The Next Person You Meet in Heaven Read online

  SUNDAY, 3:07 P.M.

  As the police car approached the hospital, Tolbert looked out the window at the long streaks of clouds. He said a silent prayer. This, he knew, would be the last moment hope could overshadow fact. Once he got inside, whatever he saw would be undeniable.

  The car stopped. He took a deep breath, then opened the door, tugged on his jacket, stepped out quickly, and walked beside the policeman. Neither man spoke.

  They entered through the emergency entrance. As they approached the desk, Tolbert spotted, through a side curtain, his assistant, Teddy, sitting on the edge of a gurney, with his head down and his hands over his ears.

  For an instant, Tolbert felt relief. He’s alive. Thank God. Then came rage. He stormed through the opening.

  “Whoa, hey—” the officer said. But Tolbert grabbed Teddy by the shoulders and yelled, “What the hell, Teddy? What the hell?”

  Teddy’s mouth was an oval. His body trembled.

  “Wind,” he muttered. “An electrical line. I tried to avoid—”

  “Did you check the damn weather?”

  “I—”

  “Did you check the damn weather?”

  “It was—”

  “Why did you go up? Who were these people? What the hell, Teddy?”

  The police officer pulled Tolbert back, saying, “Easy, pal, easy.” Gasping for breath, Teddy pulled a business card from his shirt pocket.

  “They said they knew you,” he croaked.

  Tolbert froze. The card was frayed, as if it had been rained on. Tolbert’s name was handwritten on the back.

  “Excuse me, are you the balloon owner?”

  Tolbert spun. Another officer was in front of him.

  “We need to get a statement.”

  Tolbert swallowed. “Why?”

  The officer flipped open a notepad.

  “There’s a fatality,” he said.

  The Final Eternity

  Annie slumped on a cold, hard surface, her soul torn in half. She had held her baby. She had felt at peace. For one blessed moment, she thought she had found her eternal rest. She would live forever in the starry sunshine of Ruby Pier, with her son, Laurence, with Eddie, the old man, with the other children he had kept alive. That would be her heaven.

  But she was gone from that heaven now, and it was clear there was no going back. She felt gutted. Hollowed out. She lacked the will to even open her eyes. When she did, no colors moved across the firmament. Blackness draped as if the air were opaque.

  Why go on? she thought, slumping back. Her life had been revealed by the people she’d met, and her deepest secrets had been ripped open, abandoned by the sentinels her brain had once sent to protect them.

  She knew everything that had happened now. She knew why others had been involved. What she did not know was how it all fit together, or, most agonizingly, how her life had ended. Is this it? she thought. The sum of her existence? A cut cord, loose and dangling?

  As a child, Annie had been taught that when she died, the Lord would take her in and all would be comfort and peace. Perhaps that was meant for those with completed missions. If you didn’t finish your story on earth, how could heaven do it for you?

  She ran her hands around her body and winced. Her head hurt, her shoulders were sore, and her lower back was tight, recalling the pain after she fell from the balloon. When she pushed her palms towards her thighs, she felt a familiar fabric, soft and satiny, and as she pushed lower, it widened and frilled.

  She knew, without seeing, that she was back in her wedding dress.

  * * *

  Get up, she heard her inner voice tell her. Finish this. Weak and dazed, Annie rose in the darkness. Her feet were bare. The dress clung to her body. Looking down, she saw specks of light through the clear surface. Stars. First a few, then thousands, a galaxy’s worth, all below her heels.

  She took a step.

  The ground rolled.

  Annie stopped.

  It stopped as well.

  She took another step and it rolled with her; she was walking atop some sort of globe—a massive glass globe with an entire universe inside it. At another time, it might have interested her. But she was blank now, a shelled husk. She trudged ahead with no peace, no clarity, none of the “salvation” that had enlightened Eddie.

  Just when she imagined this was her permanent fate, she began to pass objects scattered here and there: a beige lawn chair lying on its side, a music stand turned upside down, white ribbons that were cut between two metal stanchions. A new feeling overtook her, raw and unsettling, a feeling that this was less someone else’s heaven than the remains of her earth.

  Up ahead, she saw a canopy. Under the canopy, she saw the backs of several people, men and women, in suits and bridesmaid dresses.

  “Hello?” she yelled.

  Silence.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  “Please, someone, tell me where I am,” she pleaded, drawing closer. “Do any of you know me?”

  The figures dissolved into tiny particles, revealing a single tuxedoed man who lifted his head.

  “I do,” Paulo said.

  The Fifth Person Annie Meets in Heaven

  Love comes when you least expect it. Love comes when you most need it. Love comes when you are ready to receive it or can no longer deny it. These are common expressions that hold varying truths of love. But the truth of love for Annie was that, for a long time, nearly ten years, she expected none and got none in return.

  After the loss of her mother and her child, Annie withdrew from almost everyone, burying herself in her nursing routine. She dressed the same each day: blue scrubs and gray running shoes. She drove the same roads through town. She purchased the same cup of tea at the same café.

