Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

"Yes," I said. "Exactly."

"Well, then, what religion does Shay practice?" Greenleaf asked.

"He doesn't label it."

"You said he's not a practicing Catholic. Is he a practicing Jew, then?"

"No."

"A Muslim?"

"No."

"A Buddhist?"

"No," I said.

"Is Mr. Bourne practicing any type of organized religion that the court might be familiar with. Father?"

I hesitated. "He's practicing a religion, but it isn't formally organized."

"Like what? Bourneism?"

"Objection," Maggie interrupted. "If Shay can't name it, why do we have to?"

"Sustained," Judge Haig said.

"Let me clarify," Greenleaf said. "Shay Bourne is practicing a religion you can't name, and quoting from a gospel that's not in the

Bible... and yet somehow his desire to be an organ donor is grounded in the concept of religious salvation? Does that not strike you. Father, as the slightest bit convenient on Mr. Bourne's part?"

He turned, as if he hadn't really expected me to give an answer, but I wasn't going to let him off that easy. "Mr. Greenleaf," I said, "there are all sorts of experiences that we can't really put a name to."

"I beg your pardon?"

The birth of a child, for one. Or the death of a parent. Falling in love. Words are like nets-we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder. Finding

God is like that, too. If it's happened to you, you know what it feels like. But try to describe it to someone else-and language only takes you so far," I said. "Yes, it sounds convenient. And yes, he's the only member of his religion. And no, it doesn't have a name. But... I believe him." I looked at Shay until he met my gaze. "I believe."

June

When Claire was awake, which was less and less often, we did not talk about the heart that might be coming for her or whether or not she'd take it. She didn't want to; I was afraid to. Instead, we talked about things that didn't matter: who'd been voted off her favorite reality TV show; how the Internet actually worked; if I'd reminded Mrs. Walloughby to feed Dudley twice a day instead of three times, because he was on a diet. When Claire was asleep, I held her hand and told her about the future I dreamed of. I told her that we'd travel to Bali and live for a month in a hut perched over the ocean. I told her that I would learn to water-ski barefoot while she drove the boat, and then we'd swap places. How we would climb Mt. Katahdin, get our ears double pierced, learn how to make chocolate from scratch. I imagined her swimming up from the sandy bottom of unconsciousness, bursting through the surface, wading to where I was waiting onshore.

It was during one of Claire's afternoon drug-induced marathon naps that I began to learn about elephants. That morning, when I had gone down to the hospital cafeteria for a cup of coffee, I passed the same three retail establishments I'd passed every day for the past two weeks-a bank, a bookstore, a travel agency. Today, though, for the first time, I was magnetically drawn to a poster in the window, EXPERIENCE AFRICA, it said.

The bored college girl staffing the office was talking to her boyfriend on the phone when I walked inside, and was more than happy to send me on my way with a brochure, in lieu of actually telling me about the destination herself. "Where were we?" I heard her say as she picked up the phone again when I left the office, and then she giggled. "With your teeth?"

Upstairs in Claire's room, I pored over pictures of rooms with beds as wide as the sea, covered with crisp white linens and draped with a net of gauze. Of outside showers, exposed to the bush, so that you were as naked as the animals. Of Land Rovers and African rangers with phosphorescent smiles.

And oh, the animals-sleek leopards, with their Rorschach spots; a lioness with eyes like amber; the massive monolith of an elephant yanking a tree out of the ground.

Did you know, the brochure read, that elephants live in a society much like ours?

That they travel in matriarchal packs, and gestatefor 22 months?

That they can communicate over a distance of 50 km?

Come track the amazing elephant in its natural habitat, the Tuli

Block...

"What are you reading?" Claire squinted at the brochure, her voice groggy.

"Something on safaris," I said. "I thought maybe you and I might go on one."

"I'm not taking that stupid heart," Claire said, and she rolled on her side, closing her eyes again.

I would tell Claire about the elephants when she woke up, I decided. About a country where mothers and daughters walked side by side for years with their aunts and sisters. About how elephants were either right-handed or left-handed. How they could find their way home years after they'd left.

Here is what I wouldn't tell Claire, ever: That elephants know when they're close to dying, and they make their way to a riverbed for nature to take its course. That elephants bury their dead, and grieve. That naturalists have seen a mother elephant carry a dead calf for miles, cradled in her trunk, unwilling and unable to let it go.

Mdggie

Nobody wanted Ian Fletcher to testify, including me.

When I'd called an emergency meeting with the judge days earlier, asking to add Fletcher to my witness list as an expert on the history of religion,

I thought Gordon Greenleaf would burst a blood vessel in chambers.

"Hello?" he said. "Rule 26(c)?"

He was talking about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which said that witnesses had to be disclosed thirty days before a trial, unless otherwise directed by the court. I was banking on that last clause.

"Judge," I said, "we've only had two weeks to prepare for this trial- neither of us disclosed any of our witnesses within thirty days."

"You don't get to sneak in an expert just because you happened to stumble over one," Greenleaf said.

Federal court judges were notorious for trying to keep their cases on the straight and narrow. If Judge Haig allowed Fletcher to testify, it opened up a whole can of worms-Greenleaf would need to prepare his cross, and would most likely want to hire a counterexpert, which would delay the trial... and we all knew that couldn't happen, since we had a deadline in the strictest sense of the word. But-here was the crazy thing-Father Michael had been right. Ian Fletcher's book dovetailed so neatly with the hook I was using to drag Shay's case to a victory that it would have been a shame not to try. And even better-it provided the one element I'd been lacking in this case: a historical precedent.

I had fully convinced myself that Judge Haig would laugh in my face anyway when I tried to include a new witness at the last minute, but instead, he looked down at the name. "Fletcher," he said, testing the word in his mouth as if it were made of sharp stones. "Ian

Fletcher?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

"Is he the one who used to have a television show?"

I sucked in my breath. "I believe so."

"I'll be damned," the judge said. He said this in a voice that wasn't wish-I-had-his-autograph, but more he-was-like-a-train-wreck-I-couldn'tturn- away-from.

The good news was, I was allowed to bring in my expert witness.

The bad news was that Judge Haig didn't like him very much-and had in the forefront of his mind my witness's former incarnation as an atheist showboat, when I really wanted him to be seen as a grave and credible historian. Greenleaf was furious that he'd only had days to figure out what tune Fletcher was singing these days; the judge regarded him as a curiosity, and me-well, I was just praying that my whole case didn't selfdestruct in the next ten minutes.

"Before we begin, Ms. Bloom," the judge said, "I have a few questions for Dr. Fletcher."

He nodded. "Shoot, Judge."

"How does a man who was an atheist a decade ago convince a court that he's an expert on religion now?"