Page 51 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
She saw Marguerite, in her late forties, die from a brain tumor, and Eddie go hollow with grief. She saw him hideinside his work, crying where no one could see him, inside darkened fun houses or underneath a water slide.
She saw Eddie visit the cemetery dutifully, through his sixties, his seventies, into his eighties, leaving flowers at Marguerite’s grave, riding home in the front of the taxi to feel less lonely.
And she saw the final day of Eddie’s life, his eighty-third birthday, when he checked a fishing line and inspected a roller coaster and sat in a beach chair and fashioned a rabbit made of yellow pipe cleaners. Which he handed to a little girl.
A little girl named Annie.
“Thaaaank you, Eddie Maint’nance,” she squealed, dancing off.
The image froze.
“That,” Eddie said now, holding Annie’s grip, “was the last thing you said to me on earth.”
“What happened next?” she asked.
He let go of her hand. The image disappeared.
“Let’s walk,” he said.
***
The ocean pulled back, as if clearing a path, and they moved along the shore. The lone star in the blue firmamentlit their way. Eddie told Annie about his own journey to heaven. He told her he, too, met five people, including a sideshow worker whose skin was blue, his old army captain, and the original Ruby of Ruby Pier. By the time he was finished, nearly everything he thought about his life had changed.
Then Eddie asked about Annie’s existence, saying he’d often wondered what she’d done with the years. Feeling safe in his company, Annie spoke of many things. She spoke of her early childhood, which she remembered one way, fun and carefree, and her life after the accident, which was different.
“What changed?”
“Everything.” She held up her hand. “Starting with this.”
Eddie took her wrist in his meaty palm. He studied the scars as if discovering a lost map.
“After that,” Annie said, “everything I tried went wrong. I couldn’t make friends. I was at war with my mother. I had an awful first marriage. I lost...”
Eddie glanced up.
“I lost a child. I suffered depression. I gave up on ever being happy until I saw Paulo again. I thought he was my chance. I knew him. I trusted him. I loved him.”
She paused. “Love him.”
Eddie let go of her wrist. He seemed to be thinking of something.
“Would you change it back? Your hand? If you could?”
Annie stared at him. “That’s so strange. Paulo asked me the same thing when we were kids.”
“What did you say?”
“What I’d say now. Of course. Who would want to go through this if they didn’t have to?”
Eddie nodded slowly, but Annie wasn’t sure he agreed with her.
“Is your wife here?” Annie asked.
“She’s not part of your journey.”
“But you get to be with her? In your heaven?”
Eddie smiled. “It wouldn’t be my heaven without her.”
