ donation case. But the more I got to know him,

 the harder it would be for me to see him executed.

 I dragged my cel phone out of my purse. The officer’s eyes

 flicked toward me. “You’re not supposed to use that in here

 —”

 “Oh, piss off,” I snapped, and for the hundredth time I dialed

 Father Michael, and reached his voice mail. “I don’t know

 where you are,” I said, “but cal me back immediately.”

 I had left the emotional component of Shay Bourne’s

 welfare to Father Michael, figuring (a) my talents were

 better put to use in a courtroom, and (b) my interpersonal

 relationship skil s had grown so rusty I needed WD-40

 before employing them. But now, Father Michael was MIA,

 Shay was hospitalized, and I was here, for better or for

 worse.

 I stared at Shay’s hands. They were cuffed at the wrist to

 the metal bars of the hospital gurney. The nails were clean

 and clipped, the tendons ropy It was hard to imagine the

 fingers curled around a pistol, pul ing a trigger twice. And

 yet, twelve jurors had been able to picture it.

 Very slowly, I reached across the knobby cotton blanket. I

 threaded my fingers with Shay’s, surprised at how warm his

 skin was. But when I was about to pul away, his grip

 tightened. His eyes slitted open, another shade of blue

 amid the bruising. “Grade,” he said, in a voice that sounded

 like cotton caught on thorns. “You came.”

 I did not know who he thought I was. “Of course I came,” I

 said, squeezing his hand. I smiled at Shay Bourne and

 pretended that I was the person he needed me to be.

 

 M I C H A E L

 Dr. Vijay Choudhary’s office was fil ed with statues of

 Ganesha, the Hindu deity with a potbel ied human body and

 an elephant’s head. I had to move one in order to sit down,

 in fact. “Mr. Smythe was extremely lucky,”

 the doctor said. “A quarter inch to the left, and he wouldn’t

 have survived.”

 “About that…” I took a deep breath. “A doctor at the prison

 pronounced him dead.”

 “Between you and me. Father, I wouldn’t trust a psychiatrist

 to find his own car in a parking lot, much less a hypotensive

 victim’s pulse.

 Reports of Mr. Smythe’s death were, as they say, greatly

 exaggerated.”

 “There was a lot of blood—”

 “Many structures in the neck can bleed a great deal. To a

 layman, a pool of blood may look like a huge quantity, even

 when it’s not.” He shrugged. “What I imagine happened

 was a vasovagal reaction. Mr.

 Smythe saw blood and passed out. The body compensates

 for shock due to blood loss. Blood pressure lowers, and

 vasoconstriction occurs, and both tend to stop the bleeding.

 They also lead to a loss of palpable pulses in the

 extremities—which is why the psychiatrist couldn’t find one

 in his wrist.”

 “So,” I said, pinkening. “You don’t think it’s possible that Mr.

 Smythe was … wel … resurrected?”

 “No,” he chuckled. “Now, in medical school, I saw patients

 who’d frozen to death, in the vernacular, come back to life

 when they were warmed up. I saw a heart stop beating, and

 then start up by itself again. But in neither of those cases—

 or in Mr. Smythe’s—did I consider the patient clinical y

 dead before his or her recovery.”

 

 My phone began to vibrate, as it had every ten minutes for

 the past two hours. I’d turned the ringer off when I came into

 the hospital, as per their policy. “Nothing miraculous, then,” I

 said.

 “Perhaps not by your standards … but I think that Mr.

 Smythe’s family might disagree.”

 I thanked him, set the statue of Ganesha back on my chair,

 and left Dr. Choudhary’s office. As soon as I exited the

 hospital building, I turned on my cel phone to see fifty-two

 messages.

 Cal me right back, Maggie said on her message.

 Something’s happened to Shay. Beep.

 Where are you?? Beep.

 Okay, I know you probably don’t have your phone on but you

 have to cal me back immediately. Beep.

 Where the fuck are you? Beep.

 I hung up and dialed her cel phone. “Maggie Bloom,” she

 whispered, answering.

 “What happened to Shay?”

 “He’s in the hospital.”

 “What?! Which hospital?”

 “Concord. Where are you?”

 “Standing outside the ER.”

 “Then for God’s sake, get up here. He’s in room 514.”

 I ran up the stairs, pushing past doctors and nurses and lab

 technicians and secretaries, as if my speed now could

 make up for the fact that I had not been available for Shay

 when he needed me. The armed officers at the door took

 one look at my col ar—a free pass, especial y on a Sunday

 afternoon—and let me inside. Maggie was curled up on the

 bed, her shoes off, her feet tucked underneath her. She

 was holding Shay’s hand, although I would have been

 hardpressed to recognize the patient as the man I’d talked

 to just yesterday. His skin was the color of fine ash; his hair

 had been shaved in one patch to accommodate stitches to

 close a gash. His nose—broken, from the looks of it—was

 covered with gauze, and the nostrils were plugged with

 cotton.

 “Dear God,” I breathed.

 “From what I can understand, he came out on the short end

 of a prison hit,” Maggie said.

 “That’s not possible. I was there during the prison hit—”

 “Apparently, you left before Act Two.”

 I glanced at the officer who stood like a sentry in the corner

 of the hospital room. The man looked at me and nodded in

 confirmation.

 “I already cal ed Warden Coyne at home to give him hel ,”

 Maggie said. “He’s meeting me at the prison in a half hour

 to talk about additional security measures that can be put in

 place to protect Shay until his execution—when what he

 real y means is ‘What can I do to keep you from suing?’”

 She turned to me. “Can you sit here with Shay?”

 It was a Sunday, and I was utterly, absolutely lost. I was on

 an unofficial leave of absence from St. Catherine’s, and

 although I had always known I’d feel adrift without God, I

 had underestimated how aimless I would feel without my

 church. Usual y at this time, I would be hanging my robes

 after celebrating Mass. I would go with Father Walter to

 have lunch with a parishioner. Then we’d head back to his

 place and watch the preseason Sox game on TV, have a

 couple of beers. What religion did for me went beyond

 belief—it made me part of a community.

 “I can stay,” I answered.

 “Then I’m out of here,” Maggie said. “He hasn’t woken up,

 not real y, anyway. And the nurse said he’l probably have to

 pee when he does, and that we should use this torture

 device.” She pointed at a plastic jug with a long neck. “I

 don’t know about you, but I’m not getting paid enough for

 that.” She paused in the doorway. Til cal you later. Turn on

 your damn phone.”

 When she left, I pul ed a chair closer to Shay’s bed. I read

 the plastic placard about how to raise and lower the

 mattress, and the list of which television channels were

 available. I said an entire rosary, and stil Shay didn’t stir.

 At the edge of the bed. Shay’s medical chart hung on a

 metal clip. I skimmed through the language that I didn’t

 understand—the injury, the medications, his vital statistics.

 Then I glanced at the patient name at the top of the page:

 

 I. M. Bourne

 Isaiah Matthew Bourne. We had been told this at his trial,

 but I had forgotten that Shay was not his Christian name. “I.

 M. Bourne,” I said aloud. “Sounds like a guy Trump would

 hire.”

 I am bom.

 

 Was this a hint, another puzzle piece of evidence?

 There were two ways of looking at any situation. What one

 person sees as a prisoner’s babble, another might

 recognize as words from a long-lost gospel. What one

 person sees as a medical y viable stroke of luck, another

 might see as a resurrection. I thought of Lucius being

 healed, of the water into wine, of the fol owers who had so

 easily believed in Shay. I thought of a thirty-three-yearold

 man, a carpenter, facing execution. I thought of Rabbi

 Bloom’s idea—that every generation had a person in it

 capable of being the Messiah.

 There is a point when you stand at the edge of the cliff of

 hard evidence, look across to what lies on the other side,

 and step forward.

 Otherwise, you wind up going nowhere. I stared at Shay,

 and maybe for the first time, I didn’t see who he was. I saw

 who he might be.

 As if he could feel my gaze, he began to toss and turn. Only

 one of his eyes could slit open; the other was swol en shut.

 “Father,” he rasped in a voice stil cushioned with

 medication. “Where am I?”

 “You were hurt. You’re going to be al right. Shay.”

 In the comer of the room, the officer was staring at us. “Do

 you think we could have a minute alone? I’d like to pray in

 private with him.”

 The officer hesitated—as wel he should have: what

 clergyman isn’t accustomed to praying in front of others?

 Then he shrugged. “Guess a priest wouldn’t do anything

 funny,” he said. “Your boss is tougher than mine.”

 People anthropomorphized God al the time—as a boss,

 as a lifesaver, as a justice, as a father. No one ever

 pictured him as a convicted murderer. But if you put aside

 the physical trappings of the body something that al the

 apostles had had to do after Jesus was resurrected—then

 maybe anything was possible.

 As the officer backed out of the room. Shay winced. “My

 face …”

 He tried to lift up his hand to touch the bandages, but found

 that he was handcuffed to the bed. Struggling, he began to

 pul harder.

 “Shay,” I said firmly, “don’t.”

 “It hurts. I want drugs …”

 “You’re already on drugs,” I told him. “We only have a few

 minutes til the officer comes back in, so we have to talk

 while we can.”

 “I don’t want to talk.”

 Ignoring him, I leaned closer. “Tel me,” I whispered. “Tel

 me who you are.”

 A wary hope lit Shay’s eyes; he’d probably never expected

 to be recognized as the Lord. He went very stil , never

 taking his eyes off mine. “Tel me who you are.”

 In the Catholic Church, there were lies of commission and

 lies of omission. The first referred to tel ing an outright

 falsehood, the second to withholding the truth. Both were

 sins.

 I had lied to Shay since before the moment we met. He’d

 counted on me to help him donate his heart, but he’d never

 realized how black mine was. How could I expect Him to

 reveal Himself when I hadn’t done the same?

 “You’re right,” I said quietly. “There’s something I haven’t

 told you … about who I used to be, before I was a priest.”

 “Let me guess … an altar boy.”

 “I was a col ege student, majoring in math. I didn’t even go

 to church until after I served on the jury.”

 “What jury?”

 I hesitated. “The one that sentenced you to death. Shay.”

 He stared at me for a long minute, and then he turned away.

 “Get out.”

 “Shay-“

 “Get the fuck away from mel” He flailed against his

 handcuffs, yanking at the bonds so that his skin rubbed raw.

 The sound he made was wordless, primordial, the noise

 that had surely fil ed the world before there was order and

 light.

 A nurse came running in, along with the two officers who

 were standing outside. “What happened?” the nurse cried,

 as Shay continued to thrash, his head whipping from side

 to side on the pil ow. The gauze in his nose bloomed with

 fresh blood.

 The nurse pushed a cal button on the panel behind Shay’s

 head, and suddenly the room was fil ed with people. A

 doctor yel ed at the officers to unlock his damn hands, but

 as soon as they did. Shay began swatting at everything he

 could reach. An aide plunged a hypodermic into his arm.

 “Get him out of here,” someone said, and an orderly pul ed

 me out of the room; the last thing I saw was Shay going

 boneless, sliding away from the people who were

 desperately trying to save him.

 

 June

 Claire was standing in front of a ful -length mirror, naked.

 Her chest was crisscrossed with black ribbon, like the

 lacing on a footbal .

 As I watched, she untied the bow, unraveled the ribbons,

 and peeled back both halves of her chest. She unhooked a

 tiny brass hinge on her rib cage and it sprang open.

 Inside, the heart was beating sure and strong, a clear sign

 that it wasn’t hers. Claire lifted a serving spoon and began

 to carve at the organ, trying to sever it from the veins and

 arteries. Her cheeks went pale; her eyes were the color of

 agony—but she managed to pul it free: a bloody,

 misshapen mass that she placed in my outstretched hand.

 “Take it back,” she said.

 I woke up from the nightmare, sweat-soaked, pulse racing.

 After speaking with Dr. Wu about organ compatibility, I’d

 realized he was right—what was at issue here was not

 where this heart came from, but whether it came at al .

 But I stil hadn’t told Claire a donor heart had become

 available.

 We had yet to go through the legal proceedings, anyway—

 and although I told myself I didn’t want to get her hopes up

 until the judge ruled, another part of me realized that I just

 didn’t want to have to tel her the truth.

 After al , it was her chest that would be hosting this man’s

 heart.

 Even a long shower couldn’t get the nightmare of Claire out

 of my mind, and I realized that we had to have the

 conversation I had been so studiously avoiding. I dressed

 and hurried down254

 stairs to find her eating a bowl of cereal on the couch and

 watching television. “The dog needs to go out,” she said

 absently.

 “Claire,” I said, “I have to talk to you.”

 “Let me just see the end of this show.”

 I glanced at the screen—it was Ful House, and Claire had

 watched this episode so often that even I could have told

 you Jesse came home from Japan realizing being a rock

 star was not what it was cracked up to be.

 “You’ve seen it before,” I said, turning off the television.

 Her eyes flashed, and she used the remote to turn the show

 back on.

 Maybe it was a lack of sleep; maybe it was just the weight

 of the imminent future on my shoulders—for whatever

 reason, I snapped.

 I whirled around and yanked the cable feed out of the wal .

 “What is wrong with you?” Claire cried. “Why are you being

 such a bitch!”

 Both of us fel silent, stunned by Claire’s language. She’d

 never cal ed me that before; she’d never real y even argued

 with me. Take it back, I thought, and I remembered that

 image of Claire, holding out her heart.

 “Claire,” I said, backpedaling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

 I broke off as Claire’s eyes rol ed back in her head.

 I’d seen this before—too often. The AICD in her chest was

 firing: when Claire’s heart skipped a beat, or several, it

 automatical y defibril ated her. I caught her as she

 col apsed, settling her on the couch, waiting for her heart to

 restart, for Claire to come to.

 Except this time, she didn’t.

 On the ambulance ride to the hospital, I counted al the

 reasons I hated myself: For picking a fight with Claire. For

 accepting Shay Bourne’s offer to donate his heart, without

 asking her first. For turning off Ful House before the happy

 ending.

 Just stay with me, I begged silently, and you can watch TV

 twentyfour hours a day. I wil watch it with you. Don’t give up,

 we’ve come so close.

 Although the EMTs had gotten Claire’s heart beating again

 by the time we reached the hospital, Dr. Wu had admitted

 her, with the unspoken agreement that this was her new

 home until a new heart arrived—or hers gave out. I watched

 him check Claire, who was fast asleep in the oceanic blue

 light of the darkened room.

 “June,” he said, “let’s talk outside.”

 He closed the door behind us. “There’s no good news

 here.”

 I nodded, biting my lip.

 “Obviously, the AICD isn’t functioning correctly. But in

 addition, the tests we’ve done show her urine output

 decreasing and her creatinine levels rising. We’re talking

 about renal failure, June.

 It’s not just her heart that’s giving out—her whole body is

 shutting down.”

 I looked away, but I couldn’t stop a tear from rol ing down

 my cheek.

 “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get a court to

 agree to that heart donation,” the doctor said, “but Claire

 can’t wait around for the docket to clear.”

 “I’l cal the lawyer,” I said softly. “Is there anything else I can do?”

 Dr. Wu touched my arm. “You should think about saying

 good-bye.”

 I held myself together long enough for Dr. Wu to disappear

 into an elevator. Then, I rushed down the hal way and blindly

 plunged into a doorway that stood ajar. I fel to my knees

 and let the grief bleed out of me—one great, low keening

 note.

 Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I blinked through my

 tears to find the priest who was Shay Bourne’s al y staring

 at me.

 “June? Is everything al right?”

 “No,” I said. “No, everything is most definitely not al right.”

 I could see then what I hadn’t noticed when I first came into

 the room—the gold cross on the long dais in the front of the

 room, one flag with the star of David, another with a Muslim

 crescent moon: this was the hospital chapel, a place to ask

 for what you wanted the most.

 Was it wrong to wish for someone’s death so that Claire

 could have his heart sooner?

 “Is it your daughter?” the priest asked.

 I nodded, but I couldn’t look him in the eye.

 “Would it be al right—I mean, would you mind if I prayed for

 her?”

 Although I did not want his assistance—had not asked for

 his assistance—this one time, I was wil ing to put aside

 how I felt about God, because Claire could use al the help

 she could get.

 Almost imperceptibly, I nodded.

 Beside me, Father Michael’s voice began to move over the

 hil s and val eys of the simplest of prayers: “Our Father, who

 art in heaven, hal owed be thy name. Thy kingdom come,

 thy wil be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

 Before I realized what I was doing, my own mouth had

 started to form the words, a muscle memory. And to my

 surprise, instead of it feeling false or forced, it made me

 relieved, as if I had just passed the baton to someone else.

 “Give us this day our daily bread and lead us not into

 temptation.

 Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others ivho

 trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but

 deliver us from evil.”

 It felt like putting on flannel pajamas on a snowy night; like

 turning on your blinker for the exit that you know wil take

 you home.

 I looked at Father Michael, and together we said “Amen.”

 

 M I C H A EL

 Ian Fletcher, former tele-atheist and current academic, lived

 in New Canaan, New Hampshire, in a farmhouse on a dirt

 road where the mailboxes were not numbered. I drove up

 and down the street four times before turning down one

 driveway and knocking on the door. When I did, no one

 answered, although I could hear strains of Mozart through

 the open windows.

 I had left June in the hospital, stil shaken by my encounter

 with Shay. Talk about irony: just when I al owed myself to

 think that I might be in God’s company, after al —He flatly

 rejected me. The whole world felt off-kilter; it is an odd thing

 to start questioning the framework that’s ordered your life,

 your career, your expectations—and so I had placed a

 phone cal to someone who’d been through it before.

 I knocked again, and this time the door swung open

 beneath my fist. “Hel o? Anyone home?”

 “In here,” a woman cal ed out.

 I stepped into the foyer, taking note of the colonial furniture,

 the photo on the wal that showed a young girl shaking

 hands with Bil Clinton and another of the girl smiling beside

 the Dalai Lama. I fol owed the music to a room off the

 kitchen, where the most intricate dol house I’d ever seen

 was sitting on a table, surrounded by bits of wood and

 chisels and glue gun sticks. The house was made of bricks

 no bigger than my thumbnail, the windows had miniature

 shutters that could be louvered to let in light; there was a

 porch with Corinthian columns.

 “Amazing,” I murmured, and a woman stood up from behind

 the dol house, where she’d been hidden.

 “Oh,” she said. “Thanks.” Seeing me, she did a double

 take, and I realized her eyes were focused on my clerical

 col ar.

 “Bad parochial school flashback?”

 “No … it’s just been a while since I’ve had a priest in here.”

 She stood up, wiping her hands on a white butcher’s apron.

 I’m Mariah Fletcher,” she said.

 “Michael Wright.”

 “Father Michael Wright.”

 I grinned. “Busted.” Then I gestured to her handiwork. “Did

 you make this?”

 “Wel . Yeah.”

 “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 “Good,” Mariah said. “That’s what the client’s counting on.”

 I bent down, scrutinizing a tiny door knocker with the head

 of a lion. “You’re quite an artist.”

 “Not real y. I’m just better at detail than I am at the big

 picture.” She turned off the CD player that was tril ing The

 Magic Flute. “Ian said I was supposed to keep an eye out

 for you. And— Oh, shoot.” Her eyes flew to the corner of the

 room, where a stack of blocks had been abandoned.

 “You didn’t come across two hel ions on your way in?”

 “No…”

 “That’s not a good sign.” Pushing past me, she ran into the

 kitchen and threw open a pantry door. Twins—I figured

 them to be about four years old—were smearing the white

 linoleum with peanut butter and jel y-

 “Oh, God,” Mariah sighed as their faces turned up to hers

 “Oh, God,” Mariah sighed as their faces turned up to hers

 like sunflowers.

 “You told us we could finger-paint,” one of the boys said.

 “Not on the floor; and not with food!” She glanced at me. “I’d

 escort you, but—”

 “You have to take care of a sticky situation?”

 She smiled. “lan’s in the barn; you can just head down

 there.” She lifted each boy and pointed him toward the sink.

 “And you two,” she said, “are going to clean up, and then go

 torture Daddy.”

 I left her washing the twins’ hands and walked down the

 path toward the barn. Having children was not in the cards

 for me—I knew that. A priest’s love for God was so al -

 encompassing that it should erase the human craving for a

 family—my parents, brothers, sisters, and children were al

 Jesus. If the Gospel of Thomas was right, however, and we

 were more like God than unlike Him, then having children

 should have been mandatory for everyone. After al , God

 had a son and had given Him up. Any parent whose child

 had gone to col ege or gotten married or moved away

 would understand this part of God more than me.

 As I approached the barn, I heard the most unholy sounds

 —like cats being dismembered, calves being slaughtered.

 Panicked—was Fletcher hurt?—I threw open the door to

 find him watching a teenage girl play the violin.

 Real y badly.

 She took the violin from her chin and settled it into the slight

 curve of her hip. “I don’t understand why I have to practice in

 the barn.”

 Fletcher removed a pair of foam earplugs. “What was

 that?”

 She rol ed her eyes. “Did you even hear my piece at air?”

 Fletcher paused. “You know I love you, right?” The girl

 nodded.

 “Wel , let’s just say if God was hanging around here today,

 that last bit probably sent Her running for the hil s.”

 Tryouts for band are tomorrow,” she said. “What am I going

 to do!”

 “Switch to the flute?” Fletcher suggested, but he put his arm

 around the girl and hugged her as he spoke. As he turned,

 he noticed me. “Ah.

 You must be Michael Wright.” He shook my hand and

 introduced the girl. “This is my daughter. Faith.”

 Faith shook my hand, too. “Did you hear me play? Am I as

 bad as he says I am?”

 I hesitated, and Fletcher came to my rescue. “Honey, don’t

 put the priest in a position where he’s going to have to lie—

 he’l waste his whole afternoon at confession.” He grinned

 at Faith. “I think it’s your turn to watch the demon twins from

 hel .”

 “No, I remember very clearly that it’s your turn. I was doing it

 al morning while Mom worked.”

 “Ten bucks,” Ian said.

 “Twenty,” Faith countered.

 “Done.” She put her violin back in its case. “Nice to meet

 you,” she said to me, and she slipped out of the barn,

 heading toward the house.

 “You have a beautiful family,” I said to Fletcher.

 He laughed. “Appearances can be deceiving. Spending an

 afternoon with Cain and Abel is a whole new form of birth

 control.”

 “Their names are—”

 “Not real y,” Fletcher said, smiling. “But that’s what I cal

 them when Mariah’s not listening. Come on back to my

 office.”

 He walked me past a generator and a snowblower, two

 abandoned horse stal s, and through a pine door. Inside, to

 my surprise, was a finished room with paneled wal s and

 two stories of bookshelves. “I have to admit,” Fletcher said,

 “I don’t get very many cal s from the Catholic clergy. They

 aren’t quite the prevalent audience for my book.”

 I sat down on a leather wing chair. “I can imagine.”

 “So what’s a nice priest like you doing in the office of a

 rabblerouser like me? Can I expect a blistering

 commentary in the Catholic Advocate with your byline on

 it?”

 “No … this is more of a fact-finding mission.” I thought

 about how much I should admit to Ian Fletcher. The

 confidentiality relationship between a parishioner and a

 priest was as inviolable as the one between a patient and

 his doctor, but was tel ing Fletcher what Shay had said

 breaking a trust if the same words were already in a gospel

 that had been written two thousand years ago? “You used

 to be an atheist,” I said, changing the subject.

 “Yeah.” Fletcher smiled. “I was pretty gifted at it, too, if I do

 say so myself.”

 “What happened?”

 “I met someone who made me question everything I was so

 sure I knew about God.”

 “That,” I said, “is why I’m in the office of a rabblerouser like

 you.”

 “And what better place to learn more about the Gnostic

 gospels,”

 Fletcher said.

 “Exactly.”

 “Wel , then, the first thing is that you shouldn’t cal them that.

 It would be like cal ing someone a spic or a Hebe—the

 label Gnostic was made up by the same people who

 rejected them. In my circles, we cal them noncanonical

 gospels. Gnostic literal y means one who knows—but the

 people who coined the term considered its fol owers know-

 it-al s.”

 “That’s what we pretty much learn in seminary.”

 Fletcher looked at me. “Let me ask you a question. Father

 —in your opinion, what’s the purpose of religion?”

 I laughed. “Wow, thank goodness you picked an easy one.”

 I’m serious …”

 I considered this. “I think religion brings people together

 over a common set of beliefs … and makes them

 understand why they matter.”

 Fletcher nodded, as if this was the answer he’d been

 expecting. “I think it’s there to answer the real y hard

 questions that arise when the world doesn’t work the way

 it’s supposed to—like when your child dies of leukemia, or

 you’re fired after twenty years of hard work. When bad

 things happen to good people, and good things happen to

 bad people.

 The real y interesting thing, to me, is that somehow religion

 stopped being about trying to find honest solutions … and

 started being about ritual. Instead of everyone searching for

 understanding on their own, orthodox religion came along

 and said, ‘Do x, y, and z—and the world wil be a better

 place.’”

 “Wel , Catholicism’s been around for thousands of years,” I

 replied, “so it must be doing something right.”

 “You have to admit, it’s done a lot wrong, too,” Fletcher

 said.

 Anyone who’d had limited religious instruction or a

 thorough col ege education knew about the Catholic Church

 and its role in politics and history—not to mention the

 heresies that had been squelched over the centuries. Even

 sixth graders studied the Inquisition. “It’s a corporation,”

 I said. “And sure, there have been times when it’s been

 staffed badly, with people who think ambition trumps faith.

 But that doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the

 bathwater. No matter how screwed up God’s servants are

 in the Church, His message has managed to get through.”

 Fletcher tilted his head. “What do you know about the birth

 of Christianity?”

 “Did you want me to start with the Holy Ghost visiting Mary,

 or skip ahead to the star in the East…”

 “That’s the birth of Jesus,” Fletcher said. “Two very different

 things.

 Historical y, after Jesus’s death, his fol owers weren’t

 exactly welcomed with open arms. By the second century

 A.D., they were literal y dying for their beliefs. But even

 though they belonged to groups that cal ed themselves

 Christians, the groups weren’t unified, because they were

 an very different from one another. One of these groups

 was the socal ed Gnostics. To them, being Christian was a

 good first step, but to truly reach enlightenment, you had to

 receive secret knowledge, or gnosis. You started with faith,

 but you developed insight—and for these people. Gnostics

 offered a second baptism. Ptolemy cal ed it apolutrosis—

 the same word used when slaves were legal y freed.”

 “So how did people get this secret knowledge?”

 “There’s the rub,” Fletcher said. “Unlike the church, you

 couldn’t be taught it. It had nothing to do with being told

 what to believe, and everything to do with figuring it out on

 your own. You had to reach inside yourself, understand

 human nature and its destiny, and at that moment you’d

 know the secret—that there’s divinity in you, if you’re wil ing

 to look for it. And the path would be different for everyone.”

 “That sounds more Buddhist than Christian.”

 “They cal ed themselves Christians,” Fletcher corrected.

 “But Irenaeus, who was the bishop of Lyons at the time,

 disagreed. He saw three huge differences between

 Orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism.

 In Gnostic texts, the focus wasn’t on sin and repentance, but

 instead on il usion and enlightenment. Unlike in the

 Orthodox Church, you couldn’t be a member simply by

 joining—you had to show evidence of spiritual maturity to

 be accepted. And—this was probably the biggest

 stumbling block for the bishop—Gnostics didn’t think

 Jesus’s resurrection was literal.

 To them, Jesus was never real y human—he just appeared

 in human form. But that was just a technicality to the

 Gnostics, because unlike Orthodox Christians, they didn’t

 see a gap between the human and the divine. To them,

 Jesus wasn’t a one-of-a-kind savior—he was a guide,

 helping you find your individual spiritual potential. And when

 you reached it, you weren’t redeemed by Christ—you

 became a Christ.

 Or in other words: you were equal to Jesus. Equal to God.”

 It was easy to see why, in seminary, this had been taught as

 heresy: the basis of Christianity was that there was only one

 God, and He was so different from man that the only way to

 reach Him was through Jesus. “The biggest heresies are

 the ones that scare the Church to death.”

 “Especial y when the Church is going through its own

 identity crisis,” Fletcher said. “I’m sure you remember how

 Irenaeus decided to unify the Orthodox Christian Church—

 by figuring out who was a true believer, and who was

 faking. Who was speaking the word of God, and who was

 speaking … wel … just words?”

 On a pad in front of him, Fletcher wrote GOD = WORD =

 JESUS, then spun it around so I could see. “Irenaeus came

 up with this little gem. He said that we can’t be divine,

 because Jesus’s life and death were so different from that

 of any man—which became the very begin264

 ning of Orthodox Christianity. What didn’t fit this equation

 became heretical—if you weren’t worshipping the right way,

 you were out. It was sort of the first reality show, if you want

 to think of it that way: who had the purest form of

 Christianity? He condemned the folks who got creative with

 faith, like Marcus and his fol owers, who spoke in

 prophecies and had visions of a feminine divinity clothed in

 the letters of the Greek alphabet. He condemned the

 groups that swore by only one gospel—like the Ebionites,

 who were attached to Matthew; or the Marcionites, who

 studied only Luke. Just as bad were the groups like the

 Gnostics, who had too many texts. Instead, Irenaeus

 decided that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John should be the

 four cornerstone gospels of what to believe—”

 “—because they al had a narrative of Christ’s Passion in

 them…

 which the Church needed, in order for the Eucharist to

 mean something.”

 “Exactly,” Fletcher said. “Then Irenaeus appealed to al

 those people who were trying to decide which Christian

 group was right for them.

 Basical y, he said: ‘We know how hard it is to figure out

 what’s true, and what’s not. So we’re going to make it easy

 for you, and tel you what to believe.’ People who did that

 were true Christians. People who didn’t were not. And the

 things Irenaeus told people to believe became the

 foundation for the Nicene Creed, years later.”

 Every priest knew that what we were taught in seminary had

 a Catholic spin put on it—yet there was an incontrovertible

 truth behind it. I had always believed that the Catholic

 Church was evidence of religious survival of the fittest: the

 truest, most powerful ideas were the ones that had

 prevailed over time. But Fletcher was saying that the most

 powerful ideas had been subjugated… because they

 jeopardized the existence of the Orthodox Church. That the

 reason they’d had to be crushed was because—at one

 point—they’d been as or more popular than Orthodox

 Christianity.

 Or in other words, the reason the Church had survived and

 flour ished was not because its ideas were the most valid,

 but because it had been the world’s first bul y.

 “Then the books of the New Testament were just an

 editorial decision someone once had to make,” I said.

 Fletcher nodded. “But what were those decisions based

 on? The gospels aren’t the word of God. They’re not even

 the apostles’ firsthand accounts of the word of God. They’re

 simply the stories that best supported the creed that the

 Orthodox Church wanted people to fol ow.”

 “But if Irenaeus hadn’t done that,” I argued, “chances are

 there would be no Christianity. Irenaeus united a whole

 mass of fragmented fol owers and their beliefs. When

 you’re in Rome in A.D. 150 and you’re being arrested

 because you confess Christ as your savior, you want to

 make sure that the people beside you aren’t going to turn

 around at the last minute and say they believe something

 different. In fact, it’s stil important today to figure out who’s

 a believer and who’s just a nutcase—read any paper and

 you’l see how anger, prejudice, or ego are al routinely

 passed off as the Word of God, usual y with a bomb

 strapped to it.”

 “Orthodoxy takes the risk away,” Fletcher agreed. “We tel

 you what’s real and what’s not, so you don’t have to worry

 about getting it wrong. The problem is that the minute you

 do it, you start separating people into groups. Some get

 favored, some don’t. Some gospels get picked, others get

 hidden away underground for thousands of years.”

 He looked at me. “Somewhere along the line, organized

 religion stopped being about faith, and started being about

 who had the power to keep that faith.” Fletcher ripped off

 the sheet of paper with Irenaeus’s equation, leaving a clear,

 blank slate beneath. He crumpled the paper, tossed it into

 his trash can. “You said that the purpose of religion was to

 bring people together. But does it, real y? Or does it—

 knowingly, purposeful y, and intentional y—break them

 apart?”

 I took a deep breath. And then I told him everything I knew

 about Shay Bourne.

 

 Lucius

 None of us were getting any sleep, but it wasn’t for lack of

 trying.

 Crowds have their own pH, and the remarkable thing is that

 they can change in an instant. The people who had been

 camping out outside the prison—who were featured in a

 countdown every night on the local news (MR. MESSIAH:

 DAY 23)-had somehow gotten word that Shay had been

 hospitalized for an injury. But now, in addition to the camp

 that was holding a prayer vigil for Shay, there was a very

 vocal group of people who felt that this was a sign, that the

 reason Shay had been hurt so badly was because God

 decided he had it coming to him.

 They got louder, for some reason, after dark. Insults were

 hurled, fights were picked, punches were thrown. Someone

 sent the National Guard down to patrol the perimeter of the

 prison and keep the peace, but no one could shut them up.

 Shay’s supporters would sing gospel to drown out the

 chants of the disbelievers (“Jesus lives! Bourne dies!”).

 Even with headphones on, I could stil hear them, a

 headache that wouldn’t go away.

 Watching the eleven o’clock news that night was surreal. To

 see the prison and hear the resonant shouts of the mob

 outside echoing the broadcast on my television-wel , it was

 like deja vu, except it was happening now.

 

 There’s only one God, people shouted.

 

 They carried signs: JESUS IS MY HOMEBOY-NOT

 SATAN.

 LET HIM DIE FOR HIS SINS.

 NO CROWN OF THORNS FOR SHAY BOURNE.

 They were separated from the Shay loyalists by armed

 guards toting guns, who walked the fault line of public

 opinion between them.

 “As you can see,” the reporter said, “sentiment in support of

 Shay Bourne and his unprecedented case to donate his

 heart is waning in the wake of his hospitalization. A recent

 pol done by WNRK news shows only thirty-four percent of

 New Hampshire residents stil convinced that the courts

 should al ow Bourne to be an organ donor; and even less

 than that—sixteen percent—agree that his miracles are

 divinely inspired. Which means that an overwhelming

 eighty-four percent of the state agrees with Reverend

 Arbogath Justus, who’s joining us again this evening.

 Reverend, you and the members of your church have been

 here for nearly a week now and have been instrumental in

 turning the tide of public opinion. What’s your take on the

 Bourne hospitalization?”

 The Reverend Justus was stil wearing that green suit.

 “Ninety-nine percent of the state thinks you should burn that

 outfit,” I said out loud.

 “Janice,” the reverend replied, “we at the Drive-ln Church of

 Christ in God have of course been praying for Shay

 Bourne’s speedy and ful recovery in the wake of the prison

 attack. However, when we pray, we pray to the one and only

 Lord: Jesus Christ.”

 “Is there any message you have for those who stil don’t

 agree with you?”

 “Why, yes.” He leaned closer to the camera. “I told you so.”

 The reporter took back the microphone. “We’ve been told

 that Bourne wil be released from the hospital in the next

 few hours, but doctors haven’t commented on his condition

 … ” Suddenly, a roar went up from both sides of the crowd,

 and the reporter covered her earpiece with one hand. “This

 is unconfirmed,” she said over the din, “but apparently an

 ambulance has just driven into the rear entrance of the

 prison …”

 On the screen, the camera swung past her to catch a man

 decking a woman in a purple caftan. The armed guards

 stepped in, but by then other fights had broken out between

 the camps. The line separating the two bled, until the

 the camps. The line separating the two bled, until the

 guards had to cal in reinforcements. The cameras

 captured a teenager being trampled, a man being

 smacked in the head by the butt of a guard’s rifle and

 col apsing.

