Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

"Why would he want to do that?"

"Because then he can donate his heart." Maggie frowned. "But first we need to get the prison to agree to send him for tests, to make sure

I drew in my breath. "Look. We need to talk."

"It's not often I get a priest who wants to confess."

She didn't know the half of it. This is not about you, I reminded myself, and firmly settled Shay in the front of my mind. "Shay wants to be the one to ask June Nealon if she'll take his heart. Unfortunately, visiting him is not on her top-ten list of things to do. I want to know if there's some kind of court-ordered mediation we can ask for."

Maggie raised a brow. "Do you really think he's the best person to relay this information to her? I don't see how that will help our case..."

"Look, I know you're doing your job," I said, "but I'm doing mine, too. And saving Shay's soul may not be important to you, but it's critical to me. Right now. Shay thinks that donating his heart is the only way to save himself-but there's a big difference between mercy and salvation."

Maggie folded her hands on her desk. "Which is?"

"Well, June can forgive Shay. But only God can redeem him-and it has nothing to do with giving up his heart. Yes, organ donation would be a beautiful, selfless final act on earth-but it's not going to cancel out his debt with the victim's family, and it's not necessary to get him special brownie points with God. Salvation's not a personal responsibility.

You don't have to get salvation. You're given it, by Jesus."

"So," she said. "I guess you don't think he's the Messiah."

"No, I think that's a pretty rash judgment."

"You're preaching to the choir. I was raised Jewish."

My cheeks flamed. "I didn't mean to suggest-"

"But now I'm an atheist."

I opened my mouth, snapped it shut.

"Believe me," Maggie said, "I'm the last person in the world to buy into the belief that Shay Bourne is Jesus incarnate-"

"Well, of course not-"

"-but not because a messiah wouldn't inhabit a criminal," she qualified. "I can tell you right now that there are plenty of innocent people on death row in this country."

I wasn't about to tell her that I knew Shay Bourne was guilty. I had studied the evidence; I had heard the testimony; I had convicted him.

"It's not that."

"Then how can you be so sure he's not who everyone thinks he is?" Maggie asked.

"Because," I replied, "God only had one son to give us."

"Right. And-correct me if I'm wrong-he was a thirty-three-year-old carpenter with a death sentence on his head, who was performing miracles left and right. Nah, you're right. That's nothing like Shay Bourne."

I thought of what I'd heard from Ahmed and Dr. Perego and the correctional officers. Shay Bourne's so-called miracles were nothing like

Jesus's... or were they? Water into wine. Feeding many with virtually nothing. Healing the sick. Making the blind-or in Calloway's case, the prejudiced-see.

Like Shay, Jesus didn't take credit for his miracles. Like Shay, Jesus had known he was going to die. And the Bible even said Jesus was supposed to be returning. But although the New Testament is very clear about this coming to pass, it is a bit muddier on the details: the when, the why, the how.

"He's not Jesus."

"Okey-dokey."

"He's not." I pressed.

Maggie held up her hands. "Got it."

"If he was Jesus... if this was the Second Coming... well, there'd be rapture and destruction and resurrections and we wouldn't be sitting here having a normal conversation."

Then again, there was nothing in the Bible that said before the

Second Coming, Jesus wouldn't pop in to see how things were going here on earth.

I suppose in that case, it would make sense to be incognito-to pose as the least likely person anyone would ever assume to be the Messiah.

For the love of God, what was I thinking? I shook my head, clearing it. "Let him meet with June Nealon once before you petition for organ donation, that's all I'm asking. I want the same things you do-Shay's voice to be heard, a little girl to be saved, and capital punishment to be put in the hot seat. I just also want to make sure that if and when Shay does donate his heart, he does it for all the right reasons. And that means untangling Shay's spiritual health from the whole legal component of this mess."

"I can't do that," Maggie said. "It's the crux of my case. Look, it doesn't matter to me whether you think Shay is Jesus or Shay thinks

Shay is Jesus or if he's just plain off his rocker. What does matter is that

Shay's rights don't get shuffled aside in the grand mechanism of capital punishment-and if I have to use the fact that other people seem to think he's God to do it, I will."

I raised a brow. "You're using Shay to spotlight an issue you find reprehensible, in the hopes that you can change it."

"Well," Maggie said, coloring, "I guess that's true."

"Then how can you criticize me for having an agenda because of what I believe in?"

Maggie raised her gaze and sighed. "There's something called restorative justice," she said. "I don't know if the prison will even allow it, much less Shay or the Nealons. But it would let Shay sit down in a room with the family of his victims and ask for forgiveness."

I exhaled the breath I had not even realized I was holding. "Thank you," I said.

Maggie picked up her pen and began to write on the legal pad again.

"Don't thank me. Thank June Nealon-if you get her to agree to it."

Motivated, I started out of the ACLU office, then paused. "It's the right thing to do."

Maggie didn't look up. "If June won't meet with him," she said, "I'm still filing the suit."

June

At first, when the victim's assistance advocate asked me if I'd attend a restorative justice meeting with Shay Bourne, I started to laugh. "Yeah," I said. "And maybe after that, I could get dunked in boiling oil or drawn and quartered."

But she was serious, and I was just as serious when I refused.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was sit down with that monster to make him feel better about himself so that he could die at peace.

Kurt didn't. Elizabeth didn't. Why should he?

I thought that was that, until one morning when there was a knock on the door. Claire was lying on the couch with Dudley curled over her feet, watching the Game Show Network. Our days were spent waiting for a heart with the shades drawn, both of us pretending there was nowhere we wanted to go, when in reality, neither of us could stand seeing how even the smallest trips exhausted

Claire. "I'll get it," she called out, although we both knew she couldn't and wouldn't. I put down the knife I was using to chop celery in the kitchen and wiped my hands on my jeans.

"I bet it's that creepy guy who was selling magazines," Claire said as I passed her.

"I bet it's not." He'd been a corn-fed Utah boy, pitching subscriptions to benefit the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day

Saints. I'd been upstairs in the shower; Claire had been talking to him through the screen door-for which I'd read her the riot act. It was that word Saints that had intrigued her; she didn't know it was a fancy word for Mormon. I had suggested that he try a town where there hadn't been a double murder committed by a young man who'd come around door to door looking for work, and after he left, I'd called the police.

No, I was sure it wasn't the same guy.

To my surprise, though, a priest was standing on my porch.

His motorcycle was parked in my driveway. I opened the door and tried to smile politely. "I think you have the wrong house."

"I'm sure I don't, Ms. Nealon," I replied. "I'm Father Michael, from St. Catherine's. I was hoping I could speak to you for a few minutes."

"I'm sorry... do I know you?"