Richard interrupted. "Your husband said the things he saw weren't dreams," Richard said. "Did he say what they were?"

Mrs. Aspinall looked uncertainly down the hall toward the family room. "Please," Kit said. "Your husband's the only one who can help us. It's so important."

"What's important is my husband's recovery," Mrs. Aspinall said. "He's still very weak. His nerves-I don't think you understand what a terrible ordeal he's been through. He was this close to death. I couldn't bear to lose him again. I have to think of his welfare-"

"You said Joanna was kind to you-" Richard said.

"She was," Mrs. Aspinall said, and took her hand off the door.

"Did he say anything about where he was?" Richard said rapidly. "Did he mention a Grand Staircase?"

The loud thump of the walking stick sounded suddenly from the end of the hall. "My husband's calling," Mrs. Aspinall said. "I have to go get him settled for his nap."

"He said, 'She was only there for a few minutes,' and the idea of her having been in the same place obviously frightened him," Richard said over the thumping. "Did he say where he was or why it was frightening?"

"I have to go."

"Wait," Richard said, fumbling in his pocket. "Here's my card. That's my pager number. If you or your husband happen to remember anything-"

"I'll call you. Thank you again for coming all this way," she said politely, and shut the door in their faces.

53.

"V... V...".

-Last wireless message from the t.i.tanic, heard faintly by the Virginian.

Joanna sank.

She was suddenly in water and darkness. She couldn't see, the rain on the windshield was suddenly a downpour, so heavy the wipers couldn't keep up. She flicked them to high, but it was no use, the rain was turning to sleet, to ice. She was going to have to pull off the road, but she couldn't even see the shoulder, she couldn't feel the bottom. Her toes stretched desperately down, trying to feel sand, her head going under. Under. Flailing and gulping for air, swallowing, choking. Drowning.

"Drowning's the worst way to die," Vielle had said, but they were all terrible. Heart attack and kidney failure and beheading, drug overdoses and nicked aortas and being crushed by a falling smokestack. Joanna looked up, trying to see the t.i.tanic, but there was only water above her. And darkness.

She reached up for the surface, but it was too far above her, and after a while she let her arms fall, and she fell. Her hair fanned out around her like Amelia Tanaka's had, lying on the examining table, her dead hands drifting limp and open in the dark water.

I let go of the French bulldog, she thought, and knew that she could not have held on to him or onto his memory, or onto the memory of Ulla or the dog at Pompeii, struggling against its chain, or of the t.i.tanic pa.s.senger letting the dogs out of their cages, because the falling was itself a letting go, and as she fell, she forgot not only the dog but the meaning of the word dog and of sugar and sorrow.

They fell away from her like snow, like ash, memories of saying, "Can you be more specific?"

and eating b.u.t.tered popcorn, of standing in the third-floor walkway, looking out at the fog, and sitting next to Mrs. Woollam's bed, listening to her read pa.s.sages from the Bible, "When thou pa.s.sest through the waters, I will be with thee," and "Rosabelle, remember," and "Put your hands on my shoulders and don't struggle."

Names fell away from her in drifting tatters, the names of her patients and of her best friend in third grade, of the movie star Vielle's police officer had looked like and the capital of Wyoming. The names of the neurotransmitters and the days of the week and the core elements of the NDE.

The tunnel, she thought, trying to remember them, and the light, and the one Mr.-what was his name?-she had forgotten-was so insistent about. The life review. "There's supposed to be a life review," he had said, but he was wrong. It was not a review but a jettisoning, events and happenings and knowledge being tossed overboard one by one: numbers and dates and faces, the taste of Tater Torros, and the smell of crayons, Indian red and gold and sea green, the combination of her junior high locker and her Blockbuster pa.s.sword and the best way to get from Medicine to ICU.

Code alarms and Victory gardens and sc.r.a.ping snow off her windshield, and somewhere a fire, burning out of control, sending up billows of black acrid smoke. And the smell of fresh paint, thesound of Amelia Tanaka's voice, saying, "I was in a tunnel." A tunnel, Joanna thought, looking down at the water she was sinking into, the narrowing darkness.

But there was no light at the end of this tunnel, and no angels, no loved ones, and even if there were, she would have forgotten them, fathers and grandmothers and Candy Simons. Would have left the memory of all of them, relatives and friends, living and dead, behind in the water. Guadalupe and Coleridge and Julia Roberts. Ricky Inman and Mrs. Haighton and Lavoisier.

She had been falling a very long time. I can't fall forever, she thought. The t.i.tanic hadn't fallen forever. It had come finally down to the bottom of the sea and settled into the soft mud, surrounded by chamber pots and chandeliers and shoes.