 “Lights-out,” a CO said over the loudspeaker. Lights-out

 never real y meant lights-out—there was always some

 residual bulb shining somewhere in the prison. But I pul ed

 off my headphones, lay down on my bunk—and listened to

 the riot going on outside the brick wal s of the prison.

 This is what it always comes down to, I realized. There are

 the ones who believe, and the ones who don’t, and caught

 in the space between them are guns.

 Apparently, I wasn’t the only one being disturbed. Batman

 the Robin began to squawk, in spite of Cal oway’s efforts to

 hush him.

 “Shut that freaking bird up already!” Texas yel ed.

 “You shut up,” Cal oway said. “Fucking Bourne. Wish he’d

 never come onto this fucking tier.”

 As if he’d been summoned, the door to I-tier opened, and in

 the halflight, Shay moved toward his cel , escorted by a

 flock of six officers. He had a bandage on his face, and two

 black eyes. Part of his scalp had been shaved. He did not

 look at any of us as he passed. “Hey,” I murmured as he

 walked by my cel , but Shay didn’t respond. He moved like

 a zombie, like someone in a sci-fi film whose frontal lobe

 has been removed by the mad scientist.

 Five of the officers left. The sixth stood outside Shay’s cel

 door, his own personal security guard. The presence of the

 CO prevented me from talking to Shay. In fact, the

 presence of the CO prevented any of us from talking,

 period.

 I guess we were al so focused on his return that it took us

 several moments to realize that the quiet wasn’t just a lack

 of conversation. Batman the Robin had fal en asleep in

 Cal oway’s breast pocket. And outside, that din—that god-

 awful din—had gone spectacularly, blissful y silent.

 Maggie

 America was founded on religious freedom, on the

 separation of church and state, and yet I wil be the first to

 tel you that we’re not much better off than those Puritans

 were in the 1770s over in England. Religion and politics get

 into bed with each other al the time: the first thing we do in

 a courtroom is swear on a Bible; public school classes

 begin with the Pledge of Al egiance, which declares us one

 nation under God; even our currency is stamped with the

 words In God We Trust. You’d think that of al people, a

 lawyer like me from the ACLU would be violently opposed

 to this on principle, but no. I had spent thirty minutes in the

 shower and another twenty driving downtown to the federal

 courthouse trying to figure out the best way to drag religion

 smack into the middle of a courtroom.

 I was just determined to do it without offending the personal

 beliefs of the judge.

 In the parking lot, I cal ed the ChutZpah and reached my

 mother on the first try.

 “What kind of name is Haig?”

 “You mean like the general?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Sounds German, maybe,” she mused. “I don’t know. Why?”

 “I was talking religious affiliation.”

 “Is that what you think I do?” my mother said. “Judge people

 on their last names?”

 “Does everything have to be an accusation? I just need to

 know before I go into chambers, so that I can tailor what I

 say to the justice sitting on the case.”

 “I thought the whole point of being a judge was being

 impartial.”

 “Right. Just like the whole point of being crowned Miss

 America is to promote world peace.”

 “I can’t remember if Alexander Haig is Jewish. I know your

 father liked him because he supported Israel …”

 “Wel , even if he is, that doesn’t mean that my judge is. Haig

 isn’t quite as easy to figure out as someone named

 O’Mal ey or Hershkowitz.”

 “Your father once dated a Jewish girl named Barbara

 O’Mal ey, for your information,” my mother said.

 “Hopeful y before he married you …”

 “Very funny. I’m just saying that your theory isn’t airtight.”

 “Wel , you don’t meet many Jewish O’Mal eys.”

 My mother hesitated. “I think her grandparents had their

 surname legal y changed from Meyer.”

 I rol ed my eyes. “I’ve got to go. No matter what his religion

 is, no judge likes a lawyer who’s late.”

 I had received a cal from my secretary when I was meeting

 with Warden Coyne about Shay’s protection in the prison—

 Judge Haig wanted to see counsel in federal court the very

 next morning, a mere four days after I’d filed my complaint

 there. I should have realized things were going to move

 blisteringly fast. Shay already had an execution date

 scheduled, so the court had put us on an expedited trial

 calendar.

 As I turned the corner, I saw the AAG from the appel ate

 division, Gordon Greenleaf, already waiting. I nodded at

 him, and then felt my cel phone vibrating in my purse with a

 text message.

 GOOGLED HAIG-ROM CATI1. XO MOM

 I snapped the phone shut as the clerk arrived to lead us into

 Judge Haig’s chambers.

 The judge had thinning gray hair and a distance-runner’s

 body. I peered at the col ar of his shirt, but he was wearing

 a tie: for al I knew, he might be wearing a crucifix, a star of

 David, or even a rope of garlic to ward off vampires. “Al

 right, boys and girls,” he said, “who can tel us why we’re

 here today?”

 “Your Honor,” I answered, “I’m suing the commissioner of

 corrections of the State of New Hampshire on behalf of my

 client, Shay Bourne.”

 “Yes, thank you, Ms. Bloom, I already breathlessly read your

 complaint from cover to cover. What I meant was that Mr.

 Bourne’s impending execution is already a zoo. Why is the

 ACLU turning it into a bigger one?”

 Gordon Greenleaf cleared his throat. He had always

 reminded me of Bozo the Clown, with his tufted red hair

 and al ergies that left his nose red more often than not.

 “He’s a death row inmate trying to delay the inevitable, Your

 Honor.”

 “He’s not trying to delay anything,” I argued. “He’s just trying

 to make amends for his sins, and he believes this is the

 way he needs to die in order to reach salvation. He’d be the

 first to tel you you can execute him tomorrow, as long as

 it’s by hanging.”

 “This is 2008, Ms. Bloom. We execute people by lethal

 injection.

 We’re not going back to a more archaic form of execution,”

 Judge Haig said.

 I nodded. “But, Judge, with al due respect, if the

 Department of Corrections finds lethal injection impractical,

 the sentence may be carried out by hanging.”

 “The Department of Corrections doesn’t have a problem

 with lethal injection!” Greenleaf said.

 “It does when Mr. Bournes First Amendment rights are

 being violated.

 He has the right to practice his religious beliefs, even in a

 prison setting—up to and including during the moment of

 his execution.”

 “What are you talking about?” Greenleaf exploded. “No

 religion insists on organ donation. Just because one

 individual gets some crazy set of rules into his head to live

 —or die—by, that doesn’t qualify it as a religious belief.”

 

 “Gee, Gordon,” I said. “Who died and left you God?”

 “Counselors, back to your corners,” Judge Haig said. He

 pursed his lips, deep in thought. “There are some factual

 issues here that need to be fleshed out,” he began, “but the

 first of these is, Mr. Greenleaf, whether the state wil agree

 to hang Mr. Bourne in lieu of giving him a lethal injection.”

 “Absolutely not, Judge. Preparations are already in place

 for the method of execution that was specified at his

 sentencing.”

 Judge Haig nodded. “Then we’l set this down for trial.

 Given the very real deadline we’re working under, it wil be

 an expedited hearing.

 We’re going to pretend that there’s no such thing as federal

 discovery; we’re going to pretend that there’s no such thing

 as summary judgment motions—we don’t have time for

 them. Instead, I want witness lists on my desk in a week,

 and I want you prepared to go straight to trial in two weeks.”

 Gordon and I gathered our belongings and stepped outside

 chambers.

 “Do you have any idea how much money the taxpayers of

 New Hampshire have spent on that death chamber?”

 “Take it up with the governor, Gordon,” I said. “If the rich

 towns in New Hampshire have to pay for public education,

 maybe the poor towns can cough up the funds for future

 death row inmates.”

 He folded his arms. “What’s the ACLU’s game here,

 Maggie? You can’t get the death penalty declared

 unconstitutional, so you use religion as a fal back position?”

 I smiled at him. “You do if it helps you get the death penalty

 declared unconstitutional. See you in two weeks, Gordon,” I

 said, and I walked off, leaving him staring after me.

 Three times, I picked up the phone and dialed. Three times,

 I hung up just as the line connected.

 I couldn’t do this.

 But I had to. I had two weeks to get the facts; and if I was

 going to fight on Shay’s behalf to donate his heart, I needed

 to understand exactly how this was going to work—and be

 able to explain that in court.

 When the hospital switchboard connected, I asked to

 speak to Dr.

 Gal agher’s office. I left my name and number with a

 secretary, ful y anticipating the fact that it would take some

 time before he returned my cal , during which I might

 actual y develop the courage to speak to him. So when the

 phone rang almost as soon as I put down the receiver, I

 was shocked to hear his voice. “Ms. Bloom,” he said. “What

 can I do for you?”

 “You weren’t supposed to cal back this fast,” I blurted out.

 “Ah, I’m sorry. I real y should be less punctual with my

 patients.”

 “I’m not your patient.”

 “Right. You were only masquerading as one.” He was silent,

 and then said, “I believe you cal ed me?”

 “Yes. Yes, I did. I was wondering if you might be wil ing to

 meet with me—professional y, of course—”

 “Of course.”

 “—to talk about hanging and organ donation.”

 “If only I had a dime for every time I’ve been asked to do

 that,” Dr.

 Gal agher said. “I’d be delighted to meet with you.

 Professional y, of course.”

 “Of course,” I said, deflated. “The catch is, I have to meet

 you fairly soon. My client’s trial starts in two weeks.”

 “Wel , then, Ms. Bloom, I’l pick you up at seven.”

 “Oh—you don’t have to do that. I can meet you at the

 hospital.”

 “Yes, but I real y prefer to not eat the cafeteria Jel -O on my

 days off.”

 “It’s your day off?” He cal ed me back on his day off? “Wel ,

 we can do it some other time …”

 “Didn’t you just tel me this was something that needed to

 be done quickly?”

 “Wel ,” I said. “Yeah.”

 “Then seven o’clock it is.”

 “Excel ent,” I said in my finest courtroom voice. “I look

 forward to it.”

 “Ms. Bloom.”

 “Yes?”

 I held my breath, waiting for him to lay down the parameters

 of this meeting. Do not expect this to be any more than it is

 on the surface: two professionals doing business. Do not

 forget that you could have asked any number of doctors,

 even ones who don’t have eyes the color of a moonless

 night and an accent that tugs like a fishing hook. Do not

 delude yourself into pretending this is a real date.

 “I don’t know where you live.”

 Whoever said that black makes you look thinner obviously

 did not have the same clothes that were hanging in my

 closet. First I tried on my favorite black pants, which were

 no longer my favorite because they only buttoned if I

 stopped breathing and didn’t intend to sit at al during the

 meal. The black turtleneck that stil had tags on it made me

 look like I had a double chin, and the black crochet shrug

 that had looked so cute in the catalog showed every inch of

 bra rol . Red, I thought. I’l be bold and make a statement. I

 tried on a crimson silk camisole, but the only statement I

 seemed to be sending was Frederick’s of Hol ywood. I

 sifted through wraps and cardigans and shel s and blazers,

 A-line skirts and pleated ones and cocktail dresses,

 tossing them off one by one onto the floor as Oliver hopped

 away in vain, trying not to get trapped underneath.

 I tried on every single pair of trousers in my possession and

 decided that my ass was wel on its way to being declared

 one of Saturn’s moons. Then I marched myself to the

 bathroom mirror. “Here’s the thing,” I said to myself. “You

 don’t have to look like Jennifer Aniston to discuss the best

 way to execute someone.”

 Although, I imagined, it probably helped.

 Final y I decided on my favorite pair of jeans, and a flowing

 pale green tunic that I’d found for five dol ars at an Asian

 boutique, so I always felt good about wearing it, even when

 I didn’t look perfect. I twisted my hair up and stabbed it with

 a hair stick, hoping it looked artful and Grecian instead of

 just messy and out of time.

 At exactly seven, the doorbel rang. I took one last look at

 myself in the mirror—the outfit clearly said casual, together,

 not trying too hard—and opened the door to find Dr.

 Gal agher wearing a coat and tie.

 “I can change,” I said quickly. “I didn’t know we were going

 somewhere nice. Not that I wouldn’t expect you to take me

 somewhere nice.

 Or that you’re taking me. I mean, I’m taking myself. And

 you’re taking you. We’re just going in the same car.”

 “You look lovely,” he said. “This is how I dress al the time.”

 “On your day off?”

 “Wel , I am British,” he replied, an explanation; but he

 hooked his finger in his col ar and slipped the tie from his

 shirt. He draped it over the inside knob of the front door.

 “When I was in col ege and someone did that it meant—” I

 broke off, remembering what it did mean: don’t enter,

 because your roommate is getting lucky. “It meant that, um,

 you were busy studying for a test.”

 “Real y?” Dr. Gal agher said. “How strange. At Oxford it

 meant your roommate was inside having sex.”

 “Maybe we should go,” I said quickly, hoping he didn’t

 notice that I was blushing fiercely, or that I lived alone with a

 rabbit, or that my hips were so big that they probably

 wouldn’t fit into the seat of the little sports car he’d parked

 in my driveway.

 He opened the car door for me and didn’t turn the ignition

 until my seat belt was fastened. As he sped off, he cleared

 his throat. “There’s something I’d like to get out of the way

 before we go any further,” he said. “I’m Christian.”

 I stared at him. Was he some kind of fundamentalist who

 limited his extracurricular conversations to people of the

 same faith? Did he think that I harbored some secret desire

 to elope, and was he giving me the lay Wel , whatever. I’d

 been eating, sleeping, breathing religion with Shay’s case; I

 was even more sensitive now about religious tolerance

 than I’d been before I took up this mantle. And if religion

 was so vital y important to Gal agher that he had to bring it

 up as the first point of conversation, I could give as good as

 I got. “I’m an atheist,” I said, “but you might as wel know

 right now that my father’s a rabbi, and if you have a problem

 with that I’m sure I can find another physician to talk to me,

 and I’d real y appreciate it if you didn’t make a joke right

 now about Jewish doctors.”

 I exhaled.

 “Wel ,” he said, and glanced at me. “Perhaps you’d rather

 cal me Chris?”

 I was pretty sure Emily Post wouldn’t have covered this

 topic, but it seemed more discreet to wait until after we

 were served our main course to start talking about how to

 kil a man.

 The restaurant was inside an old colonial home in Orford,

 with floorboards that rol ed like the seas beneath my feet

 and a bustling kitchen off to one side. The hostess had a

 husky, mel ifluous voice and greeted the doctor by name.

 Christian.

 The room we were sitting in had only six tables, covered

 with mismatched linen and dishes and glasses; candles

 burned in recycled wine bottles. On the wal were mirrors in

 every shape and size—my own personal version of the

 ninth circle of hel —but I hardly even noticed them.

 Instead, I drank water and wine and pretended that I did not

 want to spoil my appetite by eating the freshly baked bread

 they’d served us along with dipping oil—or by talking about

 Shay’s execution.

 Christian smiled at me. “I’ve always imagined one day I’d

 be forced to consider how one went about losing one’s

 heart, but I must admit, I didn’t think it would be quite so

 literal.”

 The waiter arrived with our plates. The menu had been ful

 of the most delectable cuisine: Vietnamese bouil abaisse,

 escargot tortel ini, chorizo dumplings. Even the descriptions

 of the entrees made me salivate: Handmade to order, fresh

 Italian parsley pasta fil ed with fresh artichoke hearts,

 roasted eggplant, a medley of cheeses, and sweet roasted

 red and yel ow pepper, tossed with a sun-dried tomato

 cream sauce. Slices of boneless chicken lined with thin

 slices of prosciutto fil ed with fresh spinach, Asiago

 cheese, and sweet onion rol ed and served with fresh

 fettuccine and a tomato marsala wine reduction. Boneless

 breast of duck roasted, thinly sliced, served with a sun-

 dried cherry sauce and a wild rice pancake.

 In the wild hope that I might fool Christian into thinking my

 waist size was not what it seemed to be, I’d swal owed hard

 and ordered an appetizer.

 I’d fervently wished that Christian would order the braised

 leg of lamb or the steak frites so that I could beg a taste, but

 when I explained I wasn’t al that hungry (a colossal lie), he

 said an appetizer was al he real y wanted, too.

 “From what I imagine,” Christian said, “the inmate would be

 hanged in such a way that the spine would be fractured at

 C2/C3, which would arrest al spontaneous respiration.”

 I was trying very hard to fol ow along. “You mean he’d break

 his neck and stop breathing?”

 “Right.”

 “So then he’s braindead?”

 A couple at the next table glanced at me, and I realized I’d

 been talking too loudly. That some people didn’t like to mix

 death with dinner.

 “Wel , not quite. It takes some time for anoxic changes to

 the brain to result in a loss of reflexes … which is how you

 test for brain-stem function.

 The problem is that you can’t leave your man hanging for a

 great period of time, or his heart wil stop, and that

 disqualifies him as a donor.”

 “So what has to happen?”

 “The state needs to agree that the fact that respiration’s

 ceased is enough to justify taking the body down from the

 noose on likely suspi cion of death, then intubate him so

 that the heart is protected, and then test for brain death.”

 “Intubating him isn’t the same as resuscitating him, then?”

 “No. It’s the equivalent of someone braindead being on a

 ventilator.

 It preserves the organs, but there won’t be any brain

 function once that spinal cord is severed and hypoxia sets

 in, no matter how much oxygen you pump into his system.”

 I nodded. “So how do you determine brain death?”

 “There are multiple ways. You can do a physical exam first

 —check to make sure there are no corneal reflexes, no

 spontaneous respirations, no gag reflex—and then repeat it

 twelve hours later. But since time is of the essence, I’d

 recommend a transcranial Doppler test, which uses

 ultrasound to measure blood flow through the carotid

 arteries at the base of the brain. If there’s no blood flow for

 ten minutes, you can legal y declare brain death.”

 I imagined Shay Bourne—who could barely string together

 a coherent sentence, who bit his fingernails to the quick—

 being led to a gal ows.

 I pictured the noose being drawn tight around his neck and

 felt the hair stand up on the back of my own.

 “It’s brutal,” I said softly, and put down my fork.

 Christian was quiet for a moment. “I was a resident in

 Philadelphia the first time I had to tel a mother her child had

 died. He was the victim of a gang shooting—eight years

 old. He’d gone to the corner store to get a quart of milk, and

 was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wil never forget

 the look in her eyes when I told her we weren’t able to save

 her son. When a child is kil ed, two people die, I think. The

 only difference is that his mother stil had to suffer a

 heartbeat.” He looked up at me. “It wil be brutal for Mr.

 Bourne. But it was brutal for June Nealon first.”

 I sat back in my chair. This, then, was the catch. You meet a

 wel educated, intensely gorgeous, charming Oxford-

 educated man, and he turns out to be so right-wing he’s

 nearly pointed backward. “Then you’re in favor of capital

 punishment?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

 “I think it’s easy to take the moral high road when it’s al

 theory,”

 Christian said. “As a physician, do I think it’s right to kil

 someone? No.

 But then again, I don’t have children yet. And I’d be lying if I

 said that when I do, this issue wil stil seem crystal clear to

 me.”

 I didn’t have children yet, either; at the rate I was going, I

 might never have them. And the only time I’d seen June

 Nealon, face-to-face, we’d been at the restorative justice

 meeting and she had been so fil ed with righteous anger

 that I found it hard to look at her. I didn’t know what it felt like to carry a child underneath my heart for nine months, to feel

 my body give way to make room for hers. I didn’t know what

 it felt like to hold an infant and rock her to sleep, to find a

 lul aby in her breathing. But I knew what it was like to be the

 daughter.

 My mother and I hadn’t always argued. I could stil

 remember wishing that I was as glamorous as she was—

 trying on her highheeled shoes, pul ing her sheer satin slips

 up to my armpits as if they were strapless dresses, diving

 into the wondrous mystery of her makeup bag. She had, at

 one point, been the person I wanted to grow up to be.

 It was so damn hard to find love in this world, to locate

 someone who could make you feel that there was a reason

 you’d been put on this earth. A child, I imagined, was the

 purest form of that. A child was the love you didn’t have to

 look for, didn’t have to prove anything to, didn’t have to

 worry about losing.

 Which is why, when it happened, it hurt so badly.

 Suddenly, I wanted to cal my mother. I wanted to cal June

 Nealon. I was on my first date since the dinosaurs had

 roamed the planet, a date that was real y just a business

 dinner, and I felt like bursting into tears.

 “Maggie?” Christian leaned forward. “Are you al right?”

 And then he put his hand on top of mine.

 Arrest al spontaneous respiration, he had said.

 

 The waiter appeared at the side of the table. “I hope you’ve

 left room for dessert.”

 I had nothing but room; my appetizer had been a crab cake

 the size of my thumbnail. But I could feel the warmth of

 Christian’s skin on mine, and it was like heat at the tip of a

 candle—only a matter of time before the rest of me melted,

 too. “Oh, I couldn’t,” I said. “I’m stuffed.”

 “Right,” Christian said, and he slipped his hand away from

 mine. “I guess just the bil , then.”

 Something had changed in his features—and there was a

 chil to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before.

 “What’s the matter?” I asked. He shook his head,

 dismissive, but I knew what it was: the death penalty “You

 think I’m on the wrong side.”

 “I don’t think there are sides,” Christian said, “but that’s not

 it.”

 “Then what did I do wrong?”

 The waiter sidled over with the bil , tucked into a leather

 folder.

 Christian reached for it. “My last steady girlfriend was a

 principal dancer for the Boston Bal et.”

 “Oh,” I said feebly. “She must have been …” Beautiful.

 Graceful. Skinny.

 Everything I wasn’t.

 “Every time we went out for a meal I felt like some sort of…

 glutton… because I had an appetite, and she never ate a

 damn thing. I suppose I thought—wel , hoped—that you’d

 be different.”

 “But I love chocolate,” I blurted out. “And apple fritters and

 pumpkin pie and mousse and tiramisu and I probably would

 have eaten everything on this menu if I didn’t think it would

 make me look like a pig. I was trying to be …” My voice

 trailed off.

 “… what you thought I was looking for?”

 I focused my attention on the napkin on my lap. Leave it to

 me to ruin a date that wasn’t even real y one.

 “What if al I was looking for,” Christian asked, “was you?”

 I lifted my head slowly as Christian summoned back our

 waiter. “Tel us about dessert,” he said.

 “We have a creme brulee, a fresh blueberry tart, warm

 peach puff pastries with homemade ice cream and

 caramel sauce, and my personal favorite,” the waiter said.

 “Chocolate French toast with a thin pecan crust, served with

 mint ice cream, and our own raspberry sauce.”

 “What shal we try?” Christian asked.

 I turned to the waiter. “Maybe we could skip back to the

 main course first,” I said, and smiled.

 

 ‘This is my simple religion.

 There is no need for temples;

 no need for complicated philosophy.

 Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;

 the philosophy is kindness.”

 -HIS HOLINESS THE 14TH DALAI LAMA

 

 June

 As it turned out, in spite of the deathbed promises, I didn’t

 tel Claire about her potential new heart when she first

 awakened after the episode that had brought us back to

 this hospital. Instead, I made a hundred excuses: When she

 wasn’t running a temperature.

 When she had a little more energy. When we knew for sure

 that a judge was going to al ow the donation to happen. The

 longer I put off the conversation, the more I was able to

 convince myself that Claire would have another hour, day,

 week with me in which to have it.

 And in the meantime, Claire was failing. Not just her body,

 but her spirit. Dr. Wu told me every day that she was stable,

 but I saw changes. She didn’t want me to read from Teen

 People. She didn’t want to watch television. She lay on her

 side, staring at a blank wal .

 “Claire,” I said one afternoon, “want to play cards?”

 “No.”

 “How about Scrabble.”

 “No thanks.” She turned away. “I’m tired.”

 I smoothed her hair back from her face. “I know, baby.”

 “No,” she said. “I mean I’m tired, Mom. I don’t want to do

 this anymore.”

 “Wel , we can take a walk—I mean, I can take a walk and

 push you in a wheelchair. You don’t have to stay in bed—”

 “I’m going to die in here. You and I both know it. Why can’t I

 just go home and do it there, instead of hooked up to al of

 this stuff?”

 I stared at her. Where was the child in that sentence, the

 one who had believed in fairies and ghosts and al sorts of

 impossible things? But we’re so close to fixing that, I

 started to say, and then I realized that if I did, I would have

 to tel her about the heart that might or might not be coming.

 And whose it was.

 “I want to sleep in my own bed,” Claire said, “instead of one

 with stupid plastic sheets and a pil ow that crackles every

 time I move my head. I want to eat meat loaf, instead of

 chicken soup in a blue plastic cup and Jel -O—”

 “You hate when I serve meat loaf.”

 “I know, and I want to get mad at you for cooking it again.”

 She flopped onto her back and looked at me. “I want to

 drink from the orange juice container. I want to throw a

 tennis bal for my dog.”

 I hesitated. “Maybe I can talk to Dr. Wu,” I said. “We can get

 your own sheets and pil ow, I b e t … “

 Something in Claire’s eyes dimmed. “Just forget it,” she

 said, and that was how I realized she’d already begun to

 die, before I had a chance to save her.

 As soon as Claire fel asleep that afternoon, I left her in the

 capable hands of the nursing staff and exited the hospital

 for the first time in a week. I was stunned to see how much

 the world had changed.

 There was a nip in the air that whispered of winter; the trees

 had begun to turn color, sugar maples first, their bright

 heads like torches that would light the rest of the woods on

 fire. My car felt unfamiliar, as if I were driving a rental. And

 most shocking—the road that led past the state prison had

 been rerouted with policemen on traffic detail. I inched

 through the cones, gaping at the crowds that had been

 cordoned off by police tape: SHAY BOURNE

 WILL BURN IN HELL, read one sign. Another banner said

 SATAN IS

 ALIVE AND KICKING ON I-TIER.

 Once, when Claire was tiny, she’d raised the blackout

 shade in her bedroom window when she woke up. At the

 sight of the sunrise, with its outstretched crimson fingers,

 she’d gasped. Did I do that?

 Now, looking at the signs, I had to wonder: Could you

 believe something so fiercely that it actual y happened?

 Could your thoughts change the minds of others?

 Keeping my eyes on the road, I passed the prison gates

 and continued toward my house. But my car had other

 intentions—it turned right, and then left, and into the

 cemetery where Elizabeth and Kurt were buried.

 I parked and started walking to their shared grave. It was

 underneath an ash tree; in the light wind, the leaves

 shimmered like golden coins. I knelt on the grass and

 traced my finger over the lettering on the headstone:

 BELOVED DAUGHTER.

 TREASURED HUSBAND.

 Kurt had bought his plot after we’d been married for a year.

 That’s macabre, I had said, and he had just shrugged it off;

 he saw the business of death and dying every day. Here’s

 the thing, though, he had said. There’s room for you, if you

 want.

 He had not wanted to impose, because he didn’t know if I’d

 want to be buried near my first husband. Even that tiny bit of

 consideration—the fact that he wanted me to choose,

 instead of making an assumption—had made me realize

 why I loved him. I want to be with you, I had told him. I

 wanted to be where my heart was.

 After the murders, I would sleepwalk. I’d find myself the next

 morning in the gardening shed, holding a spade. In the

 garage, with my face pressed against the metal cheek of a

 shovel. In my subconscious, I was making plans to join

 them; it was only when I was awake and alert and felt Claire

 kicking me from within that I realized I had to stay.

 Would she be the next one I’d bury here? And once I did,

 what would keep me from carrying things through to their

 natural conclusion, from putting my family back together in

 one place?

 I lay down for a minute, prone on the grass. I pressed my

 face into the stubbled moss at the edge of the headstone

 and pretended I was cheek-to-cheek with my husband; I felt

 the dandelions twine through my fingers and pretended I

 was holding my daughter’s hand.

 In the elevator of the hospital, the duffel bag started to move

 itself across the floor. I crouched down, unzipped the top of

 it. “Good boy,” I said, and patted the top of Dudley’s head.

 I’d retrieved him from my neighbor, who had been kind

 enough to play foster parent while Claire was sick. Dudley

 had fal en asleep in the car, but now he was alert and

 wondering why I had zipped him into a piece of luggage.

 The doors opened and I hoisted him up, approaching the

 nurse’s desk near Claire’s room. I tried to smile normal y.

 “Everything al right?”

 “She’s been sleeping like a baby.”

 Just then, Dudley barked.

 The nurse’s eyes flew up to mine, and I pretended to

 sneeze.

 “Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “Is that pol en count

 something or what?”

 Before she could respond, I hurried into Claire’s room and

 closed the door behind me. Then I unzipped the bag and

 Dudley shot out like a rocket. He ran a lap around the room,

 nearly knocking over Claire’s IV pole.

 There was a reason dogs weren’t al owed in hospitals, but

 if Claire wanted normal, then she was going to get it. I

 wrapped my arms around Dudley and hoisted him onto

 Claire’s bed, where he sniffed the cotton blanket and

 began to lick her hand.

 Her eyes fluttered open, and when she saw the dog, a

 smile split her face. “He’s not al owed in here,” she

 whispered, burying her hands in the fur at his neck.

 “Are you going to tel on me?”

 Claire pushed herself to a sitting position and let the dog

 crawl into her lap. She scratched behind his ears while he

 tried to chew on the wire that ran from beneath Claire’s

 hospital gown to the heart monitor.

 “We won’t have a lot of time,” I said quickly. “Someone’s

 going to—”

 Just then, a nurse walked in holding a digital thermometer.

 “Rise and shine, missy,” she began, and then she saw the

 dog on the bed. “What is that doing in here?”

 I looked at Claire, and then back at the nurse. “Visiting?” I

 suggested.

 “Mrs. Nealon, not even service dogs are al owed onto this

 ward without a letter from the vet stating that the

 vaccinations are up to date and the stool’s tested negative

 for parasites—”

 “I was just trying to make Claire feel better. He won’t leave

 this room, I swear.”

 “I’l give you five minutes,” the nurse said. “But you have to

 promise you won’t bring him in again before the transplant.”

 Claire, who had a death grip on the dog, glanced up.

 Claire, who had a death grip on the dog, glanced up.

 “Transplant?”

 she repeated. “What transplant?”

 “She was being theoretical,” I said quickly.

 “Dr. Wu doesn’t schedule theoretical transplants,” the nurse

 said.

 Claire blinked at me. “Mom?” There was a thread in her

 voice that had started to unravel.

 The nurse turned on her heel. “I’m counting,” she said, and

 left the room.

 “Is it true?” Claire asked. “There’s a heart for me?”

 “We’re not sure. There’s a catch …”

 “There’s always a catch,” Claire said. “I mean, how many

 hearts have turned out to not be as great as Dr. Wu

 expected?”

 “Wel , this one … it’s not ready for transplant yet. It’s sort of

 stil being used.”

 Claire laughed a little. “What are you planning to do? Kil

 someone?”

 I didn’t answer.

 “Is the donor real y sick, or old? How could she even be a

 donor if she’s sick or old?” Claire asked.

 “Honey,” I said. “We have to wait for the donor to be

 executed.”

 Claire was not stupid. I watched her put together this new

 information with what she’d heard on television. Her hands

 tightened on Dudley. “No way,” she said quietly. “I am not

 taking a heart from the guy who kil ed my father and my

 sister.”

 “He wants to give it to you. He offered.”

 “This is sick,” Claire said. “You’re sick.” She struggled to

 get up, but she was tethered to the bed with tubes and

 wires.

 “Even Dr. Wu said that it’s an amazing match for you and

 your body. I couldn’t just say no.”

 “What about me? Don’t I get to say no?”

 “Claire, baby, you know donors don’t come along every

 day. I had to do it.”

 “Then undo it,” she demanded. “Tel them I don’t want his

 stupid heart.”

 I sank down on the edge of the hospital bed. “It’s just a

 muscle.

 It doesn’t mean you’l be like him.” I paused. “And besides,

 he owes this to us.”

 “He doesn’t owe us anything! Why don’t you get that?” Her

 eyes fil ed with tears. “You can’t tie the score, Mom. You just

 have to start over.”

 Her monitors began to sound an alert; her pulse was rising,

 her heart pumping too hard. Dudley began to bark. “Claire,

 you have to calm down …”

 “This isn’t about him,” Claire said. “This isn’t even about

 me.

 It’s about you. You need to get payment for what happened

 to Elizabeth.

 You need to make him pay for what he did. Where do I fit

 into that?”

 The nurse flew into the room like a great white heron,

 fussing over Claire. “What’s going on in here?” she said,

 checking the connections and tubes and drips.

 “Nothing,” we both said simultaneously.

 The nurse gave me a measured glance. “I highly

 recommend you take that dog away and let Claire get

 some rest.”

 I reached for Dudley and wrestled him back into the duffel

 bag. “Just think about it,” I pleaded.

 Ignoring me, Claire reached into the bag and patted the

 dog.

 “Good-bye,” she whispered.

 M I CHAEL

 I had gone back to St. Catherine’s. I told Father Walter that I

 had not been seeing clearly, and that God had opened my

 eyes to the truth.

 I just neglected to mention that God happened to be sitting

 on I-tier about three miles away from our church, awaiting

 an expedited trial that began this week.

 Each night, I said three consecutive rosaries—penance for

 lying to Father Walter—but I had to be there. I had to do

 something constructive with my time, now that I wasn’t

 spending it with Shay. Since I’d confessed to him at the

 hospital that I’d served on the jury that had convicted him,

 he’d refused to see me.

 There was a part of me that understood his reaction—

 imagine how it would feel to know your confidant had

 betrayed you—but there was another part of me that spent

 hours trying to figure out why divine forgiveness hadn’t

 kicked in yet. Then again, if the Gospel of Thomas was to

 be believed, no matter how much time and space Shay put

 between us, we were never real y separate: mankind and

 divinity were flip sides of the same coin.

 And so, every day at noon, I told Father Walter I was

 meeting a fictional couple at their house to try to guide them

 away from the path of divorce. But instead, I rode my

 Trophy to the prison, burrowed through the crowds, and

 went inside to try to see Shay.

 CO Whitaker was cal ed to escort me to I-tier after I’d

 passed through the metal detectors at the visitor’s booth.

 “Hi, Father. You here to sel Girl Scout cookies?”

 “You know it,” I replied. “Anything exciting happen today?”

 

 “Let’s see. Joey Kunz got a medical visit for diarrhea.”

 “Wow,” I said. “Sorry I missed that.”

 As I suited up in my flak jacket, Whitaker went into I-tier to

 tel Shay I’d come. Again. But no more than five seconds

 had passed before he returned, a sheepish look on his

 face. “Not today. Father,” he said.

 “Sorry.”

 “I’l try again,” I replied, but we both knew that wasn’t

 possible.

 We had run out of time: Shay’s trial began tomorrow.

 I left the prison and walked back to my motorcycle. Al

 modesty aside, I was the closest thing Shay had to a

 disciple; and if that was true, it meant learning from the

 mistakes of history. At Jesus’s crucifixion.

 His fol owers had scattered—except for Mary Magdalene,

 and his mother. So even if Shay didn’t acknowledge me in

 court, I would stil be there. I would bear witness for him.

 For a long time, I sat on my bike in the parking lot, going

 nowhere.

 In fairness, it wasn’t like I wanted to spring this al on

 Maggie a few days before the trial. The truth of the matter

 was that if Shay didn’t want me as his spiritual advisor

 anymore, I had no excuse for not tel ing Maggie that I’d

 been on the jury that convicted him. I’d tried to contact her

 several times over the past week, but she was either out of

 her office, not at home, or not answering her cel . And then,

 out of the blue, she cal ed me. “Get your ass down here,”

 she said. “You have some explaining to do.”

 In twenty minutes, I was sitting in her ACLU office. “I had a

 meeting with Shay today,” Maggie said. “He said you’d lied

 to him.”

 I nodded. “Did he go into detail?”

