Passage

“I’m glad I found the two of you together,” Joanna’s sister said, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “I understand you both worked with Joanna. I was wondering if I could talk to you about her.”

Her voice sounded like Joanna’s, too, but somehow harsher. That’s from crying, he thought, looking at her reddened eyes, the Kleenex in her hands.

“I hadn’t talked to her in several months, and…” She dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “We always think there’ll be plenty of time, and then suddenly there isn’t any time at all… I was wondering if you knew whether she had been saved?” she said, and Richard wondered if she had somehow found out that he’d gone after her and failed.

“Saved?” Vielle said.

“Accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as her personal savior,” Joanna’s sister said. “I’d tried several times to bring her to the Lord, but each time Satan hardened her heart against me.”

“Satan,” Vielle said.

“Yes. I tried to witness to her, to tell her of the destruction that awaits the unrepentant, of God’s judgment and the fire that shall never be quenched.” She dabbed at her eyes again.

Richard gazed at her. She didn’t look like Joanna at all. It was only a trick of hair color, of the glasses.

“I continued to pray that, in working with you,” she said to Richard, “and in speaking with people who had seen Christ face to face, she might come to believe.”

Richard realized after a moment that she was talking about near-death experiences.

“Did she?” she asked. “Tell you that she had been saved?”

“No,” Vielle snapped.

“And you’re sure she didn’t change her mind at the last minute?” She turned to Vielle. “They told me you were with her when she died. Did she say anything?”

Richard expected her to say “no” again, but instead she hesitated a fraction of a second before she said, “The knife slashed the aorta. Joanna lost consciousness almost immediately.”

“But even if it was in the last second,” Joanna’s sister said. “It’s never too late for Jesus to forgive you for your sins, even if it’s with your last breath that you beg that forgiveness. Did she?” Joanna’s sister said eagerly. “Say anything?”

“No,” Vielle said.

She’s lying, Richard thought. She did say something.

“Are you sure?” Joanna’s sister persisted. “I’ve read about near-death experiences. I know they see Jesus waiting to welcome them into heaven, and ‘they that have seen have believed.’ Surely even Joanna’s heart wasn’t so hardened that she wouldn’t repent when she saw the fate that awaited her.”

“I’m sure,” Vielle said stonily. “She didn’t say anything.”

“Then there’s no hope,” Joanna’s sister said, dabbing at her eyes, “and she is in hell.”

“Joanna?” Vielle said, outraged. “How dare you — !”

“It is not I who have condemned her, but God,” Joanna’s sister said. “For is it not written, ‘But they that do not believe shall be cast into outer darkness, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’?”

“Get out,” Vielle said.

Joanna’s sister looked at Richard, as if expecting support. He wondered how he could have ever thought she looked like Joanna. “I will pray for you both,” she said, and walked away.

“Don’t you dare,” Vielle shouted after her, and one of the police officers over by the door looked up alertly. “You arrogant, wicked, holier-than-thou—”

“What did Joanna say?” Richard cut in.

Vielle turned and looked at him, the anger dying out of her face. “Richard—”

“She did say something, didn’t she? What?”

“I can’t believe she’d come in here like that,” Vielle said. “That bitch! I’ll tell you who the Lord casts into outer darkness. So-called Christians like her.”

“What did Joanna say?”

“Joanna told me she and her sister weren’t all that close,” Vielle said, walking over to the station. “Light-years apart is more like it.” She picked up a chart. “How sweet, kind, sensible Joanna could even have a sister like that is beyond—”

Richard caught her arm. “What did she say?”

“Look, I’ve got patients to see. We’re completely behind.”

“It’s what you came up to the lab to see me about, isn’t it? You said the guy who coded said, ‘Too far away to come,’ and that you’d been thinking about what she must have been going through those last moments. It was because of what Joanna said, wasn’t it?” He gripped her arm. “What did she say?”

The police officer at the door started toward them, his hand on his gun.

“Richard—”

“It’s important. Tell me.”

“She said, ‘Tell Richard—’ ” She paused, looking down at the chart.

Richard waited, afraid to speak.

She stared blindly down at the chart, and then looked up again, looking like Tish had in the lab. “ ‘Tell Richard it’s,’ ” she said, and swallowed hard, “ ‘SOS. SOS.’ ”

43

“For God’s sake, take care of our people…”

—Last entry in Robert Falcon Scott’s diary, found with his body in the antarctic

“Did you page Joanna?” Maisie asked her mother.