A Heartbeat Away Read online

  “I’m not Jesus. Ask him.”

  “I have. A thousand times.” She crossed her arms.

  “You need me to say it?” He shook his head. “I can say it, but it won’t be enough. It doesn’t change things.”

  “Say it.”

  “Come on, Emily. You don’t need my forgiveness.”

  She started to cry. “I want you to love me.”

  Christian felt the ice around his heart begin to melt, beads of sweat on a surface of rock. He closed his fist, trying to find the resolve he’d mustered to walk away. He shook his head and stood. If he kissed her, he’d stay for an hour. Kisses would linger as he tasted her tears. He’d lose himself in her emerald eyes. He’d say things he’d regret. Sweet things that would make little sense in the light of morning.

  He looked at her only for a moment and spoke as he started down the porch steps. “I’ll never forget you, Emily Greene.”

  Tori awoke at four a.m. What’s that noise?

  For a moment, she was the surgeon on call and the phone nudged her from sleep. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. The fog began to clear, but the sound of the phone continued. She began plodding toward the kitchen. Can’t Charlotte hear the phone? And who is calling at this hour?

  She lifted the phone from its base. “Hello.”

  “Hello, this is Mary Fiorino. I’m the hospice nurse. Is this Dr. Taylor? I think we met the other day at Manny’s place.”

  “Yes, this is Tori. Let me get Charlotte for you.”

  “Actually, I’m calling for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Look, Manny doesn’t have long. He’s asking for you.”

  Tori sighed. “Okay.” She looked through the window above the kitchen sink, seeing only her reflection. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll call a cab.”

  “You’d better hurry.”

  The line went dead. Evidently, Nurse Fiorino was all business at this time of the morning.

  Tori prepared the drip coffeemaker and trudged back to her bedroom to change. She found jeans and a colorful top that she could button up above her sternal scar. She washed her face, called a cab, poured coffee, and waited.

  Let me be in time.

  Tori straightened. The words that had just formed in her mind had been more than a thought—they had been a prayer. And the impulse to mentally express that prayer had felt very natural, even though it was far from her normal routine.

  Maybe it just comes with facing the death of a patient … something I always avoided before.

  A yellow cab pulled up on the street in front. She scribbled a note to Charlotte and entered the darkness of the Richmond morning.

  She gave the address to the cabbie, who turned and shook his head. “Not the safest part of town for a young lady at night.”

  She hesitated. I should have brought my mace. She cleared her throat. “I have to go.”

  The cabbie appeared to be Middle Eastern, possibly Arabic, possibly Somali. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t take him for the type to turn down a fare, even into a war zone. He shrugged and hit the meter. “Have it your way.”

  “Where are you from? You don’t have an accent.”

  “Ethiopia,” he said. “But I’ve lived here since I was five.”

  She settled into the backseat and stared out at the vacant streets. The statues on tree-lined Monument Avenue kept a silent vigil. Robert E. Lee sat proudly on his horse. Motionless. Offering neither comfort nor warning. Jefferson Davis, however, looked eerie, his hand extended into the air palm up in a gesture that seemed to suggest surrender. Or a plea for help. Tori doubted the artist responsible had anticipated how creepy Davis would look standing alone in the darkness.

  Soon, they turned away from the trees, skirting Virginia Commonwealth University and up Broad Street. A man in a worn jacket leaned against a building. A woman with too much lipstick and a short skirt bent forward to talk to the driver of a luxury car. It was the nightlife that Tori rarely thought about. Seeing it now brought an ache to her soul. The poor. The homeless. Sex for hire. The woman looked up and her eyes followed the cab as they passed. In spite of an application of rouge and eye shadow, her cheeks were pale, eyes hollow. “I’m lost.”

  The message startled her. She looked at the cabbie to see his reaction, but if he’d heard her cry, he didn’t react. “Did you hear that woman?”

  She watched as the cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror. “Didn’t hear nothing. The windows are up.” He squinted. “Was she talking to us?”

  “To me—” Tori halted, realizing that perhaps it had only been in her mind. Okay, so now I’m officially hearing voices.

  They passed an adult theater. A liquor store still open in spite of the hour. A man was exiting with his prize in a brown bag, promising a momentary reprieve from a hard life. He smiled at the cab as they crept past, his snaggletoothed dentition framed by unshaven cheeks. His soul whispered to her. I’m lost.

  Tori closed a fist over her heart. We’re all lost, aren’t we?

  She found herself on the verge of tears.

  This is crazy. I’ve lived around this stuff all my life.

  But she’d insulated herself, building up a fortress of armor, warding off feeling.

  She opened her purse and felt for her stethoscope. Why had she brought it? Certainly a doctor should have a stethoscope at the bedside of the dying. In the darkness of the cab, she clutched the plastic tubing as if to hold onto the science she relied on to explain everything. Science framed her world, offering an explanation for human suffering. Pain was only a neurologic message, right? A transmission of information about pathology that needed to be changed. Medicine and surgery offered a cure.

  But Manny is dying.

  In spite of my surgery.

  What’s on the other side?

  Is there an other side?