 “No. He said I deserved to hear it firsthand.” She crossed

 her arms.

 “He also said he didn’t want you testifying on his behalf.”

 “Right,” I mumbled. “I don’t blame him.”

 “Are you real y a priest?”

 I blinked at her. “Of course I am—”

 “Then I don’t care what you’re lying about,” Maggie said.

 “You can unburden your soul after we win Shay’s case.”

 “It’s not that simple …”

 “Yes it is. Father. You are the only character witness we’ve

 got for Shay; you’re credible because you’re wearing that

 col ar. I don’t care if you and Shay had a fight; I don’t care if

 you moonlight as a drag queen; I don’t care if you have

 enough secrets to last a lifetime. It’s don’t ask, don’t tel until

 the trial starts, okay? Al I care about is that you wear that

 col ar, get on the stand, and make Shay sound like a saint.

 If you walk, the whole case goes down the toilet. Is that

 simple enough for you?”

 If Maggie was right—if my testimony was the only thing that

 would help Shay—then how could I tel her something now

 that would ruin the case? A sin of omission could be

 understandable if you were helping someone by holding

 back. I could not give Shay his life back, but I could make

 sure his death was what he wanted.

 Maybe it would be enough for him to forgive me.

 “It’s normal to be a little freaked out about going to court,”

 Maggie said, misreading my silence.

 During my testimony, I was supposed to explain in layman’s

 terms how donating a heart to Claire Nealon was one of

 Shay’s spiritual beliefs.

 Having a priest say this was a stroke of genius on

 Maggie’s part—who wouldn’t believe a member of the

 clergy when it came to religion?

 “You don’t have to be worried about the cross-exam,”

 Maggie continued.

 “You tel the judge that while a Catholic would believe that

 salvation comes solely through Jesus Christ, Shay believes

 organ donation’s necessary for redemption. That’s perfectly

 true, and I can promise you that lightning isn’t going to

 crash through the ceiling when you say it.”

 My head snapped up. “I can’t tel the court that Shay wil find

 Jesus,” I said. “I think he might be Jesus.”

 She blinked. “You think what?”

 The words began to spil out of me, the way I always

 imagined it felt to be speaking in tongues: truths that

 tumbled before you even realized they’d left your mouth. “It

 makes perfect sense. The age, the profession.

 The fact that he’s on death row. The miracles. And the heart

 donation—he’s literal y giving himself away for our sins,

 again. He’s giving the part that matters the least—the body

 —in order to become whole in spirit.”

 “This is way worse than having cold feet,” Maggie

 murmured.

 “You’re crazy.”

 “Maggie, he’s been quoting a gospel that was written two

 hundred years after Christ’s death—a gospel that most

 people don’t even know exists. Word for word.”

 Tve listened to his words, and frankly, they’re unintel igible.

 Do you know what he was doing yesterday when I briefed

 him on his testimony?

 Playing tic-tac-toe. With himself.”

 “You have to read between the lines.”

 “Yeah, right. And I bet when you listen to Britney Spears

 records backward, you hear ‘Sleep with me, I’m not too

 young.’ For God’s sake—no pun intended—you’re a

 Catholic priest. Whatever happened to the Father, Son,

 and Holy Ghost? I don’t remember Shay being part of the

 Trinity.”

 “What about everyone camped outside the prison? Are

 they al crazy, too?”

 “They want Shay to cure their kid’s autism or reverse their

 husband’s Alzheimer’s. They’re in it for themselves,”

 Maggie said. “The only people who think Shay Bourne is

 the Messiah are so desperate that they’d be able to find

 salvation beneath the lid of a two-liter bottle of Pepsi.”

 “Or through a heart transplant?” I countered. “You’ve worked

 up a whole legal theory based on individual religious

 beliefs. So how can you tel me, categorical y, that I’m

 wrong?”

 “Because it’s not a matter of right or wrong. It’s life or death

 —namely. Shay’s. I’d say whatever I had to to win this case

 for him; it’s my job. And it was supposed to be yours, too.

 This isn’t about some revelation; it’s not about who Shay

 might have been or might be in the future. It’s about who he

 is right now: a convicted murderer who’s going to be

 executed unless I can do something about it. It doesn’t

 matter to me if he’s a vagrant or Queen Elizabeth or Jesus

 Christ—it just matters that we win this case for him, so that

 he can die on his own terms. That means that you wil get

 on that damn stand and swear on that Bible—which, for al I

 know, might not even be relevant to you now that you’ve

 found Jesus on I-tier. And if you screw this up for Shay by

 sounding like a nut job when I question you, I wil make your

 life miserable.” By the time Maggie finished, she was red in

 the face and breathless. This old gospel,” she said. “Word

 for word?”

 I nodded.

 “How did you find out about it?”

 “From your father,” I said.

 Maggie’s brows rose. “I’m not putting a priest and a rabbi

 on the stand. The judge wil be waiting for a punch line.”

 I looked up at her. “I have an idea.”

 Maggie

 In the client-attorney conference room outside I-tier, Shay

 climbed on the chair and started talking to flies. “Go left,” he

 urged as he craned his neck toward the air vent. “Come on.

 You can do it.”

 I looked up from my notes for a moment. “Are they pets?”

 “No,” Shay said, stepping down from the chair. His hair was

 matted, but only on the left side, which made him look

 absentminded at best and mental y il at worst. I wondered

 what I could say to convince him to let me brush it before

 we went out in front of the judge tomorrow.

 The flies were circling. “I have a pet rabbit,” I said.

 “Last week, before I was moved to I-tier, I had pets,” Shay

 said, then shook his head. “It wasn’t last week. It was

 yesterday. I can’t remember.”

 “It doesn’t matter—”

 “What’s its name?”

 “Sorry?”

 “The rabbit.”

 “Oliver,” I said, and took out of my pocket what I’d been

 holding for Shay. “I brought you a gift.”

 He smiled at me, his eyes piercing and suddenly focused. “I

 hope it’s a key.”

 “Not quite.” I passed him a Snack Pack butterscotch

 pudding. “I figured you don’t get the good stuff in prison.”

 He opened the foil top, licked it, and then careful y folded it

 into his breast pocket. “Is there butter in it?”

 “I don’t know.”

 “What about Scotch?”

 I smiled. “I truly doubt it.”

 “Too bad.”

 I watched him take the first bite. “Tomorrows going to be a

 big day,”

 I said.

 In the wake of Michael’s crisis of faith, I had contacted the

 witness he recommended—an academic named Ian

 Fletcher whom I vaguely remembered from a television

 show he used to host, where he’d go around debunking the

 claims of people who saw the Virgin Mary in their toast burn

 pattern and things like that. At first, putting him on the stand

 seemed to be a sure way to lose a case—but the guy had a

 PhD from the Princeton Theological Seminary, and there

 had to be some merit in putting a former atheist on the

 stand. If Fletcher could be convinced there was a God—be

 it Jesus, Al ah, Yahweh, Shay, or none of the above—then

 surely any of us could.

 Shay finished his pudding and handed the empty cup back

 to me. “I need the foil, too,” I said. The last thing I wanted

 was to find out a few days from now that Shay had

 fashioned a shank out of the aluminum and hurt himself or

 someone else. He took it out of his pocket meekly and

 handed it back to me. “You do know what’s happening

 tomorrow, right?”

 “Don’t you?”

 “Wel . About the trial,” I began, “al you have to do is sit

 “Wel . About the trial,” I began, “al you have to do is sit

 patiently and listen. A lot of what you’l hear probably won’t

 make sense to you.”

 He looked up. “Are you nervous?”

 I was nervous, al right—and not just because this was a

 high-profile death penalty case that might or might not have

 found a constitutional loophole. I lived in a country where 85

 percent of the residents cal ed themselves Christians and

 about half went regularly to some form of church—religion

 was not about the individual to the average American; it

 was about the community of believers, and my whole case

 was about to turn that on its ear. “Shay,” I said. “You

 understand that we might lose.”

 Shay nodded, dismissive. “Where is she?”

 “Who?”

 ‘The girl. The one who needs the heart.”

 “She’s in the hospital.”

 “Then we have to hurry,” he said.

 I exhaled slowly. “Right. I’d better go get my game face on.”

 I stood up, summoning the CO to let me out of the

 conference room, but Shay’s voice cal ed me back. “Don’t

 forget to say you’re sorry,” he said.

 “To whom?”

 By then, though, Shay was standing on the chair again, his

 attention focused on something else. And as I watched,

 seven flies landed in quick succession on the palm of his

 outstretched hand.

 When I was five, al I wanted was a Christmas tree. My

 friends had them, and the menorah we lit at night paled in

 comparison. My father pointed out that we got eight

 presents, but my friends got even more than that, if you

 added up what was sitting underneath their tree. One cold

 December afternoon, my mother told my father we were

 heading to the movies, and instead, she drove me to the

 mal . We waited in line with little girls who had ribbons in

 their hair and fancy lace dresses, so that I could sit on

 Santa’s lap and tel him I wanted My Pretty Pony. Then, with

 a candy cane fisted in my hand, we walked to the

 decoration display where there were fifteen Christmas

 trees set up—white ones with glass bal s, fake balsam

 ones strung with red beads and bows, one that had Tinker

 Bel at the top and al the Disney characters dotted as

 ornaments, “like this,” my mother said, and right in the

 middle of the department store we lay down at a

 crossroads of the trees and gazed up at the blinking light

 displays. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever

 seen. “I won’t tel Daddy,” I promised, but she said that

 didn’t matter. This wasn’t about another religion, my mother

 explained. These were just the trappings. You could admire

 the wrapping, without ever taking out what was inside the

 box.

 After I left Shay, I sat in my car and cal ed my mother at the

 ChutZpah.

 “Hi,” I said when she answered. “What are you doing?”

 There was a beat of silence. “Maggie? What’s wrong?”

 “Nothing. I felt like cal ing you.”

 “Did something happen? Did you get hurt?”

 “Can’t I cal my mother just because I feel like it?”

 “You can,” she said, “but you don’t.”

 Wel . There was just no arguing with the truth. I took a deep

 breath and forged ahead. “Do you remember the time you

 took me to see Santa?”

 “Please don’t tel me you’re converting. It’l kil your father.”

 “I’m not converting,” I said, and my mother sighed with

 relief. “I just was remembering it, that’s al .”

 “So you cal ed to tel me?”

 “No,” I said. “I cal ed to say I’m sorry.”

 “For what?” My mother laughed. “You haven’t done

 anything.”

 In that moment, I remembered us lying on the floor of the

 department store, gazing at the lit trees, as a security guard

 loomed over us. Just gLve her another jew minutes, my

 mother had begged. June Nealon’s face flashed before

 me. Maybe this was the job of a mother: to buy time for her

 child, no matter what. Even if it meant doing something

 she’d rather not; even if it left her flat on her back.

 “Yes,” I answered. “I know.”

 “Desiring religious freedom is nothing new,” I said, standing

 up in front of Judge Haig at the opening of Shay Bourne’s

 trial. “One of the most famous cases happened more than

 two hundred years ago, and it didn’t take place in our

 country—namely, because there was no country. A group of

 people who dared to hold religious beliefs different from the

 status quo found themselves being forced to adopt the

 policies of the Church of England—and instead, they chose

 to strike off to an unknown place across the ocean. But the

 Puritans liked religious freedom so much they kept it al to

 themselves—often persecuting people who didn’t believe

 what they did. This is precisely why the founders of the new

 nation of the United States decided to put an end to

 religious intolerance by making religious freedom a

 cornerstone of this country”

 This was a nonjury trial, which meant that the only person I

 had to preach to was the judge; but the courtroom was stil

 fil ed. There were reporters there from four networks the

 judge had preapproved, there were victims rights

 advocates, there were death penalty supporters and death

 penalty opponents. The only party present in support of

 Shay—and my first witness—was Father Michael, seated

 just behind the plaintiff’s table.

 Beside me, Shay sat in handcuffs and ankle cuffs, linked to

 a bel y chain. “Thanks to the forefathers who crafted the

 Constitution, everyone in this country has the freedom to

 practice his own religion—even a prisoner on death row in

 New Hampshire. In fact, Congress went so far as to pass a

 law about it. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized

 Persons Act guarantees an inmate the opportunity to

 worship whatever he likes as long as it doesn’t impede the

 safety of others in the prison or affect the running of the

 prison. Yet Shay Bourne’s constitutional right to practice his

 religion has been denied by the State of New Hampshire.”

 I looked up at the judge. “Shay Bourne is not a Muslim, or a

 Wiccan; he’s not a secular humanist or a member of the

 Baha’i faith. In fact, his system of beliefs may not be

 familiar to any common world religion you can name off the

 top of your head. But they are a system of beliefs, and they

 include the fact that—to Shay—salvation depends on being

 able to donate his heart after his execution to the sister of

 his victim … an outcome that’s not possible if the state

 uses lethal injection as a method of execution.”

 I walked forward. “Shay Bourne has been convicted of

 possibly the most heinous crime in the history of this state.

 He has appealed that conviction, and those appeals have

 been denied—yet he is not contesting that decision. He

 knows he is going to die, Your Honor. Al he asks is that,

 again, the laws of this country be upheld—in particular, the

 laws that say anyone has the right to practice their religion,

 wherever, whenever, however. If the state agrees to his

 execution by hanging, and provides for the subsequent

 donation of his organs, the safety of other inmates isn’t

 impeded; the running of the prison isn’t affected—but it

 would offer a very significant personal outcome for Shay

 Bourne: to save a little girl’s life, and in the process, to save

 his own soul.”

 I sat back down and glanced at Shay. He had a legal pad in

 front of him.

 On it, he’d doodled a picture of a pirate with a parrot on his

 shoulder.

 At the defense table, Gordon Greenleaf was seated beside

 the New Hampshire commissioner of corrections, a man

 with both hair and complexion the color of a potato.

 Greenleaf tapped his pencil twice on the desk. “Ms. Bloom

 brought up the founding fathers of this country.

 Thomas Jefferson, in fact, coined a phrase in a letter in

 1789—‘a wal of separation between church and state.’ He

 was explaining the First Amendment—in particular the

 clauses about religion. And his words have been used by

 the Supreme Court many times—in fact, the Lemon test,

 which the high court has used since 1971, says that for a

 law to be constitutional, it must have a secular purpose,

 must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and must not

 result in excessive government entanglement with religion.

 That last part’s an interesting bit—since Ms. Bloom is both

 crediting the forefathers of this nation with the noble

 division of church and state … and yet simultaneously

 asking Your Honor to join them together.”

 He stood up, walking forward. “If you were to take her claim

 seriously,”

 Greenleaf said, “you’d see that what she’s real y asking for

 is a legal y binding sentence to be massaged, because of

 a loophole cal ed religion. What’s next? A convicted drug

 dealer asking that his sentence be overturned because

 heroin helps him reach nirvana? A murderer insisting that

 his cel door face Mecca?” Greenleaf shook his head. “The

 truth is, Judge, this petition has been filed by the ACLU not

 because it’s a valid and troublesome concern—but

 because it wil purposeful y create a three-ring circus during

 the state’s first execution in sixty-nine years.” He waved his

 arm around the crowded gal ery. “And al of you are proof

 that it’s already working.”

 Greenleaf glanced at Shay. “Nobody takes the death

 penalty lightly, least of al the commissioner of corrections

 in the State of New Hampshire.

 The sentence in Shay Bourne’s case was death by lethal

 injection.

 That’s exactly what the state has prepared and intends to

 carry out—with dignity and respect for al parties involved.

 “Let’s look at the facts here. No matter what Ms. Bloom

 says, there is no organized religion that mandates organ

 donation after death as a means of reaching the afterlife.

 According to his records, Shay Bourne was raised in foster

 homes, so he can’t claim that he was reared in one

 religious tradition that fostered organ donation. If he’s

 converted to some religion that is now claiming that organ

 donation is part of its tenets, we submit to this court that it’s

 pure bunk.” Greenleaf spread his hands. “We know you’l

 listen careful y to the testimony, Your Honor, but the reality is

 that the Department of Corrections is not required to submit

 to the whim of every misguided prisoner that comes

 through its doors—especial y one who has committed the

 monstrous torture and murders of two New Hampshire

 citizens, a child and a police officer. Don’t let Ms.

 Bloom and the ACLU take a grave matter and turn it into a

 spectacle.

 Al ow the state to impose the penalty that was set forth by

 the court, in as civilized and professional a manner as

 possible.”

 I glanced at Shay. On his legal pad, he’d added his initials,

 and the logo for the band AC/DC.

 The judge pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at

 me. “Ms.

 Bloom,” he said, “you may cal your first witness.”

 M I C HAEL

 As soon as I was asked to approach the witness stand, I

 locked my gaze on Shay’s. He stared back at me, silent,

 blank. The clerk approached, holding a Bible. “Do you

 swear to tel the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

 truth, so help you God?”

 The leather cover of the book was finely grained and black,

 worn smooth by the palms of thousands who’d recited a

 vow just like this one. I thought of al the times I’d held a

 Bible for comfort, a religious man’s security blanket. I used

 to think it contained al the answers; now I wondered

 whether the right questions had even been asked. So help

 me God, I thought.

 Maggie’s hands were clasped lightly in front of her. “Can

 you state your name and address for the record?”

 “Michael Wright,” I said, clearing my throat. “Thirty-four

 twentytwo High Street, in Concord.”

 “How are you employed?”

 “I’m a priest at St. Catherine’s.”

 “How does one become a priest?” Maggie asked.

 “You go to seminary for a certain number of years, and then

 you become a member of the transitional deaconate …

 learning the ropes under the guidance of a more

 experienced parish priest. Final y, you get ordained.”

 “How long ago did you take your vows. Father?”

 “It’s been two years,” I said.

 I could stil remember the ordainment ceremony, my

 parents watching from the pews, their faces lit as if they had

 stars caught in their throats. I had been so certain, then, of

 my cal ing—of serving Jesus Christ, of who Jesus Christ

 was. Had I been wrong then? Or was it simply that there

 was more than one kind of right?

 “As part of your duties at St. Catherine’s, Father, have you

 been a spiritual advisor for an inmate named Shay

 Bourne?”

 “Yes.”

 “And is Shay here in the courtroom today?”

 “He is.”

 “In fact,” Maggie said, “he’s the plaintiff in this case who

 was sitting beside me at that table, isn’t that correct?”

 “Yes.” I smiled at Shay, who looked down at the table.

 “During the course of your training to become a priest, did

 you speak with parishioners about their religious beliefs?”

 “Of course.”

 “Is it part of your duty as a priest to help others become

 familiar with God?”

 “Yes.”

 “How about deepening their faith in God?”

 “Absolutely.”

 She turned to the judge. “I’m going to offer up Father

 Michael as an expert on spiritual advice and religious

 beliefs. Your Honor.”

 The other attorney shot up. “Objection,” he said. “With al

 due respect, is Father Michael an expert on Jewish

 beliefs? Methodist beliefs?

 Muslim ones?”

 “Sustained,” the judge said. “Father Michael may not testify

 as an expert on religious beliefs outside of the Catholic

 faith, except in his role as a spiritual advisor.”

 I had no idea what that meant, and from the looks on their

 faces, neither did either attorney. “What’s the role of a

 spiritual advisor in the prison?” Maggie asked.

 “You meet with inmates who would like a friend to talk to, or

 a voice to pray with,” I explained. “You offer them

 counseling, direc306

 tion, devotional materials. Basical y, you’re a priest making

 a house cal .”

 “How was it that you were chosen to become a spiritual

 advisor?”

 “St. Catherine’s—my parish—received a request from the

 state prison.”

 “Is Shay Catholic, Father?”

 “One of his foster mothers had him baptized Catholic, so in

 the eyes of the Church, yes, he is. However, he does not

 consider himself a practicing Catholic.”

 “How does that work, then? If you’re a priest and he’s not

 Catholic, how are you able to be his spiritual advisor?”

 “Because my job isn’t to preach to him, but to listen.”

 “When was the first time you met with Shay?” Maggie

 asked.

 “March eighth of this year,” I said. “I’ve seen him once or

 twice a week since then.”

 “At some point, did Shay discuss his desire to donate his

 heart to Claire Nealon, the sister of one of his victims?”

 “It was the very first conversation we had,” I replied.

 “How many times since have you discussed with Shay his

 feelings about this transplant?”

 “Maybe twentyfive, thirty.”

 Maggie nodded. “There are people here today who think

 that Shay’s desire to become an organ donor has

 everything to do with buying himself time, and nothing to do

 with religion. Do you agree with that?”

 “Objection,” the other attorney said. “Speculation.”

 The judge shook his head. Til al ow it.”

 “He’d die today, if you let him donate his heart. It’s not time

 he wants; it’s the chance to be executed in a way that would

 al ow for a transplant.”

 “Let me play devil’s advocate,” Maggie said. “We al know

 donating organs is selfless … but Where’s the link between

 donation and salva tion? Was there something that

 convinced you this wasn’t just altruism on Shay’s part … but

 part of his faith?”

 “Yes,” I said. “When Shay told me what he wanted to do, he

 said it in a very striking way. It almost sounded like a weird

 riddle: ‘If I bring forth what’s inside me, what’s inside me wil

 save me. If I don’t bring forth what’s inside me, what’s

 inside me wil destroy me.’ I found out later that Shay’s

 statement wasn’t original. He was quoting someone pretty

 important.”

 “Who, Father?”

 I looked at the judge. “Jesus Christ.”

 “Nothing further,” Maggie said, and she sat back down

 beside Shay.

 Gordon Greenleaf frowned at me. “Forgive my ignorance.

 Father. Is that from the Old Testament or the New

 Testament?”

 “Neither,” I replied. “It’s from the Gospel of Thomas.”

 This stopped the attorney in his tracks. “Aren’t al gospels

 somewhere in the Bible?”

 “Objection,” Maggie cal ed out. “Father Michael can’t

 respond, because he’s not a religious expert.”

 “You offered him up as one,” Greenleaf said.

 Maggie shrugged. “Then you shouldn’t have objected to it.”

 Til rephrase,” Greenleaf said. “So, Mr. Bourne quoted

 something that is not actual y in the Bible, but you’re

 claiming it’s proof that he’s motivated by religion?”

 “Yes,” I said. “Exactly.”

 “Wel , then, what religion does Shay practice?” Greenleaf

 asked.

 “He doesn’t label it.”

 “You said he’s not a practicing Catholic. Is he a practicing

 Jew, then?”

 “No.”

 “A Muslim?”

 “No.”

 “A Buddhist?”

 “No,” I said.

 “Is Mr. Bourne practicing any type of organized religion that

 the court might be familiar with. Father?”

 I hesitated. “He’s practicing a religion, but it isn’t formal y

 organized.”

 “Like what? Bourneism?”

 “Objection,” Maggie interrupted. “If Shay can’t name it, why

 do we have to?”

 “Sustained,” Judge Haig said.

 “Let me clarify,” Greenleaf said. “Shay Bourne is practicing

 a religion you can’t name, and quoting from a gospel that’s

 not in the Bible … and yet somehow his desire to be an

 organ donor is grounded in the concept of religious

 salvation? Does that not strike you. Father, as the slightest

 bit convenient on Mr. Bourne’s part?”

 He turned, as if he hadn’t real y expected me to give an

 answer, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “Mr.

 Greenleaf,” I said, “there are al sorts of experiences that

 we can’t real y put a name to.”

 “I beg your pardon?”

 The birth of a child, for one. Or the death of a parent. Fal ing

 in love. Words are like nets—we hope they’l cover what we

 mean, but we know they can’t possibly hold that much joy,

 or grief, or wonder. Finding God is like that, too. If it’s

 happened to you, you know what it feels like. But try to

 describe it to someone else—and language only takes you

 so far,” I said. “Yes, it sounds convenient. And yes, he’s the

 only member of his religion. And no, it doesn’t have a

 name. But… I believe him.” I looked at Shay until he met my

 gaze. “I believe.”

 June

 When Claire was awake, which was less and less often, we

 did not talk about the heart that might be coming for her or

 whether or not she’d take it. She didn’t want to; I was afraid

 to. Instead, we talked about things that didn’t matter: who’d

 been voted off her favorite reality TV show; how the Internet

 actual y worked; if I’d reminded Mrs. Wal oughby to feed

 Dudley twice a day instead of three times, because he was

 on a diet. When Claire was asleep, I held her hand and told

 her about the future I dreamed of. I told her that we’d travel

 to Bali and live for a month in a hut perched over the ocean.

 I told her that I would learn to water-ski barefoot while she

 drove the boat, and then we’d swap places. How we would

 climb Mt. Katahdin, get our ears double pierced, learn how

 to make chocolate from scratch. I imagined her swimming

 up from the sandy bottom of unconsciousness, bursting

 through the surface, wading to where I was waiting onshore.

 It was during one of Claire’s afternoon drug-induced

 marathon naps that I began to learn about elephants. That

 morning, when I had gone down to the hospital cafeteria for

 a cup of coffee, I passed the same three retail

 establishments I’d passed every day for the past two weeks

 —a bank, a bookstore, a travel agency. Today, though, for

 the first time, I was magnetical y drawn to a poster in the

 window, EXPERIENCE AFRICA, it said.

 The bored col ege girl staffing the office was talking to her

 boyfriend on the phone when I walked inside, and was

 more than happy to send me on my way with a brochure, in

 lieu of actual y tel ing me about the destination herself.

 “Where were we?” I heard her say as she picked up the

 phone again when I left the office, and then she giggled.

 “With your teeth?”

 Upstairs in Claire’s room, I pored over pictures of rooms

 with beds as wide as the sea, covered with crisp white

 linens and draped with a net of gauze. Of outside showers,

 exposed to the bush, so that you were as naked as the

 animals. Of Land Rovers and African rangers with

 phosphorescent smiles.

 And oh, the animals—sleek leopards, with their Rorschach

 spots; a lioness with eyes like amber; the massive monolith

 of an elephant yanking a tree out of the ground.

 Did you know, the brochure read, that elephants live in a

 society much like ours?

 That they travel in matriarchal packs, and gestatefor 22

 months?

 That they can communicate over a distance of 50 km?

 Come track the amazing elephant in its natural habitat, the

 Tuli Block…

 “What are you reading?” Claire squinted at the brochure,

 her voice groggy.

 “Something on safaris,” I said. “I thought maybe you and I

 might go on one.”

 “I’m not taking that stupid heart,” Claire said, and she rol ed

 on her side, closing her eyes again.

 I would tel Claire about the elephants when she woke up, I

 decided. About a country where mothers and daughters

 walked side by side for years with their aunts and sisters.

 About how elephants were either right-handed or left-

 handed. How they could find their way home years after

 they’d left.

 Here is what I wouldn’t tel Claire, ever: That elephants

 know when they’re close to dying, and they make their way

 to a riverbed for nature to take its course. That elephants

 bury their dead, and grieve. That naturalists have seen a

 mother elephant carry a dead calf for miles, cradled in her

 trunk, unwil ing and unable to let it go.

 Mdggie

 Nobody wanted Ian Fletcher to testify, including me.

 When I’d cal ed an emergency meeting with the judge days

 earlier, asking to add Fletcher to my witness list as an

 expert on the history of religion, I thought Gordon Greenleaf

 would burst a blood vessel in chambers.

 “Hel o?” he said. “Rule 26(c)?”

 He was talking about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,

 which said that witnesses had to be disclosed thirty days

 before a trial, unless otherwise directed by the court. I was

 banking on that last clause.

 “Judge,” I said, “we’ve only had two weeks to prepare for

 this trial—neither of us disclosed any of our witnesses

 within thirty days.”

 “You don’t get to sneak in an expert just because you

 happened to stumble over one,” Greenleaf said.

 Federal court judges were notorious for trying to keep their

 cases on the straight and narrow. If Judge Haig al owed

 Fletcher to testify, it opened up a whole can of worms—

 Greenleaf would need to prepare his cross, and would

 most likely want to hire a counterexpert, which would delay

 the trial … and we al knew that couldn’t happen, since we

 had a deadline in the strictest sense of the word. But—here

 was the crazy thing—Father Michael had been right. Ian

 Fletcher’s book dovetailed so neatly with the hook I was

 using to drag Shay’s case to a victory that it would have

 been a shame not to try. And even better—it provided the

 one element I’d been lacking in this case: a historical

 precedent.

 I had ful y convinced myself that Judge Haig would laugh in

 my face anyway when I tried to include a new witness at the

 last minute, but instead, he looked down at the name.

 “Fletcher,” he said, testing the word in his mouth as if it

 were made of sharp stones. “Ian Fletcher?”

 “Yes, Your Honor.”

 “Is he the one who used to have a television show?”

 I sucked in my breath. “I believe so.”

 “I’l be damned,” the judge said. He said this in a voice that

 wasn’t wish-I-had-his-autograph, but more he-was-like-a-

 train-wreck-I-couldn’tturn-away-from.

 The good news was, I was al owed to bring in my expert

 witness.

 The bad news was that Judge Haig didn’t like him very

 much—and had in the forefront of his mind my witness’s

 former incarnation as an atheist showboat, when I real y

 wanted him to be seen as a grave and credible historian.

 Greenleaf was furious that he’d only had days to figure out

 what tune Fletcher was singing these days; the judge

 regarded him as a curiosity, and me—wel , I was just

 praying that my whole case didn’t selfdestruct in the next

 ten minutes.

 “Before we begin, Ms. Bloom,” the judge said, “I have a few

 questions for Dr. Fletcher.”

 He nodded. “Shoot, Judge.”

 “How does a man who was an atheist a decade ago

 convince a court that he’s an expert on religion now?”

 “Your Honor,” I interjected. “I’m planning on going through

 Dr.

 Fletcher’s credentials …”

 “I didn’t ask you, Ms. Bloom,” he said.

 But Ian Fletcher wasn’t rattled. “You know what they say,

 Your Honor.

 Sinners make the best reformed saints.” He grinned, a slow

 and lazy smile that reminded me of a cat in the sunlight. “I

 guess finding God is like seeing a ghost—you can be a

 skeptic until you come face-to-face with what you said

 doesn’t exist.”

 “So you’re a religious man now?” the judge asked.

 “I’m a spiritual man,” Fletcher corrected. “And I do think

 there’s a dif ference. But being spiritual doesn’t pay the

 rent, which is why I have degrees from Princeton and

 Harvard, three New York Times bestsel ing nonfiction

 books, forty-two published articles on the origins of world

 religions, and positions on six interfaith councils, including

 one that advises the current administration.”

 The judge nodded, making notes; and Greenleaf stipulated

 to the list of Fletcher’s credentials. “I might as wel start with

 where Judge Haig left off,” I said, beginning the direct

 examination. “It’s pretty rare for an atheist to get interested

 in religion. Did you just sort of wake up one day and find

 Jesus?”

 “It’s not like you’re vacuuming under the sofa cushions and

 bingo, there he is. My interest grew more from a historical

 standpoint, because these days, people act like faith grows

 in a vacuum. When you break down religions and look

 political y and economical y and social y at what was going

 on during their births, it changes the way you think.”

 “Dr. Fletcher, do you have to be part of a group to be part of

 a religion?”

 “Not only can religion be individualized—it has been, in the

 past. In 1945, a discovery was made in Egypt: fifty-two texts

 that were labeled gospels—and that weren’t part of the

 Bible. Some of them were ful of sayings that would be

 familiar to anyone who’s gone to Sunday school …

 and some of them, to be honest, were real y bizarre. They

 were scientifical y dated from the second century, roughly

 thirty to eighty years younger than the gospels in the New

 Testament. And they belonged to a group cal ed Gnostic

 Christians—a splinter group from Orthodox Christianity,

 who believed that true religious enlightenment meant

 undertaking a very personal, individual quest to know

 yourself, not by your socioeconomic status or profession,

 but at a deeper core.”

 “Hang on,” I said. “After Jesus’s death, there was more than

 one kind of Christian?”

 “Oh, there were dozens.”

 “And they had their own Bibles?”

 “They had their own gospels,” Fletcher corrected. “The New

 Testament—in particular, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—

 were the ones that the orthodoxy chose to uphold. The

 Gnostic Christians preferred texts like the Gospel of

 Thomas, and the Gospel of Truth, and the Gospel of Mary

 Magdalene.”

 “Did those gospels talk about Jesus, too?”

 “Yes, except the Jesus they describe isn’t the one you’d

 recognize from the Bible. That Jesus is very different from

 the humans he’s come here to save. But the Gospel of

 Thomas—my personal favorite from Nag Hammadi—says

 Jesus is a guide to help you figure out al you have in

 common with God. So if you were a Gnostic Christian, you

 would have expected the road to salvation to be different

 for everyone.”

 “Like donating your heart to someone who needs it… ?”

 “Exactly,” Fletcher said.

 “Wow,” I said, playing dumb. “How come this stuff isn’t

 taught in Sunday school?”

 “Because the Orthodox Christian Church felt threatened by

 the Gnostics. They cal ed their gospels heresy, and the Nag

 Hammadi texts were hidden for two thousand years.”

 “Father Wright said that Shay Bourne quoted from the

 Gospel of Thomas. Do you have any idea where he would

 have stumbled over that text?”

 “Maybe he read my book,” Fletcher said, smiling widely,

 and the people in the gal ery laughed.

 “In your opinion, Doctor, could a religion that only one

 person believes and fol ows stil be valid?”

 “An individual can have a religion,” he said. “He can’t have

 a religious institution. But it seems to me that Shay Bourne

 is standing in a tradition similar to the ones the Gnostic

 Christians did nearly two thousand years ago. He’s not the

 first to say that he can’t name his faith. He’s not the first to

 find a path to salvation that is different from others you’ve

 heard about. And he’s certainly not the first to mistrust the

 body—to literal y want to give it away, as a means to finding

 divinity inside oneself. But just because he doesn’t have a

 church with a white steeple over his head, or a temple with

 a six-pointed star surrounding him, doesn’t mean that his

 beliefs are any less worthy.”

 I beamed at him. Fletcher was easy to listen to, interesting,

 and he didn’t sound like a left-wing nutcase. Or so I thought,

 until I heard Judge Haig exhale heavily and say court was

 recessed until the next day.

 

 Lucius

 I was painting when Shay returned from his first day of trial,

 huddled and withdrawn, as going to court made most of us.

 I’d been working on the portrait al day, and I was quite

 pleased with the way it was turning out. I glanced up when

 Shay was escorted past my cel , but didn’t speak to him.

 Better to let him come back to us on his own time.

 Not twenty minutes afterward, a long, low keen fil ed the tier.

 At first I thought Shay was crying, letting the stress of the

 day bleed from him, but then I realized that the sound was

 coming from Cal oway Reece’s cel .

 “Come on,” he moaned. He started smacking his fists

 against the door of his cel . “Bourne,” he cal ed out.

 “Bourne, I need your help.”

 “Leave me alone,” Shay said.

 “It’s the bird, man. I can’t get him to wake up.”

 The fact that Batman the Robin had survived inside I-tier for

 several weeks on crusts of toast and bits of oatmeal was a

 wonder in its own right, not to mention the fact that he’d

 cheated death once before.

 “Give him CPR,” Joey Kunz suggested.

 “You can’t do fucking CPR on a bird,” Cal oway snapped.

 “They got beaks.”

 I put down the makeshift brush I was using to paint—a

 rol ed wad of toilet paper—and angled my mirror-shank out

 my door so that I could see.

 In his enormous palm, Cal oway cradled the bird, which lay

 on its side, unmoving.

 “Shay,” he begged, “please.”

 There was no response from Shay’s cel . “Fish him to me,” I

 said, and crouched down with my line. I was worried that

 the bird had grown too big to make it through the little slit at

 the bottom, but Cal oway wrapped him in a handkerchief,

 roped the top, and sent the slight weight in a wide arc

 across the floor of the catwalk. I knotted my string with

 Cal oway’s and gently drew the bird toward me.

