Page 52 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
Annie tried to smile back, but hearing this made her feel worse. Her biggest desire was that Paulo had survived, that his life had been spared by the transplant. But that meant being alone now in the afterlife. Would Paulo move on without her on earth? Find someone else? By the time he died, would he choose a different heaven, one that didn’t include Annie?
“What is it?” Eddie said. “You don’t look so hot.”
“It’s just... I ruin everything,” Annie said. “Even thegood things. Even my wedding night. It was my idea to help a man on the highway. My pushing to go for a balloon ride.”
She looked down. “I make so many mistakes.”
Eddie glanced to the single star gleaming above them.
“I used to think the same thing,” he said.
Suddenly, day changed to night. The air grew hot and sticky. The landscape turned barren. On naked hills around them, small fires erupted. Annie felt the ground thicken by their feet.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“We ain’t done yet,” Eddie said.
Annie Makes a Mistake
She is twenty-eight. It’s been eight years since the baby’s death. Today is the anniversary. She switches to an afternoon shift at the hospital and, after the morning rush hour, drives to the cemetery.
It is misty and damp. As she walks to the grave, she hears the gravelly drag of her feet. When she reaches the marker, she steps on the grass, lightly, as if not to disturb things. She reads Laurence’s name and the etched dates that declare his brief time on earth:
FEBRUARY4–FEBRUARY7
The dash in between seems a truer measure.
“I wish I knew how to pray better,” she whispers. “I wish I knew what to ask for you.”
For the millionth time, she tells herself she wasn’t really a mother, she never changed a diaper, never held a bottle, never rocked her son to sleep. She feels almost foolish, locked out of the very identity she is grieving.
The traffic is heavy going back to the hospital. She is agitated from the visit, and reaches into her purse for ananti-anxiety pill. Normally she takes these at night, but she reminds herself she has a whole shift to go, and she’d like to get through it with minimal drama. Besides, if this day doesn’t call for some relief, what does?
“Guess what?” a fellow nurse says when she arrives. “Terry called in sick.”
“No one is covering?”
“Nope. It’s you and me.”
The next six hours are rushed, covering multiple rooms. Annie doesn’t sit once. The call lights keep flicking on, and the two nurses scramble to deal with them. Annie grabs plastic pouches of medications earmarked for each patient and fastidiously administers them, working her way down the hall.
When she reaches room 209K/L the patient on the right is sleeping, a thin, older man connected to a feeding tube. Annie finds the pill crusher and opens the medication pouch, preparing to administer it by syringe.
“Nurse, I need help here,” the man in the next bed yells. He is bald and heavyset, his belly lifting the sheet. “I can’t get comfortable on this pillow.”
“I’ll be right there,” Annie says.
“I can’t sleep with this pillow.”
“Just a second.”
“Can you get me another pillow?”
Annie keeps crushing the medicine. She gets the purified water to dissolve it.
“I need tosleep,” the man whines.
Annie exhales. She presses the call button, hoping the other nurse will come, but she knows the buttons have been lit all afternoon.
