Passage

“Nurse Hawley wasn’t there,” Richard said, coming in. “I’ll have to page her.” He went over to the phone. “I need to hire a nurse to assist.” He dialed the switchboard.

“While we’re waiting, Amelia,” Joanna said, “why don’t you tell me what you saw during your first session?”

“The first time I went under?” Amelia asked, and Joanna wondered if her use of that phrase was significant. “The first time all I saw was a bright light,” she said. “It was so bright I couldn’t really see anything. The second time I went under it wasn’t as bright, and in it I could see people.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Not really. I mean, I couldn’t really see them, because of the light, but I knew they were there.”

“How many people?” Joanna asked.

“Three,” Amelia said, squinting as if she were envisioning the scene. “No, four.”

“And what were they doing?”

“Nothing,” Amelia said. “Just standing there waiting.”

“Waiting?”

“Yes. Waiting for me, I think. Watching.”

Watching and waiting were not the same thing. “Were there any feelings associated with what you saw?” Joanna asked.

“Yes, I felt warm and…” she hesitated, “…peaceful.”

Warm and peaceful were words frequently used by NDEers to describe the feeling they’d experienced, also safe and surrounded by love, feelings also associated with the release of endorphins.

“Can you think of any other words to describe the feeling?”

“Yes,” Amelia said, but then was silent for several seconds. “Serene,” she said finally, but her inflection at the end of the word rose, as if it were a question. “Cozy,” she said with more certainty, “like being in front of a fire. Or wrapped up in a blanket.” She smiled as if remembering the feeling.

“What happened after you saw the figures in the light?” Joanna asked.

“Nothing. That’s all I remember, just the light and them standing there waiting.”

Richard came over, looking irritated. “Nurse Hawley isn’t answering her page,” he said. “We’ll have to do it without her. Amelia, you can go ahead and get up on the table.”

Amelia hopped onto the examining table and lay down on her back. “Oh, good,” she said, “you covered up that light. It kept blinding me.”

Richard shot Joanna an approving glance and then picked up an oxygen indicator and clipped it onto Amelia’s finger. “We continuously monitor pulse and BP.”

He stepped back to the console and typed in something. The monitors above the terminal lit up. Changing readouts appeared on the lower right screen. Oxygen levels 98 percent, pulse 67. He went back over to the table. “Amelia, I’m going to put the electrodes on now.”

“Okay,” Amelia said.

Richard pulled the neck of the hospital gown down and attached electrodes to her chest. “These monitor heart rate and rhythm,” he said to Joanna. He attached a blood pressure cuff to Amelia’s arm. “Okay,” he said to her. “It’s time for you to put on your sleep mask.”

“Okay,” she said, raising her head slightly as she positioned the mask over her eyes, and then lying back down. Richard began attaching electrodes to her temples and her scalp. “Wait!” She tried to sit up.

“What is it?” Joanna said. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” Amelia said. She felt blindly for her hair clip with her left hand, took it out, and shook out her long hair. “Sorry, it was digging into the back of my head,” she said, lying back down. “I didn’t unhook anything, did I?”

“You’re fine,” Richard said, reattaching the electrodes to her temples. He began attaching smaller ones along her scalp.

Joanna looked at her, lying there with her black hair fanned out around her pale face. She looks like Sleeping Beauty, she thought, and wondered if Sleeping Beauty had had visions during her hundred years of being in a coma. And if she had, of what? Tunnels and lights, or a boat on a lake? A middle-aged nurse came bustling in. “I’m sorry I’m late. I was with a patient.”

“You can start a saline IV,” Richard said, lifting the sides of Amelia’s sleep mask to stick electrodes at the corners of her eyes. “These electrodes record eye movements during the period when the subject’s in REM sleep.”

The nurse had tied a piece of rubber tubing around Amelia’s arm and was expertly probing for a vein. Richard raised Amelia’s other arm and placed a two-inch-thick piece of foam under it. To reduce external stimuli, Joanna thought, watching him place them under her knees, her legs.

“Is the IV in?” Richard asked the nurse. “Okay, start the tracers.” He leaned over Amelia. “Do you hurt anywhere? Anything pinch? Pull? Ache?”

“Nope,” Amelia said, smiling blindly up at him. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said. He picked up a pair of headphones, plugged them into a jack, and put them on. He listened for a moment and then took them off and brought them over to Amelia. “We’re ready to start,” he said. “I’m going to put the headphones on you now. You ready?”

“Can I have a blanket?” Amelia asked. “I always get cold.”

Cold? Joanna wondered. She had said she felt warm and cozy. Joanna thought back to Lisa Andrews, shivering as she said she felt warm and safe.