 I couldn’t resist unwrapping the kerchief to peek. Batman’s

 eyelid was purple and creased, his tail feathers spread like

 a fan. The tiny hooks on the ends of his claws were as

 sharp as pins. When I touched them, the bird did not even

 twitch. I placed my forefinger beneath the wing—did birds

 have hearts where we did?-and felt nothing.

 “Shay,” I said quietly. “I know you’re tired. And I know you’ve

 got your own stuff going on. But please. Just take a look.”

 Five whole minutes passed, long enough for me to give up.

 I wrapped the bird in the cloth again and tied him to the end

 of my fishing line, cast him onto the catwalk for Cal oway to

 retrieve. But before his line could tangle with mine, another

 whizzed out, and Shay intercepted the bird.

 In my mirror, I watched Shay take Batman from the kerchief,

 hold him in his hand. He stroked the head with his finger; he

 gingerly covered the body with his other hand, as if he had

 caught a star between his palms. I held my breath, watching

 for that flutter or feather or the faintest cheep, but after a few

 moments Shay just wrapped the bird up again.

 “Hey!” Cal oway had been watching, too. “You didn’t do

 anything!”

 “Leave me alone,” Shay repeated. The air had gone bitter

 as almonds; I could barely stand to breathe it. I watched him

 fish back that dead bird, and al of our hopes along with it.

 Maggie

 When Gordon Greenleaf stood up, his knees creaked.

 “You’ve studied comparative world religions in the course

 of your research?” he asked Fletcher.

 “Yes.”

 “Do different religions take a stand on organ donation?”

 “Yes,” Fletcher said. “Catholics believe only in transplants

 done after death—you can’t risk kil ing the donor, for

 example, during the donation.

 They ful y support organ donation, as do Jews and Muslims.

 Buddhists and Hindus believe organ donation is a matter of

 individual conscience, and they put high value on acts of

 compassion.”

 “Do any of those religions require you to donate organs as

 a means to salvation?”

 “No,” Fletcher said.

 “Are there Gnostic Christians practicing today?”

 “No,” Fletcher said. “The religion died out.”

 “How come?”

 “When you have a belief system that says you shouldn’t

 listen to the clergy, and that you should continual y ask

 questions, instead of accepting doctrine, it’s hard to form a

 community. On the other hand, the Orthodox Christians

 were delineating the steps to being cardcarrying members

 of the group—confess the creed, accept baptism, worship,

 obey the priests. Plus, their Jesus was someone the

 average Joe could relate to—someone who’d been born,

 had an overprotective mom, suffered, and died. That was a

 much easier sel than the Gnostic Jesus—who was never

 even human. The rest of the Gnostics’ decline,” Fletcher

 said, “was political. In A.D. 312, Constantine, the Roman

 emperor, saw a crucifix in the sky and converted to

 Christianity. The Catholic Church became part of the Holy

 Roman Empire … and having Gnostic texts and beliefs

 were punishable by death.”

 “So, it’s fair to say no one’s practiced Gnostic Christianity

 for fifteen hundred years?” Greenleaf said.

 “Not formal y. But there are elements of Gnostic belief in

 other religions that have survived. For example, Gnostics

 recognized the difference between the reality of God, which

 was impossible to describe with language, and the image

 of God as we knew it. This sounds a lot like Jewish

 mysticism, where you find God being described as streams

 of energy, male and female, which pool together into a

 divine source; or God as the source of al sounds at once.

 And Buddhist enlightenment is very much like the Gnostic

 idea that we live in a land of oblivion, but can waken

 spiritual y right here while we’re stil part of this world.”

 “But Shay Bourne can’t be a fol ower of a religion that no

 longer exists, isn’t that true?”

 He hesitated. “From what I understand, donating his heart

 is Shay Bourne’s attempt to learn who he is, who he wants

 to be, how he is connected to others. And in that very basic

 sense, the Gnostics would agree that he’s found the part of

 him that comes closest to being divine.”

 Fletcher looked up. “A Gnostic Christian would tel you that

 a man on death row is more like us than unlike us. And that

 —as Mr. Bourne seems to be trying to suggest—he stil has

 something to offer the world.”

 “Yeah. Whatever.” Greenleaf raised a brow. “Have you ever

 even met Shay Bourne?”

 “Actual y,” Fletcher said, “no.”

 “So for al you know, he doesn’t have any religious beliefs

 at al . This could al be some grand plan to delay his

 execution, couldn’t it?”

 “I’ve spoken with his spiritual advisor.”

 The lawyer scoffed. “You’ve got a guy practicing a religion

 by himself that seems to hearken back to a religious sect

 that died out thousands of years ago. Isn’t it possible that

 this is a bit too … easy? That Shay Bourne could just be

 making it al up as he goes along?”

 Fletcher smiled. “A lot of people thought that about Jesus.”

 “Dr. Fletcher,” Greenleaf said, “are you tel ing this court that

 Shay Bourne is a messiah?”

 Fletcher shook his head. “Your words, not mine.”

 “Then how about your stepdaughter’s words?” Greenleaf

 asked. “Or is this some kind of family trait you al have,

 running into God in state prisons and elementary schools

 and Laundromats?”

 “Objection,” I said. “My witness isn’t on trial here.”

 Greenleaf shrugged. “His ability to discuss the history of

 Christianity is—”

 “Overruled,” Judge Haig said.

 Fletcher narrowed his eyes. “What my daughter did or

 didn’t see has no bearing on Shay Bourne’s request to

 donate his heart.”

 “Did you believe she was a fake when you first met her?”

 “The more I spoke with her, the more I—”

 “When youjirst met her,” Greenleaf interrupted, “did you

 believe she was a fake?”

 “Yes,” Fletcher admitted.

 “And yet, with no personal contact, you were wil ing to testify

 in a court of law that Mr. Bourne’s request to donate his

 organs could be massaged to fit your loose definition of a

 religion.” Greenleaf glanced at him.

 “I guess, in your case, old habits die fairly easy.”

 “Objection!”

 “Withdrawn.” Greenleaf started back to his seat, but then

 turned.

 “Just one more question, Dr. Fletcher—this daughter of

 yours. She was seven years old when she found herself at

 the center of a religious media circus not unlike this one,

 correct?”

 “Yes.”

 “Are you aware that’s the same age of the little girl Shay

 Bourne murdered?”

 A muscle in Fletcher’s jaw twitched. “No. I wasn’t.”

 “How do you think you’d feel about God if your

 stepdaughter was the one who’d been kil ed?”

 I shot to my feet. “Objection!”

 “I’l al ow it,” the judge answered.

 Fletcher paused. “I think that kind of tragedy would test

 anyone’s faith.”

 Gordon Greenleaf folded his arms. “Then it’s not faith,” he

 said. “It’s being a chameleon.”

 M IC HAEL

 During the lunch recess, I went to see Shay in his holding

 cel . He was sitting on the floor, near the bars, while a U.S.

 marshal sat outside on a stool. Shay held a pencil and

 scrap of paper, as if he were conducting an interview.

 “H,” the marshal said, and Shay shook his head. “M?”

 Shay scribbled something on the paper. “I’m down to your

 last toe, dude.”

 The marshal sucked in his breath. “K.”

 Shay grinned. “I win.” He scrawled something else on the

 page and passed it through the bars—only then did I notice

 that it had been a game of hangman, and that this time

 around. Shay was the executioner.

 Scowling, the marshal stared down at the paper. “Szygszyg

 isn’t a real word.”

 “You didn’t say that it had to be real when we started

 playing,”

 Shay replied, and then he noticed me standing at the

 threshold of the door.

 I’m Shay’s spiritual advisor,” I told the marshal. “Can we

 have a minute?”

 “No problem. I have to take a whiz.” He stood up, offering

 me the stool he was vacating, and headed out of the room.

 “How are you doing?” I said quietly.

 Shay walked to the back of the cel , where he lay down on

 the metal bunk and faced the wal .

 “I want to talk to you. Shay.”

 “Just because you want to talk doesn’t mean I want to

 listen.”

 I sank down on the stool. “I was the last one on your jury to

 vote for the death penalty,” I said. “I was the reason we

 deliberated so long.

 And even after I’d been convinced by the rest of the jury that

 this was the best sentence, I didn’t feel good about it. I kept

 having panic attacks.

 One day, during one, I stumbled into a cathedral and

 started to pray. The more I did it, the fewer panic attacks I

 had.” I clasped my hands between my knees. “I thought that

 was a sign from God.”

 Stil with his back to me. Shay snorted.

 “I stil think it’s a sign from God, because it’s brought me

 back into your life.”

 Shay rol ed onto his back and flung one arm over his eyes.

 “Don’t kid yourself,” he said. “It’s brought you back into my

 death.”

 Ian Fletcher was already standing at a urinal when I ran into

 the men’s room. I had been hoping it would be empty.

 Shay’s comment—the bald truth—had made me so sick to

 my stomach that I’d rushed out of the holding cel without

 explanation. I pushed into a stal , fel to my knees, and got

 violently il .

 No matter how much I wanted to fool myself—no matter

 what I said about atoning for my past sins—the bottom line

 was that for the second time in my life, my actions were

 going to result in the death of Shay Bourne.

 Fletcher pushed the door of the stal open and put his hand

 on my shoulder. “Father? You al right?”

 I wiped my mouth, slowly got to my feet. I’m fine,” I said,

 then shook my head. “No, actual y, I’m awful.”

 I walked to the sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed

 water on my face as Fletcher watched. “Do you need to sit

 down or something?”

 I dried my face with a paper towel he passed me. And

 suddenly, I wanted someone else to bear this burden. Ian

 Fletcher was a man who’d unraveled secrets from two

 thousand years ago; surely he could keep one of mine. “I

 was on his jury,” I murmured into the recycled brown paper.

 I’m sorry?”

 No, I am. I thought. I met Fletcher’s gaze. “I was on the jury

 that sentenced Shay Bourne to death. Before I joined the

 priesthood.”

 Fletcher let out a long, low whistle. “Does he know?”

 “I told him a few days ago.”

 “And his lawyer?”

 I shook my head. “I keep thinking that this must be how

 Judas felt after turning Jesus in.”

 Fletcher’s mouth turned up at the corners. “Actual y, there’s

 a recently discovered Gnostic gospel—the Gospel of

 Judas—and there’s very little in there about betrayal. In fact,

 this gospel paints Judas as Jesus’s confidant—the only

 one he trusted to make what needed to happen, happen.”

 “Even if it was an assisted suicide,” I said, I’m sure Judas

 felt like crap about it afterward. I mean, he kil ed himself.”

 “Wel ,” Fletcher said, “there was that.”

 “What would you do if you were me?” I asked. “Would you

 carry through with this? Help Shay donate his heart?”

 “I guess that depends on why you’re helping him,” Fletcher

 said slowly. “Is it to save him, like you said on the stand? Or

 are you real y just trying to save yourself?” He shook his

 head. “If man had the answers for questions like those,

 there wouldn’t be a need for religion.

 Good luck. Father.”

 I went back into the stal and closed the lid of the toilet, sat

 down. I slipped my rosary out of my pocket and whispered

 the familiar words of the prayers, sweet in my mouth like

 sucking candies.

 Finding God’s grace wasn’t like locating missing keys or

 the forgotten name of a 1940s pinup girl—it was more of a

 feeling: the sun breaking through an overcast morning, the

 softest bed sinking under your weight. And, of course, you

 couldn’t find God’s grace unless you admitted you were

 lost.

 A bathroom stal at the federal courthouse might not be the

 most likely spot to find God’s grace, but that didn’t mean it

 couldn’t be done.

 Find God’s grace.

 Find Grace.

 If Shay was wil ing to give up his heart, then the least I could

 do was make sure he’d be remembered in someone

 else’s. Someone who—unlike me—had never condemned

 him.

 That was when I decided to find Shay’s sister.

 

 June

 It is not an easy thing to pick the clothes in which your child

 wil be buried. I had been told by the funeral director, after

 the murders, to think about it. He suggested something that

 represented her, a beautiful girl—such as a nice little dress,

 one that opened up the back, preferably. He asked me to

 bring in a picture of her so that he could use makeup to

 match the blush of her cheek, the natural color of her skin,

 her hairstyle.

 What I had wanted to say to him was: Elizabeth hated

 dresses.

 She would have worn pants without buttons, because they

 were frustrating, or possibly last year’s Hal oween costume,

 or the tiny set of doctors’ scrubs she got for Christmas—I

 had, just days before, found her “operating” on an

 overgrown zucchini that was the size of a newborn. I would

 have told him that Elizabeth did not have a hairstyle,

 because you could not ground her long enough to brush it,

 much less braid or curl. And that I did not want him putting

 makeup on her face, not when I would never have that

 bonding moment between a mother and daughter in a

 bathroom before an elegant night on the town, when I could

 let her try the eye shadow, a smudge of mascara, pink

 lipstick.

 The funeral director told me that it might be nice to have a

 table of mementos that meant something to Elizabeth—

 stuffed animals or family vacation photos, chocolate chip

 cookies. To play her favorite music. To let her school

 friends write messages to her, which could be buried in a

 silk satchel inside the coffin.

 What I wanted to say to him was: Don’t you realize that by

 tel ing me the same things you tel everyone else about how

 to make a meaningful funeral, you are making it

 meaningless? That Elizabeth deserved fireworks, an angel

 choir, the world turning backward on its axis.

 In the end, I had dressed Elizabeth in a bal erina’s tutu, one

 she somehow always wanted to wear when we went

 grocery shopping, and that I always made her take off

 before we left. I let the funeral director put makeup on her

 face for the first time. I gave her a stuffed dog, her

 stepfather, and most of my heart to take with her.

 It was not an open-casket funeral; but before we left for the

 graveside service, the funeral director lifted the cover to

 make final adjustments. At that moment, I pushed him out of

 the way.

 Let me, I had said.

 Kurt was wearing his uniform, as befitted a police officer

 kil ed in the line of duty. He looked exactly like he did every

 day, except for the fine white line around his finger where

 his wedding ring had been. That, I now wore on a chain

 around my neck.

 Elizabeth looked delicate, angelic. Her hair was tied up in

 matching ribbons. Her arm was around her stepfather’s

 waist.

 I reached into the coffin, and the moment my hand brushed

 my daughter’s cheek I shivered, because somehow I had

 stil expected it to be warm—not this fake-flesh, this cool-to-

 the-touch skin. I tugged the ribbons out of her hair, gently

 lifted her head, fanned her hair on both sides of her face. I

 tugged the left leotard sleeve down a quarter inch, to match

 the one on the right.

 I hope you’re pleased, the funeral director had said.

 It didn’t look like Elizabeth, not one bit, because she was

 too perfect. My daughter would have been rumpled and

 untucked, her hands dirty from chasing frogs, her socks

 mismatched, her wrists ringed with bracelets she’d beaded

 herself.

 But in a world where things happen that shouldn’t, you find

 yourself saying and doing things that are the complete

 opposite of what you mean. So I had nodded, and watched

 him seal away the two people I loved most in this world.

 Now I found myself in the same position I’d been in eleven

 years ago, standing in the middle of my daughter’s

 bedroom and sifting through her clothes. I sorted through

 shirts and skirts and tights, jeans as soft as flannel and a

 sweatshirt that stil smel ed like the apple orchard where

 she last wore it. I chose a pair of flared black leggings and

 a long-sleeved tee that had Tinker Bel printed on it—

 clothes that I had seen Claire wear on the laziest of

 Sundays, when it was snowing and there was nothing to be

 done but read the Sunday paper and doze with your cheek

 pressed against the wal of heat thrown by the fireplace. I

 picked out a pair of underwear—SATURDAY, it read

 across the front, but I couldn’t find any other days of the

 week scattered in the drawer. It was when I was looking that

 I found, wrapped in a red bandanna, the photograph. In a

 tiny silver oval frame, I thought at first it was one of Claire’s

 baby pictures—and then I realized it was Elizabeth.

 The frame used to sit on top of the piano that nobody

 played anymore, gathering dust. The fact that I never even

 noticed it was missing was a testament to the fact that I

 must have learned how to live again.

 Which is why I col ected the clothes and put them into a

 shopping bag to take to the hospital: an outfit in which I

 sincerely hoped I would not bury my daughter, but instead,

 bring her back home.

 

 Lucius

 These nights, I slept wel . There were no more sweats, no

 diarrhea, no fevers to keep me thrashing in my bunk. Crash

 Vitale was stil in solitary, so his rants didn’t wake me. From

 time to time, the extra officer who’d been assigned to Shay

 for protection would prowl through the tier, his boots a soft-

 soled shuffle on the catwalk.

 I had been sleeping so wel , in fact, that I was surprised I

 woke up to the quiet conversation going on in the cel next

 door to mine. “Wil you just let me explain?” Shay asked.

 “What if there’s another way?”

 I waited to hear whom he was talking to, but there was no

 answer.

 “Shay?” I said. “Are you okay?”

 “I tried to give away my heart,” I heard him say. “And look at

 what it turned into.” Shay kicked at the wal ; something

 heavy in his cel tumbled to the floor. “I know what you want.

 But do you know what I want?”

 “Shay?”

 His voice was just a braid of breath. “Abba?”

 “It’s me. Lucius.”

 There was a beat of silence. “You were listening to my

 conversation.”

 Was it a conversation if you were having a monologue in

 your own cel ? “I didn’t mean to … you woke me up.”

 “Why were you asleep?” Shay asked.

 “Because it’s three in the morning?” I replied. “Because

 that’s what you’re supposed to be doing?”

 “What I’m supposed to be doing,” Shay repeated. “Right.”

 There was a thud, and I realized Shay had fal en. The last

 time that had happened, he’d been having a seizure. I

 scrabbled under neath the bunk and pul ed out the mirror-

 shank. “Shay,” I cal ed out.

 “Shay?”

 In the reflection, I could see him. He was on his knees in the

 front of the cel , with his hands spread wide. His head was

 bowed, and he was bathed in sweat, which—from the dim

 crimson light on the catwalklooked like beads of blood.

 “Go away,” he said, and I withdrew the mirror from the slats

 of my own door, giving him privacy.

 As I hid away my makeshift mirror, I caught a glimpse of my

 own reflection.

 Like Shay’s, my skin looked scarlet. And yet even that

 didn’t stop me from noticing the familiar ruby sore that had

 opened up once again across my forehead—a scar, a

 stain, a planet’s moving storm.

 

 M I C H A EL

 Shay’s last foster mother, Renata Ledoux, was a Catholic

 who lived in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, and as I’d

 traveled up to meet with her, the irony of the name of the

 town where Shay had spent his teenage years did not

 escape me. I was wearing my col ar and had on my gravest

 priest demeanor, because I was pul ing out al the stops. I

 was going to say whatever was necessary to find out what

 had happened to Grace.

 As it turned out, though, it hardly took any work at al .

 Renata invited me in for tea, and when I told her I had a

 message for Grace from a person in my congregation, she

 simply wrote out an address and handed it to me. “We’re

 stil in touch,” she said simply. “Gracie was a good girl.”

 I couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of Shay. “Didn’t

 she have a brother?”

 “That boy,” Renata had said, “deserves to burn in hel .”

 It was ludicrous to believe that Renata had not heard about

 Shay’s death sentence—the news would have reached up

 here, even in rural Bethlehem. I had thought, maybe, as his

 foster mother, she’d at least harbor some soft spot for him.

 But then again, the boy she’d raised had left her home to

 go to juvenile prison, and had grown up to become a

 convicted murderer. “Yes,” I’d said. “Wel .”

 Now, twenty minutes later, I was approaching Grace’s

 house, and hoping for a better reception. It was the pink

 one with gray shutters and the number 131 on a carved

 stone at the end of the drive—but the shades were drawn,

 the garage door was closed. There were no plants hanging

 on the porch, no doors open for a breeze, no outgoing mail

 in the box—nothing to indicate that the inhabitant was

 home.

 I got out of my car and rang the doorbel . Twice.

 Wel , I could leave a note and ask her to cal me. It would

 take more time—time Shay did not real y have—but if it

 was the best I could do, then so be it.

 Just then the door opened just a crack. “Yes?” a voice

 inside murmured.

 I tried to see into the foyer, but it was pitch-dark. “Does

 Grace Bourne live here?”

 A hesitation. “That’s me.”

 “I’m Father Michael Wright. I have a message for you, from

 one of the parishioners in my congregation.”

 A slender hand slipped out. “You can give it to me,” Grace

 said.

 “Actual y, could I just come in for a bit—use your restroom?

 It’s been a long drive from Concord …”

 She hesitated—I suppose I would, too, if a strange man

 showed up at my door and I was a woman living alone,

 even if he was wearing a col ar. But the door opened wide

 and Grace stepped back to let me in.

 Her head was ducked to the side; a long curtain of black

 hair hung over her face. I caught a glimpse of long dark

 lashes and a ruby of a mouth; you could tel , even at first

 glance, how pretty she must be. I wondered if she was

 agoraphobic, painful y shy. I wondered who had hurt her so

 much that she was afraid of the rest of the world.

 I wondered if it was Shay.

 “Grace,” I said, reaching for her hand. “It’s nice to meet

 you.”

 She lifted her chin then, and the screen of hair fel back. The

 entire left side of Grace Bourne’s face was ravaged and

 pitted, a lava flow of skin that had been stretched and

 sewed to cover an extensive burn.

 “Boo,” she said.

 ” I … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …”

 “Everyone stares,” Grace said quietly. “Even the ones who

 try not to.”

 There was a fire. Shay had said. I don’t want to talk about it.

 I m sorry.

 “Yeah, you said that already. The bathroom’s down the hal .”

 I put a hand on her arm. There were patches of skin there,

 too, that were scarred. “Grace. That message—it’s from

 your brother.”

 She took a step away from me, stunned. “You know Shay?”

 “He needs to see you, Grace. He’s going to die soon.”

 “What did he say about me?”

 “Not a lot,” I admitted. “But you’re the only family he has.”

 “Do you know about the fire?” Grace asked.

 “Yes. It was why he went to juvenile prison.”

 “Did he tel you that our foster father died in it?”

 This time, it was my turn to be surprised. A juvenile record

 would be sealed, which is why I hadn’t known during the

 capital murder trial what Shay had been convicted of. I’d

 assumed, when fire had been mentioned, that it was arson.

 I hadn’t realized that the charges might have included

 negligent homicide, or even manslaughter. And I

 understood exactly why, now, Renata Ledoux might

 visceral y hate Shay.

 Grace was staring at me intently. “Did he ask to see me?”

 “He doesn’t actual y know I’m here.”

 She turned away, but not before I saw that she had started

 to cry.

 “He didn’t want me at his trial.”

 “He probably didn’t want you to have to witness that.”

 “You don’t know anything.” She buried her face in her

 hands.

 “Grace,” I said, “come back with me. Come see him.”

 “I can’t,” she sobbed. “I can’t. You don’t understand.”

 But I was beginning to: Shay had set the fire that had

 disfigured her. “That’s al the more reason to meet with him.

 Forgive him, before it’s too late.”

 “Forgive him? Forgive him?” Grace parroted. “No matter

 what I say, it won’t change what happened. You don’t get to

 do your life over.” She glanced away. “I think … I just… you

 should go.”

 It was my dismissal. I nodded, accepting.

 “The bathroom’s the second door on the right.”

 Right—my ruse to get inside. I walked down the hal to a

 restroom that was floral, overpowering in a scent of air

 freshener and rose potpourri.

 There were little crocheted toilet paper holders, a

 crocheted bra for the toilet tank, and a crocheted cover for

 the Kleenex box. There were roses on the shower curtain,

 and art on the wal s—framed prints of flowers, except for

 one of a child’s drawing—a dragon, or maybe a lizard. The

 room felt like the kind of abode for an elderly lady who’d

 lost count of her cats. It was stifling; slowly, Grace Bourne

 was suffocating herself to death.

 If Shay knew that his sister forgave him for the fire, then

 maybeeven if he wasn’t al owed to donate his heart—it

 would be enough to let him die in peace. Grace was in no

 condition to be convinced right now, but I could work on her.

 I’d get her phone number and cal her, until I’d worn down

 her resistance.

 I opened the sliding mirrored medicine cabinet, looking for

 a prescription with Grace’s phone number so that I could

 copy it down.

 There were lotions and creams and exfoliants, toothpaste

 and floss and deodorant. There was also a medicine bottle

 of Ambien, with Grace’s phone number across the top of

 the label. I wrote it on the inside of my palm with a pen and

 set the pil s back on the shelf, beside a smal pewter frame.

 Two tiny children sat at a table: Grace in a high chair with a

 glass of milk in front of her, and Shay hunched over a

 picture he was drawing. A dragon, or maybe a lizard.

 He was smiling, so wide it looked like it might hurt.

 Every inmate is someone’s child. And so is every victim.

 I walked out of the bathroom. Handing Grace a card with

 my name and number on it, I thanked her. “Just in case you

 change your mind.”

 “Mine was never the one that needed changing,” Grace

 said, and closed the door behind me. Immediately I heard

 the bolt slide shut, the curtain in the front window rustle. I

 kept envisioning the dragon pic hire, which was careful y

 matted and framed in the bathroom, TO GRACIE, it had

 said in the upper left-hand corner.

 I was al the way to Crawford Notch before I realized what

 had been niggling in my mind about that photo of Shay as a

 child. In it, he’d been holding a pen in his right hand. But in

 prison—when he ate, when he wrote—he was a lefty.

 Could someone change so radical y over a lifetime? Or

 could al of these changes in Shay—from his dominant

 hand to his miracles to his ability to quote the Gospel of

 Thomas—have come from some … possession?

 It sounded like some bad science fiction movie, but that

 wasn’t to say it couldn’t happen. If prophets could be

 overtaken by the Holy Spirit, why not a murderer?

 Or, maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe who we were in

 the past informed who we chose to be in the future. Maybe

 Shay had intentional y shifted his writing hand. Maybe he

 cultivated miracles, to make up for a sin as horrible as

 setting a fire that took the lives of two people—one literal,

 one metaphorical. It struck me that even in the Bible, there

 was no record of Jesus’s life between the ages of eight and

 thirty-three. What if he’d done something awful; what if his

 later years were a response to that?

 You could do a horrible thing, and then spend your whole

 natural life trying to atone.

 I knew that better than anyone.

 Mdggie

 The last conversation I had with Shay Bourne, before

 putting him on the stand as a witness, had not gone wel . In

 the holding cel , I’d reminded him what was going to

 happen in court. Shay didn’t deal wel with curves being

 thrown at him; he could just as likely become bel igerent as

 curl up in a bal beneath the wooden stand. Either way, the

 judge would think he was crazy—and that couldn’t happen.

 “So after the marshal helps you into the seat,” I had

 explained, “they’re going to bring you a Bible.”

 “I don’t need one.”

 “Right. But they need you to swear on it.”

 “I want to swear on a comic book,” Shay had replied. “Or a

 Playboy magazine.”

 “You have to swear on a Bible,” I’d said, “because we have

 to play by their rules before we’re al owed to change the

 game.”

 Just then, a U.S. marshal had come to tel me that court

 was about to convene. “Remember,” I had said to Shay,

 “focus only on me. Nothing else in that courtroom’s

 important. It’s just us, having a chat.”

 He had nodded, but I could see that he was jittery. And now,

 as I watched him being brought into the courtroom,

 everyone else could see it, too. He was bound at the ankles

 and the wrists, with a bel y chain to link the others; the links

 rattled as he shuddered into his seat beside me.

 His head was ducked, and he was murmuring words no

 one but I could hear. He was actual y cursing out one of the

 U.S. marshals who’d led him into the courtroom, but with

 any luck, people who watched his mouth moving silently

 would think he was praying.

 As soon as I put him on the witness stand, a quiet pal fel

 over the people in the gal ery. You are not like us, their

 silence seemed to say. You never wil be. And there,

 without me asking a single question, was my answer: no

 amount of piousness could erase the stain on the hands of

 a murderer.

 I walked in front of Shay and waited until he caught my eye.

 Focus, I mouthed, and he nodded. He gripped the front of

 the witness box railing, and his chains clinked.

 Dammit. I’d forgotten to tel him to keep his hands in his lap.

 It would be less of a reminder to the judge and the gal ery

 that he was a convicted felon.

 “Shay,” I asked, “why do you want to donate your heart?”

 He stared right at me. Good boy. “I have to save her.”

 “Who?”

 “Claire Nealon.”

 “Wel ,” I said, “you’re not the only person in the world who

 can save Claire. There are other suitable heart donors.”

 “I’m the one who took the most away from her,” Shay said,

 just like we had practiced. “I have the most to give back to

 her.”

 “Is this about clearing your conscience?” I asked.

 Shay shook his head. “It’s about clearing the slate.”

 So far, I thought, so good. He sounded rational, and clear,

 and calm.

 “Maggie?” Shay said just then. “Can I stop now?”

 I smiled tightly. “Not quite yet, Shay. We’ve got a few more

 questions.”

 “The questions are bul shit.”

 There was a gasp in the rear of the gal ery—probably one

 of the bluehaired ladies I’d seen filing in with their Bibles

 wrapped in protective quilted cozies, who hadn’t stumbled

 across a cuss word since before menopause.

 “Shay,” I said, “we don’t use that language in court.

 Remember?”

 “Why is it cal ed court?” he asked. “It’s not like a tennis

 court or a basketbal court, where you’re playing a game.

 Or maybe you are, and that’s why there’s a winner and a

 loser, except it has nothing to do with how wel you make a

 three-point shot or how fast your serve is.” He looked at

 Judge Haig. “I bet you play golf.”

 “Ms. Bloom,” the judge said. “Control your witness.”

 If Shay didn’t shut up, I was going to personal y cover his

 mouth with my hand. “Shay, tel me about your religious

 upbringing as a child,”

 I said firmly.

 “Religion’s a cult. You don’t get to choose your own religion.

 You’re what your parents tel you you are; it’s not upbringing

 at al , just a brainwashing.

 When a baby’s getting water poured over his head at a

 christening he can’t say, ‘Hey man, I’d rather be a Hindu,’

 can he?”

 “Shay, I know this is hard for you, and I know that being here

 is very distracting,” I said. “But I need you to listen to the

 question I’m asking, and answer it. Did you go to church

 when you were a kid?”

 “Part of the time. And part of the time I didn’t go anywhere

 at al , except hide in the closet so I wouldn’t get beat up by

 another kid or the foster dad, who’d try to keep everyone in

 line with a metal hairbrush. It kept us in line, al right, al the

 way down our backs. The whole foster care system in this

 country is a joke; it ought to be cal ed foster don’t care,

 don’t give a shit except for the stipend you’re getting from

 the—”

 “Shay!” I warned him with a flash of my eyes. “Do you

 believe in God?”

 This question, somehow, seemed to calm him down. “I

 know God,”

 Shay said.

 “Tel me how.”

 “Everyone’s got a little God in them … and a little murder in

 them, too. It’s how your life turns out that makes you lean to

 one side or the other.”

 “What’s God like?”

 “Math,” Shay said. “An equation. Except when you take

 everything away, you get infinity, instead of zero.”

 “And where does God live, Shay?”

 He leaned forward, lifted his chained hands so that the

 metal chinked. He pointed to his heart. “Here.”

 “You said you used to go to church when you were a kid. Is

 the God you believe in today the same God you were

 taught about at church?”

 Shay shrugged. “Whatever road you take, the view is going

 to be the same.”

 I was nearly a hundred percent certain I’d heard that phrase

 before, at the one and only Bikram yoga class I’d attended,

 before I decided that my body wasn’t meant to bend in

 certain ways. I couldn’t believe Greenleaf wasn’t objecting,

 on the grounds that channeling the Dalai Lama wasn’t the

 same as answering a question. Then again, I could believe

 Greenleaf wasn’t objecting. The more Shay said, the

 crazier he appeared.

 It was hard to take someone’s claims about religion

 seriously when he sounded delusional; Shay was digging a

 grave big enough for both of us.

 “If the judge orders you to die by lethal injection, Shay, and

 you can’t donate your heart—wil that upset God?” I asked.

 “It’l upset me. So yeah, it’l upset God.”

 “Wel , then,” I said, “what is it about giving your heart to

 Claire Nealon that wil please God?”

 He smiled at me then—the sort of smile you see on the

 faces of saints in frescoes, and that makes you wish you

 knew their secret. “My end,”

 Shay said, “is her beginning.”

 I had a few more questions, but to be honest, I was terrified

 of what Shay might say. He already was talking in riddles.

 “Thank you,” I replied, and sat down.

 “I have a question, Mr. Bourne,” Judge Haig said. “There’s

 a lot of talk about odd things that have occurred at the

 prison. Do you believe you can perform miracles?”

 Shay looked at him. “Do youT

 “I’m sorry, but that’s not how a courtroom works. I’m not

 al owed to answer your question, but you stil need to

 answer mine. So,” the judge said, “do you believe you can

 perform miracles?”

 

 “I just did what I was supposed to. You can cal that

 whatever you want.”

 The judge shook his head. “Mr. Greenleaf, your witness.”

 Suddenly, a man in the gal ery stood up. He unzipped his

 jacket, revealing a T-shirt that had been emblazoned with

 the numbers 3:16. He started yel ing, his voice hoarse. “For

 God so loved the world that he gave his only son—” By

 then, two U.S. marshals had descended, hauling him out of

 his seat and dragging him up the al ey, as the news

 cameras swiveled to fol ow the action. “His only son!” the

 man yel ed. “Only! You are going to hel once they pump

 your veins ful of—” The doors of the courtroom banged shut

 behind him, and then it was utterly silent.

 It was impressive that this man had gotten into the court in

 the first place—there were checkpoints with metal

 detectors and marshals in place before you entered. But

 his weapon had been the fundamental fury of his

 righteousness, and at that moment, I would have been

 hardpressed to decide whether he or Shay had come off

 looking worse.

 “Yes,” Gordon Greenleaf said, getting to his feet. “Wel .” He

 walked toward Shay, who rested his chained hands on the

 witness stand rail again. “You’re the only person who

 subscribes to your religion?”

 “No.”

 “No?”

 “I don’t belong to a religion. Religions the reason the

 world’s fal ing apart—did you see that guy get carted out of

 here? That’s what religion does. It points a finger. It causes

 wars. It breaks apart countries. It’s a petri dish for

 stereotypes to grow in. Religion’s not about being holy,”

 Shay said. “Just holier-than-thou.”

 At the plaintiff’s table, I closed my eyes—at the very least,

 Shay had surely just lost the case for himself; at the most, I

 was going to wind up with a cross being burned on my

 lawn. “Objection,” I said feebly. “It’s not responsive.”

 “Overruled,” the judge replied. “He’s not your witness now,

 Ms.

 Bloom.”

 Shay continued muttering, more quietly now. “You know

 what religion does? It draws a big fat line in the sand. It

 says, ‘If you don’t do it my way you’re out.’ “

 He wasn’t yel ing, he wasn’t out of control. But he wasn’t in

 control, either. He brought his hands up to his neck, started

 scratching at it as the chains jangled down his chest.

 “These words,” he said, “they’re cutting my throat.”

 “Judge,” I said immediately, alert to a rapidly approaching

 meltdown.

 “Can we take a recess?”

 Shay started rocking back and forth.

 “Fifteen minutes,” Judge Haig said, and the U.S. marshals

 approached to remand Shay into custody. Panicking, Shay

 cowered and raised his arms in defense. And we al

 watched as the chains he was wearing—the ones that had

 secured him at the wrists and the ankles and the waist, the

 ones that had jangled throughout his testimony—fel to the

 floor with a clatter, as if they’d been no more substantial

 than smoke.