Will I be surrounded by shoes, too? she wondered, and could see them in the darkness: the red tennis shoe, jammed in the door, and Emmett Kelly's huge, flapping clown shoes and the tiny shoe in the Monopoly game, and the abandoned shoes of the sailors, lined up along the deck of the Yorktown. The Yorktown had come to rest, too, and the Lusitania and the Hindenburg, and Jay Yates and Lorraine Allison and Little Miss 1565, having forgotten everything, even their names. Rest in peace.

What was the Latin for "Rest in peace"? "Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani," she thought, but that wasn't right. That was the Latin for something else. She had forgotten the Latin for "Rest in peace"

and the words to "Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee" and "The Wreck of the Hesperus" and "The Sound of Music."

Everything she had learned by heart fell away from her, line after line, unraveling into the dark water like tape from a broken Blockbuster video, "The a.s.syrian came down like the wolf on the fold," and "At a time like this, it's every man for himself." "Houston, we have a problem," and "Oh, don't you remember, a long time ago, there were two little children whose names I don't know."

The words trailed away into the water, carrying memory with them, of trailing electrode wires and lifejacket ties and yellow "Do Not Cross" tape. And yellow afghan yarn, yellow sneakers like the ones Whoopi Goldberg wore in Jumpin' Jack Flash, Jack in the Beanstalk, Jack Phillips.

And that was important. There was something important about Jack Phillips. Something about a lab coat, or a blanket. Or a heater, shutting off. They're shutting off, she thought, the receptors and transmitters and neurons, and this is just a symbol for it, a... but she had forgotten the word for metaphor. And for disaster. And for death.

Had forgotten the taste of Cheetos and the color of blood and the number fifty-eight, forgotten Mercy General and mercy everlasting, zeppelins and kissing, her dress size, her first apartment, where she'd put her car keys, the answer to number fifteen on Mr. Briarley's final, the sound in the tunnel and her 1040 form.

My taxes. I didn't send in my 1040. They're due April fifteenth, she thought, and remembered that the t.i.tanic had gone down on the night of the fourteenth. All those people, she thought, they didn't file their income tax returns either. No, that was wrong. They didn't have income tax back then.

That was why they were all so rich. But there were other things they hadn't done that they had intended to do: meet friends at the dock in New York, send a telegram announcing their safe arrival, marry, have children, win the n.o.bel Prize.I never learned to play the piano, Joanna thought. I didn't tell Mr. Wojakowski we couldn't use him in the project, and now he'll pester Richard. I didn't transcribe Mr. Sage's NDE.

It doesn't matter, she thought. But I didn't pay the gas bill, she thought. I forgot to water my Swedish ivy. I didn't get the book from Kit. I promised I'd go pick it up. I promised I'd go see Maisie.

Maisie! she thought in horror. I didn't tell Richard, I have to tell him, but could not remember what it was she had wanted to tell him. Something about the t.i.tanic. No, not the t.i.tanic. Mr.

Briarley had been wrong, it wasn't about the t.i.tanic. It was something about Indians. And the Rio Grande. And a dog. Something about a dog.

No, that wasn't right either. Fog, she thought, and remembered standing in the walkway, looking out at fog. It was cold and diffuse, like the water, like death. It blotted out everything, memory and duty and desire. Let it go, she thought, staring at nothingness. It's not important. Let it go.

Progress reports and delivering the mail and regret. They aren't important. Nothing's important.

Not proving it's the t.i.tanic or having a hall pa.s.s or avoiding Mr. Mandrake. None of it matters. Not Mr. Wojakowski or Mrs. Haighton's never returning my calls or Maisie.

That's a lie, she thought. Maisie does matter. I have to find Richard. I have to tell him. "Richard, listen," she cried, but her mouth, her throat, her lungs, were full of water.

She kicked frantically, reaching up with her cupped hands, her arms. I have to tell him, she thought, clutching at the water as if it were the railing of a staircase, trying to pull herself up hand over hand. I have to get the message through. For Maisie.

She willed herself upward, kicking, stroking with her arms, trying to reach the surface.

And continued to fall.

54.

"My G.o.d, My G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?"

-Jesus' last words from the cross.

"Boy, just like Ismay," Maisie said when they told her what had happened with Carl. "How crummy!"

Leave it to Maisie to sum things up. Richard wondered if, clambering into the lifeboat, Ismay's hands had been as white and clenched as Carl Aspinall's, his face as sodden-looking.

"So what do we do now?" Vielle asked. She had called them on the way back, demanding to know what they'd found out, and Richard, unable to stand the prospect of telling it twice, had told herto meet them in Maisie's room.

"We could talk to the lab technician who saw Carl and Joanna," Richard said. "He may have heard what they were saying."

"He didn't," Maisie said. "I asked him. He said they stopped talking when he came in the room."

