Connie Willis - Passage

Vielle shook her head. “The eternal verities aren’t what’s on people’s minds when they’re dying. They’re much more concerned with the matter at hand.”

“ ‘Put your hands on my shoulders and don’t struggle,’ ” Joanna murmured.

“Who said that?” Richard asked.

“W. S. Gilbert. You know, of Gilbert and Sullivan. Pirates of Penzance. He died saving a young girl from drowning. I’ve always thought that if I could choose, that’s how I’d like to die.”

“By drowning?” Vielle said. “No, you don’t want to drown. That’s a terrible way to die, trust me.”

“Gilbert didn’t drown,” Joanna said. “He had a heart attack. I meant, I’d like to die saving somebody else’s life.”

“I want to die in my sleep,” Vielle said. “Massive aneurysm. At home. How about you, Dr. Wright?”

“I don’t want to die at all,” Richard said, and they all laughed.

“Unfortunately, that’s not an option,” Vielle sighed, breaking off another cracker in the stiff dip. “We all die sooner or later, and we don’t get to choose the method. We have to take what we get. We had an old man in the ER this afternoon, final stages of diabetes, both feet amputated, blind, kidney failure, his whole body coming apart. His last words were, as you might expect, ‘Leave me alone.’ ”

“Those were Princess Di’s last words, too,” Joanna said.

“I thought she asked someone to take care of her sons,” Richard said.

“I think I’d believe the first one,” Vielle said. “ ‘Tell Laura I love her’ is for romantic movies like Titanic. The patients we get in the ER hardly ever have messages for anybody. They’re too busy concentrating on what’s happening to them, although I suppose Joanna knows of some famous people who sent last messages to their loved ones. Right, Joanna?”

Joanna wasn’t listening. As Vielle was talking she’d had it again, that teasing sense that she knew what “fifty-eight” meant. “Right, Joanna?”

“Oh. Yes. Tchaikovsky and Queen Victoria and P. T. Barnum. Anne Brontë said, ‘Take courage, Charlotte, take courage.’ This dip is not a dip. We do need a knife after all,” she said and escaped into the kitchen.

What had they been talking about that had triggered the feeling? Princess Di? Diabetes? No, it must have been something that echoed their earlier conversation. Joanna took a table knife out of the silverware drawer and then stood there with it in her hand, trying to reconstruct the scene in her head. They’d been talking about movie options, and—

“Can’t you find the knives?” Vielle called from the living room. “They’re in the top drawer next to the dishwasher.”

“I know,” Joanna said. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Could there be a movie with the number fifty-eight in the title? Or a song? Vielle had mentioned “Tell Laura I love her—”

“Joanna,” Vielle called, “you’re missing the movie!”

This was ridiculous. Greg Menotti hadn’t been trying to say anything. He’d been echoing the nurse’s reciting of his blood pressure, and she had only thought it meant something because of a fifty-eight in her memory, a fifty-eight their conversation had triggered. A line from a movie or a number out of her past, her grandmother’s address, her high school locker number—

High school. It had something to do with high school—

“Joanna!” Vielle called.

“If you don’t get in here,” Richard said, “our last words are going to be ‘Joanna, we’re starv—…argghh!’ ”

Something about high school and—. It was no use. Whatever it was, was gone. She took the knife into the living room and handed it to Richard. “You’re saying it wrong. Important words first. Like this. ‘Starving we argghh!’ ”

They all spread deviled ham dip on their crackers. “Maybe the best plan would be to decide in advance what you wanted your last words to be and then memorize them, so you’d be ready,” Joanna said.

“Like what?” Richard said.

“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “Words of wisdom or something.”

“Like ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’?” Vielle said. “I’d rather have ‘My side hurts.’ ”

“How about ‘So here it is at last, the distinguished thing’?” Joanna suggested. “That’s what Henry James said right before he died.”

“No, wait,” Richard said. “I’ve got it.” He spread his arms for dramatic effect. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

“He definitely likes you,” Vielle said when she called between patients the next morning. “Now aren’t you glad I invited him to Dish Night?”

“Vielle, I’m busy—” Joanna said.

“He’s handsome, smart, funny. But that means there’s going to be a lot of competition out there, so you’re going to have to really go after him. And the first thing you’ve got to do is stop him from hiring Tish.”

“It’s too late,” Joanna said. “He hired her this morning.”

“And you let him?” Vielle squealed. “She flirts with everything that moves. What were you thinking?”

That, unlike Karen Goebel, who had been the only other applicant, Tish wasn’t a spy for Mr. Mandrake. And that since Tish’s chief goal was pursuing Richard, she probably wouldn’t endanger her chances with him by blabbing to Mr. Mandrake. And she was a very good nurse.

“I can’t believe you let him hire her!” Vielle said.

“Did you call for some reason, Vielle?” Joanna asked. “Because if you didn’t, I have background checks to run, I’ve got to interview the rest of our volunteers, and Maisie’s been calling me all morning wanting me to come see her.” And I need to try to remember what triggered that feeling of knowing what “fifty-eight” meant last night.

“You just answered the question I called to ask you,” Vielle said. “You don’t have time.”

“For what? An NDE subject? Did somebody come into the ER?”

“Yes. A Mrs. Woollam. They’ve already taken her upstairs. I tried to page you, but you weren’t answering. I thought if I had you paged over the intercom, Mr. Mandrake would descend—”

“—‘like a wolf on the fold,’ ” Joanna said, and stopped. There was that sensation again, that feeling of knowing what Greg Menotti had been talking about. What was the rest of that quote? “Something something purple and gold.”

“Joanna?” Vielle said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. Sorry. What did you say her name was?”

“Mrs. Woollam. And, listen, she’s not just an ordinary NDEer. She’s a sudden deather.”

“Sudden deather?”

“Her heart tends to fibrillate suddenly and stop pumping. Luckily it also tends to start up again with a shot of epi and one good shock from the paddles, but she’s coded eight times in the past year. We’re talking experienced.”

“Why haven’t I met her before?” Joanna said.

“The last time she was at Mercy General was before you came,” Vielle said. “They usually take her to Porter’s. Her doctor just switched HMOs, though, so now they’re bringing her here. She says she’s had an NDE all but one time she coded.”

Someone who’d had several NDEs and could compare and contrast them. It sounded perfect. “Where did they take her?”

“CICU,” Vielle said. “They took her up about ten minutes ago.” And it would be another fifteen before they got her settled and allowed visitors in. Joanna looked at her watch. Mr. Kelso would be here in ten minutes. She’d have to wait till after his interview, and the one after that, with Ms. Coffey, by which time Mr. Mandrake would have convinced her she’d seen an Angel of Light and had a life review, but it couldn’t be helped.