 “Religion often gets in the way of God.”

 

 -BONO, AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST,

 FEBRUARY 2, 2006

 

 Maggie

 Shay stood, his arms akimbo, looking just as surprised to

 be unshackled as we were to see him that way. There was

 a col ective moment of disbelief, and then chaos exploded

 in the courtroom. Screams rang out from the gal ery. One

 marshal dragged the judge off the bench and into his

 chambers while the other drew his weapon, yel ing for Shay

 to put his hands up. Shay froze, only to have the marshal

 tackle and handcuff him.

 “Stop!” Father Michael cried behind me. “He doesn’t know

 what’s happening!”

 As the marshal pushed Shay’s head against the wooden

 floor, he looked up at us, terrified.

 I whipped around to face the priest. “What the hel ’s going

 on? He’s gone from being Jesus to being Houdini?”

 “This is the kind of thing he does,” Father Michael said.

 Was it me, or did I hear a note of satisfaction in his voice?

 “I tried to tel you.”

 “Let me tel you,” I shot back. “Our friend Shay just earned

 himself a one-way ticket to the lethal injection gurney,

 unless one of us can convince him to say something to

 Judge Haig to explain what just happened.”

 “You’re his lawyer,” Michael said.

 “You’re his advisor.”

 “Remember how I told you Shay won’t talk to me?”

 I rol ed my eyes. “Could we just pretend we’re not in seventh

 grade anymore, and do our jobs?”

 He let his gaze slide away, and immediately I knew that

 whatever else this conversation had to hold, it wasn’t going

 to be pleasant.

 By now, the courtroom had emptied. I had to get to Shay

 and put a solitary, cohesive thought in his head, one that I

 hoped he could retain long enough to take to the witness

 stand. I didn’t have time for Father Michael’s confessions

 right now.

 “I was on the jury that convicted Shay,” the priest said.

 My mother had a trick she’d employed since I was a

 teenager—if I said something that made her want to (a)

 scream, (b) whack me, or (c) both, she would count to ten,

 her lips moving silently, before she responded.

 I could feel my mouth rounding out the syl ables of the

 numbers, and with some dismay I realized that final y, I had

 become my mother. “Is that al ?” I asked.

 “Isn’t that enough!”

 “Just making sure.” My mind raced. I could get into a lot of

 trouble for not tel ing Greenleaf that fact in advance. Then

 again, I hadn’t known in advance. “Is there a reason you

 waited so long to mention this?”

 “Don’t ask, don’t tel ,” he said, parroting my own words. “At

 first I thought I’d just help Shay understand redemption, and

 then I’d tel you the truth. But Shay wound up teaching me

 about redemption, and you said my testimony was critical,

 and I thought maybe it was better you didn’t know. I thought

 it wouldn’t screw up the trial quite as much …”

 I held up my hand, stopping him. “Do you support it?” I

 asked. “The death penalty?”

 The priest hesitated before he spoke. “I used to.”

 I would have to tel Greenleaf. Even if Father Michael’s

 testimony was stricken from the record, though, you couldn’t

 make the judge forget hearing it; the damage had been

 done. Right now, however, I had more important things to

 do. “I have to go.”

 In the holding cel , I found Shay stil distraught, his eyes

 squinched shut. “Shay?” I said. “It’s Maggie. Look at me.”

 “I can’t,” he cried. “Turn the volume down.”

 The room was quiet; there was no radio playing, no sound

 at al . I glanced at the marshal, who shrugged. “Shay,” I

 commanded, coming up to the bars of the cel . “Open your

 goddamn eyes.”

 One eye squinted open a crack, then the other.

 “Tel me how you did it.”

 “Did what?”

 “Your little magic act in there.”

 He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything.”

 “You managed to get out of handcuffs,” I said. “What did

 you do, make a key and hide it in a seam?”

 “I don’t have a key. I didn’t unlock them.”

 Wel , technical y, this was true. What I’d seen were the stil -

 fastened cuffs, clattering to the floor, while Shay’s hands

 were somehow free of them. He certainly could have

 unfastened the locks and snapped them shut again—but it

 would have been noisy, something we al would have heard.

 And we hadn’t.

 “I didn’t do anything,” Shay repeated.

 I’d read somewhere of magicians who learned to dislocate

 their shoulders to get out of straitjackets; maybe this had

 been Shay’s secret.

 Maybe he could double-joint his thumbs or resettle the

 bones of his fingers and slide out of the metal fittings

 without anyone being the wiser.

 “Okay. Whatever.” I exhaled heavily. “Here’s the thing, Shay.

 I don’t know if you’re a magician, or a messiah. I don’t know

 very much about salvation, or miracles, or any of those

 things that Father Michael and Ian Fletcher talked about. I

 don’t even know if I believe in God. But what I do know is

 the law. And right now, everyone in that courtroom thinks

 you’re a raving lunatic. You have to pul it together.” I

 glanced at Shay and saw him looking at me with utter

 focus, his eyes clear and shrewd. “You have one chance,” I

 said slowly. “One chance to speak to the man who wil

 decide how you die, and whether Claire Nealon gets to live.

 So what are you going to tel him?”

 Once, when I was in sixth grade, I let the most popular girl in

 the school cheat off my paper during a math test. “You know

 what,” she said after ward, “you’re not total y uncool.” She

 let me sit with her at the lunch table and for one glorious

 Saturday, I was invited to the mal with her Gordian knot of

 friends, who spritzed perfume onto their wrists at

 department stores and tried on expensive skinny jeans that

 didn’t even come in my size. (I told them I had my period,

 and I didn’t ever shop for jeans when I was bloated—a total

 lie, and yet one of the girls offered to show me how to make

 myself throw up in the bathroom to take off that extra five.) It

 was when I was getting a makeover at the Clinique counter,

 with no intent of buying any of the makeup, that I looked in a

 mirror and realized I did not like the girl staring back. To be

 the person they wanted me to be, I’d lost myself.

 Watching Shay take the witness stand again, I thought

 about that sixthgrade thril I’d gotten when, for a moment, I’d

 been part of the in-crowd; I’d been popular. The gal ery,

 hushed, waited for another outburst—but Shay was mild-

 mannered and calm, quiet to a fault. He was triple-chained,

 and had to hobble to the stand, where he didn’t look at

 anyone and simply waited for me to address him with the

 question we had practiced. I wondered whether remaking

 him in the image of a viable plaintiff said more about who

 he was wil ing to be, or whom I had become.

 “Shay,” I said. “What do you want to tel this court?”

 He looked up at the ceiling, as if he were waiting for the

 words to drift down like snow. “The Spirit of the Lord is on

 me, because he has anointed me to preach good news,”

 he murmured.

 “Amen,” said a woman in the gal ery.

 I’l be honest, this was not quite what I had had in mind

 when I had told Shay he could make one final attempt to

 sway this court. To me, religious scripture sounded just as

 wacky and zealous as the diatribe Shay had given on the

 nature of organized religion. But maybe Shay was smarter

 than I was, because his quote made the judge purse his

 lips. “Is that from the Bible, Mr. Bourne?”

 “I don’t know,” Shay replied. “I don’t remember where it

 comes from.”

 A tiny paper airplane torpedoed over my shoulder to land in

 my lap.

 I opened it up, read Father Michael’s hastily scrawled note.

 “Yes, Judge,” I said quickly. “It is.”

 “Marshal,” Judge Haig said, “bring me the Bible.” He began

 to thumb through the onionskin pages. “Do you happen to

 know where, Ms.

 Bloom?”

 I didn’t know when or if Shay Bourne had been reading

 scripture.

 This quote could have come from the priest; it could have

 come from God; it could have been the only line he knew in

 the whole Old Testament.

 But somehow, he’d piqued the interest of Judge Haig, who

 was no longer dismissing my client outright, but instead

 tracing the pages of the Bible as if it were written in Brail e.

 I stood, armed with Father Michael’s citation. “It’s in Isaiah,

 Your Honor,” I said.

 During the lunch recess, I drove to my office. Not because I

 had such an inviolable work ethic (although technical y I had

 sixteen other cases going at the same time as Shay’s, my

 boss had given me his blessing to put them on the back

 burner of the largest metaphorical stove ever), but because

 I just needed to get away from the trial completely. The

 secretary at the ACLU office blinked when I walked through

 the door. “Aren’t you supposed to be—”

 “Yes,” I snapped, and I walked through the maze of filing

 cabinets to my desk.

 I didn’t know how Shay’s outburst would affect the judge. I

 didn’t know if I’d already lost this case, before the defense

 had even presented its witnesses. I did know that I hadn’t

 slept wel in three weeks and was flat out of rabbit food for

 Oliver, and I was having a real y bad hair day. I rubbed my

 hands down my face, and then realized I’d probably

 smeared my mascara.

 With a sigh, I glanced at the mountain of paperwork on my

 desk that had been steadily growing without me there to act

 as clearinghouse.

 350 J O D I P I C O U LT

 There was an appeal that had been filed in the Supreme

 Court by the attorneys of a skinhead who’d written the word

 towelhead in white paint on the driveway of his employer, a

 Pakistani convenience store owner who’d fired him for

 being drunk on the job; some research about why the words

 under God had been added to the Pledge of Al egiance in

 i954 during the McCarthy era; and a stack of mail equal y

 balanced between desperate souls who wanted me to fight

 on their behalf and right-wing conservatives who berated

 the ACLU for making it criminal to be a white churchgoing

 Christian.

 One letter sifted through my hands and dropped onto my

 lap—a plain envelope printed with the address of the New

 Hampshire State Prison, the Office of the Warden. I

 opened it and found inside a pressed white sheet of paper,

 stil bearing its watermark.

 It was an invitation to attend the execution of Isaiah Bourne.

 The guest list included the attorney general, the governor,

 the lawyer who original y prosecuted Shay’s case, me,

 Father Michael, and several other names I didn’t recognize.

 By law, there had to be a certain number of people present

 for an execution from both the inmate’s and the victim’s

 sides. In this, it was a bit like organizing a wedding. And

 just like a wedding, there was a number to cal to RSVP

 It was fifteen days before Shay was scheduled to die.

 Clearly, I was the only one who found it remotely hilarious

 that the first and only witness the defense cal ed—the

 commissioner of corrections—was a man named Joe

 Lynch. He was a tal , thin man whose sense of humor had

 apparently dissipated along with the hair on his scalp. I was

 quite sure that when he took the job, he’d never dreamed

 that he would be faced with New Hampshire’s first

 execution in more than half a century.

 “Commissioner Lynch,” the assistant attorney general said,

 “what preparations have been made for the execution of

 Shay Bourne?”

 “As you’re aware,” Lynch said, “the State of New

 Hampshire was not equipped to deal with the death

 sentence handed down to Inmate Bourne. We’d hoped that

 the job could be done at Terre Haute, but found out that

 wasn’t going to happen. To that end, we’ve had to construct

 a lethal injection chamber—which now occupies a good

 corner of what used to be our exercise yard at the state

 penitentiary.”

 “Can you give us a breakdown of the costs involved?”

 The commissioner began to read from a ledger. “The

 architectural and construction fees for the project were

 $39,100. A lethal injection gurney cost $830. The

 equipment associated with lethal injection cost $684. In

 addition, the human cost included meeting with staff,

 training the staff, and attending hearings—totaling $48,846.

 Initial supplies were $1,361, and the chemicals cost $426.

 In addition to this, several physical improvements were

 made to the space where the execution would occur:

 vertical blinds in the witness area, a dimmer switch in the

 chamber, a tinted one-way mirror, air-conditioning and an

 emergency generator, a wireless microphone and amplifier

 into the viewing area, a mono plug phone jack. These ran

 up to $14,669.”

 “You’ve done the math, Commissioner. By your calculation,

 what do you estimate you’ve spent on Shay Bourne’s

 execution so far?”

 “$105,916.”

 “Commissioner,” Greenleaf asked, “does the State of New

 Hampshire have a gal ows that could be used if the court

 ordered Mr. Bourne to be hanged?”

 “Not anymore,” Lynch replied.

 “Would it be correct to assume, then, that there would be an

 additional outlay for the taxpayers of New Hampshire if a

 new gal ows had to be constructed?”

 “That’s correct.”

 “What specifications are needed to build a gal ows?”

 The commissioner nodded. “A floor height of at least nine

 feet, a crossbeam of nine feet, with a clearance of three

 feet above the inmate being executed. The opening in the

 trapdoor would have to be at least three feet to ensure

 proper clearance. There would have to be a means of

 releasing the trapdoor and stopping it from swinging after it

 has been opened, and a fastening mechanism for the rope

 with the noose.”

 In a few short sentences, Gordon Greenleaf had recentered

 this trial from the woo-woo touchy-feely freedom-of-religion

 aspect, to the inevitability of Shay’s imminent death. I

 glanced at Shay. He had gone white as the blank sheet of

 paper framed between his chained hands.

 “You’re looking at no less than seventy-five hundred for

 construction and materials,” the commissioner said. “In

 addition, there would be the investment of a body restraint.”

 “What’s that, exactly?” Greenleaf asked.

 “A waist strap with two wrist restraints, made of three-

 thousandpound test nylon, and another leg restraint made

 from the same materials.

 We’d need a frame—basical y, a human dol y that enables

 the officers to transport the inmate to the gal ows in the

 event of a physical col apse—and a hood, and a

 mechanical hangman’s knot.”

 “You can’t just use rope?”

 “Not if you’re talking about a humane execution,” the

 commissioner said. “This knot is made from a Delran

 cylinder and has two longitudinal holes and a steel U-clamp

 to fasten the rope, as wel as a noose sleeve, a rope in

 thirty-foot lengths, knot lubricant…”

 Even I was impressed at how much time and thought had

 gone into the death of Shay Bourne. “You’ve done a great

 deal of research,” Greenleaf said.

 Lynch shrugged. “Nobody wants to execute a man. It’s my

 job to do it with as much dignity as possible.”

 “What would be the cost of constructing and purchasing al

 this equipment, Commissioner Lynch?”

 “A bit less than ten thousand.”

 “And you said the State of New Hampshire has already

 invested over a hundred thousand on the execution of Shay

 Bourne?”

 “That’s correct.”

 “Would it be a burden on the penitentiary system if you

 were required to construct a gal ows at this time, in order to

 accommodate Mr.

 Bourne’s socal ed religious preferences?”

 The commissioner puffed out a long breath. “It would be

 more than a burden. It would be damn near impossible,

 given the date of the execution.”

 “Why?”

 “The law said we were to execute Mr. Bourne by lethal

 injection, and we are ready and able to do it, after much

 preparation. I wouldn’t feel personal y and professional y

 comfortable cutting corners to create a lastminute gal ows.”

 “Maggie,” Shay whispered, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

 I shook my head. “Swal ow it.”

 He lay his head down on the table. With any luck a few

 sympathetic people would assume that he was crying.

 “If you were ordered by the court to construct a gal ows,”

 Greenleaf asked, “how long would it delay Mr. Bourne’s

 execution?”

 “I’d say six months to a year,” the commissioner said.

 “A whole year that Inmate Bourne would live past his

 execution warrant date?”

 “Yes.”

 “Why so long?”

 “You’re talking about construction going on inside a

 working penitentiary system, Mr. Greenleaf. Background

 checks have to be done before a crew can come to work

 inside our gates—they’re bringing in tools from the outside,

 which can be security threats; we have to have officers

 standing guard to watch them to make sure they don’t

 wander into insecure areas; we have to make sure they’re

 not trying to pass contraband to the inmates. It would be a

 substantial burden on the correctional institution if we had

 to, wel , start from scratch.”

 “Thank you, Commissioner,” Greenleaf said. “Nothing

 further.”

 I rose from my seat and approached the commissioner.

 “Your estimate for constructing the gal ows is about ten

 thousand dol ars?”

 “Yes.”

 “So in fact, the cost to hang Shay Bourne would be one-

 tenth the cost of executing him by lethal injection.”

 “Actual y,” the commissioner said, “it would be a hundred

 and ten percent. You can’t get a lethal injection chamber at

 Nordstrom with a satisfaction guarantee, Ms. Bloom. I can’t

 return what we’ve already built.”

 “Wel , you needed to construct that chamber anyway, didn’t

 you?”

 “Not if Inmate Bourne isn’t going to be executed that way.”

 “The Department of Corrections didn’t have the lethal

 injection chamber available for any other death row

 prisoners, however.”

 “Ms. Bloom,” the commissioner said, “New Hampshire

 doesn’t have any other death row prisoners.”

 I couldn’t very wel suggest that in the future we might—no

 one wanted to entertain that option. “Would executing Shay

 Bourne by hanging affect the safety of the other inmates in

 the prison?”

 “No. Not during the actual process.”

 “Would it impinge on the safety of the officers there?”

 “No.”

 “And in terms of the personnel—there would be, in fact, less

 manpower needed for an execution by hanging than an

 execution by lethal injection, correct?”

 “Yes,” the commissioner said.

 “So there’s no safety issue involved in changing Shay’s

 method of execution.

 Not for staff, and not for inmates. The only thing you can

 point to as a burden on the Department of Corrections,

 real y, is a cost of just under ten thousand dol ars to

 construct a gal ows. Ten thousand lousy bucks. Is that right,

 Commissioner?”

 The judge caught the commissioner’s eye. “Do you have

 that in the budget?”

 “I don’t know,” Lynch said. “Budgets are always tight.”

 “Your Honor, I have here a copy of the budget of the

 Department of Corrections, to be entered into evidence.” I

 handed it to Greenleaf, to Judge Haig, and final y, to

 Commissioner Lynch. “Commissioner, does this look

 familiar?”

 “Yes.”

 “Can you read me the line that’s highlighted?”

 Lynch settled his spectacles on his nose. “Supplies for

 capital punishment,”

 he said. “Nine thousand eight hundred and eighty dol ars.”

 “By supplies, what did you mean?”

 “Chemicals,” the commissioner said. “And whatever else

 came along.”

 What he meant, I was sure, was a fudge line in the budget.

 “By your own testimony, chemicals would only cost four

 hundred and twenty-six dol ars.”

 “We didn’t know what else might be involved,” Lynch said.

 “Police blocks, traffic direction, medical supplies, extra

 manpower on staff…

 this is our first execution in nearly seventy years. We

 budgeted conservatively, so that we wouldn’t find ourselves

 short when it actual y came to pass.”

 “If that money was going to be spent on Shay Bourne’s

 execution no matter what, does it real y matter whether it’s

 used to purchase Sodium Pentothal… or to construct a

 gal ows?”

 “Uh,” Lynch stammered. “It’s stil not ten thousand dol ars.”

 “No,” I admitted. “You’re a hundred and twenty dol ars short.

 Tel me … is that worth the price of a man’s soul?”

 

 June

 Someone once told me that when you give birth to a

 daughter, you’ve just met the person whose hand you’l be

 holding the day you die. In the days after Elizabeth was

 born, I would watch those minuscule fingers, the nail beds

 born, I would watch those minuscule fingers, the nail beds

 like tiny shel s, the surprisingly firm grip she had on my

 index finger—and wonder if, years from now, I’d be the one

 holding on so tight.

 It is unnatural to survive your child. It is like seeing an albino

 butterfly, or a bloodred lake; a skyscraper tumbling down. I

 had already been through it once; now I was desperate to

 keep from experiencing that again.

 Claire and I were playing Hearts, and don’t think I didn’t

 appreciate the irony. The deck of cards showcased

 Peanuts characters; my game strategy had nothing to do

 with the suit, and everything to do with col ecting as many

 Charlie Browns as I could. “Mom,” Claire said, “play like

 you mean it.”

 I looked up at her. “What are you talking about?”

 “You’re cheating. But you’re doing it so you’l lose.” She

 shuffled the remaining deck and turned over the top card.

 “Why do you think they’re cal ed clubs?”

 “I don’t know.”

 “Do you think it’s the kind you want to join? Or the kind that

 you use to beat someone up?”

 Behind her, on the cardiac monitor, Claire’s failing heart

 chugged a steady rhythm. At moments like these, it was

 hard to believe that she was as sick as she was. But then,

 al I had to do was witness her trying to swing her legs over

 the bed to go to the bathroom, see how winded she

 became, to know that looks could be deceiving.

 “Do you remember when you made up that secret society?”

 I asked. “The one that met behind the hedge?”

 Claire shook her head. “I never did that.”

 “Of course you did,” I said. “You were little, that’s why you’ve

 forgotten. But you were absolutely insistent about who could

 and couldn’t be a member of the club. You had a stamp that

 said CANCELED

 and an ink pad—you put it on the back of my hand, and if I

 even wanted to tel you dinner was ready I had to give a

 password first.”

 Across the room, my cel phone began to ring in my purse. I

 made a beeline for it—mobile phones were strictly

 verboten in the hospital, and if a nurse caught you with one,

 you would be given the look of death. “Hel o?”

 “June. This is Maggie Bloom.”

 I stopped breathing. Last year, Claire had learned in school

 that there were whole segments of the brain devoted to

 involuntary acts like digesting and oxygen intake, which

 was so evolutionarily clever; and yet, these systems could

 be fel ed by the simplest of things: love at first sight; acts of

 violence; words you did not want to hear.

 “I don’t have any formal news yet,” Maggie said, “but I

 thought you’d want to know: closing arguments start

 tomorrow morning. And then, depending on how long the

 judge deliberates, we’l know if and when Claire wil have

 the heart.” There was a crackle of silence. “Either way, the

 execution wil take place in fifteen days.”

 “Thank you,” I said, and closed the clamshel of the phone.

 In twentyfour hours, I might know if Claire would live or die.

 “Who cal ed?” Claire asked.

 I slipped the phone into the pocket of my jacket. “The dry

 cleaner,” I said. “Our winter coats are ready to be picked

 up.”

 Claire just stared at me; she knew I was lying. She

 gathered up the cards, although we were not finished with

 our game. “I don’t want to play anymore,” she said.

 “Oh. Okay.”

 She rol ed onto her side, turning her face away from me. “I

 never had stamps and an ink pad,” Claire murmured. “I

 never had a secret club. You’re thinking of Elizabeth.”

 “I’m not thinking of—” I said automatical y, but then I broke

 off. I could clearly picture Kurt and I standing at the

 bathroom sink, grinning as we scrubbed off the temporary

 tattoos we’d been given, wondering if our daughter would

 speak to us at breakfast without that mark of faith. Claire

 could not have initiated her father into her secret world; she

 had never even met him.

 “I told you so,” Claire said.

 

 Lucius

 Shay was not on I-tier often, but when he was, he was

 transported to conference rooms and the infirmary. He’d tel

 me, when he came back, about the psych tests they ran on

 him; about the way they tapped at the crooks of his elbows,

 checking his veins. I supposed it was important for them to

 dot their i’s and cross their fs before the Big Event, so that

 they didn’t look stupid when the rest of the world was

 watching.

 The real reason they kept shuttling Shay around for medical

 tests, though, was to get him out of the pod so that they

 could have their practice runs. They’d done a couple of

 these in August. I’d been in the exercise cage when the

 warden led a smal group of COs to the lethal injection

 chamber that was being built. I watched them in their hard

 hats. “What we need to figure out, people,” Warden Coyne

 had said, “is how long it’l take the victim’s witnesses to get

 from my office to the chamber. We can’t have them

 crossing paths with the inmate’s witnesses.”

 Now that the chamber was finished, they had even more to

 check and double-check: if the phone lines to the

 governor’s office worked; if the straps on the gurney were

 secure. Twice now, while Shay was at Medical, a group of

 officers—the special ops team, who had volunteered to be

 part of the execution—arrived on I-tier. I’d never seen any of

 them before. I suppose that there is humanity in not having

 the man who kil s you be the same guy who has brought you

 your breakfast for the past eleven years.

 And likewise: it must be easier to push the plunger on that

 syringe if you haven’t had a conversation with the inmate

 about whether the Patriots would win another Super Bowl.

 This time, Shay had not wanted to go to Medical. He put up

 a fight, saying that he was tired, that he didn’t have any

 blood left for them to draw. Not that he had a choice, of

 course—the officers would have dragged him there kicking

 and screaming. Eventual y, Shay agreed to be chained so

 that he could make the trip off I-tier, and fifteen minutes

 after he was gone, the special ops team showed up. They

 put an officer pretending to be Shay into his cel , and then

 one of the other COs started a stopwatch.

 “We’re rol ing,” he said.

 I don’t know how the mistake happened, to be honest. I

 mean, I suppose that was the whole point of a practice run

 —you were leaving room for human error. But somehow,

 just as the special ops team was escorting Fake-Shay off

 the pod as part of their training, the real Shay was entering

 I-tier again. For a moment, they hesitated at the door,

 gazing at one another.

 Shay stared at his faux counterpart, until Officer Whitaker

 had to drag him through the door of I-tier, and even then, he

 craned his neck, trying to see where his future was

 heading.

 In the middle of the night, the officers came for Shay. He

 was banging his head against the wal s of his cel ,

 speaking in a river of gibberish. Usual y, I would have heard

 al of this—I was often the first to know that Shay was upset

 —but I had slept through it. I woke up when the officers

 arrived in their goggles and shields, swarming over him like

 a clot of black cockroaches.

 “Where are you taking him?” I yel ed, but the words sliced

 my throat to ribbons. I thought of the run-through and

 wondered if it was time for the real thing.

 One of the officers turned to me—a nice one, but in that

 instant I could not grasp his name, although I had seen him

 every week for the past six years. “It’s okay, Lucius,” he

 said. “We’re just taking him to an observation cel , so he

 doesn’t hurt himself.”

 When they left, I lay down on my bunk and pressed my palm

 against my forehead. Fever: it was a school of fish

 swimming through my veins.

 

 Once before, Adam had cheated on me. I found a note in

 his pocket when I went to take his shirts to the dry cleaner.

 Gary, and a phone number.

 When I asked him about it, he said it had only been one

 night, after a show at the gal ery where he worked. Gary

 was one of the artists, a man who created miniature cities

 out of plaster of Paris. New York was currently on display.

 He told me about the art-deco detail on the top of the

 Chrysler Building; the individual leaves that were hand-

 fastened to the trees on Park Avenue. I imagined Adam

 standing with Gary, their feet planted in Central Park, their

 arms around each other, monstrous as Godzil a.

 It was a mistake, Adam had said. It was just so exciting, for

 a minute, to know someone else was interested.

 I could not imagine how people would not be interested in

 Adam, with his pale green eyes, his mocha skin. I saw

 heads turn al the time, gay and straight, when we walked

 down the street.

 It felt al wrong, he said, because it wasn’t you.

 I had been naive enough to believe then that you could take

 something toxic and poisonous, and contain it so that you’d

 never be burned by it again. You’d think, after al that

 happened later with Adam, I had learned my lesson. But

 things like jealousy, rage, and infidelity—they don’t

 disappear.

 They lie in wait, like a cobra, to strike you again when you

 least expect it.

 I looked down at my hands, at the dark blotches of Kaposi’s

 sarcoma that had already begun to blend into one another,

 turning my skin as dark as Adam’s, as if my punishment

 were to reinvent myself in his image.

 “Please don’t do this,” I whispered. But I was begging to

 stop something that had already started. I was praying,

 although I couldn’t remember to whom.

 Maggie

 After court had adjourned for the weekend, I took a trip to

 the ladies’

 room. I was sitting in a stal when suddenly a microphone

 snaked underneath the metal wal from the cubicle beside

 mine. “I’m El a Wyndhammer from FOX News,” a woman

 said. “I wonder if you have a comment about the fact that

 the White House has given a formal statement about the

 Bourne trial and the separation of church and state?”

 I hadn’t been aware that the White House had given a

 formal statement; there was a part of me that shivered with

 a thril to know that we’d attracted that much attention. Then

 I considered what the statement most likely had been, and

 how it probably wouldn’t help my case at al . And then I

 remembered that I was in the bathroom.

 “Yeah, I’ve got a comment,” I said, and flushed.

 Because I didn’t want to be ambushed by El a

 Wyndhammer or any of the other hundred reporters

 crawling over the steps of the courthouse like lichen, I

 retreated into a foxhole—okay, an attorney-client

 conference room—and locked the door. I took out a legal

 pad and began to write my closing for Monday, hoping that

 by the time I finished, the reporters would have moved onto

 a fresher kil .

 It was dark when I slipped on my heels again and packed

 away my notes. The lights had been turned off in the

 courthouse; distantly, I could hear a custodian buffing the

 floors. I walked through the lobby, past the dormant metal

 detectors, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

 The majority of the media had packed up for the night. In

 the dis tance, though, I could see one tenacious reporter

 holding his microphone.

 He cal ed out my name.

 I forged past him. “No comment,” I muttered, and then I

 realized he wasn’t a reporter, and he wasn’t holding a

 microphone.

 “It’s about time,” Christian said, and he handed me the

 rose.

 M I CHAEL

 “You’re his spiritual advisor,” Warden Coyne said when he

 phoned me at three in the morning. “Go give him some

 advice.”

 I had tried to explain to the warden that Shay and I weren’t

 quite on speaking terms, but he hung up before I got the

 chance. Instead, with a sigh, I dragged myself out of bed

 and rode to the prison. Instead of taking me to I-tier,

 however, the CO led me elsewhere. “He’s been moved,”

 the officer explained.

 “Why? Did someone hurt him again?”

 “Nah, he was doing a good job of that on his own,” he said,

 and as we stopped in front of Shay’s cel , I understood.

 Bruises mottled most of his face. His knuckles were

 scraped raw. A trickle of blood ran down his left temple. He

 was chained at the wrists and ankles and bel y, even though

 he was inside the cel . “Why haven’t you cal ed a doctor?” I

 demanded.

 “He’s been here three times,” the CO said. “Our boy, here,

 keeps ripping off the bandages. That’s why we had to cuff

 him.”

 “If I promise you that he’l stop doing whatever he’s doing—”

 “Slamming his head into the wal ?”

 “Right. If I give you my word, wil you take off the handcuffs?”

 I turned to Shay, who was studiously avoiding me. “Shay?” I

 said. “How does that sound?”

 He didn’t react one way or another, and I had no idea how I

 was going to convince Shay to stop harming himself, but

 the CO motioned him toward the cel door and removed the

 cuffs from his wrists and ankles. The bel y chain, however,

 stayed on. Uust in case,” he said, and left.

 “Shay,” I said. “Why are you doing this?”

 “Get the fuck away from me.”

 “I know you’re scared. And I know you’re angry,” I said. “I

 don’t blame you.”

 “Then I guess something’s changed. Because you sure did,

 once.

 You, and eleven other people.” Shay took a step forward.

 “What was it like, in that room? Did you sit around talking

 about what kind of monster would do those horrible things?

 Did you ever think that you hadn’t gotten the whole story?”

 “Then why didn’t you tel it?” I burst out. “You gave us

 nothing, Shay. We had the prosecution’s explanation of

 what had happened; we heard from June. But you didn’t

 even stand up and ask us for a lenient sentence.”

 “Who would believe what I had to say, over the word of a

 dead cop?” he said. “My own lawyer didn’t. He kept talking

 about how we ought to use my troubled childhood to get me

 off—not my story of what happened. He said I didn’t look

 like someone the jury would trust. He didn’t care about me;

 he just wanted to get his five seconds on the news at night.

 He had a strategy. Wel , you know what his strategy was?

 First he told the jury I didn’t do it. Then it comes time for

 sentencing and he says: ‘Okay, he did it, but here’s why you

 shouldn’t kil him for it.’ You might as wel admit that

 pleading not guilty in the first place was a lie.”

 I stared at him; stunned. It had never occurred to me during

 the capital murder trial that al this might be whirling around

 in Shay’s head; that the reason he did not get up and beg

 for clemency during sentencing was because in order to do

 that, it felt like he’d also be admitting to the crime. Now that

 I looked back on it, it had felt like the defense had changed

 their tune between the penalty phase and the sentencing

 phase of the trial. It had made it harder to believe anything

 they said.

 And Shay? Wel , he’d been sitting right there, with his

 unwashed hair and his vacant eyes. His silence—which I’d

 read as pride, or shame—might only have been the

 understanding that for people like him, the world did not

 work the way it should. And I, like the other eleven jurors,

 had judged him before any verdict was given. After al , what

 kind of man gets put on trial for a double murder? What

 prosecutor seeks the death penalty without good reason?

 Since I’d become his spiritual advisor, he’d told me that

 what had happened in the past didn’t matter now, and I’d

 taken that to mean that he wouldn’t accept responsibility for

 what he’d done. But it could also have meant that in spite of

 his innocence, he knew he was stil going to die.

 I’d been present at that trial; I’d heard al the testimony. To

 think Shay might not have deserved a death sentence

 seemed ridiculous, impossible.

 Then again, so were miracles.

 “But Shay,” I said quietly, “I heard that evidence. I saw what

 you did.”

 “I didn’t do anything.” He ducked his head. “It was because

 of the tools. I left them at the house. No one came when I

 knocked on the door so I just went inside to get them …

 and then I saw her.”

 I felt my stomach turn over. “Elizabeth.”

 “She used to play with me. A staring game. Whoever

 smiled first, that was the loser. I used to get her every time,

 and then one day while we were staring she lifted up my

 screwdriver—I didn’t even know she’d taken it—and waved

 it around like a maniac with a knife.

 I burst out laughing. I got you, she said. I got you. And she

 did—she had me, one hundred percent.” His face twisted. “I

 never would have hurt her. When I came in that day, she

 was with him. He had his pants down. And she was—she

 was crying … he was supposed to be her father.” He flung

 an arm up over his face, as if he could stop himself from

 seeing the memory. “She looked up at me, like it was a

 staring contest, but then she smiled. Except this time, it

 wasn’t because she lost. It was because she knew she was

 going to win. Because I was there. Because I could rescue

 her. My whole life, people looked at me like I was a fuckup,

 like I couldn’t do anything right—but she, it was like she

 believed in me,” Shay said. “And I wanted— God, I wanted

 to believe her.”

 He took a deep breath. “I grabbed her and ran upstairs, to

 the room I was finishing. I locked the door. I told her we

 would be safe there. But then there was a shot, and the

 whole door was gone, and he came in and pointed his gun

 at me.”

 I tried to imagine what it would be like to be Shay—easily

 confused and unable to communicate wel —and to

 suddenly have a pistol thrust in my face.

 I would have panicked, too.

 “There were sirens,” Shay said. “He’d cal ed them in. He

 said they were coming for me and that no cop would

 believe any story from a freak like me. She was screaming,

 ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.’ He said, ‘Get over here,

 Elizabeth,’ and I grabbed the gun so he couldn’t hurt her

 and we were fighting and both our hands were on it and it

 went off and went off again.” He swal owed. “I caught her.

 The blood, it was everywhere; it was on me, it was on her.

 He kept cal ing her name but she wouldn’t look at him. She

 stared at me, like we were playing our game; she stared at

 me, except it wasn’t a game … and then even though her

 eyes were open, she stopped staring. And it was over even

 though I didn’t smile.” He choked on a sob, pressed his

 hand against his mouth. “I didn’t smile.”

 “Shay,” I said softly.

 He glanced up at me. “She was better off dead.”

 My mouth went dry. I remembered Shay saying that same

 sentence to June Nealon at the restorative justice meeting,

 her storming out of the room in tears. But what if we’d taken

 Shay’s words out of context?

 What if he truly believed Elizabeth’s death was a blessing,

 after what she’d suffered at the hands of her stepfather?

 

 Something snagged in the back of my mind, a splinter of

 memory.

 “Her underpants,” I said. “You had them in your pocket.”

 Shay stared at me as if I were an idiot. “Wel , that’s

 because she didn’t have a chance to put them back on yet,

 before everything else happened.”