  And day after day, she tended to her patients.

  She kept their charts. She knew their doctors. She avoided working in pediatrics, finding the memories too difficult. But she was quite good with the elderly; she encouraged their conversation, and they were happy to prattle on. Annie discovered listening to older patients was a form of medicine—for them and for her. It was just enough caring, but not enough to hurt her. And not being hurt was now the driving force in Annie’s life.

  She took extra shifts. She let work fill her days and nights. She rarely socialized. She didn’t date. She pulled her butterscotch curls into a small black elastic and turned the light off in her heart.

  Then came the morning when, walking to the hospital, her tea lukewarm and nearly finished, she glanced up and felt everything flip, because there, on a platform, was Paulo, grown-up Paulo, wearing faded blue jeans and hammering a board. A lever pulled in the basement of her soul, and Annie’s blood coursed and her nerve endings tingled.

  Don’t look at me, she thought. I can still get away if you don’t—

  “Hey, I know you,” he said, a grin rising. “You’re Annie!”

  She slid her left hand behind her.

  “That’s me, all right.”

  “From school.”

  “From school.”

  “I’m Paulo.”

  “I remember.”

  “From school.”

  “From school.”

  “Wow. Annie.”

  She felt her skin flush. She could not fathom why a boy from high school should have such an effect on her now. But when he said, “Wow. Annie,” she could not help but think the same thing: Wow. Annie. What is this?

  And while she didn’t know it then, she was learning another truth about love: it comes when it comes.

  Simple as that.

  * * *

  Their romance was less a courtship than a reunion. They had dinner that night and every night that week. They laughed and talked, late and long, avoiding early awkwardness thanks to their shared childhood.

  Paulo told lots of stories, and when he finished one, Annie, chin in hand, would ask, “Then what?” He’d had many adventures once his family moved to Italy, with villagers, horsemen, a tr
aveling soccer team, a year in the mountains that turned dangerous. Annie felt as if these tales had been saved up just for her.

  “What about you?” Paulo asked. “How is your mom?”

  “She died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I liked her, Annie.”

  “But she chased you away.”

  “She was fierce. She wanted to protect you.” Paulo shrugged. “That’s why I liked her.”

  They hugged briefly that first night together, patting each other’s backs like old friends. But a few nights later, after a spaghetti dinner, they kissed gently in the front of Paulo’s car. Annie pulled back as if it were the only time she had ever kissed anyone. She told Paulo she’d been holding that kiss since the day he left high school—“I’m not counting that disaster at your locker”—and Paulo said he’d felt awful about that incident and the way those kids had acted, the way he had acted, too.

  “That Megan was a witch,” Annie said.

  “But your drawing was cool. Do you still have it?”

  Annie burst out laughing. “Do I still have it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want it.”

  “You want the drawing?”

  “Of course. That drawing was how I knew you loved me.”

  Annie looked down, rubbing her knee.

  “You didn’t know that,” she said, softly.

  “Sure, I did. I knew I loved you.”

  She lifted her gaze. “Are you joking?”

  “No way.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something?”

  “Annie,” Paulo said, that big grin widening, “I was fourteen!”

  * * *

  In time, as with the truest loves, their lives melded seamlessly, and they knew it would stay that way without ever saying a word.

  One day, during a lunch break, Annie wheeled a patient named Mrs. Velichek into the new seniors wing. She was from New York and had just passed her ninetieth birthday, frail in body but brimming with spirit. Annie liked her.

  “What do you think?” Annie asked. “It’s bigger than the old—”

  She stopped. There, kneeling on the floor, was Paulo, finishing the molding. He looked up.

  “Good morning, beautiful.”

  “He’s not talking to me,” Mrs. Velichek said.

  “How do you know?” Annie said.

  “Yeah, how do you know?” Paulo added, rising to shake the woman’s hand.

  “Mrs. Velichek, this is Paulo. We’re friends,” Annie said.

  Paulo nodded towards the counter. “It looks like the food’s here.”

  Annie saw loaves of bread and assorted cold cuts that someone had delivered.

  “That’s not for us,” she said.

  “It’s not not for us,” Paulo said, mischievously.

  “Are you hungry, Mrs. Velichek?”

  A minute later, Paulo and Annie were playfully making sandwiches. Paulo stuffed them high with meat.

  “Not so big,” Annie cautioned.

  “Don’t listen to her!” Mrs. Velichek said.

  “I always listen to her,” Paulo said.

  “He better,” Annie replied, but she laughed and elbowed Paulo when she said it.

  “Friends, huh?” Mrs. Velichek said. “Honey, who are you kidding?”

  * * *

  They moved in together a month later, and their routines intertwined, like paint colors fading into each other. They shared breakfast, shared toothpaste, shared a cold, shared a mailing address.

  Autumn came and winter came and spring came and melted into summer. One bright morning, before leaving for work, Paulo pulled the elastic out of Annie’s hair and she shook free her wavy locks. “Better?” she said, and he said, “Better,” and they could have been talking about everything.

