Connie Willis - Passage

“Yes,” Kit said. “This is a present from Richard—Dr. Wright. He said it’s to thank you for telling him about Mr. Mandrake.” She handed Maisie a package wrapped in red paper that looked like a video.

“What did Mr. Mandrake say?” Maisie said. “He did talk to Joanna that day, didn’t he? Did she tell him the thing Dr. Wright was trying to find out?”

“Open your present, and then I’ll tell you everything.” Kit walked swiftly to the door and pulled the curtains together. “Dr. Wright said to open it and get it put away before your mother comes back.”

“Really? What is it?” She began ripping the paper off. “ The Hindenburg!” she said, looking happily at the picture of the flaming zeppelin on the box.

“Dr. Wright said to warn you the movie’s not exactly like the real Hindenburg crash. He says they changed the ending so the dog survives.”

“I don’t care!” Maisie said, clasping the video to her chest. “It’s perfect!”

“Where do you want me to put it?” Kit asked.

“Get one of my videos on the bottom of the nightstand No, not The Secret Garden. Nurse Evelyn loves The Secret Garden. She puts it in every time she’s on shift.”

“How about Winnie the Pooh?”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

Kit handed her the plastic video case. Maisie handed her The Hindenburg. “Here, open this,” she said, opened Winnie the Pooh, and took the video out.

Kit tore the cellophane off The Hindenburg and handed it back to Maisie, and she slid it out of its box, put it in the Winnie the Pooh box, and handed Kit the Winnie the Pooh video. “Put it on the bottom,” she said.

Kit slid it under the bottom video of the stack. “And I suppose you want me to take this home with me?” she asked, holding out the Hindenburg box. Maisie nodded. “You know, Maisie,” Kit said seriously, “after you get your new heart, you’re going to have to stop lying and tricking your mother.”

“What did Mr. Mandrake say?” Maisie said. “Did he tell Dr. Wright what Joanna said?”

“No,” Kit said, “but Richard found out anyway. Joanna was trying to tell us the NDE was a kind of SOS. It’s a message the brain sends out to the different chemicals in the brain to find one that will signal the heart to start beating and the patient to start breathing.”

“After they code,” Maisie said.

“Yes, and now that Richard knows what it is, he can design a method to send those same chemicals to—”

“He really does have a coding treatment?” Maisie asked excitedly. “I just made that up.”

Kit shook her head. “Not yet, but he’s working on it. He’s developed a prototype, but it still has to be tested,” her face got real serious, “and even if it works—”

“He might not do it in time,” Maisie said, and was afraid Kit was going to lie and say, “Of course he will,” but she didn’t.

“He said to tell you that, no matter what happens, you did something important,” Kit said. “You helped make a discovery that may save lots and lots of lives.”

A few days later Richard came and asked the nurses a whole bunch of questions about what she weighed and stuff. He hardly talked to Maisie at all, except right when he was leaving, he looked up at the TV and he said, “Seen any good movies lately?”

“Yes!” she said, “this really good movie, except for they made the dog a dalmatian instead of a German shepherd. And they left out the guy who had the NDE, but the rest is pretty good. I love the part where the guy goes and lets the dog out.”

She watched it over and over. She had the meal guy put it in for her when he came to get her supper tray and had the night shift nurse’s aide take it out before she went to sleep.

Sometimes she didn’t feel like watching TV or anything. It was hard to breathe, and she got all puffed up in spite of the dopamine. Her heart doctors came in and told her they were going to put her on dobutamine, and after that she felt a little better and felt like talking to Kit when she came to see her.

“Do you still have your pager?” Kit asked.

“Yes,” Maisie said and showed her how she had it clipped to her dog tags chain.

“It’s very important that you wear it all the time,” Kit said. “If you start to feel like you did before you coded, or if you hear your monitor start to beep, you push the button. Don’t wait. Push it right away.”

“What if then I don’t code?” Maisie asked. “Will I get in trouble?”

“No,” Kit said, “not at all. You push it, and then you try to hang on. Dr. Wright will come right away.”

“What if he’s not in the hospital?”

“He’ll be in the hospital.”

“But what if he’s a long way away, like the Carpathia?” Maisie persisted. “It’s a really big hospital.”

“He knows all the shortcuts,” Kit said.

Dr. Wright came again with three of Maisie’s heart doctors and her mom’s lawyer, and they asked her how she was feeling and looked at her monitors and then went out in the hall. Maisie could see them talking, though they were too far away for her to hear what they were saying. Dr. Wright talked for a little while, and then her heart doctor talked a lot, and then the lawyer talked for a really long time and handed them a lot of papers, and everybody left.

A couple of days after that, Vielle came to see her. She was wearing a pager, too. “They won’t let me work in the ER until my hand gets better,” she said, looking mad only not really, “so they sent me up here to take care of you.” Vielle looked up at the TV. “What is that?” She made a face. “ The Sound of Music? I hate The Sound of Music. I always thought Maria was way too cheerful. Don’t you have any good videos around here? I can see I’m going to have to bring in some of mine.”

She did, but Maisie didn’t get to watch them because her mom had started staying in her room all the time, even at night. It didn’t matter. Most of the time she was too tired to even watch The Sound of Music and she just lay there and thought about Joanna.

They kept having to take her down to have echocardiograms and one of the times when they were getting her into position, the button on her pager got pressed, and Vielle and a crash cart and about a hundred doctors and nurses showed up, and a couple of minutes later Dr. Wright came running in, all panting and out of breath, and after that she didn’t feel so worried, but she still felt terrible. It was hard to breathe, even with the oxygen mask, and her head hurt.

Her heart doctors came in and told her they were going to put a special pump in that would help her heart do its work. “An L-VAD or a bivad?” she asked.

“An L-VAD,” they said, but then they didn’t.

“They’ve decided to wait till you’re feeling better,” her mom said. “And, anyway, your new heart’s going to be here any day now.”

“When they put a new heart in,” Maisie asked Vielle the next time she came in to check her vitals, “do they cut your chest open?”

“Yes,” Vielle said, “but it won’t hurt.”

“And your arms have IVs in them and stuff?” Maisie said.

“Yes, but you’ll be under the anesthetic. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Can I have some adhesive tape?” Maisie asked. “And some scissors?” and when her mom went down to the cafeteria for dinner, Maisie took her dog tags off and went to work.

The next day her mom said, “You have to think positive thoughts, sweetie. You have to say to yourself, ‘My new heart’s going to come in just a few days, and then this will all be over, and I’ll forget all about feeling uncomfortable. I’ll get to go to school again and play soccer!’ ”