 The Shay I had grown to know was a man who could close

 an open wound with a brush of his hand, yet who also might

 have a breakdown if the mashed potatoes in his meal

 platter were more yel ow than the day before. That Shay

 would not see anything suspicious about the police finding

 a little girl’s underwear in his possession; it would make

 perfect sense to him to grab them when he grabbed

 Elizabeth, for the sake of her modesty.

 “Are you tel ing me the shootings were accidental?”

 “I never said I was guilty,” he answered.

 The pundits who downplayed Shay’s miracles were always

 quick to point out that if God were to return to earth. He

 wouldn’t choose to be a murderer. But what if He hadn’t?

 What if the whole situation had been misunderstood; what if

 Shay had not wil ful y, intentional y kil ed Elizabeth Nealon

 and her stepfather—but in fact had been trying to save her

 from him?

 It would mean that Shay was about to die for someone

 else’s sins.

 Again.

 “Not a good time,” Maggie said when she came to the

 door.

 “It’s an emergency.”

 Then cal the cops. Or pick up your red phone and dial God

 directly.

 I’l give you a cal tomorrow morning.” She started to close

 the door, but I stuck my foot inside.

 “Is everything al right?” A man with a British accent was

 suddenly standing beside Maggie, who had turned beet

 red.

 “Father Michael,” she said. “This is Christian Gal agher.”

 He held out his hand to me. “Father. I’ve heard al about

 you.”

 I hoped not. I mean, if Maggie was having a date, clearly

 there were better topics of conversation.

 “So,” Christian asked amiably. “Where’s the fire?”

 I felt heat rising to the back of my neck. In the background, I

 could hear soft music playing; there was half a glass of red

 wine in the man’s hand. There was no fire; it was already

 burning, and I had just thrown a bucket of sand on it. I’m

 sorry. I didn’t mean—” I stepped backward.

 “Have a nice night.”

 I heard the door close behind me, but instead of walking to

 my bike, I sat down on the front stoop. The first time I’d met

 Shay, I’d told him that you can’t be lonely if God is with you

 al the time, but that wasn’t entirely true. He’s lousy at

 checkers, Shay had said. Wel , you couldn’t take God out to

 a movie on a Friday night, either. I knew that I could fil the

 space a companion normal y would with God; and it was

 more than enough. But that wasn’t to say I didn’t feel that

 phantom limb sometimes.

 The door opened, and into the slice of light stepped

 Maggie. She was barefoot, and she had her power-suit

 coat draped over her shoulders.

 I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your night.”

 “That’s okay. I should have known better than to assume al

 the planets had aligned for me.” She sank down beside

 me. “What’s up?”

 In the dark, with her face lit in profile by the moon, she was

 as beautiful as any Renaissance Madonna. It struck me that

 God had chosen someone just like Maggie when He

 picked Mary to bear His Son: someone wil ing to take the

 weight of the world on her shoulders, even when it wasn’t

 her own burden. “It’s Shay,” I said. “I think he’s innocent.”

 Maggie

 I was not particularly surprised to hear what Shay Bourne

 had told the priest.

 No, what surprised me was how fervently he’d fal en for it—

 hook, line, and sinker.

 “It’s not about protecting Shay’s rights anymore,” Michael

 said. “Or letting him die on his own terms. We’re talking

 about an innocent man being kil ed.”

 We had moved into the living room, and Christian—wel , he

 was sitting on the other end of the couch pretending to do a

 Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper, but actual y listening to

 every word we said. He’d been the one to come outside

 and invite me back into my own home. I ful y intended to

 pop Father Michael’s bubble of incensed righteousness

 and get back to the spot I’d been in before he arrived.

 Which was flat on my back, with Christian’s hand moving

 over my side, showing me where you made the incision to

 remove a gal bladder—something that, in person, was far

 more exciting than it sounds.

 “He’s a convicted murderer,” I said. “They learn how to lie

 before they learn how to walk.”

 “Maybe he never should have been convicted,” Michael

 said.

 “You were on the jury that found him guilty!”

 Christian’s head snapped up. “You were?”

 “Welcome to my life,” I sighed. “Father, you sat through

 days of testimony.

 You saw the evidence firsthand.”

 “I know. But that was before he told me that he walked in on

 Kurt Nealon molesting his own stepdaughter; and that the

 gun went off repeatedly while he was struggling to get it out

 of Kurt’s hand.”

 At that, Christian leaned forward. “Wel . That makes him a

 bit of a hero, doesn’t it?”

 “Not when he stil kil s the girl he’s trying to rescue,” I said.

 “And why, pray tel , did he not gift his defense attorney with

 this information?”

 “He said he tried, but the lawyer didn’t think it would fly.”

 “Wel , gee,” I said. “Doesn’t that speak volumes?”

 “Maggie, you know Shay. He doesn’t look like a clean-cut

 American boy, and he didn’t back then, either. Plus, he’d

 been found with a smoking gun, and a dead cop and girl in

 front of him. Even if he told the truth, who would have

 listened? Who’s more likely to be cast as a pedophile—the

 heroic cop and consummate family man … or the sketchy

 vagrant who was doing work in the house? Shay was

 doomed before he ever walked into a courtroom.”

 “Why would he take the blame for someone else’s crime?” I

 argued.

 “Why not tel someone—anyone—in eleven years?”

 He shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to that. But I’d

 like to keep him alive long enough to find out.” Father

 Michael glanced at me.

 “You’re the one who says the legal system doesn’t always

 work for everyone.

 It was an accident. Manslaughter, not murder.”

 “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Christian interrupted. “But you

 can’t be sentenced to death for manslaughter, can you?”

 I sighed. “Do we have any new evidence?”

 Father Michael thought for a minute. “He told me so.”

 “Do we have any evidence” I repeated.

 His face lit up. “We have the security camera outside the

 observation cel ,” Michael said. “That’s got to be recorded

 somewhere, right?”

 “It’s stil just a tape of him tel ing you a story,” I explained.

 “It’s different if you tel me, oh, that there’s semen we can

 link to Kurt Nealon …”

 “You’re an ACLU lawyer. You must be able to do something

 …”

 

 “Legal y, there’s nothing we can do. We can’t reopen his

 case unless there’s some fantastic forensic proof.”

 “What about cal ing the governor?” Christian suggested.

 Our heads both swiveled toward him.

 “Wel , isn’t that what always happens on TV? And in John

 Grisham novels?”

 “Why do you know so much about the American legal

 system?” I asked.

 He shrugged. “I used to have a torrid crush on the Partridge

 girl from LA. Law.”

 I sighed and walked to the dining room table. My purse was

 slogged across it like an amoeba. I dug inside for my cel

 phone, punched a number.

 “This better be good,” my boss growled on the other end of

 the line.

 “Sorry, Rufus. I know it’s late—”

 “Cut to the chase.”

 “I need to cal Flynn, on behalf of Shay Bourne,” I said.

 “Flynn? As in Mark Flynn the governor? Why would you

 want to waste your last appeal before you even get a

 verdict back from Haig?”

 “Shay Bourne’s spiritual advisor is under the impression

 that he was falsely convicted.” I looked up to find Christian

 and Michael both watching me intently.

 “Do we have any new evidence?”

 I closed my eyes. “Wel . No. But this is real y important,

 Rufus.”

 A moment later, I hung up the phone and pressed the

 number I’d scrawled on a paper napkin into Michael’s hand.

 “It’s the governor’s cel number. Go cal him.”

 “Why me?”

 “Because,” I said. “He’s Catholic.”

 “I have to leave,” I had told Christian. “The governor wants

 us to come to his office right now.”

 “If I had a quid for every time a girl’s used that one on me,”

 he said.

 And then, just as if it were the most normal thing in the

 world, he kissed me.

 Okay, it had been a quick kiss. And one that could have

 ended a G-rated movie. And it had been performed in front

 of a priest. But stil , it looked completely natural, as if

 Christian and I had been kissing at the ends of sentences

 for ages, while the rest of the world was stil hung up on

 punctuation.

 Here’s where it al went wrong. “So,” I had said. “Maybe we

 could get together tomorrow?”

 “I’m on cal for the next forty-eight hours,” he’d said.

 “Monday?”

 But Monday I was in court again.

 “Wel ,” Christian said. “I’l cal .”

 I was meeting Father Michael at the statehouse, because I

 wanted him to go home and get clothing that was as

 priestly as possible—the jeans and button-down shirt in

 which he’d come to my door weren’t going to win us any

 favors. Now, as I waited for him in the parking lot, I replayed

 every last syl able of my conversation with Christian … and

 began to panic. Everyone knew that when a guy said he’d

 cal , it real y meant that he wouldn’t—he just wanted a swift

 escape. Maybe it had been the kiss, which was the

 precursor to that whole line of conversation.

 Maybe I had garlic breath. Maybe he’d just spent enough

 time in my company to know I wasn’t what he wanted.

 By the time Father Michael rode into the parking lot, I’d

 decided that if Shay Bourne had cost me my first shot at a

 relationship since the Jews went to wander the desert, I

 would execute him myself.

 I was surprised that Rufus had wanted me to go to meet

 Governor Flynn alone; I was even more surprised that he

 thought Father Michael should be the one to finesse the

 interview in the first place. But Flynn wasn’t a born New

 Englander; he was a transplanted southern boy, and he

 apparently preferred informality to pomp and circumstance.

 He’l be expecting you to come to him for a stay of

 execution after the trial, Rufus had mused. So maybe

 catching him off guard is the smartest thing you can do. He

 suggested that instead of a lawyer putting through the cal ,

 maybe a man of the cloth should do it instead. And, within

 two minutes of conversation, Father Michael had

 discovered that Governor Flynn had heard him preach at

 last year’s Christmas Mass at St. Catherine’s.

 We were let into the statehouse by a security guard, who

 put us through the metal detectors and then escorted us to

 the governor’s office. It was an odd, eerie place after hours;

 our footsteps rang like gunshots as we hustled up the

 steps. At the top of the landing, I turned to Michael. “Do not

 do anything inflammatory,” I whispered. “We get one shot at

 this.”

 The governor was sitting at his desk. “Come in,” he said,

 getting to his feet. “Pleasure to see you again, Father

 Michael.”

 “Thanks,” the priest said. “I’m flattered you remembered

 me.”

 “Hey, you gave a sermon that didn’t put me to sleep—that

 puts you into a very smal category of clergymen. You run

 the youth group at St.

 Catherine’s, too, right? My col ege roommate’s kid was

 getting into some trouble a year ago, and then he started

 working with you. Joe Cacciatone?”

 “Joey,” Father Michael said. “He’s a good kid.”

 The governor turned to me. “And you must be … ?”

 “Maggie Bloom,” I said, holding out my hand. “Shay

 Bourne’s attorney”

 I had never been this close to the governor before. I thought,

 irrational y, that he looked tal er on television.

 “Ah, yes,” the governor said. “The infamous Shay Bourne.”

 “If you’re a practicing Catholic,” Michael said to the

 governor, “how can you condone an execution?”

 I blinked at the priest. Hadn’t I just told him not to say

 anything provocative?

 “I’m doing my job,” Flynn said. “There’s a great deal that I

 don’t agree with, personal y, that I have to carry out

 professional y.”

 “Even if the man who’s about to be kil ed is innocent?”

 Flynn’s gaze sharpened. “That’s not what a court decided,

 Father.”

 “Come talk to him,” Michael said. “The penitentiary—it’s a

 five minute drive. Come listen to him, and then tel me if he

 deserves to die.”

 “Governor Flynn,” I interrupted, final y finding my voice.

 “During a … confession, Shay Bourne made some

 revelations that indicate there are details of his case that

 weren’t revealed at the time—that the deaths occurred

 accidental y while Mr. Bourne was in fact trying to protect

 Elizabeth Nealon from her father’s sexual abuse. We feel

 that with a stay of execution, we’l have time to gather

 evidence of Bourne’s innocence.”

 The governor’s face paled. “I thought priests couldn’t reveal

 confessions.”

 “We’re obligated to, if there’s a law about to be broken, or if

 a life is in danger. This qualifies on both counts.”

 The governor folded his hands, suddenly distant. “I

 appreciate your concerns—both religious and political. I’l

 take your request under advisement.”

 I knew a dismissal when I heard one; I nodded and stood.

 Father Michael looked up at me, then scrambled to his feet,

 too. We shook the governor’s hand again and groveled our

 way out of the office. We didn’t speak until we were

 outside, beneath a sky spread with stars. “So,” Father

 Michael said. “I guess that means no.”

 “It means we have to wait and see. Which probably means

 no.” I dug my hands into the pockets of my suit jacket. “Wel .

 Seeing as my entire evening has been shot to hel , I’m just

 going to cal it a night—”

 “You don’t believe he’s innocent, do you?” Michael said.

 I sighed. “Not real y.”

 “Then why are you wil ing to fight so hard for him?”

 “On December twenty-fifth, when I was a kid, I’d wake up

 and it would be just another day. On Easter Sunday, my

 family was the only one in the movie theater. The reason I

 fight so hard for Shay,” I finished, “is because I know what

 it’s like when the things you believe make you feel like

 you’re on the outside looking in.”

 “I … I didn’t realize …”

 “How could you?” I said, smiling faintly. “The guys at the top

 of the totem pole never see what’s carved at the bottom.

 See you Monday, Father.”

 I could feel his gaze on me as I walked to my car. It felt like

 a cape made of light, like the wings of the angels I’d never

 believed in.

 My client looked like he’d been run over by a truck.

 Somehow, in the middle of trying to get me to save his life,

 Father Michael had neglected to mention that Shay had

 begun a course of self-mutilation. His face was scabbed

 and bloomed with bruises; his hands—cuffed tightly to his

 waist after last week’s fiasco—were scratched. “You look

 like crap,” I murmured to Shay.

 “I’m going to look worse after they hang me,” he whispered

 back.

 “We have to talk. About what you said to Father Michael—”

 But before I could go any further, the judge cal ed on

 Gordon Greenleaf to offer his closing argument.

 Gordon stood up heavily. “Your Honor, this case has been a

 substantial waste of the court’s time and the state’s money.

 Shay Bourne is a convicted double murderer. He

 committed the most heinous crime in the history of the state

 of New Hampshire.”

 I glanced at Shay beneath my lashes. If what he’d said was

 true—if he’d seen Elizabeth being abused—then the two

 murders became manslaughter and self-defense. DNA

 testing had not been in vogue when he was convicted—

 was it possible that there was some shred of carpet or

 couch fabric left that could corroborate Shay’s account?

 “He’s exhausted al legal remedies at every level,” Gordon

 continued.

 “State, first circuit, Supreme Court—and now he’s

 desperately trying to extend his life by filing a bogus lawsuit

 that claims he believes in some bogus religion. He wants

 the State of New Hampshire and its taxpayers to build him

 his own special gal ows so that he can donate his heart to

 the victims’ family—a group that he suddenly has feelings

 for. He certainly didn’t have feelings for them the day he

 murdered Kurt and Elizabeth Nealon.”

 It was, of course, highly unlikely that there would stil be

 evidence.

 By now, even the underwear that had been found in his

 pocket had been destroyed or given back to June Nealon

 —this was a case that had closed eleven years ago, in the

 minds of the investigators. And al the eyewitnesses had

 died at the scene—except for Shay.

 “Yes, there is a law that protects the religious freedom of

 inmates,”

 Greenleaf said. “It exists so that Jewish inmates can wear

 yarmulkes in prison, and Muslims can fast during

 Ramadan. The commissioner of corrections always makes

 al owances for religious activity in compliance with federal

 law. But to say that this man—who’s had outbursts in the

 courtroom, who can’t control his emotions, who can’t even

 tel you what the name of his religion is—deserves to be

 executed in some special way to comply with federal law is

 completely inappropriate, and is not what our system of

 justice intended.”

 Just as Greenleaf sat down, a bailiff slipped a note to me. I

 glanced at it and took a deep breath.

 “Ms. Bloom?” the judge prompted.

 “One hundred and twenty dol ars,” I said. “You know what

 you can do with one hundred and twenty dol ars? You can

 get a great pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes on sale. You can

 buy two tickets to a Bruins game.

 You can feed a starving family in Africa. You can purchase

 a cel phone contract. Or, you can help a man reach

 salvation—and rescue a dying child.”

 I stood up. “Shay Bourne is not asking for freedom. He’s

 not asking for his sentence to be overturned. He’s simply

 asking to die in accordance with his religious beliefs. And if

 America stands for nothing else, it stands for the right to

 practice your own religion, even if you die in the custody of

 the state.”

 I began to walk toward the gal ery. “People stil flock to this

 country because of its religious freedom. They know that in

 America, you won’t be told what God should look like or

 sound like. You won’t be told there is one right belief, and

 yours isn’t it. They want to speak freely about religion, and

 to ask questions. Those rights were the foundation of

 America four hundred years ago, and they’re stil the

 foundation today. It’s why, in this country, Madonna can

 perform on a crucifix, and The Da Vinci Code was a

 bestsel er. It’s why, even after 9/11, religious freedom

 flourishes in America.”

 Facing the judge again, I pul ed out al the stops. “Your

 Honor, we’re not asking you to remove the wal between

 church and state by ruling in favor of Shay Bourne. We just

 want the law upheld—the one that promises Shay Bourne

 the right to practice his religion even in the state

 penitentiary, unless there’s a compel ing governmental

 interest to keep him from doing so. The only governmental

 interest that the stale can point to here is one hundred and

 twenty dol ars—and a matter of a few months.”

 I walked back to my seat, slipped into it. “How do you weigh

 lives and souls against two months, and a hundred and

 twenty bucks?”

 Once the judge returned to chambers to reach his verdict,

 two marshals came to retrieve Shay. “Maggie?” he said,

 getting to his feet. “Thanks.”

 “Guys,” I said to the marshals, “can you give me a minute

 with him in the holding cel ?”

 “Make it quick,” one of them said, and I nodded.

 “What do you think?” Father Michael said, stil seated in the

 gal ery behind me. “Does he have a chance?”

 I reached into my pocket, retrieved the note the bailiff had

 passed me just before I began my closing, and handed it to

 Michael. “You better hope so,” I said. “The governor denied

 his stay of execution.”

 He was lying on the metal bunk, his arm thrown over his

 eyes, by the time I reached the holding cel . “Shay,” I said,

 standing in front of the bars. “Father Michael came to talk to

 me. About what happened the night of the murders.”

 “It doesn’t matter.”

 

 “It does matter,” I said urgently. “The governor denied your

 stay of execution, which means we’re up against a brick

 wal . DNA evidence is used routinely now to overturn capital

 punishment verdicts. There was some talk about sexual

 assault during the trial, wasn’t there, before that charge was

 dropped? If that semen sample stil exists, we can have it

 tested and matched to Kurt … I just need you to give me the

 details about what happened, Shay, so that I can get the

 bal rol ing.”

 Shay stood up and walked toward me, resting his hands on

 the bars between us. “I can’t.”

 “Why not?” I chal enged. “Were you lying when you told

 Father Michael you were innocent?”

 He glanced up at me, his eyes hot. “No.”

 I cannot tel you why I believed him. Maybe I was naive,

 because I hadn’t been a criminal defense attorney; maybe I

 just felt that a dying man had very little left to lose. But when

 Shay met my gaze, I knew that he was tel ing me the truth—

 and that executing an innocent man was even more

 devastating, if possible, than executing a guilty one. “Wel ,

 then,” I said, my head already swimming with possibilities.

 “You told Father Michael your first lawyer wouldn’t listen to

 you—but I’m listening to you now. Talk to me, Shay. Tel me

 something I can use to convince a judge you were wrongly

 convicted. Then I’l write up the request for DNA testing, you

 just have to sign—”

 “No.”

 “I can’t do this alone,” I exploded. “Shay, we’re talking about

 overturning your conviction, do you understand that? About

 you walking out of here, free.”

 “I know, Maggie.”

 “So instead of trying, you’re just going to die for a crime you

 didn’t commit? You’re okay with that?”

 He stared at me and slowly nodded. “I told you that the first

 day I met you. I didn’t want you to save me. I wanted you to

 save my heart.”

 I was stunned. “Why?”

 

 He struggled to get the words out. “It was stil my fault. I tried

 to rescue her, and I couldn’t. I wasn’t there in time. I never

 liked Kurt Nealon—I used to try to not be in the same room

 as him when I was working, so I wouldn’t feel him looking at

 me. But June, she was so nice. She smel ed like apples

 and she’d make me tuna fish for lunch and let me sit at the

 kitchen table like I belonged there with her and the girl. After

 Elizabeth … afterward … it was bad enough that June

 wouldn’t have them anymore. I didn’t want her to lose the

 past, too.

 Family’s not a thing, it’s a place,” Shay said softly. “It’s

 where al the memories get kept.”

 So he took the blame for Kurt Nealon’s crimes, in order to

 al ow the grieving widow to remember him with pride,

 instead of hate. How much worse would it have been for

 June if DNA testing had existed back then—if the al eged

 rape of Elizabeth had proved Kurt as the perpetrator?

 “You go looking for evidence now, Maggie, and you’l rip

 her wide open again. This way—wel , this is the end, and

 then it’s over.”

 I could feel my throat closing, a fist of tears. “And what if

 one day June finds out the truth? And realizes that you were

 executed, even though you were innocent?”

 “Then,” Shay said, a smile breaking over him like daylight,

 “she’l remember me.”

 I had gone into this case knowing that Shay and I wanted

 different outcomes; I had expected to be able to convince

 him that an overturned conviction was a cause for

 celebration, even if living meant organ donation would have

 to be put on hold for a while. But Shay was ready to die;

 Shay wanted to die. He wasn’t just giving Claire Nealon a

 future; he was giving one to her mother, too. He wasn’t

 trying to save the world, like me. Just one life at a time—

 which is why he had a fighting chance of succeeding.

 He touched my hand, where it rested on the bars. “It’s okay,

 Maggie.

 I’ve never done anything important. I didn’t cure cancer or

 stop global warming or win a Nobel Prize. I didn’t do

 anything with my life, except hurt people I loved. But dying—

 dying wil be different.”

 “How?”

 “They’l see their lives are worth living.”

 I knew that I would be haunted by Shay Bourne for a very

 long time, whether or not his sentence was carried out.

 “Someone who thinks like that,” I said, “does not deserve to

 be executed. Please, Shay. Help me help you. You don’t

 have to play the hero.”

 “Maggie,” he said. “Neither do you.”

 

 June

 Code blue, the nurse had said.

 A stream of doctors and nurses flooded Claire’s room. One

 began chest compressions.

 I don’t feel a pulse.

 We need an airway.

 Start chest compressions.

 Can we get an IV access …

 What rhythm is she in?

 We need to shock her… put on the patches …

 Charge to two hundred pules.

 Al clear…fire!

 Hold compressions …

 No pulse.

 Give epi. Lidocaine. Bicarb.

 Check for a pulse …

 Dr. Wu flew through the door. “Get the mother out of here,”

 he said, and a nurse grasped my shoulders.

 “You need to come with me,” she said, and I nodded, but

 my feet would not move. Someone held the defibril ator to

 Claire’s chest again. Her body jackknifed off the bed just as

 I was dragged through the doorway.

 I had been the one present when Claire flatlined; I was the

 one who’d run to the nurse’s desk. And I was the one sitting

 with her now that she’d been stabilized, now that her heart,

 battered and ragged, was beating again. She was in a

 monitored bed, and I stared at the screens, at the

 mountainous terrain of her cardiac rhythm, sure that if I

 didn’t blink we’d be safe.

 Claire whimpered, tossing her head from side to side. The

 monitors cast her skin an alien green.

 “Baby,” I said, moving beside her. “Don’t try to talk. You’ve

 stil got a tube in.”

 Her eyes slitted open; she pleaded to me with her eyes and

 mimed holding a pen.

 I gave her the white board Dr. Wu had given me; until Claire

 was extubated tomorrow morning she would have to use

 this to communicate. Her writing was shaky and spiked.

 WHAT HAPPENED?

 “Your heart,” I said, blinking back tears. “It wasn’t doing so

 wel .”

 MOMMY, DO SOMETHING.

 “Anything, honey.”

 LET GO OF ME.

 I glanced down; I was not touching her.

 Claire circled the words again; and this time, I understood.

 Suddenly I remembered something Kurt had told me once:

 you could only save someone who wanted to be saved;

 otherwise, you’d be dragged down for the count, too. I

 looked at Claire, but she was asleep again, the marker stil

 curled in her hand.

 Tears slipped down my cheeks, onto the hospital blanket.

 “Oh, Claire … I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and I was.

 For what I had done.

 For what I knew I had to do.

 

 Lucius

 When I coughed it turned me inside out. I could feel the

 tendons tangle on the outside of my skin and the fever in my

 head steaming against the pil ow. You put ice chips on my

 tongue and they vanished before I swal owed isn’t it funny

 how now things come back that I was so sure I’d forgotten

 like this moment of high school chemistry. Sublimation

 that’s the word the act of turning into something you never

 expected to become.

 The room it was so white that it hurt the backs of my

 eyebal s. Your hands were like hummingbirds or butterflies

 Stay with us Lucius you said but it was harder and harder to

 hear you and I could only feel you instead your hummingfly

 hands your butterbird fingers.

 They talk about white lights and tunnels and there was a

 part of me expecting to see oh I’l just say it outright Shay

 but none of that was true.

 Instead it was Him and He was holding out His hand and

 reaching for me.

 He was just like I remembered coffee skin ebony eyes five

 o’clock shadow that dimple too deep for tears and I saw

 how foolish I had been. How could I not have known it would

 be Him how could I not have known that you see God every

 time you look at the face of the person you love.

 There were so many things I expected Him to say to me

 now when it counted the most. I love you. I missed you. But

 instead He smiled at me with those white teeth those white

 wolfs teeth and He said I forgive you Lucius I forgive you.

 Your hands pounded and pumped at me your electricity

 shot through my body but you could not reclaim my heart it

 already belonged to someone else. He spread the fingers

 of His hand a star a beacon and I went to h i m . I am

 coming I am coming.

 Wait for me.

 Maggie

 “I wouldn’t have cal ed you in here on a Sunday, normal y,”

 Warden Coyne said to me, “but I thought you’d want to

 know … ” He closed the door to his office for privacy.

 “Lucius DuFresne died last night.”

 I sank down into one of the chairs across from the warden’s

 desk.

 “How?”

 “AIDS-related pneumonia.”

 “Does Shay know?”

 The warden shook his head. “We thought that might not be

 the best course of action at this moment.”

 What he meant, of course, was that Shay was already in an

 observation cel for slamming his own head into a wal —

 they didn’t need to give him even more reason to be upset.

 “He could hear about it from someone else.”

 “That’s true,” Coyne said. “I can’t stop rumors.”

 I remembered the reporters glorifying Lucius’s initial cure—

 how would this turn the tide of public opinion against Shay

 even more? If he wasn’t a messiah, then—by default—he

 was only a murderer. I glanced up at the warden. “So you

 asked me here so I could break the bad news to him.”

 “That’s your cal , Ms. Bloom. I asked you here to give you

 this.” He reached into his desk and removed an envelope.

 “It was with Luciuss personal effects.”

 The manila envelope was addressed to Father Michael and

 me in shaky spiderweb handwriting. “What is it?”

 “I didn’t open it,” the warden said.

 I unhinged the clasp of the envelope and reached inside. At

 first I thought I was looking at a magazine advertisement of

 a painting—the detail was that precise. But a closer look

 showed that this was a piece of card stock; that the

 pigment wasn’t oil, but what seemed to be watercolor and

 pen.

 It was a copy of Raphael’s Transfiguration, something I only

 knew because of an art history course I’d taken when I

 fancied myself in love with the TA who ran the class

 sessions—a tal , anemic guy with ski-slope cheekbones

 who wore black, smoked clove cigarettes, and wrote

 Nietzsche quotes on the back of his hand. Although I didn’t

 real y care about sixteenth-century art, I’d gotten an A, trying

 to impress him—only to discover he had a live-in lover

 named Henry.

 The Transfiguration was thought to be Raphael’s last

 painting. It was left unfinished and was completed by one of

 his students. The upper part of the painting shows Jesus

 floating above Mt. Tabor with Moses and Elijah. The bottom

 part of the painting shows the miracle of the possessed

 boy, waiting for Jesus to cure him, along with the Apostles

 and the other disciples.

 Lucius’s version looked exactly like the painting I’d seen

 slides of in a darkened amphitheater—until you looked

 closely. Then you noticed that my face was superimposed

 where Moses’s should have been. Father Michael was

 standing in for Elijah. The possessed boy—there, Lucius

 had drawn his self-portrait. And Shay rose in white robes

 above Mt. Tabor, his face turned upward.

 I slipped the painting back into the envelope careful y and

 looked at the warden. “I’d like to see my client,” I said.

 Shay stepped into the conference room. “Did you get the

 verdict?”

 “Not yet. It’s stil the weekend.” I took a deep breath. “Shay, I

 have some bad news for you. Lucius died last night.”

 The light faded from his face. “Lucius?”

 “I’m sorry.”

 “He was … getting better.”

 “I guess he wasn’t, real y. It only looked that way,” I said. “I

 know you thought you helped him. I know you wanted to

 help him. But Shay, you couldn’t have. He was dying from

 the moment you met him.”

 “Like me,” Shay said.

 He bent over, as if the hand of grief were pushing hard on

 him, and started to cry—and that, I realized, was going to

 be my undoing. Because when you got right down to it,

 what was different between Shay and everyone else in this

 world was not nearly as profound as what we had in

 common. Maybe my hair was brushed, and I could string

 words together to make a sentence. Maybe I hadn’t been

 convicted of murder. But if someone told me that the only

 friend I real y had in this world had left it, I’d sink to my

 knees, sobbing, too.

 “Shay,” I said, at a loss, approaching him. How come there

 were no words for this kind of comfort?

 “Don’t touch me,” Shay growled, his eyes feral. I ducked at

 the last moment as he swung at me, and his fist punched

 through the double pane of glass that separated us from the

 officer standing watch. “He wasn’t supposed to die,” Shay

 cried, as his hand bled down the front of his prison scrubs

 like a trail of regret. A smal army of officers rushed in to

 save me and secure him, and then haul him off to the

 infirmary for stitches, proof—as if either of us needed it—

 that Shay was not invincible.

 One year in junior high, during a sex-ed unit, our teacher

 discussed the painful y obvious fact that some of us would

 not mature as quickly as our classmates. This was not a

 lesson you had to teach someone like me, whose waistline

 was larger than her bra size; or Cheryl Otenski, who had

 gotten her period in ful view of every other sixth grader

 during an assembly where she happened to be wearing

 white pants. “Late bloomers,”

 the teacher cal ed it—that was close enough to my last

 name for me to be the butt of every joke for the remaining

 week.

 I had told my mother I had the bubonic plague and refused

 to get out of bed for three days, spending most of it under

 the covers and wishing I could just miraculously skip ahead

 ten or fifteen years to when my life surely would be more

 pleasant.

 After seeing Shay, I was sorely tempted to pul the same

 act. If I stayed in bed when the verdict was read, did that

 mean the plaintiff lost by default?

 Instead of driving to my house, however, I found myself

 pointing in the opposite direction and turned into the

 emergency entrance of the hospital. I felt as if I’d been

 poleaxed, which surely qualified me for medical attention—

 but I didn’t think that even the most gifted physician could

 cure a skeptic who’d come to see the light: I could not

 remain as emotional y unattached from my client as I’d

 believed. This wasn’t, as I’d told myself, about the death

 penalty in America. It wasn’t about my career as a litigator.

 It was about a man I’d been sitting next to—a man whose

 scent I could recognize (Head & Shoulders shampoo and

 pungent industrial soap); whose voice was familiar (rough

 as sandpaper, with words dropped like stepping-stones)—

 who would, very shortly, be dead.

 I did not know Shay Bourne wel , but that didn’t mean he

 would not leave a hole in my life when he exited his own.

 “I need to see Dr. Gal agher,” I announced to the triage

 nurse. “I’m a personal…”

 What?

 Friend?

 Girlfriend?

 Stalker?

 Before the nurse could rebuff me, however, I saw Christian

 coming down the hal with another doctor. He noticed me

 and—before I could even make a decision to go to him—

 he came to me. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

 No one except my father had ever cal ed me that. For this

 reason, and a dozen others, I burst into tears.

 Christian folded me into his arms. “Fol ow me,” he said,

 and led me by the hand into an empty family waiting room.

 “The governor denied Shay’s stay of execution,” I said.

 “And Shay’s best friend died, and I was the one who had to

 tel him. And he’s going to die, Christian, because he won’t

 let me try to find new evidence to exonerate him.” I drew

 away from him, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. “How do you

 do it? How do you let go?”

 “The first patient who died on my table,” Christian said,

 “was a seventy-six-yearold woman who came in

 complaining of abdominal pain after a meal at a posh

 London restaurant. A half hour into the surgery, she coded,

 and we couldn’t bring her back.” He looked up at me.

 “When I went into the family waiting area to speak with her

 husband, the man just kept staring at me. Final y, I asked

 him if he had any questions, and he said he’d taken his wife

 to dinner to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

 Christian shook his head. “That night, I sat with her body in

 the morgue. Sil y, I know, but I thought that on one’s fiftieth

 anniversary, one didn’t deserve to spend the night alone.”

 If I hadn’t been swayed before by Christian’s charm, good

 looks, or the way he cal ed the trunk of his car a boot and

 the hood a bonnet, I was now completely smitten.

 “Here’s the thing,” Christian added. “It doesn’t get any

 easier, no matter how many times you go through it. And if

 it does—wel , I suspect that means you’ve lost some part of

 yourself that’s critical y important.”

 He reached for my hand. “Let me be the attending

 physician at the execution.”

 “You can’t,” I said automatical y. Kil ing a man was a

 violation of the Hippocratic oath; doctors were contacted

 privately by the Department of Corrections, and the whole

 event was kept secret. In fact, in the other executions I’d

 studied before Shay’s trial, the doctor’s name was never

 mentioned—not even on the death certificate.

 “Let me worry about that,” Christian said.

 I felt a fresh wave of tears rising. “You would do that for

 Shay?”

 He leaned forward and kissed me lightly. “I would do that for

 you,”

 he said.

 *

 If this had been a trial, here were the facts I’d present to the

 jury: 1. Christian had suggested that he swing by my house

 after his shift, just to make sure I wasn’t fal ing apart at the

 seams.

 2. He was the one who brought the bottle of Penfolds.

 3. It would have been downright rude to refuse to have a

 glass. Or three.

 4. I truly could not establish the causal line between how we

 went from kissing on the couch to lying on the carpet with

 his hands underneath my shirt, and me worrying about

 whether or not I was wearing underwear that was a step

 above granny panties.

 5. Other women—those who have sex with men more often

 than once during a senatorial term, for example—probably

 have a whole set of underwear just for moments like these,

 like my mother has a set of Sabbath china.

 6. I was truly hammered if I had just thought of sex and my

 mother in the same sentence.

 Maybe the details here weren’t nearly as important as the

 outcome—I had a man in my bed, right now, waiting for me.

 He was even more beautiful without clothes on than he was

 in them. And where was I?

 Locked in the bathroom, so paralyzed by the thought of my

 disgusting, white, fish-bel ied body being seen by him that I

 couldn’t open the door.

 I had been discreet about it—lowering my lashes and

 murmuring something about changing. I’m sure Christian

 assumed I meant slipping into lingerie.

 Me, I was thinking more along the lines of morphing into

 Heidi Klum.

 Bravely, I unbuttoned my blouse and stepped out of my

 jeans. There I was in the mirror, in my bra and panties, just

 like a bikini—except I wouldn’t be caught dead in a bikini.

