Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

"That's him, isn't it?" Claire asked.

God, Complex? read the caption beneath the photograph.

"Yes." I walked toward the television, intentionally blocking her view, and turned it off.

Claire looked up at me. "I remember him," she said.

I sighed. "Honey, you weren't even bom yet."

She unfolded the afghan that sat on the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders, as if she'd suddenly taken a chill. "I remember him," Claire repeated.

I would have had to be living under a rock to not know what was being said about Shay Bourne, but I was the last person in the world who would ever have believed him to be messianic. As far as I was concerned, there was one Son of God, and I knew who He was. As for

Bourne's showmanship-well, I'd seen David Blaine make an elephant disappear on Fifth Avenue in New York City, but that wasn't a miracle, either. Plain and simple: my job here wasn't to feed into Shay

Bourne's delusional beliefs... only to help him accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior before his execution so that he'd wind up in the

Kingdom of Heaven.

And if I could help him donate his heart somewhere along the way, so be it.

Two days after the incident at I-tier had occurred, I parked my

Trophy outside the prison. My mind kept tripping over a verse from

Matthew where Jesus spoke to his disciples: I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me;

I was in prison, and you came unto me. The disciples-who were, to be brutally honest, a thick bunch-were confused. They couldn't remember

Jesus being lost or naked or sick or imprisoned. And Jesus told them: Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.

Inside, I was handed a flak jacket and goggles again. The door to

I-tier opened, and I was led down the hallway to Shay Bourne's cell.

It wasn't all that different from being in the confessional. The same Swiss-cheese holes perforated the metal door of the cell, so I could get a glimpse of Shay. Although we were the same age, he looked like he'd aged a lifetime. Now gray at the temples, he still was slight and wiry. I hesitated, silent, waiting to see if his eyes would go wide with recognition, if he would start banging on the door and demand to get away from the person who'd set the wheels of his execution in motion.

But a funny thing happens when you're in clerical dress: you aren't a man. You're somehow more than one, and also less. I've had secrets whispered in front of me; I've had women hike up their skirts to fix their panty hose. Like a physician, a priest is supposed to be unflappable, an observer, a fly on the wall. Ask ten people who meet me what I look like, and eight of them won't be able to tell you the color of my eyes. They simply don't look past the collar.

Shay walked directly up to the door of the cell and started to grin.

"You came," he said.

I swallowed. "Shay, I'm Father Michael."

He flattened his palms against the door of the cell. I remembered a photograph from the crime evidence, those fingers dark with a little girl's blood. I had changed so much in the past eleven years, but what about Shay Bourne? Was he remorseful? Had he matured? Did he wish, like me, that he could erase his mistakes?

"Hey, Father," a voice yelled out-I would later learn it was Calloway

Reece-"you got any of those wafers? I'm near starving."

I ignored him and focused on Shay. "So... I understand you're

Catholic?"

"A foster mother had me baptized," Shay said. "A thousand years ago." He glanced at me. "They could put you in the conference room, the one they use for lawyers."

"The warden said we'd have to talk here, at your cell."

Shay shrugged. "I don't have anything to hide."

Do you? I heard, although he hadn't said it.

"Anyway, that's where they give us hep C," Shay said.

"Give you hep C?"

"On haircut day. Every other Wednesday. We go to the conference room and they buzz us. Number two blade, even if you want it longer for winter. They don't make it this hot in here in the winter. It's freezing from November on." He turned to me. "How come they can't make it hot in November and freezing now?"

"I don't know."

"It's on the blades."

"Pardon?"

"Blood," Shay said. "On the razor blades. Someone gets nicked, someone else gets hep C."

Following his conversation was like watching a SuperBall bounce.

"Did that happen to you?"

"It happened to other people, so sure, it happened to me."

Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.

My head was swimming; I hoped it was Shay's nonlinear speech, and not a panic attack coming on. I'd been suffering those for eleven years now, ever since the day we'd sentenced Shay. "But for the most part, you're all right?"

After I said it, I wanted to kick myself. You didn't ask a dying man how he was feeling. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I thought, how was the play?

"I get lonely," Shay answered.

Automatically, I replied, "God's with you."

"Well," Shay said, "he's lousy at checkers."

"Do you believe in God?"

"Why do you believe in God?" He leaned forward, suddenly intense.

"Did they tell you I want to donate my heart?"

"That's what I came to talk about. Shay."

"Good. No one else wants to help."

"What about your lawyer?"

"I fired him." Shay shrugged. "He lost all the appeals, and then he started talking about going to the governor. The governor's not even from New Hampshire, did you know that? He was born in Mississippi. I always wanted to see that river, take one of those gambling boats down it like some kind of cardsharp. Or maybe that's shark. Do they have those in rivers?"

"Your lawyer..."

"He wanted the governor to commute my sentence to life, but that's just another death sentence. So I fired him."

I thought about Warden Coyne, how sure he was that this was all just a ploy to get Shay Bourne's execution called off. Could he have been wrong? "Are you saying that you want to die. Shay?"

"I want to live," he said. "So I have to die."

Finally, something I could latch onto. "You will live," I said. "In the

Kingdom of the Father. No matter what happens here. Shay. And no matter whether or not you can donate your organs."

Suddenly his face went dark. "What do you mean, whether or not?"

"Well, it's complicated..."

"I have to give her my heart. I have to."

"Who?"

"Claire Nealon."

My jaw dropped. This specific part of Shay's request had not made it to the broadcast news. "Nealon? Is she related to Elizabeth?" Too late

I realized that the average person-one who hadn't been on Shay's jury-might not recognize that name and identify it as quickly. But Shay was too agitated to notice.

"She's the sister of the girl who was killed. She has a heart problem;

I saw it on TV. What's inside me is going to save me," Shay said.

"If I don't bring it forward, it's going to kill me."

We were making the same mistake. Shay and I. We both believed that you could right a former wrong by doing a good deed later on. But giving Claire Nealon his heart wasn't going to bring her sister back to life. And being Shay Bourne's spiritual advisor wasn't going to erase the fact that I was part of the reason he was here.

"You can't get salvation by donating your organs. Shay. The only way to find salvation is to admit your guilt and seek absolution through

Jesus."

"What happened then doesn't matter now."

"You don't have to be afraid to take responsibility; God loves us, even when we screw up."

"I couldn't stop it," Shay said. "But this time, I can fix it."