  The cabbie drove up a long hill away from the VCU hospital complex and into a neighborhood of government project housing where Manny lived. He pulled up to a curb opposite the small playground, the one with the swaying turtle and the scary tubular slide. The cabbie turned around. “Twenty,” he said.

  “But the meter says twelve fifty.”

  “It’s a risky neighborhood. Some cabbies won’t come here at all. I risked my life and my cab.” He stared at her, unblinking, with a yarn hat pulled down over his ears and repeated his demand. “Twenty.”

  Tori looked through the window toward Manny’s apartment building. It was a little scary out there. She tossed a twenty over the seat. “Thanks.”

  She passed a sleeping drunk outside the elevator on Manny’s floor. An exposed fluorescent tube buzzed and blinked, measuring her progress in jerky images. Her mind floated as if caught in déjà vu. She hurried to escape the feeling that she’d been there before, not just a few days ago, but years ago.

  She paused and steadied herself against the wall. Dakota, were you here?

  Mary opened the door after a soft knock. After letting Tori in, Mary excused herself. “I’ve been here most of the night.” She pointed at the morphine. “Use this if he gets agitated. He’s been a little delirious.” She shook her head. “Keeps talking about a fire.”

  Tori only mumbled an echo of Mary’s words. “A fire.”

  Manny had been set up on his old brown upholstered couch. The room smelled of bile and urine. Tori imagined he hadn’t the strength to get to the bathroom, but took it as a positive that his kidneys must still be functioning. He was propped up on three pillows, covered with a quilt in spite of the warm temperature.

  “Manny,” she said, sliding a kitchen chair to the edge of the couch. “I’m here.”

  He squinted in her direction.

  She took his hand. “Are you in pain?”

  He didn’t reply. His respirations were shallow.

&
nbsp; She looked in his eyes. His constricted pupils were rimmed in muddy brown irises that floated in a sea of yellow. She counted his respirations. Six in a minute.

  The hospice nurse had been generous with the narcotics, and Manny was barely breathing as a result.

  “At least you’re comfortable,” she whispered.

  She watched him, paced, made coffee, and watched the sun rise over downtown Richmond.

  After an hour, he stirred, and Tori returned to his side.

  “Nadine,” he said, reaching for her. His eyes were unfocused, looking through her to a memory.

  Your wife’s name. What to do? She toyed with correcting him, then just took his hand and replied softly, “Rest, Manny.”

  “The smoke was too thick.” His breathing quickened. “Too hot.”

  She lifted the quilt from beneath his chin. His forehead was slick with sweat. She inspected his biliary drain. The bag was milky and yellow-brown. Infection has set in.

  “You’ve got a fever.” She put her fingers on his radial pulse. It was a few moments before she convinced herself that she could feel the thready runaway rhythm tapping against her finger.

  “I tried … to … save you.” His words erupted in a broken staccato.

  “Shh, Manny, don’t try to talk.”

  “We’re together again.”

  Charlotte had told Tori about Manny’s wife, a strong woman who’d tried to help him after Vietnam but had failed to escape an apartment fire.

  He began to shake, the rigors of fever. The doctor in her wanted to keep him cool, but she knew it was only a matter of time, so she let him have the quilt again. “Here,” she said, tucking it up under his chin.

  After a few minutes, he relaxed again, and his eyes rolled upward until only yellow slits of sclera remained. He appeared horror-film spooky that way. She imagined the yellow color erupting into lasers.

  Girl, you are losing it. She stood and walked to the window. She looked down at the small playground. Even from her vantage point high on the fifth floor, the image held a strange anxiety for her. What is it about that playground?

  Manny grunted, and she returned to her vigil beside the couch. She took his hand again. This time, he squeezed back. Hard. His grip was crazy strong. Startling, not like that of a dying man.

  He pulled her hand to his chest and looked in her eyes. With the light of the morning falling on his yellow eyes, the effect was chilling. Even before he spoke, Tori’s heart was in her throat. “God knows what you did,” he said.

  Tori pulled away. “What?”

  He didn’t repeat it. Was he speaking to his dead wife? Or to me? What did I do? “What, Manny? What do you mean?”

  His eyes were sad. “I forgive you.”

  She didn’t understand. “Forgive me? For what?”

  But Manny didn’t answer. Instead, his countenance brightened. He sat up, the first time he’d shown any strength. Reaching toward the light streaming in the window, he grinned. “Oh, Jesus!”

  With that, his face relaxed. Then his shoulders. And he sank back onto the couch. She watched his chest. It didn’t rise again.

  Tori gasped. “Manny, no! Tell me what you meant!”

  Silence. Manny was gone.

  And for the very first time, Dr. Tori Taylor, one of Virginia’s premier cancer surgeons, had been there at the moment death snatched life from one of her patients.

  But what had just happened?

  How could science explain his hallucination of Jesus?

  She took a deep breath, not even trying to hold back the tears. She touched his chest. “What did you mean?”

  She looked toward the window and let the sun bathe her face. Instead of comfort, she felt the sting of guilt. God?

  What did I do?

  16

  Tori spent the next two hours interacting with the hospice home-health staff and a local funeral home that came and picked up Manny’s body. By the time Charlotte appeared to give Tori a lift back to her place, Tori was exhausted.