 Christian sees a hundred bodies a day, I told myself. Yours

 can’t be any worse than those.

 But. Here was the ripple of cottage cheese cel ulite that I

 usual y avoided by dressing in the dark. Here was the inch

 (or two) that I could pinch with my fingers, which vanished

 beneath a waistband. Here was my butt, large enough to

 colonize, which could so craftily be camouflaged by black

 trousers. Christian would take one look at the acoustic

 version of me and run screaming for the hil s.

 His voice came, muffled, through the bathroom door.

 “Maggie?”

 Christian said. “Are you al right in there?”

 “I’m fine!” Fmjat.

 “Are you coming out?”

 I didn’t answer that. I was looking inside the waistband of

 my pants.

 They were a twelve, but that didn’t count, because this label

 had resized downward so that fourteens like me could feel

 better about themselves for being able to squeeze into the

 brand at al . But hadn’t Marilyn Monroe been a size

 fourteen? Or was that back when a size fourteen was real y

 an eight—which meant that comparatively, I was a

 behemoth compared to your average 1940s starlet?

 Wel , hel . I was a behemoth compared to your average

 2008 starlet, too.

 Suddenly I heard scratching outside the door. It couldn’t

 have been Oliver—I’d put him in his cage when he kept

 sniffing around our heads as we’d rol ed across the living

 room carpet having our From Here to Eternity moment. To

 my horror, the locked doorknob popped open and began to

 twist.

 I grabbed my ratty red bathrobe from the back of the door

 and wrapped it around myself just in time to see the door

 swing open. Christian stood there, holding a wire hanger

 with its neck straightened.

 “You can pick locks, too?” I said.

 Christian grinned. “I do laparoscopic surgery through bel y

 buttons,”

 he explained. “This isn’t dramatical y different.”

 He folded his arms around me and met my gaze in the

 mirror. “I can’t say come back to bed, because you haven’t

 been in it yet.” His chin notched over my shoulder.

 “Maggie,” he murmured, and at that moment he realized

 that I was wearing a robe.

 Christian’s eyes lit up and his hands slipped down to the

 belt. Immediately, I started to tug him away. “Please. Don’t.”

 His hands fel to his sides, and he took a step back. The

 room must have cooled twenty degrees. “I’m sorry,”

 Christian said, al business. “I must have misread—”

 “No!” I cried, facing him. “You didn’t misread anything. I

 want this. I want you. I’m just afraid that… that… you won’t

 want me.”

 “Are you jokingl I’ve wanted you since the moment I didn’t

 get to examine you for appendicitis.”

 “Why?”

 “Because you’re smart. And fierce. And funny. And so

 beautiful.”

 I smiled wryly. “I almost believed you, until that last part.”

 Christian’s eyes flashed. “You truly think you’re not?” In one

 smooth motion, before I could stop him, he yanked the wide

 shawl col ar of the robe down to my elbows, and my blouse

 along with it. My arms were trapped; I stood before him in

 my underwear. “Look at you, Maggie,” he said with quiet

 awe. “My God.”

 I could not look at myself in the mirror, so instead, I looked

 at Christian.

 He wasn’t scrutinizing breasts that sagged or a waist that

 was too thick or thighs that rubbed together when the

 temperature climbed above eighty degrees. He was just

 staring at me, and as he did, his hands began to shake

 where they touched me.

 “Let me show you what I see when I look at you,” Christian

 said quietly.

 His fingers were warm as they played over me, as they

 coaxed me into the bedroom and under the covers, as they

 traced the curves of my body like a rol er coaster, a thril

 ride, a wonder. And somewhere in the middle of it al , I

 stopped worrying about sucking in my stomach, or if he

 could see me in the halflight of the moon, and instead

 noticed how seamlessly we fit together; how when I let go of

 me, there was only room for us.

 *

 Wow.

 I woke up with the sun slicing the bed like a scalpel, and

 every muscle in my body leering like I’d started training for

 a triathlon. Last night could effectively be classified as a

 workout, and to be honest, it was the first exercise routine I

 could see myself real y looking forward to on a daily basis.

 I smoothed my hand over the side of the bed where

 Christian had slept. In the bathroom, I heard the shower

 being turned off. The door opened, and Christian’s head

 popped out. He was wearing a towel. “Hi,”

 he said. “I hope I didn’t knock you up.”

 “Wel . I, uh, hope so, too …” Christian frowned, confused,

 and I realized that we were not speaking the same

 language. “Let me guess,” I said. “Where you come from,

 that doesn’t mean getting a girl pregnant?”

 “Good God, no! It’s, you know, rousing someone from their

 sleep.”

 I rol ed onto my back and started laughing, and he sank

 down beside me, the towel slipping dangerously low. “But

 since I’ve knocked you up,”

 he said, leaning down to kiss me, “maybe I could try my

 hand at knocking you up …”

 I had morning breath and hair that felt like a rat had taken

 nest in it, not to mention a courtroom verdict to attend, but I

 wrapped my arms around Christian’s neck and kissed him

 back. Which was about the same moment that a phone

 began to ring.

 “Bloody hel ,” Christian muttered, and he swung over the far

 side of the bed to where he’d folded his clothes in a neat

 pile, his cel phone and pager resting on top. “It’s not mine,”

 he said, but by then I’d wrapped his discarded towel around

 me and hiked to my purse in the living room to dig out my

 own.

 “Ms. Bloom?” a woman’s voice said. “This is June Nealon.”

 “June,” I said, immediately sobering. “Is everything al

 right?”

 “Yes,” she said, and then, “No. Oh, God. I can’t answer that

 question.”

 There was a beat of silence. “I can’t take it,” June

 whispered.

 “I can’t imagine how difficuft al this waiting has been for

 you,” I said, and I meant it. “But we should know definitively

 what’s going to happen by lunchtime.”

 “I can’t take it,” June repeated. “Give it to someone else.”

 And she hung up the phone, leaving me with Shay’s heart.

 M I CHAEL

 There were only seven people attending Monday morning

 Mass, and I was one of them. I wasn’t officiating—it was my

 day off, so Father Walter was presiding, along with a

 deacon named Paul O’Hurley. I participated in the Lord’s

 Prayer and the sign of peace, and I realized these were the

 moments Shay had missed: when people came together to

 celebrate God. You might be able to find Him on your own

 spiritual journey, but it was a lonelier trip. Coming to church

 felt like validation, like a family where everyone knew your

 flaws, and in spite of that was stil wil ing to invite you back.

 Long after Father Walter finished Mass and said his good-

 byes to the congregants, I was stil sitting in a pew. I

 wandered toward the votive candles, watching the tongues

 of their flames wag like gossips.

 “I didn’t think we’d see you today, with the verdict and al ,”

 Father Walter said, walking up to me.

 “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe that’s why I needed to come.”

 Father Walter hesitated. “You know, Mikey, you haven’t

 been fooling anyone.”

 I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “No?”

 “You don’t have to be embarrassed about having a crisis of

 faith,”

 Father Walter said. “That’s what makes us human.”

 I nodded, not trusting myself to respond. I wasn’t having a

 crisis of faith; I just didn’t particularly think Father Walter

 was any more right in his faith than Shay was.

 Father Walter reached down and lit one of the candles,

 murmuring a prayer. “You know how I see it? There’s

 always going to be bad stuff out there. But here’s the

 amazing thing—light trumps darkness, every time. You stick

 a candle into the dark, but you can’t stick the dark into the

 light.” We both watched the flame reach higher, gasping for

 oxygen, before settling comfortably. “I guess from my point

 of view, we can choose to be in the dark, or we can light a

 candle. And for me, Christ is that candle.”

 I faced him. “But it’s not just candles, is it? There are

 flashlights and fluorescent bulbs and bonfires …”

 “Christ says that there are others doing miracles in His

 name,”

 Father Walter agreed. “I never said there might not be a

 mil ion points of light out there—I just think Jesus is the one

 who strikes the match.”

 He smiled. “I couldn’t quite understand why you were so

 surprised when you thought God had showed up, Mikey. I

 mean, when hasn’t He been here?”

 Father Walter started to walk back down the church aisle,

 and I fel into step beside him. “You got time for lunch in the

 next few weeks?”

 he asked.

 “Can’t,” I said, grinning. Til be doing a funeral.” It was a joke

 between priests—you couldn’t schedule anything when your

 plans were likely to be changed by the lives and deaths of

 your parishioners.

 Except this time, as I said it, I realized it wasn’t a joke. In

 days, I’d be presiding over Shay’s funeral.

 Father Walter met my gaze. “Good luck today, Mike. I’l be

 praying.”

 Out of the blue I remembered the Latin words that had been

 combined to create religion: re + ligere. I had always

 assumed they translated to reconnect. It was only when I

 was at seminary that I learned the correct translation was to

 bind.

 Back then, I hadn’t seen a difference.

 When I first arrived at St. Catherine’s, I was given the task

 of hosting a heart: St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney’s, to be

 precise—a French priest who’d died in 1859, at the age of

 seventy-three. Forty-five years later, when his body was

 exhumed, the priest’s heart had not decayed. Our parish

 had been chosen as the U.S. location for the heart’s

 veneration; thousands of Catholics from the Northeast were

 expected to view the organ.

 I remembered being very stressed out, and wondering why I

 had to battle police lines and roadblocks when I had turned

 to the priesthood to get closer to God. I watched Catholics

 file into our little church and disrupt our Mass schedule and

 our confession schedule. But after the doors were locked

 and the onlookers gone, I’d stare down at the glass case

 with the organ sealed inside. The real wonder, to me, was

 the course of events that had brought this ancient relic al

 the way across an ocean to be venerated. Timing was

 everything. After al , if they hadn’t dug up the saint’s body,

 they never would have known about his heart, or told others.

 A miracle was only a miracle if someone witnessed it, and

 if the story was passed along to someone else.

 Maggie sat in front of me with Shay, her back straight as a

 poker, her wild mane of hair tamed into a bun at the base of

 her neck. Shay was subdued, shuffling, fidgety. I glanced

 down at my lap, which held a manila envelope Maggie had

 passed me—a piece of art left behind by Lucius DuFresne,

 who’d passed away over the weekend. There had also

 been a note on a piece of lined paper:

 June has refused the heart. Have not told Shay.

 If, on a long shot, we won this case—how would we break

 the news to Shay that we stil could not give him what he so

 desperately wanted?

 “Al rise,” a U.S. marshal cal ed.

 Maggie glanced at me over her shoulder and offered a tight

 smile, and the entire courtroom got to its feet while Judge

 Haig entered.

 It was so quiet that I could hear the tiny electronic gasps of

 the video equipment as the judge began to speak. “This is

 a unique case in New Hampshire’s history,” Haig said, “and

 possibly a unique case in the federal court system. The

 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

 certainly protects the religious freedoms of a person

 confined to an institution such as Mr. Bourne, but that

 doesn’t mean that such a person can simply claim that any

 of his beliefs constitutes a true religion.

 For example, imagine what would happen if a death row

 inmate announced that by the tenets of his religion, he had

 to die of old age.

 Therefore, when balancing the religious rights of inmates

 against the compel ing governmental interest of the state,

 this court is mindful of more than just the monetary cost, or

 even the security cost to other inmates.”

 The judge folded his hands. “That being said … we are not

 in the habit in this country of al owing the government to

 define what a church is, or vice versa. And that puts us at a

 standstil —unless we can develop a litmus test for what

 religion real y is. So how do we go about doing that? Wel ,

 al we have to work with is history. Dr. Fletcher posed

 similarities between Gnosticism and Mr. Bourne’s beliefs.

 However, Gnosticism is not a flourishing religion in today’s

 world climate—it’s not even an existing religion in today’s

 world climate. Although I don’t presume to be the expert on

 the history of Christianity that Dr. Fletcher is, it seems to me

 a stretch to connect the belief system of an individual

 inmate in a New Hampshire state prison to a religious sect

 that’s been dead for nearly two thousand years.”

 Maggie’s hand slipped back through the slatted rails that

 separated the first row of the gal ery from the plaintiff’s

 table. I snatched the folded note she held between her

 fingers. WE’RE SCREWED, she had written.

 “Then again,” the judge continued, “some of Mr. Bourne’s

 observations about spirituality and divinity seem awful y

 familiar. Mr. Bourne believes in one God. Mr. Bourne thinks

 salvation is linked to religious practice. Mr. Boume feels

 that part of the contract between man and God involves

 personal sacrifice. Al of these are very familiar concepts to

 the average American who is practicing a mainstream

 religion.”

 He cleared his throat. “One of the reasons religion doesn’t

 belong in a courtroom is because it’s a deeply personal

 pursuit. Yet, ironical y, something Mr. Bourne said struck a

 chord with this court.” Judge Haig turned to Shay. “I am not

 a religious man. I have not attended a service for many

 years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion,

 you could say, is a nonpractice. I personal y feel that it’s just

 as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawn of an elderly

 neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of

 this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass.

 In other words, I think every man finds his own church—and

 not al of them have four wal s. But just because this is how I

 choose to fashion my faith doesn’t mean that I’m ignorant

 about formal religion. In fact, some of the things I learned as

 a young man studying for his bar mitzvah resonate with me

 even now.”

 My jaw dropped. Judge Haig was Jewish?

 “There’s a principle in Jewish mysticism cal ed tikkun

 olam,” he said. “It means, literal y, world repair. The idea is

 that God created the world by containing divine light in

 vessels, some of which shattered and got scattered al

 over. It’s the job of humanity to help God by finding and

 releasing those shards of light—through good deeds and

 acts.

 Every time we do, God becomes more perfect—and we

 become a little more like God.

 “From what I understand, Jesus promised his believers

 entry into the Kingdom of Heaven—and urged them to

 prepare through love and charity. The bodhisattva in

 Buddhism promises to wait for liberation until al who suffer

 have been freed. And apparently, even those longgone

 Gnostics thought that a spark of divinity was inside al of us.

 It seems to me that no matter what religion you subscribe

 to, acts of kindness are the stepping-stones to making the

 world a better place—because we become better people

 in it. And that sounds, to me, a bit like why Mr. Bourne

 wants to donate his heart.”

 Did it real y matter whether you believed that Jesus spoke

 the words in the Bible or the words in the Gospel of

 Thomas? Did it matter whether you found God in a

 consecrated church or a penitentiary or even in yourself?

 Maybe not. Maybe it only mattered that you not judge

 someone else who chose a different path to find meaning

 in his life.

 “I find under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized

 Persons Act of 2000 that Shay Bourne has a valid and

 compel ing religious belief that he must donate his organs

 at the time of his death,” Judge Haig pronounced. “I further

 find that the State of New Hampshire’s plan to execute Mr.

 Bourne by lethal injection imposes a substantial burden on

 the ability to exercise his religious practices, and that they

 therefore must comply with an alternate means of

 execution, such as hanging, that wil al ow organ donation to

 be medical y feasible. Court’s adjourned, and I want to see

 counsel in my chambers.”

 The gal ery exploded in a riot of noise, as reporters tried to

 get to the attorneys before they left to meet with the judge.

 There were women sobbing and students punching their

 fists in the air, and in the back of the room, someone had

 begun to sing a psalm. Maggie reached over the bar to

 embrace me, and then quickly hugged Shay. “I gotta run,”

 she said, and Shay and I were left staring at each other.

 “Good,” he said. “This is good.”

 I nodded and reached out to him. I had never embraced

 Shay before, and it was a shock to me—how strong his

 heart beat against my own chest, how warm his skin was.

 “You have to cal her,” he said.

 “You have to tel the girl.”

 How was I supposed to explain that Claire Nealon didn’t

 want his heart?

 “I wil ,” I lied, the words staining his cheek like Judas’s kiss.

 Maggie

 Wait until I told my mother that Judge Haig was not

 Catholic, like Alexander, but Jewish. No doubt it would

 inspire her to give me the speech again about how, with

 time and perseverance, I could be a judge, too. I had to

 admit, I liked his ruling—and not just because it had come

 out in favor of my client. His words had been thoughtful,

 unbiased, not at al what I expected.

 “Al right,” Judge Haig said, “now that the cameras aren’t on

 us, let’s just cut the crap. We al know that this trial wasn’t

 about religion, although you found a lovely legal coatrack to

 hang your complaint on, Ms.

 Bloom.”

 My mouth opened and closed, sputtering. So much for

 thoughtful and unbiased; Judge Haig’s spirituality,

 apparently, was the kind that made itself present only when

 the right people were there to see it.

 “Your Honor, I firmly believe in my client’s religious

 freedoms—”

 “I’m sure you do,” the judge interrupted. “But get off your

 high horse so we can settle this business.” He turned to

 Gordon Greenleaf. “Is the state real y going to appeal this

 for a hundred and twenty dol ars?”

 “Probably not, Judge, but I’d have to check.”

 “Then go make a phone cal ,” Judge Haig said, “because

 there’s a family out there who deserves to know what’s

 going to happen, and when. Are we clear on that?”

 “Yes, Judge,” we both parroted.

 I left Gordon in the hal way, hunched over his cel phone,

 and headed downstairs to the holding cel where Shay was

 most likely stil incarcerated. With each step, I moved a little

 more slowly. What did you say to the man whose imminent

 death you’d just set in motion?

 He was lying on the metal bench in the cel , facing the wal .

 “Shay,” I said, “you okay?”

 He rol ed toward me and grinned. “You did it.”

 I swal owed. “Yeah. I guess I did.” If I had gotten my client

 the verdict he wanted, why did I feel like I was going to be

 sick?

 “Did you tel her yet?”

 He was talking about June Nealon, or Claire Nealon—

 which meant that Father Michael had not had the guts to tel

 Shay the truth either, yet.

 I pul ed up a chair and sat down outside the cel . “I spoke to

 June this morning,” I said. “She said Claire’s not going to

 be using your heart.”

 “But the doctor told me I was a match.”

 “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 stil 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 tel 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, wel , 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 al 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 stil meant there was a wil 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 pul ed 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 wil ing 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

 cal to the state’s attorney’s office, and then offered me a

 deal. I couldn’t take Grace into the tier, but he was wil ing 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 fol owed 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’l 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 rueful y. “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 hel 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.”

 “Wel , I’m not.” She looked up at him. “I want to tel

 someone.

 Shay.”

 He stared at her for a long moment. “Al 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 al the

 paintings, al 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 tel ing 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

 pul ed 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 tel 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 medical y induced haze. “What makes you think I want

 to listen?”

 She continued, as if I hadn’t spoken at al . “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,”

 Grace said.

 I folded my arms. She hadn’t said anything yet that

 surprised me. I knew that Shay Bourne had been in and out

 of the foster care system. I knew that he’d been sent to

 juvenile prison. You could throw ten thousand more excuses

 for a sorry childhood on his shoulders, and in my opinion, it

 stil wouldn’t negate the fact that my husband, my baby, had

 been kil ed.

 “The thing is,” Grace said, “Shay lied.” She pushed her

 hand through her hair. “I’m the one who set the fire.”

 “My daughter is dying,” I said tightly. “I’m sorry you had such

 a traumatic past. But right now, I have other things to focus

 on.”

 Undaunted, Grace kept speaking. “It would happen when

 my foster mom went to visit her sister. Her husband would

 come to my bedroom. I used to beg to leave my lights on at

 night. At first, it was because I was afraid of the dark; then

 later it was because I so badly wanted someone to see

 what was happening.” Her voice trailed off.

 “So one day, I planned it. My foster mother was gone

 overnight, and Shay was—I don’t know where, but not

 home. I guess I didn’t think about the consequences until

 after I lit the match—so I ran in to try to wake my foster dad

 up. But someone dragged me back out—Shay. And as the

 sirens got closer I told him everything and he promised me

 he’d take care of it. I never thought he meant to take the

 blame—but he wanted to, because he hadn’t been able to

 rescue me before.” Grace glanced up at me. “I don’t know

 what happened that day, with your husband, and your little

 girl, and my brother.

 But I bet, somehow, something went wrong. That Shay was

 trying to save her, the way he couldn’t save me.”

 “It’s not the same,” I said. “My husband would never have

 hurt Elizabeth like that.”

 “My foster mother said that, too.” She met my gaze. “How

 would you have felt if—when Elizabeth died—someone told

 you that you can’t have her back, but that a part of her could

 stil be somewhere in the world? You may not know that

 part; you may not ever have contact with it—but you’d know

 it was out there, alive and wel . Would you have wanted

 that?”

 We were both standing on the same side of Claire’s bed.

 Grace Bourne was almost exactly my height, my build. In

 spite of her scars, it felt like looking into a mirror. “There’s

 stil a heart, June,”

 she said. “And it’s a good one.”

 We pretend that we know our children, because it’s easier

 than admitting the truth—from the minute that cord is cut,

 they are strangers. It’s far easier to tel yourself your

 daughter is stil a little girl than to see her in a bikini and

 realize she has the curves of a young woman; it’s safer to

 say you are a good parent who has al the right

 conversations about drugs and sex than to acknowledge

 there are a thousand things she would never tel you.

 How long ago had Claire decided that she couldn’t fight any

 longer? Did she talk to a friend, a diary, Dudley, because I

 didn’t listen? And had I done this before: ignored another

 daughter, because I was too afraid to hear what she had to

 say?

 Grace Bourne’s words kept circling around my mind: My

 foster mother said that, too.

 No. Kurt would never.

 No. Kurt would never.

 But there were other images clouding my mind, like flags

 thrown on a grassy field: the pair of Elizabeth’s panties that

 I found inside a couch cushion liner when she was too little

 to know how to work a zipper. The way he often needed to

 search for something in the bathroom—Tylenol, an Ace

 bandage—when Elizabeth was in the tub.

 And I heard Elizabeth, every night, when I tucked her in.

 “Leave the lights on,” she’d beg, just like Grace Bourne

 had.

 I had thought it was a phase she’d outgrow, but Kurt said

 we couldn’t let her give in to her fears. The compromise he

 suggested was to turn off the light—and lie down with her

 until she fel asleep.

 What happens when I’m asleep? she’d asked me once.

 Does everything stop?

 What if that had not been the dreamy question of a seven-

 yearold stil figuring out this world, but a plea from a child

 who wanted to escape it?

 I thought of Grace Bourne, hiding behind her scarves. I

 thought of how you can look right at a person and not see

 them.

 I realized that I might never know what had real y happened

 between them—neither Kurt nor Elizabeth could tel . And

 Shay Bourne—wel , no matter what he saw, his fingerprints

 had stil been on that gun. After last time, I did not know if I

 could ever bear to face him again.

 She was better off dead, he’d said, and I’d run away from

 what he was trying to tel me.

 I pictured Kurt and Elizabeth together in that coffin, his arms

 holding her tight, and suddenly I thought I was going to

 throw up.

 “Mom,” Claire said, her voice thin and wispy. “Are you

 okay?”

 I put my hand on her cheek, where there was a faint flush

 induced by the medicine—her heart was not strong enough

 to put a bloom on her face. “No, I’m not,” I admitted. “I’m

 dying.”

 She smiled a little. “What a coincidence.”

 But it wasn’t funny. I was dying, by degrees. “I have to tel

 you something,” I said, “and you’re going to hate me for it.” I

 reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly. “I know it isn’t

 fair. But you’re the child, and I’m the parent, and I get to

 make the choice, even though the heart gets to beat in your

 chest.”

 Her eyes fil ed with tears. “But you said—you promised.

 Don’t make me do this …”

 “Claire, I cannot sit here and watch you die when I know that

 there’s a heart waiting for you.”

 “But not just any heart.” She was crying now, her head

 turned away from me. “Did you think at al what it wil be like

 for me, after?”

 I brushed her hair off her forehead. “It’s al I think about,

 baby.”

 “That’s a lie,” Claire argued. “Al you ever think about is

 yourself, and what you want, and what you’ve lost. You

 know, you’re not the only one who missed out on a real life.”

 “That’s exactly why I can’t let you throw this one away.”

 Slowly, Claire turned to face me.

 “I don’t want to be alive because of him.”

 “Then stay alive because of me.” I drew in my breath and

 pul ed my deepest secret free. “See, I’m not as strong as

 you are, Claire. I don’t think I can stand to be left behind

 again.”

 She closed her eyes, and I thought she had drifted back

 into sleep, until she squeezed my hand. “Okay,” she said.

 “But I hope you realize I may hate you for the rest of my life.”

 The rest of my life. Was there any other phrase with so

 much music in it? “Oh, Claire,” I said tightly. “That’s going to

 be a long, long time.”

 

 “God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there wil

 perhaps be caves, for ages yet,

 in which his shadow wil be shown.”

 -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE CAY SCIENCE

 M I C HAEL

 When inmates tried to kil themselves, they’d use the vent.

 They would string coaxial cables from their television sets

 through the louvers, wrap a noose around their necks, and

 step off the metal bunk. For this reason, one week before

 Shay’s execution, he was transferred to an observation cel .

 There was a camera monitoring his every move; an officer

 was stationed outside the door. It was a suicide watch, so

 that a prisoner could not kil himself before the state had its

 turn.

 Shay hated it—it was al he talked about as I sat with him

 for eight hours a day. I’d read from the Bible, and from the

 Gospel of Thomas, and from Sports Il ustrated. I’d tel him

 about the plans I’d made for the youth group to host a

 Fourth of July pie auction, a holiday that he would not be

 around to celebrate. He would act like he was listening, but

 then he’d address the officer standing outside.

 “Don’t you think I deserve some privacy?” he’d yel . “If you

 only had a week left, would you want someone watching

 you every time you cried? Ate? Took a piss?”

 Sometimes he seemed resigned to the fact that he was

 going to die—he’d ask me if I real y thought there was a

 heaven, if you could catch stripers or rainbows or salmon

 there, if fish even went to heaven in the first place, if fish

 souls were just as good eating as the real kind.

 Other times he sobbed so hard that he made himself sick;

 he’d wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his jumpsuit and lie

 down on the bunk, staring up at the ceiling. The only thing

 that got him through those darker times was talking about

 Claire Nealon, whose mother had reclaimed Shay’s heart.

 He had a grainy newspaper photo of Claire, and by now.

 he’d run his hands over it so often that the girl’s pale face

 had become a blank white oval, features left to the

 imagination.

 The scaffold had been built; throughout the prison you could

 smel the sap of the pine, taste the fine sawdust in the air.

 Although there had indeed already been a trapdoor in the

 chaplain’s office, it proved too costly to decimate the

 cafeteria below it, which accommodated the drop. Instead,

 a sturdy wooden structure went up beside the injection

 chamber that had already been built. But when editorials in

 the Concord Monitor and the Union Leader criticized the

 barbarism of a public execution (they speculated that any

 paparazzi capable of crashing Madonna’s wedding in a

 helicopter would also be able to get footage of the

 hanging), the warden scrambled to conceal the scaffold. On

 short order, their best arrangement was to purchase an old

 big-top tent from a family-run Vermont circus that was going

 out of business. The festive red and purple stripes took up

 most of the prison courtyard. You could see its spire from

 Route 93: Come one, come al . The greatest show on

 earth.

 It was a strange thing, knowing that I was going to see

 Shay’s death. Although I’d witnessed the passing of a

 dozen parishioners; although I’d stood beside the bed while

 they took their last breaths—this was different. It wasn’t

 God who was cutting the thread of this life, but a court

 order. I stopped wearing my watch and kept time by Shay’s

 life instead. There were seventy-two hours left, forty-eight,

 and then twentyfour. I stopped sleeping, like Shay,

 choosing instead to stay up with him around the clock.

 Grace continued to visit once a day. She would only tel me

 that what had separated them before was a secret—

 something that had apparently been resolved after she

 visited June Nealon—and that she was making up for the

 time she’d lost with her brother. They spent hours with their

 heads bent together, trading memories, but Shay was

 adamant that he didn’t want Grace at the execution—he did

 not want that to be her last memory of him. Instead, Shay’s

 designated witnesses would be me, Maggie, and Maggie’s

 boss. When Grace came for her visit, I’d leave her alone

 with Shay. I would go to the staff cafeteria and grab a soda,

 or sit and read the newspaper. Sometimes I watched the

 news coverage of the upcoming execution—the American

 Medical Association had begun to protest outside the

 prison, with huge banners that read FIRST DO NO HARM.

 Those who stil believed that Shay was, wel , more than just

 a murderer began to light candles at night, thousands of

 them, spel ing out a message that burned so brightly

 airplane pilots departing from Manchester could read it as

 they soared skyward: HAVE MERCY.

 Mostly, I prayed. To God, to Shay, to anyone who was

 wil ing to listen, frankly. And I hoped—that God, at the last

 minute, would spare Shay. It was hard enough ministering

 to a death row inmate when I’d believed him to be guilty, but

 it was far worse to minister to an innocent man who had

 resigned himself to death. At night, I dreamed of train

 wrecks. No matter how loud I shouted for someone to throw

 the switch to the rail, no one understood what I was saying.

 On the day before Shay’s execution, when Grace arrived, I

 excused myself and wandered into the courtyard between

 buildings, along the massive perimeter of the circus tent.

 This time, however, the officers who usual y stood guard at

 the front entrance were missing, and the flap that was

 usual y laced shut was pinned open instead. I could hear

 voices inside:

 … don’t want to get too close to the edge…

 … thirty seconds from the rear entrance to the steps…

 … two of you out in front, three in back.

 I poked my head in, expecting to be yanked away by an

 officer—but the smal group inside was far too busy to even

 notice me. Warden Coyne stood on a wooden platform,

 along with six officers. One was slightly smal er than the

 rest, and wore handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a waist chain. He

 was sagging backward, a deadweight in the other officers’

 hands.

 The gal ows itself was a massive metal upright with a

 crossbeam.

 

 set on a platform that had a set of double trapdoors. Below

 the trap was an open area where you’d be able to see the

 body drop. Off to both the left and right of the gal ows were

 smal rooms with a one-way mirror in the front, so that you

 could look out, but no one could look in.

 There was a ramp behind the gal ows, and two white

 curtains that ran the entire length of the tent—one above the

 gal ows, one below it. As I watched, two of the officers

 dragged the smal er one onto the gal ows platform in front

 of the open curtain.

 Warden Coyne pushed a button on his stopwatch. “And …

 cut,” he said. That’s seven minutes, fiftyeight seconds.

 Nicely done.”

 The warden gestured to the wal . “Those red phones are

 direct hookups to the governor’s office and the attorney

 general—the commissioner wil cal to make sure there’s

 been no stay of execution, no last minute reprieve. If that’s

 the case, then he’l come onto the platform and say so.

 When he exits, I come up and read the warrant of

 execution, blah blah blah, then I ask the inmate if he has any

 final words. As soon as he’s finished, I walk off the platform.

 The minute I cross this taped yel ow line, the upper curtain

 wil close, and that’s when you two secure the inmate. Now,

 I’m not going to close the curtains right now, but give it a

 try.”

 They placed a white hood over the smal er officer’s head

 and fitted the noose around his neck. It was made of rough

 rope, wrapped with leather; the loop wasn’t made from a

 hangman’s knot, but instead passed through a brass

 eyelet.

 “We’ve got a drop of seven feet seven inches,” Warden

 Coyne explained as they finished up. “That’s the standard

 for a hundred-and twenty-six-pound man. You can see the

 adjusting bracket above—that gold mark is where it should

 be lined up, at the eye bolt. During the actual event, you

 three—Hughes, Hutchins, and Greenwald—wil be in the

 chamber to the right. You’l have been placed a few hours

 ahead of time, so that you aren’t seen coming into the tent

 at al . You wil each have a button in front of you. As soon as

 I enter the control chamber and close the door, you wil push

 that button. Only one of the three actual y

 electromagnetical y releases the trapdoor of the gal ows;

 the other two are dummies. Which of the three buttons

 connects wil be determined randomly by computer.”

 One of the officers interrupted. “What if the inmate can’t

 stand up?”

 “We have a col apse board outside his cel —modeled after

 the one used at Wal a Wal a in ‘94. If he can’t walk, he’l be

 strapped onto it and wheeled up by gurney.”

 They kept saying “the inmate” as if they did not know who

 they were executing in twentyfour hours. I knew, though, that

 the reason they would not say Shay’s name was that none

 of them were brave enough. That would make them

 accountable for murder—the very same crime for which

 they were hanging a man.

 Warden Coyne turned to the other booth. “How’s that work

 for you?”

 A door opened, and another man walked out. He put his

 hand on the mock prisoner’s shoulder. “I beg your pardon,”

 he said, and as soon as he spoke I recognized him. This

 was the British man who’d been at Maggie’s apartment

 when I barged in to tel her Shay was innocent-Gal agher,

 that was his name. He took the noose and readjusted it

 around the smal er man’s neck, but this time he tightened

 the knot directly below the left ear. “You see where I’ve

 snugged the rope? Make sure it’s here, not at the base of

 the skul . The force of the drop, combined with the position

 of the knot, is what’s meant to fracture the cervical

 vertebrae and separate the spinal cord.”

 Warden Coyne addressed the staff again. “The court’s

 ordered us to assume brain death based on the measured

 drop and the fact that the inmate has stopped breathing.

 Once the doctor gives us the signal, the lower curtains wil

 close as wel , and the body gets cut down immediately.

 It’s important to remember that our job doesn’t end with the

 drop.” He turned to the doctor. “And then?”

 “We’l intubate, to protect the heart and other organs. After

 that, I’l perform a brain perfusion scan to ful y confirm brain

 death, and we’l remove the body from the premises.”

 “After the criminal investigation unit comes in and clears the

 execution, the body wil go to the medical examiner’s staff

 —they’l have an unmarked white van behind the tent,” the

 warden said, “and the special operations unit wil transport

 the body back to the hospital, along with them.”

 I noticed that the warden did not speak the doctor’s name,

 either.

 “The rest of the visitors wil be exiting from the front of the

 tent,”

 Warden Coyne said, pointing to the opened flaps of the

 doorway and spotting me for the first time.

 Everyone on the gal ows platform stared at me. I met

 Christian Gal agher’s gaze and he nodded imperceptibly.

 Warden Coyne squinted, and as he recognized me, he

 sighed. “I can’t let you in here. Father,” he said, but before

 the officers could escort me out, I had already slipped from

 the tent and back into the building where Shay was even

 now waiting to die.

 That night. Shay was moved to the death tent. They had

 built a single cel there, one that would be manned round

 the clock. At first, it was just like any other cel … but two

 hours into his stay there, the temperature began to

 plummet. Shay kept shivering, no matter how many

 blankets were piled upon him.

 “The thermostat says it’s sixty-six degrees,” the officer said,

 smacking the bulb with his hand. “It’s May, for chris sake.”

 “Wel , does it feel like sixty-six degrees to you?” I asked. My

 toes were numb. There was an icicle hanging from the

 bottom rung of my stool. “Can we get a heater? Another

 blanket?”

 The temperature continued to drop. I put on my coat and

 zipped it tight. Shay’s entire body was racked with tremors;

 his lips had started to turn blue. Frost swirled on the metal

 door of the cel , like a white feathered fern.

 “It’s ten degrees warmer outside this building,” the officer

 said. “I don’t get it.” He was blowing on his hands, a smal

 exclamation of breath that hovered in the air. “I could cal

 maintenance …”

 “Let me into the cel ,” I ordered.

 The officer blinked at me. “I can’t.”

 “Why? I’ve been searched twice over. I’m not near any other

 inmates.

 And you’re here. It’s no different than a meeting in an

 attorney client conference room, is it?”

 “I could get fired for this …”

 Til tel the warden it was my idea, and I’l be on my best

 behavior,”

 I said. I’m a priest. Would I lie to you?”

 He shook his head and unlocked the cel with an enormous

 Folger Adam key. I heard the tumblers click into place as

 he secured me inside; as I entered Shay’s six-by-six world.