  Their marriage was a formality after that. But Paulo had a showman’s heart. He waited until one night, when he had things ready, and he led Annie to the roof of their building, which was lit by small torches and serenaded by classical music from a large white speaker. He pulled a sheet off a large lumpy shape to reveal an unusual sculpture: two giant papier-mâché frogs. He had made them to mark the day they met in the schoolyard. One frog wore a necktie and was leaping over the other. Attached to the necktie was a note.

  Annie read it.

  “One small step for frog, one giant leap for the two of us?”

  She burst out laughing. As she turned to Paulo, he already had a ring box open, and Annie didn’t even wait to hear the question.

  “Yes,” she gushed. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  * * *

  “No,” Annie whispered now.

  Paulo blinked.

  “You can’t be here.”

  He opened his hands.

  “I don’t want you to be here!”

  He reached for her cheek.

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t be here! You had to live! You had to live!”

  His fingers grazed her skin, and her entire body seemed to melt with the contact.

  “Look, Annie,” he said, “the northern lights.”

  Beneath them, through the glassy surface, waves of green and red moved like smoke through the stars.

  “Do you know what causes them?”

  Annie felt tears streaming down her face.

  “You told me so many times,” she answered, her voice quivering. “Particles fly off the sun. They blow to earth on solar winds. They take two days to reach us. And they break into our atmosphere . . .”

  She choked up.

  “At the top of the world.”

  “And here we are,” Paulo said.

  He waved his hand and a magnificent wash of colors swept the sky beneath their feet. Annie stared at her husband, who looked the way he’d looked at their wedding, but so at peace, his eyes creaseless, his lips without a single line. There was no one she wanted to see more. There was no one she wanted to see less.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why are you here?”

  “The winds blew,” he said.

  The Fifth Lesson

  Loss is as old as life itself. But for all our evolution, we are yet to accept it.

  Annie, realizing she had not saved Paulo’s life, felt consumed by her losses now. From the father who left early, to the hand damaged by the accident, to the home she was forced to leave, to the friends she left behind, to her mother’s death, to her lost child, to her wedding night, to this, her husband, here in front of her. Her final loss.

  She had failed again.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “A little while.”

  “Will you meet five people?”

  “I already have.”

  “I don’t understand. Did I die after you?”

  “Time is different here, Annie. A few seconds on earth could be a century in heaven. It’s wild. Better than all my nerdy space books.”

  He smiled, and Annie felt the corners of her own mouth rising. But then she remembered where they were.

  “No,” she insisted. “It’s not fair. We had one night being married.”

  “One night can change a lot.”

  “It’s not enough!” She looked at him like a pleading child. “I don’t understand, Paulo. Why couldn’t we just be happy? Why was everything good taken away from me?”

  Paulo gazed at the black firmament as if checking something, even though there was nothing there.

  “Remember that last day in high school?” he said. “I actually ran after you. I saw you in the park. You were crying on a bench, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you. I knew that I’d let you down.

  “We moved the next day, and for fifteen years, that gnawed at me. As young as we were, I felt I’d lost someone important, someone precious. I came home to America hoping one day to see you again. Then, out of the blue, there you were, at the hospital. And I realized, if you truly love someone, you’ll find a way back.”

  Annie fro
wned. “And then you lose them again.”

  “You lose something every day you live, Annie. Sometimes it’s as tiny as the breath you just expelled, sometimes it’s so big you think you won’t survive it.”

  He took her left hand. “But you do, right?”

  Annie felt an arterial burst of love. Her husband was here. At least she could be with him. And yet . . .

  “I wanted to save you,” she whispered.

  “You gave me a lung.”

  “But you still died.”

  “That doesn’t change what you did.”

  “How are you so at peace with this? All I feel is . . .”

  “What?”

  Annie searched for the word. “Heartbroken.”

  Paulo thought for a moment. “I want to show you something.”

  He reached inside his jacket pocket and removed a pipe cleaner rabbit.

  “You gave me that already,” Annie said.

  “Watch.”

  Suddenly, the rabbit untwisted magically into five straightened pipe cleaners. Paulo took one and made a simple double-humped shape.

  “This is the heart we’re born with, Annie. It’s small and empty because it’s been through nothing.”

  He put it in her hand.

  “And this . . .”

  He took the four other pipe cleaners and twisted them to create a larger, complicated version, with lines crisscrossing the insides.

  “This is the heart we die with. After the people we love. After all our losses. It’s bigger, you see?”

  “But it’s broken,” Annie said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what ruins it.”

  Paulo pushed the heart to Annie’s chest.

  “No. That’s what makes it whole.”

  Suddenly, the pipe cleaners glowed brilliantly and Annie felt a small thumping growing inside her.

  “Paulo, what’s happening?”

  “Thank you, Annie. For a minute, I got to breathe as you. It was amazing.”

  “No, wait—”