Page 4 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“Can’t do all three,” Paulo said.
Dennis laughed. “Then just be happy.”
He grabbed Annie’s fingers and she felt her eyes moisten. Dennis was her mother’s brother and a respected surgeon at the hospital where Annie worked. After Paulo, he was Annie’s favorite man in the world. Bald and paunchy and prone to easy laughter, Dennis had always felt more like a father to Annie than her real father, whose name was Jerry (“Jerry the Jerk,” her mother called him) and who left when Annie was young.
“Thank you, Uncle Dennis.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“Your mom would have loved this.”
“I know.”
“She’s watching.”
“You think so?”
“Yep.” He smiled. “Annie. You’re married.”
“I’m married.”
He tapped her head lightly.
“A new life, kid.”
Ten hours left.
***
No story sits by itself. Our lives connect like threads on a loom, interwoven in ways we never realize.
At the same time Annie and Paulo had been dancing at their wedding, forty miles away, a man named Tolbert went to grab his keys. He remembered that his truck was low on gas, and knowing it would be hard to find a station open at this hour, he grabbed the keys to his wife’s car instead, a small, boxy vehicle with a tire low on air. He left the house without locking the door and glanced up at the clouds, which laced the moon in gray.
Had he taken the truck, this story would be different. Had Annie and Paulo not stopped for a final round of photographs, this story would be different. Had the limousine driver remembered to bring a bag that was sitting by his apartment door, this story would be different. The tale of your life is written second by second, as shifting as the flip of a pencil to an eraser.
***
“But we’re gonna get maaaaa-rried!” Paulo sang, and Annie laughed as he forgot the words. She turned her backand pulled his strong grip over her. There are touches in your life that identify the person making contact, even if your eyes are closed. For Annie, it was Paulo’s hands on her shoulders, as they were years ago in that leapfrog game.
As they were right now.
Annie saw his gold wedding band. She breathed a deep, contented sigh. They’d made it. They were married. She could stop worrying that something unexpected might derail things.
“I’m really happy,” she said.
“Me, too,” Paulo replied.
The limo pulled away. Through the window, Annie waved, as the guests clapped and gave the thumbs-up sign. The last person she saw was the old man in the linen cap, waving back, almost mechanically.
***
You have heard the phrase “heaven on earth.” It suggests something wonderful, like the happy send-off from a wedding. But “heaven on earth” can mean something else; something that was happening to Annie right now, as the old man—Eddie from Ruby Pier—waved goodbye from the crowd.
At certain moments, when death is close, the veils pull back between this world and the next. Heaven and earth overlay. When they do, it is possible to glimpse certain souls already departed.
You can see them awaiting your arrival.