 Shay glanced up at me, his teeth chattering.

 “Move over,” I said, and sat down on the bunk beside him. I

 draped a blanket over us and waited until the heat from my

 body conducted through the slight space between us.

 “Why … is it so … cold?” Shay whispered.

 I shook my head. “Try not to think about it.”

 Try not to think about the fact that it is subzero in this tiny

 cel . Try not to think about the fact that it backs up to a

 gal ows from which you wil swing tomorrow. Try not to think

 about the sea of faces you wil see when you stand up

 there, about what you wil say when you are asked to, about

 your heart pounding so fast with fear that you cannot hear

 the words you speak. Try not to think about that same heart

 being cut from your chest, minutes later, when you are

 gone.

 Earlier, Alma the nurse had come to offer Shay Valium.

 He’d declined—but now I wished I’d taken her up on his

 behalf.

 After a few minutes. Shay stopped shaking so violently—he

 was down to an occasional tremor. “I don’t want to cry up

 there,” he admitted.

 “I don’t want to look weak.”

 I turned to him. “You’ve been on death row for eleven years.

 You’ve fought—and won—the right to die on your own

 terms. Even if you had to crawl up there tomorrow, there’s

 not a single person who’d think of you as weak.”

 “Are they al stil out there?”

 By they, he meant the crowds. And they were—and were

 stil coming, blocking the exits off 93 to get into Concord. In

 the end, and this was the end, it did not matter whether or

 not Shay was truly messianic, or just a good showman. It

 mattered that al of those people had someone to believe

 in.

 Shay turned to me. “I want you to do me a favor.”

 “Anything.”

 “I want you to watch over Grace.”

 I had already assumed he’d ask that; an execution bound

 people together much like any other massive emotional

 moment—a birth, an armed robbery, a marriage, a divorce.

 I would be linked to the parties involved forever. “I wil .”

 “And I want you to have al my things.”

 I could not imagine what this entailed—his tools, maybe,

 from when he was a carpenter? Td like that.” I pul ed the

 blanket up a little higher. “Shay, about your funeral.”

 “It real y doesn’t matter.”

 I had tried to get him a spot in the St. Catherine’s cemetery,

 but the committee in charge had vetoed it—they did not

 want the grave of a murderer resting beside their loved

 ones. Private plots and burials were thousands of dol ars—

 thousands that neither Grace nor Maggie nor I had to

 spend. An inmate whose family did not make alternate

 plans would be buried in a tiny graveyard behind the prison,

 a headstone carved only with his correctional facility

 number, not his name.

 “Three days,” Shay said, yawning.

 “Three days?”

 He smiled at me, and for the first time in hours, I actual y felt

 warm to the core. “That’s when I’m coming back.”

 *

 At nine o’clock on the morning of Shay’s execution, a tray

 was brought up from the kitchen. Sometime during the

 night, the frost had broken; and with it, the cement that had

 been poured for the base of the holding cel . Weeds from

 the courtyard sprouted in tufts and bunches; vines climbed

 up the metal wal of the cel door. Shay took off his shoes

 and socks and walked across the new grass barefoot, a

 big smile on his face.

 I had moved back to my outside stool, so that the officer

 watching over Shay would not get into trouble, but the

 sergeant who arrived with the food was immediately wary.

 “Who brought in the plants?”

 “No one,” the officer said. “They just sort of showed up

 overnight.”

 The sergeant frowned. I’m going to tel the warden.”

 “Yeah,” the officer said. “Go on. I’m sure he’s got nothing

 else to think about right now.”

 At his sarcasm. Shay and I looked at each other and

 grinned. The sergeant left, and the officer handed the tray

 through the trapdoor.

 Shay uncovered the items, one by one.

 Mal omars. Corn dogs. Chicken nuggets.

 Kettle com and cotton candy, s’mores.

 Curly fries, ice cream crowned with a halo of maraschino

 cherries.

 Fry bread sprinkled with powdered sugar. A huge blue

 Slurpee.

 There was more than one man could ever eat. And it was

 al the sort of food you got at a country fair. The sort of food

 you remembered from your childhood.

 If, unlike Shay, you’d had one.

 “I worked on a farm for a while,” Shay said absently. “I was

 putting up a timber-frame barn. One day, I watched the guy

 who ran it empty the whole sack of grain out into the middle

 of the pasture for his steers, instead of just a scoop. I

 thought that was so cool—like Christmas, for them!—until I

 saw the butcher’s truck drive up. He was giving them al

 they could eat, because by then, it didn’t matter.”

 Shay rol ed the French fry he’d been holding between his

 fingers, then set it back on the plate. “You want some?”

 I shook my head.

 “Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess I’m not so hungry, either.”

 Shay’s execution was scheduled for ten a.m. Although

 death penalty sentences used to be carried out at midnight,

 it felt so cloak-and dagger that now they were staggered at

 al times of the day. The family of the inmate was al owed to

 visit up to three hours prior to the execution, although this

 was not an issue, since Shay had told Grace not to come.

 The attorney of record and the spiritual advisor were

 al owed to stay up to forty-five minutes prior to the

 execution.

 After that. Shay would be alone, except for the officer

 guarding him.

 After the breakfast tray was removed. Shay got diarrhea.

 The officer and I turned our backs to give him privacy, then

 pretended it had not happened. Shortly afterward, Maggie

 arrived. Her eyes were red, and she kept wiping at them

 with a crumpled Kleenex. “I brought you something,” she

 said, and then she saw the cel , overrun with vegetation.

 “What’s this?”

 “Global warming?” I said.

 “Wel . My gift’s a little redundant.” Maggie emptied her

 pockets, ful of grass. Queen Anne’s lace, lady’s slippers,

 Indian paintbrushes, buttercups.

 She fed them to Shay through the metal mesh on the door.

 “Thank you, Maggie.”

 “For God’s sake, don’t thank me,” Maggie said. “I wish this

 wasn’t the way it ended. Shay.” She hesitated. “What if I-“

 “No.” Shay shook his head. “It’s almost over, and then you

 can go on to rescuing people who want to be rescued. I’m

 okay, real y. I’m ready.”

 Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but then pressed her

 lips together and shook her head. Til stand where you can

 see me.”

 Shay swal owed. “Okay.”

 “I can’t stay. I need to make sure that Warden Coyne’s

 talked to the hospital, so that everything happens like it’s

 supposed to.”

 Shay nodded. “Maggie,” he said, “promise me something?”

 “Sure, Shay.”

 He rested his head against the metal door. “Don’t forget

 me.”

 “Not a chance,” Maggie said, and she pressed her lips

 against the metal door, as if she could kiss Shay good-bye.

 Suddenly, we were alone, with a half hour stretching

 between us.

 “How are you doing?” I asked.

 “Urn,” Shay said. “Never better?”

 “Right. Stupid question.” I shook my head. “Do you want to

 talk?

 Pray? Be by yourself?”

 “No,” Shay said quickly. “Not that.”

 “Is there anything I can do?”

 “Yeah,” he said. “Tel me about her again.”

 I hesitated. “She’s at the playground,” I said, “pumping her

 legs on a swing. When she gets to the top, and she’s sure

 her sneakers have actual y kicked a cloud, she jumps off

 because she thinks she can fly.”

 “She’s got long hair, and it’s like a flag behind her,” Shay

 added.

 “Fairy-tale hair. So blond it’s nearly silver.”

 “A fairy tale,” Shay repeated. “A happy ending.”

 “It is, for her. You’re giving her a whole new life. Shay.”

 “I’m saving her again. I’m saving her twice. Now with my

 heart, and once before she was ever born.” He looked

 directly at me. “It wasn’t just Elizabeth he could have hurt.

 She got in the way, when the gun went off… but the other …

 I had to do it.”

 I glanced over my shoulder at the officer standing watch, but

 he had moved to a far corner and was speaking into his

 walkie-talkie. My words were thick, rubbery. “Then you did

 commit capital murder.”

 Shay shrugged. “Some people,” he said simply, “deserve

 to die.”

 I stood, speechless, as the officer approached. “Father, I’m

 real y sorry,” he said, “but it’s time for you to leave.”

 At that moment, the sound of bagpipes fil ed the tent, and

 an accompanying swel of voices. The people outside,

 maintaining their vigil, had begun to sing:

 Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…

 That saved a wretch like me.

 I once was lost, but now I’m found.

 Was blind, but now I see.

 I didn’t know if Shay was guilty of murder, or innocent and

 misunderstood.

 I didn’t know if he was the Messiah, or a savant who

 channeled texts he’d never read. I didn’t know if we were

 making history, or only reliving it. But I did know what to do: I

 motioned Shay forward, closed my eyes, and made the

 sign of the cross on his forehead. “Almighty God,” I

 murmured, “look on this your servant, lying in great

 weakness, and comfort him with the promise of life

 everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus

 Christ our Lord. Amen.”

 I opened my eyes to find Shay smiling. “See you around.

 Father,” he said.

 Maggie

 As soon as I left Shay’s cel , I stumbled out of the circus tent

 —that’s what this was, you know, a circus—and threw up on

 the grass in the courtyard.

 “Hey,” a voice said, “you al right?” I felt an arm steadying

 me, and I glanced into the dizzying sunlight to find Warden

 Coyne, looking just as unhappy to see me as I was to see

 him.

 “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you a glass of water.”

 He led me through dark, dismal corridors—corridors far

 more suited to an execution, I thought, than the beautiful

 spring day outside, with its bril iant blue sky and tufted

 clouds. In the empty staff cafeteria, he pul ed out a chair for

 me, then went to the cooler to get me something to drink.

 I finished the whole cup of water, and stil could taste the

 bitterness in my throat.

 “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to vomit on your parade.”

 He sat down in a chair beside me. “You know, Ms. Bloom,

 there’s a hel of a lot about me you don’t know.”

 “Nor do I want to,” I said, standing.

 “For example,” Warden Coyne continued blithely, “I don’t

 real y believe in the death penalty.”

 I stared at him, snapped my mouth shut, and sank back into

 my chair.

 “I used to, don’t get me wrong. And I’l perform an execution

 if I have to, because it’s part of my job. But that doesn’t

 mean I condone it,”

 he said. “Truth is, I’ve seen plenty of inmates for whom life

 in prison is just as wel served. And I’ve seen inmates I wish

 would be kil ed—there are just some people you cannot

 find the good in. But who am I to decide if someone should

 be kil ed for murdering a child … instead of for murdering a

 drug addict during a deal that went bad … or even if we

 should be kil ing the inmate himself? I’m not smart enough

 to be able to say which life is worth more than the other. I

 don’t know if anyone is.”

 “If you know it’s not fair, and you stil do this, how do you

 sleep at night?”

 Warden Coyne smiled sadly. “I don’t, Ms. Bloom. The

 difference between you and me is that you expect me to be

 able to.” He got to his feet.

 “I trust you know where you go from here?”

 I was supposed to wait at the Public Information Office,

 along with Father Michael, so that we could be brought to

 the tent apart from the witnesses for the state and the

 victim. But somehow, I knew that wasn’t what Warden

 Coyne had meant.

 And even more surprising … I think he knew that I knew

 that.

 The inside of the circus tent was painted with blue sky.

 Artificial clouds rose into the peaks, above the black iron of

 the gal ows that had been constructed. I wondered if Shay

 would look at it and pretend that he was outside.

 The tent itself was divided by a line of correctional officers,

 who kept the witnesses for both sides separated, like a

 human dam. We had been warned about our behavior in

 the letters from the Department of Corrections: any name-

 cal ing or inappropriate actions would result in us being

 hauled out of the tent. Beside me, Father Michael was

 praying a rosary.

 On my other side sat Rufus Urqhart, my boss.

 I was shocked to see June Nealon sitting quietly in the front

 row across from us.

 Somehow I’d assumed she’d be with Claire, especial y

 given the fact that Claire would be getting ready for her

 heart transplant. When she’d cal ed to tel me she wanted

 Shay’s heart, I hadn’t asked any questions—I hadn’t wanted

 to jinx it. Now I wished I could go over to her and ask

 whether Claire was al right, if everything was on schedule

 —but I would run the risk of the officers thinking I was

 harassing her; and truth be told, I was afraid to hear her

 answer.

 Somewhere behind that curtain, Christian was checking to

 make sure the rope and noose were exactly as they should

 be to ensure as humane a hanging as possible. I knew this

 was supposed to comfort me, but to be honest, I had never

 felt more alone in my life.

 It was a hard thing, accepting to myself that I had

 befriended someone convicted of murder. Lawyers knew

 better than to become emotional y and personal y involved

 with their clients—but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

 At exactly ten o’clock, the curtains opened.

 Shay seemed very smal on the gal ows platform. He wore

 a white T-shirt, orange scrub pants, and tennis shoes, and

 was flanked by two officers I’d never seen before. His arms

 were fastened behind him, and his legs were bound

 together with what looked like a strap of leather.

 He was shaking like a leaf.

 Commissioner Lynch walked onto the platform. “There has

 been no stay of execution,” he announced.

 I thought about Christian’s hands checking the knot against

 Shay’s neck. I knew the mercy of his touch; I was grateful

 that Shay’s last physical contact with a human would be

 gentle.

 The warden stepped onto the platform as Lynch exited, and

 he read the entire warrant aloud. The words slipped in and

 out of my mind: … Whereas on the sixth day of March,

 1997, Isaiah Matthew Bourne was duly and legal y

 convicted of two counts of the crime of capital murder…

 … said court pronounced sentence upon Isaiah Matthew

 Bourne in accordance with said judgment fixing the time for

 the execution for ten a.m. on Friday, the twenty-third of May,

 2008 …

 … command you to execute the aforesaid judgment and

 sentence by hanging in a manner that produces brain death

 in said Isaiah Matthew Bourne…

 When the warden finished, he faced Shay. “Inmate Bourne,

 do you have any final words?”

 Shay squinted, until he found me in the front row. He kept

 his eyes on me for a long moment, and then drifted toward

 Father Michael. But then he turned to the side of the tent

 where the witnesses for the victim were gathered, and he

 smiled at June Nealon. “I forgive you,” he said.

 Immediately afterward, a curtain was drawn. It reached only

 to the floor of the gal ows, and it was a translucent white. I

 didn’t know if the warden had intended for us to see what

 was happening behind it, but we could, in macabre

 silhouette: the hood being placed over Shay’s head, the

 noose being tightened against his neck, the two officers

 who’d secured him stepping backward.

 “Good-bye,” I whispered.

 Somewhere, a door slammed, and suddenly the trap was

 open and the body plummeted, one quick firecracker snap

 as the weight caught at the end of the rope. Shay slowly

 turned counterclockwise with the unlikely grace of a

 bal erina, an October leaf, a snowflake fal ing.

 I felt Father Michael’s hand on mine, conveying what there

 were not words to say. “It’s over,” he whispered.

 I don’t know what made me turn toward June Nealon, but I

 did. The woman sat with her back straight as a redwood,

 her hands folded so tightly in her lap that I could see the

 half-moons her own nails were cutting in her skin. Her eyes

 were tightly squeezed shut.

 After al this, she hadn’t even watched him die.

 The lower curtain closed three minutes and ten seconds

 after Shay had been hanged. It was opaque, and we could

 not see what was happening behind it, although the fabric

 fluttered with movement and activity. The officers in the tent

 didn’t let us linger, though—they hustled us out separate

 doors to the courtyard. We were led out of the prison gates

 and immediately inundated with the press. “This is good,”

 Rufus said, pumped up with adrenaline. “This is our

 moment.” I nodded, but my attention was focused on June. I

 could see her only briefly, a tiny crow of a woman ducking

 into a waiting car.

 “Mr. Urqhart,” a reporter said, as twenty microphones were

 held up to his face, a bouquet of black roses. “Do you have

 any comment?”

 I stepped back, watching Rufus in the limelight. I wished I

 could just vanish on the spot. I knew that Rufus didn’t mean

 to use Shay as a pawn here, that he was only doing his job

 as the head of the ACLU—and yet, how did that make him

 different from Warden Coyne?

 “Shay Bourne is dead,” Rufus said soberly. “The first

 execution in this state in sixty-nine years … in the only first

 world country to stil have death penalty legislation on the

 books.”

 He looked out over the crowd. “Some people say that the

 reason we have a death penalty in this country is because

 we need to punish certain inmates. It’s said to be a

 deterrent—but in fact, murder rates are higher in death

 penalty jurisdictions than in those without it. It’s said to be

 cheaper to execute a man than to keep him in prison for life

 —but in fact, when you factor in the cost of eleven years of

 appeals, paid for with public funds, it costs about a third

 more to execute a prisoner than to sentence him to life in

 prison. Some people say that the death penalty exists for

 the sake of the victims’ family—that it offers closure, so that

 they can deal, final y and completely, with their grief. But

 does knowing that the death tol has risen above and

 beyond their family member real y offer justice? And how

 do we explain the fact that a murder in a rural setting is

 more likely to lead to a death sentence than one that occurs

 in the city?

 Or that the murder of a white victim leads to the death

 penalty three and a half times more often than the murder of

 a black victim? Or that women are sentenced to death only

 two-thirds as often as men?”

 Before I realized what I was doing, I had stepped into the

 tiny circle of space that the media had afforded to Rufus.

 “Maggie,” he whispered, covering the mikes, “I’m working

 this here.”

 A reporter gave me my invitation. “Hey, weren’t you his

 lawyer?”

 “Yes,” I said. “Which I hope means I’m qualified to tel you

 what I’m going to. I work for the ACLU. I can spout out al

 the same statistics that Mr. Urqhart just did. But you know

 what that speech leaves out? That I am truly sorry for June

 Nealon’s loss, after al this time. And that today, I lost

 someone I cared about. Someone who’d made some

 serious mistakes—someone who was a hard nut to crack

 —but someone I’d made a place for in my life.”

 “Maggie,” Rufus hissed, pul ing at my sleeve. “Save the true

 confessional for your diary.”

 I ignored him. “You know why I think we stil execute

 people? Because, even if we don’t want to say it out loud—

 for the real y heinous crimes, we want to know that there’s a

 real y heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring

 society closer together—huddle and circle our wagons—

 and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable

 of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who

 gets to identify those people? Who decides what crime is

 so awful that the only answer is death? And what if, God

 forbid, they get it wrong?”

 The crowd was murmuring; the cameras were rol ing. “I

 don’t have children. I can’t say I’d feel the same way if one

 of them was kil ed. And I don’t have the answers—believe

 me, if I did, I’d be a lot richer—but you know, I’m starting to

 think that’s okay. Maybe instead of looking for answers, we

 ought to be asking some questions instead. Like: What’s

 the lesson we’re teaching here? What if it’s different every

 time? What if justice isn’t equal to due process? Because

 at the end of the day, this is what we’re left with: a victim,

 who’s become a file to be dealt with, instead of a little girl,

 or a husband. An inmate who doesn’t want to know the

 name of a correctional officer’s child because that makes

 the relationship too personal. A warden who carries out

 executions even if he doesn’t think they should happen in

 principle. And an ACLU lawyer who’s supposed to go to

 the office, close the case, and move on. What we’re left

 with is death, with the humanity removed from it.” I hesitated

 a moment. “So you tel me … did this execution real y make

 you feel safer? Did it bring us al closer together? Or did it

 drive us farther apart?”

 I pushed past the cameras, whose heavy heads swung like

 bul s to fol ow my path, and into the crowd, which carved a

 canyon for me to walk through. And I cried.

 God, I cried.

 I turned on my windshield wipers on the way home, even

 though it was not raining. But I was fal ing apart at the

 seams, and sobbing, and I couldn’t see; somehow I thought

 this would help. I had upstaged my boss on what was

 arguably the most important legal outcome for the New

 Hampshire ACLU in the past fifty years; even worse—I

 didn’t particularly care.

 I would have liked to talk to Christian, but he was at the

 hospital by now, supervising the harvest of Shay’s heart

 and other organs. He’d said he’d come over as soon as he

 could, as soon as he had word that the transplant was

 going to be a success.

 Which meant that I was going home to a house with a rabbit

 in it, and not much else.

 I turned the corner to my street and immediately saw the car

 in my driveway. My mother was waiting for me at the front

 door. I wanted to ask her why she was here, instead of at

 work. I wanted to ask her how she’d known I’d need her.

 But when she wordlessly held out a blanket that I usual y

 kept on the couch, one with fuzzy fleece inside, I stepped

 into it and forgot al my questions. Instead, I buried my face

 against her neck. “Oh, Mags,” she soothed. “It’s going to be

 al right.”

 I shook my head. “It was awful. Every time I blink, I can see

 it, like it’s stil happening.” I drew in a shuddering breath.

 “It’s stupid, isn’t it?

 Up til the last minute, I was expecting a miracle. Like in the

 courtroom.

 That he’d slip out of the noose, or—I don’t know—fly away

 or something.”

 “Here, sit down,” my mother said, leading me into the

 kitchen. “Real life doesn’t work that way. It’s like you said, to

 the reporters—”

 “You saw me?” I glanced up.

 “On television. Every channel, Maggie. Even CNN.” Her

 face glowed.

 “Four people already cal ed me to say you were bril iant.”

 I suddenly remembered sitting in my parents’ kitchen when I

 was in col ege, unable to decide on a career. My mother

 had sat down, propped her elbows on the table. What do

 you love to do? she had asked.

 Read, I’d told her. And argue.

 She had smiled broadly. Maggie, my love, you were meant

 to become a lawyer.

 I buried my face in my hands. “I was an idiot. Rufus is going

 to fire me.

 “Why? Because you said what nobody has the guts to say?

 The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can

 change. It’s always easier to go along with the way things

 are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first

 place.”

 She turned to me, holding out a steaming, fragrant bowl. I

 could smel rosemary, pepper, celery. “I made you soup.

 From scratch.”

 “You made me soup from scratch?”

 My mother rol ed her eyes. “Okay, I bought soup someone

 else made from scratch.”

 When I smiled a little, she touched my cheek. “Maggie,” she

 said, “eat.”

 Later that afternoon, while my mother did the dishes and

 cleaned up in my kitchen, and with Oliver curled up at my

 side, I fel asleep on the living room couch. I dreamed that I

 was walking in the dark in my favorite Stuart Weitzman

 heels, but they were hurting me. I glanced down to discover

 I was not walking on grass, but on a ground that looked like

 tempered glass after it’s been shattered, like the cracked,

 parched landscape of a desert. My heels kept getting stuck

 in the crevasses, and final y I had to stop to pul one free.

 When I did, a clod of earth overturned, and beneath it was

 light, the purest, most liquid lava form of it. I kicked at

 another piece of the ground with my heel, and more beams

 spil ed outward and upward. I poked holes, and rays shined

 up. I danced, and the world became il uminated, so bright

 that I had to shade my eyes; so bright that I could not keep

 them from fil ing with tears.

 

 June

 This, I had told Claire, the night before the surgery, is how

 they’l transplant the heart:

 You’l be brought into the operating room and given general

 anesthesia.

 Grape, she’d said. She liked it way better than bubble gum,

 although the root beer wasn’t bad.

 You’l be prepped and draped, I told her. Your sternum wil

 be opened with a saw.

 Won’t that hurt?

 Of course not, I said. You’l be fast asleep.

 I knew the procedure as wel as any cardiac resident; I’d

 studied it that careful y, and that long. What comes next?

 Claire had asked.

 Sutures—stitches—get sewn into the aorta, the superior

 vena cava, and the inferior vena cava. Catheters are

 placed. Then you’re put on the heart-lung machine.

 What’s that?

 It works so you don’t have to. It drains blue blood from the

 two cava, and returns red blood through the cannula in the

 aorta.

 Cannula’s a cool zvord. I like how it sounds on my tongue.

 I skipped over the part about how her heart would be

 removed: the inferior and superior vena cava divided, then

 the aorta.

 Keep going.

 His heart (no need to say whose) is flushed with

 cardioplegia solution.

 It sounds like something you use to wax a car.

 Wel , you’d better hope not. It’s chock-ful of nutrients and

 oxygen, and keeps the heart from beating as it warms up.

 And after that?

 Then the new heart goes to its new home, I had said, and

 I’d tapped her chest. First, the left atriums get sewn

 together. Then the inferior vena cava, then the superior

 vena cava, then the pulmonary artery, and final y, the aorta.

 When al the connections are set, the cross clamp on your

 aorta is removed, warm blood starts flowing into the

 coronaries, and …

 Wait, let me guess: the heart starts beating.

 Now, hours later, Claire beamed up at me from her hospital

 gurney. As the parent of a minor, I was al owed to

 accompany her to the OR, gowned and suited, while she

 was put under anesthesia.

 I sat down on the stool provided by a nurse, amid the

 gleaming instruments, the shining lights. I tried to pick out

 the familiar face of the surgeon from his kind eyes, above

 the mask.

 “Mom,” Claire said, reaching for my hand.

 “I’m right here.”

 “I don’t hate you.”

 “I know, baby.”

 The anesthesiologist fitted the mask to Claire’s face. “I

 want you to start counting for me, hon. Backward, from ten.”

 “Ten,” Claire said, looking into my eyes. “Nine. Eight.”

 Her lids dropped, half-mast. “Seven,” she said, but her lips

 went slack on the last syl able.

 “You can give her a kiss if you want. Mom,” said a nurse.

 I brushed my paper mask against the soft bow of Claire’s

 cheek. “Come back to me,” I whispered.

 

 M | C HAEL

 Three days after Shay’s death, and two after his funeral, I

 returned to the prison cemetery. The headstones formed a

 smal field, each one marked with a number. Shay’s grave

 didn’t have one yet; it was only a smal raw plot of earth.

 And yet, it was the only one with a visitor. Sitting on the

 ground, her legs crossed, was Grace Bourne.

 I waved as she got to her feet. “Father,” she said. “It’s good

 to see you.”

 “You, too.” I came closer, smiled.

 “That was a nice service you did the other day.” She looked

 down at the ground. “I know it didn’t seem like I was

 listening, but I was.”

 At Shay’s funeral, I hadn’t read from the Bible at al . I hadn’t

 read from the Gospel of Thomas, either. I had created my

 own gospel, the good news about Shay Bourne, and spoke

 it from the heart to the few people who’d been present:

 Grace, Maggie, Alma the nurse.

 June Nealon had not come; she was at the hospital with her

 daughter, who was recovering from the heart transplant.

 She’d sent a spray of lilies to lay on Shay’s grave; they

 were stil here, wilting.

 Maggie had told me that Claire’s doctor had been thril ed

 with the outcome of the operation, that the heart had started

 beating like a jackrabbit.

 Claire would be leaving the hospital by the end of the week.

 “You heard about the transplant?” I said.

 Grace nodded. “I know that wherever he is, he’s happy

 about that.”

 She dusted off her skirt. “Wel , I was on my way out. I have

 to get back to Maine for a seven o’clock shift.”

 Shay that I would look after Grace, but to be honest, I think

 he wanted to be sure she’d be looking after me as wel .

 Somehow, Shay had known that without the Church, I’d

 need a family, too.

 I sat down, in the same spot where Grace had been. I

 sighed, leaned forward, and waited.

 The problem was, I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. It had

 been three days since Shay’s death. He had told me he

 was coming back—a resurrection—but he had also told me

 that he’d murdered Kurt Nealon intentional y, and I couldn’t

 hold the two thoughts side by side in my mind.

 I didn’t know if I was supposed to be on the lookout for an

 angel, like Mary Magdalene had seen, to tel me that Shay

 had left this tomb. I didn’t know if he’d mailed me a letter

 that I could expect to receive later that afternoon. I was

 waiting, I suppose, for a sign.

 I heard footsteps and saw Grace hurrying toward me again.

 “I almost forgot! I’m supposed to give this to you.”

 It was a large shoe box, wrapped with a rubber band. The

 green cardboard had begun to peel away from the corners,

 and there were spots that were watermarked. “What is it?”

 “My brother’s things. The warden, he gave them to me. But

 there was a note inside from Shay. He wanted you to have

 them. I would have given it to you at the funeral, but the note

 said I was supposed to give it to you today.”

 “You should have these,” I said. “You’re his family.”

 She looked up at me. “So were you. Father.”

 When she left, I sat back down beside Shay’s grave. “Is this

 it?” I said aloud. “Is this what I was supposed to wait for?”

 Inside the box was a canvas rol of tools, and three

 packages of Bazooka bubble gum.

 He had one piece of gum, I heard Lucius say, and there

 was enough for al of us.

 The only other item inside was a smal , flat, newspaper-

 wrapped package. The tape had peeled off years ago; the

 paper was yel owed with age. Folded in its embrace was a

 tattered photograph that made me catch my breath: I held in

 my hands the picture that had been stolen from my dorm

 when I was in col ege: my grandfather and I showing off our

 day’s catch.

 Why had he taken something so worthless to a stranger? I

 touched my thumb to my grandfather’s face and suddenly

 recal ed Shay talking about the grandfather he’d never had

 —the one he’d imagined from this photo. Had he swiped it

 because it was proof of what he’d missed in his life? Had

 he stared at it, wishing he was me?

 I remembered something else: the photo had been stolen

 before I was picked for Shay’s jury. I shook my head in

 disbelief. It was possible Shay had known it was me when

 he saw me sitting in the courtroom. It was possible he had

 recognized me again when I first came to him in prison. It

 was possible the joke had been on me al along.

 I started to crumple up the newspaper that the photo had

 been wrapped in, but realized it wasn’t newspaper at al . It

 was too thick for that, and not the right size. It was a page

 torn out of a book. The Nag Hammadi Library, it read

 across the top, in the tiniest of print. The Gospel of Thomas,

 first published 1977. I ran a fingertip along the familiar

 sayings. Jesus said: Whoever finds the interpretation of

 these sayings wil not experience death.

 Jesus said: The dead are not alive, and the living wil not

 die.

 Jesus said: Do not tel lies.

 Jesus said.

 And so had Shay, after having years to memorize this

 page.

 Frustrated, I tore it into pieces and threw them on the

 ground.

 I was angry at Shay; I was angry at myself. I buried my face

 in my hands, and then felt a wind stir. The confetti of words

 began to scatter.

 I ran after them. As they caught against headstones, I

 trapped them with my hands. I stuffed them into my pockets.

 I untangled them from the weeds that grew at the edge of

 the cemetery. I chased one fragment al the way to the

 parking lot.

 Sometimes we see what we want to, instead of what’s in

 front of us. And sometimes, we don’t see clearly at al . I

 took al of the bits I’d col ected and dug a shal ow bowl

 beneath the spray of lilies, covered them with a thin layer of

 soil. I imagined the yel owed paper dissolving in the rain,

 being absorbed by the earth, lying fal ow under winter snow.

 I wondered what, next spring, would take root.

 

 ‘There are only two ways to live your life.

 One is as though nothing is a miracle.

 The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

 -ALBERT EINSTEIN

 EPILOGUE

 Claire

 I have been someone different now for three weeks. It’s not

 something you can tel by looking at me; it’s not even

 something I can tel by looking at myself in the mirror. The

 only way I can describe it, and it’s weird, so get ready, is

 like waves: they just crash over me and suddenly, even if

 I’m surrounded by a dozen people, I’m lonely. Even if I’m

 doing everything I want to, I start to cry.

 My mother says that emotion doesn’t get transplanted

 along with the heart, that I have to stop referring to it as his

 and start cal ing it mine. But that’s pretty hard to do,

 especial y when you add up al the stuff I have to take just to

 keep my cel s from recognizing this intruder in my chest,

 like that old horror movie with the woman who has an alien

 inside her. Colace, Dulcolax, prednisone, Zantac, enalapril,

 Cel Cept, Prograf, oxycodone, Keflex, magnesium oxide,

 nystatin, Valcyte.

 It’s a cocktail to keep my body fooled; it’s anyone’s guess

 how long this ruse might continue.

 The way I see it, either my body wins and I reject the heart

 —or I win.

 And become who he used to be.

 My mother says that I’m going to work through al this, and

 that’s why I have to take Celexa (oh, right, forgot that one)

 and talk to a shrink twice a week. I nod and pretend to

 believe her. She’s so happy right now but it’s the kind of

 happy that’s like an ornament made of sugar: if you brush it

 the wrong way. it wil go to pieces.

 I’l tel you this much: it’s so good to be home. And to not

 have a lightning bolt zapping me from inside three or four

 times a day. And to not pass out and wake up wondering

 what happened. And to walk up the stairs—upstairs!—

 without having to stop halfway, or be carried.

 “Claire?” my mother cal s. “Are you awake?”

 Today, we have a visitor coming. It’s a woman I haven’t

 met, although apparently she’s met me. She’s the sister of

 the man who gave me his heart; she came to the hospital

 when I was total y out of it. I am so not looking forward to

 this. She’l probably break down and cry (I would if I were

 her) and stare at me with an eagle eye until she finds some

 shred of me that reminds her of her brother, or at least

 convinces herself she has.

 “I’m coming,” I say. I have been standing in front of the

 mirror for the past twenty minutes, without a shirt on. The

 scar, which is stil healing, is the angriest red slash of a

 mouth. Every time I look at it, I imagine the things it might

 be yel ing.

 I resettle the bandage that I’m not supposed to peel off but

 do when my mother isn’t there to see it. Then I shrug into a

 shirt and glance down at Dudley. “Hey, lazybones,” I say.

 “Rise and shine.”

 The thing is, my dog doesn’t move.

 I stand there, staring, even though I know what’s happened.

 My mother told me once, in her dump truck-load of fun facts

 about cardiac patients, that when you do a transplant the

 nerve that goes from the brain to the heart gets cut. Which

 means that it takes people like me longer to respond to

 situations that would normal y freak us out. We need the

 adrenaline to kick in first.

 You can hear this and think. Oh, how nice to stay calm.

 Or you can hear this and think. Imagine what it would be like

 to have a brand-new heart, and be so slow to feel.

 front of the dog. I’m afraid to touch him. I have been too

 close to death; I don’t want to go there again.

 By now the tears are here; they stream down my face and

 into my mouth. Loss always tastes like salt. I bend down

 over my old, sweet dog.

 “Dudley,” I say. “Come on.” But when I scoop him up—put

 my ear against his rib cage—he’s cold, stiff, not breathing.

 “No,” I whisper, and then I shout it so loud that my mother

 comes scrambling up the stairs like a storm.

 She fil s my doorway, wildeyed. “Claire? What’s wrong?”

 I shake my head; I can’t speak. Because, in my arms, the

 dog twitches. His heart starts beating again, beneath my

 own two hands.

 

 AUTHOR’S NOTE:

 

 For those wishing to learn more about the topics in this

 book, try these sites and texts, which were instrumental to

 me during this journey.

 ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY

 Death Penalty Information Center:

 www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.

 Death Row Support Project, PO Box 600, Liberty Mil s, IN

 46946.

 (Contact them if you want to write to a death row prisoner.)

 Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights:

 www.mvfhr.org.

 Murray, Robert W. Life on Death Row. Albert Publishing

 Co., 2004.

 Prejean, Sister Helen. Dead Man Walking. New York:

 Vintage Books, 1993.

 . The Death of Innocents. New York: Random House, 2005.

 Rossi, Richard Michael. Waiting to Die. London: Vision

 Paperbacks, 2004.

 Turow, Scott. Ultimate Punishment. New York: Picador,

 2003.

 A B O U T T H E G N O S T I C G O S P E LS

 Pagels, Elaine. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of

 Thomas. New York: Random House, 2003.

 . The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House, 1979.

 Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library.

 Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Bril , 1978.

 

 





1. Кинематика материальной точки
2. Многомерная онтология предметов материальной культуры и ее применение в сложных технических системах
3. Исследование финансового состояния и финансовых результатов железнодорожной компании
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