"He may have overheard something as he was coming in," Richard said, "or leaving. Or he may have seen someone else going in. If there was a lab tech in the room taking blood, there may have been other staff going in to take tests," he said with a confidence he didn't feel. "Or nurses. Who was the one Mrs. Aspinall mentioned?"

"Guadalupe," Kit said.

"I'll talk to Guadalupe and the rest of the staff on five-east. Vielle, you keep looking for people who might have seen Joanna in the hallways, and don't limit it to the professional staff. Talk to the volunteers and the kitchen help."

"That's supposed to be my job!" Maisie said, outraged.

"Your job is to rest and get strong so you'll be ready for your new heart," Richard said.

Maisie flung herself back against the pillows. "That's no fair! I was the one who found out about Mr. Aspinall. Besides," she said, "if I don't have anything to do or think about, I'll start worrying about my heart and how much the operation will hurt, and dying and stuff, and I might code."

She was good, he had to admit that. "All right," he said sternly, "you can help Vielle," and she immediately said, "I had another idea who to ask, Vielle. The painter guys. I bet they see a lot of people. And the breathing therapy lady. Should I page you when I think of other people?"

"No paging Vielle all the time," Richard jumped in. "She works in the ER, which is very busy.

She'll come see you when she can, and when she does, no stalling." He turned to Vielle. "If Maisie finds out something, she's not going to tell you the whole story of how she found out, because she knows you have to get back to the ER."

"But-" Maisie said.

"Promise," Richard said. "Cross your heart."

"Okay," she said grudgingly. She smiled at Vielle. "I'll talk to the lady who empties the wastebaskets and the guy who runs the dust vacuum thing," she said. "And rest," she added hastily.

"And drink your Ensure," Richard said.

"What if n.o.body else was in the room and heard them?" Maisie asked.

"Maybe Mrs. Aspinall will change her mind," Kit said.

"That's right," Richard said, though he didn't believe it for a moment. Her only concern was herhusband, and his only concern was survival. And nothing, nothing could make him go back there, not even to save Joanna.

"But what if she doesn't change her mind?" Maisie said.

"Then we have to hope the lab technician knows something," Richard said. "Do you know his name, Maisie?"

"Yeah," Maisie said. "I saw it on his badge thing when he bent over to stick the needle in my IV line, and-"

"Maisie," Richard said sternly. "No stalling. You promised."

"I promised Vielle," Maisie said, and at his look, "Okay. Rudy Wenck. But what if he doesn't know anything?"

"Then we'll find somebody who did," he said.

"But what if there isn't anybody?" Maisie persisted. "What if n.o.body else heard them talking?"

I don't know, he thought. I don't know. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said cheerfully, thinking, You sound just like Maisie's mother.

And speak of the devil. Here she was, standing in the doorway with a yellow stuffed duck, a beribboned video-shaped package, and a blindingly bright smile. "Dr. Wright!" Mrs. Nellis said. "And Ms. Gardiner. Just the people I needed to see." She beamed at Vielle. "I don't believe we've met."

"This is Nurse Howard," Richard said.

"She works in the ER," Maisie said.

"We were just leaving." Kit and Vielle took the cue and started for the door.

"Oh, but you can't go yet, Dr. Wright," Mrs. Nellis said.

Well, now he knew where Maisie had gotten it from. He nodded at Kit and Vielle to keep going and said, "I'm afraid I've got a meeting."

"This will only take a minute," Mrs. Nellis said, setting the present and duck on the foot of the bed. She began rummaging through her purse. "I've got the project release forms and the minor-child permissions for you, all signed and notarized." She pulled out a manila envelope and handed it to Richard. "My lawyer is working on a living will and resuscitation orders. Has he talked to you?"

"Yes," Richard said. "I really have to go."

"Can I open my present now?" Maisie piped up, and Mrs. Nellis, momentarily distracted, moved to get her the package.

Good girl, Richard thought, and ducked out, but not fast enough. Mrs. Nellis caught him justoutside the door. "I wanted to ask you about Nurse Howard," she said eagerly. "You said she worked in the ER, and I a.s.sume that means she's an expert on coding procedures. Is she working with you on the treatment? Does that mean you've had a breakthrough?"

"No," Richard said.

"But you're getting close, right?"

"Mommy, come here!" Maisie said excitedly. "I can't get my video open!" Mrs. Nellis glanced toward the room, and then back at Richard, hesitating. "Mommy! I want to watch it right away!"

"Excuse me," Mrs. Nellis said and hurried into the room. Richard didn't hesitate. He hotfooted it down the hall. Behind him he could hear Mrs. Nellis asking, "You like your video, sunbeam?" and Maisie saying, "I love it! Heidi is my favoritest movie in the whole world!"

Kit and Vielle were waiting for him outside the CICU. "We thought we were going to have to send the cavalry in after you," Kit said.