  “I knew this was coming,” Charlotte said. “It’s a relief, really.”

  Tori stayed quiet.

  Charlotte seemed to be studying her. “Did he talk?”

  Tori shrugged. “He was pretty much out of it. Didn’t make much sense.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Well, cliché as it sounds, Manny’s one that I know is in a better place. His faith really carried him through.”

  Tori sighed, unable to get the image of Manny’s sunlit face out of her mind. For a moment, she was convinced he’d seen beyond the veil. She walked slowly behind Charlotte to the elevator. “What do you think happens? After we die?”

  “Child, you know what I think.”

  Tori held up her hands. “The good guys go to heaven. The bad …”

  “If that’s what you think, I know you haven’t been listening to me.”

  “But that’s it, isn’t it? God sends you to heaven or hell, right? That’s what you believe.”

  “Well, yes, I believe in a heaven and a hell, but heaven isn’t a place for the good guys, Tori.”

  “But you always—”

  Charlotte held up her hands. “Heaven is for the bad guys, Tori. For those of us who realize we’re bad and in desperate need of some help. No one can be good enough to earn heaven.”

  “Manny was a good guy.”

  “True. He was honest. A good friend. But that alone didn’t make him fit for heaven. His relationship with Christ did.”

  “That’s where I stumble,” Tori admitted. “Why does it always come down to Jesus?”

  The elevator doors opened and the duo stepped in. Charlotte punched the G button. “What do you mean?”

  “Christians shouldn’t claim to be the only way. What about the Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims? They deserve a chance.” Tori looked over at Charlotte. “Christians are intolerant.”

  “Hey, Christians didn’t make up the claim that Jesus was the only way. He said that himself. ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.’”

  “Doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Why are you suddenly on the attack? You’re feeling guilty.”

  “Oh, just because I attack your faith, you think I’m feeling guilty? You’re not supposed to judge, remember? I seem to recall you teaching that to me.”

  “Are you feeling guilty?”

  Tori looked away. Yes. But I’m not sure why.

  What did I do? What did Manny mean?

  “Watching someone die makes you think, huh? I mean, life and death, eternity, what’s it all about?”

  “Whatever,” Tori mumbled.

  They stepped off the elevator. They walked down the hall and out into the sunshine. The day was clear. Outside, children played, a squirrel ran up an oak tree, and a maintenance man was mowing grass, smiling as he saw the two women. Death may have stolen Manny away, but outside, life marched forward, going on as if nothing had happened. Tori wanted to scream. It’s so unfair. The good die too young.

  Once they were in Charlotte’s car, Tori changed the subject. “I’m going to Baltimore. I want to talk to the police about my donor.”

  “Your donor?”

  “It was the fire victim, Dakota Jones. The consensus is that she died trying to escape the fire. But I believe someone wanted her dead. It wasn’t an accident.”

  Tori listened as Charlotte sighed. Charlotte turned on her blinker and pulled into the traffic flow. “Can I be completely honest with you?”

  Tori shifted in her seat, pushing the shoulder harness up and away from the scar over her sternum. “Could I stop you?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well?”

  “I think this is a diversion, Tori. You’ve got enough trouble in your li
fe right now, what with dealing with recovery from surgery, these issues surrounding your job, and sorting out your anger. Why can’t you just leave this obsession with your donor alone?” She paused. “You need to focus on your own life.”

  Tori stared through the window. “That’s what I’m doing.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I can expect you to understand. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m doing something for someone other than myself. Dakota Jones gave her life. I owe her.”

  “No, you don’t. She died in an accident. She didn’t willingly give up her heart so you could live. She signed a donor card, that’s all.”

  “I don’t expect you to get this.”

  “Think of her parents. Do you think they want to know that you think their daughter may have been murdered?”

  “Do you want her murderer to go unpunished?”

  Another sigh. “Of course not.”

  “I didn’t ask for this, okay? But there are memories that keep bubbling up, stuff that scares me, Charlotte.” Tori touched her friend’s arm. “Don’t you get this? If I can find out what happened to Dakota, maybe I can put this torture to rest.”

  Charlotte didn’t respond. At least not verbally. Instead, she flipped on the radio, a station that played her favorite gospel music.

  Outside, Tori examined the population of Richmond’s downtown. Scores of unsmiling workers clipped along with phones welded to their ears. A hot-dog vendor argued with a customer over change. Tori lowered her window to listen.

  A middle-aged woman directed a dozen preschoolers down the sidewalk toward a McDonald’s. A white woman wearing gray sweatpants stepped away from an approaching businessman. She looked at Tori to reveal a face caked with too much makeup. Her eyes danced with fear. “My husband beats me,” she said.

  Tori touched Charlotte’s arm. “Stop the car.”

  “What for?”

  “Don’t you want to help her?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t you hear her? The woman in the gray sweats. Surely you heard her.”

  “Nope.”

  “She talked to me. She said, ‘My husband beats me.’”

  The woman walked on down the block. Traffic was slow. The woman paused at the front of a building and glanced back at Tori one more time before entering. The sign on the door said “Arms of Love.”