Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

"Shay!" I warned him with a flash of my eyes. "Do you believe in

God?"

This question, somehow, seemed to calm him down. "I know God,"

Shay said.

"Tell me how."

"Everyone's got a little God in them... and a little murder in them, too. It's how your life turns out that makes you lean to one side or the other."

"What's God like?"

"Math," Shay said. "An equation. Except when you take everything away, you get infinity, instead of zero."

"And where does God live, Shay?"

He leaned forward, lifted his chained hands so that the metal chinked. He pointed to his heart. "Here."

"You said you used to go to church when you were a kid. Is the God you believe in today the same God you were taught about at church?"

Shay shrugged. "Whatever road you take, the view is going to be the same."

I was nearly a hundred percent certain I'd heard that phrase before, at the one and only Bikram yoga class I'd attended, before I decided that my body wasn't meant to bend in certain ways. I couldn't believe Greenleaf wasn't objecting, on the grounds that channeling the Dalai Lama wasn't the same as answering a question. Then again, I could believe

Greenleaf wasn't objecting. The more Shay said, the crazier he appeared.

It was hard to take someone's claims about religion seriously when he sounded delusional; Shay was digging a grave big enough for both of us.

"If the judge orders you to die by lethal injection, Shay, and you can't donate your heart-will that upset God?" I asked.

"It'll upset me. So yeah, it'll upset God."

"Well, then," I said, "what is it about giving your heart to Claire

Nealon that will please God?"

He smiled at me then-the sort of smile you see on the faces of saints in frescoes, and that makes you wish you knew their secret. "My end,"

Shay said, "is her beginning."

I had a few more questions, but to be honest, I was terrified of what

Shay might say. He already was talking in riddles. "Thank you," I replied, and sat down.

"I have a question, Mr. Bourne," Judge Haig said. "There's a lot of talk about odd things that have occurred at the prison. Do you believe you can perform miracles?"

Shay looked at him. "Do youT

"I'm sorry, but that's not how a courtroom works. I'm not allowed to answer your question, but you still need to answer mine. So," the judge said, "do you believe you can perform miracles?"

"I just did what I was supposed to. You can call that whatever you want."

The judge shook his head. "Mr. Greenleaf, your witness."

Suddenly, a man in the gallery stood up. He unzipped his jacket, revealing a T-shirt that had been emblazoned with the numbers 3:16. He started yelling, his voice hoarse. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son-" By then, two U.S. marshals had descended, hauling him out of his seat and dragging him up the alley, as the news cameras swiveled to follow the action. "His only son!" the man yelled. "Only! You are going to hell once they pump your veins full of-" The doors of the courtroom banged shut behind him, and then it was utterly silent.

It was impressive that this man had gotten into the court in the first place-there were checkpoints with metal detectors and marshals in place before you entered. But his weapon had been the fundamental fury of his righteousness, and at that moment, I would have been hardpressed to decide whether he or Shay had come off looking worse.

"Yes," Gordon Greenleaf said, getting to his feet. "Well." He walked toward Shay, who rested his chained hands on the witness stand rail again. "You're the only person who subscribes to your religion?"

"No."

"No?"

"I don't belong to a religion. Religions the reason the world's falling apart-did you see that guy get carted out of here? That's what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It's a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion's not about being holy,"

Shay said. "Just holier-than-thou."

At the plaintiff's table, I closed my eyes-at the very least, Shay had surely just lost the case for himself; at the most, I was going to wind up with a cross being burned on my lawn. "Objection," I said feebly. "It's not responsive."

"Overruled," the judge replied. "He's not your witness now, Ms.

Bloom."

Shay continued muttering, more quietly now. "You know what religion does? It draws a big fat line in the sand. It says, 'If you don't do it my way you're out.' "

He wasn't yelling, he wasn't out of control. But he wasn't in control, either. He brought his hands up to his neck, started scratching at it as the chains jangled down his chest. "These words," he said, "they're cutting my throat."

"Judge," I said immediately, alert to a rapidly approaching meltdown.

"Can we take a recess?"

Shay started rocking back and forth.

"Fifteen minutes," Judge Haig said, and the U.S. marshals approached to remand Shay into custody. Panicking, Shay cowered and raised his arms in defense. And we all watched as the chains he was wearing-the ones that had secured him at the wrists and the ankles and the waist, the ones that had jangled throughout his testimony-fell to the floor with a clatter, as if they'd been no more substantial than smoke.

"Religion often gets in the way of God."

- BONO, AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST, FEBRUARY 2, 2006

Maggie

Shay stood, his arms akimbo, looking just as surprised to be unshackled as we were to see him that way. There was a collective moment of disbelief, and then chaos exploded in the courtroom. Screams rang out from the gallery. One marshal dragged the judge off the bench and into his chambers while the other drew his weapon, yelling for Shay to put his hands up. Shay froze, only to have the marshal tackle and handcuff him.

"Stop!" Father Michael cried behind me. "He doesn't know what's happening!"

As the marshal pushed Shay's head against the wooden floor, he looked up at us, terrified.

I whipped around to face the priest. "What the hell's going on? He's gone from being Jesus to being Houdini?"

"This is the kind of thing he does," Father Michael said. Was it me, or did I hear a note of satisfaction in his voice? "I tried to tell you."

"Let me tell you," I shot back. "Our friend Shay just earned himself a one-way ticket to the lethal injection gurney, unless one of us can convince him to say something to Judge Haig to explain what just happened."

"You're his lawyer," Michael said.

"You're his advisor."

"Remember how I told you Shay won't talk to me?"

I rolled my eyes. "Could we just pretend we're not in seventh grade anymore, and do our jobs?"

He let his gaze slide away, and immediately I knew that whatever else this conversation had to hold, it wasn't going to be pleasant.

By now, the courtroom had emptied. I had to get to Shay and put a solitary, cohesive thought in his head, one that I hoped he could retain long enough to take to the witness stand. I didn't have time for Father

Michael's confessions right now.

"I was on the jury that convicted Shay," the priest said.

My mother had a trick she'd employed since I was a teenager-if I said something that made her want to (a) scream, (b) whack me, or (c) both, she would count to ten, her lips moving silently, before she responded.

I could feel my mouth rounding out the syllables of the numbers, and with some dismay I realized that finally, I had become my mother. "Is that all?" I asked.

"Isn't that enough!"

"Just making sure." My mind raced. I could get into a lot of trouble for not telling Greenleaf that fact in advance. Then again, I hadn't known in advance. "Is there a reason you waited so long to mention this?"

"Don't ask, don't tell," he said, parroting my own words. "At first I thought I'd just help Shay understand redemption, and then I'd tell you the truth. But Shay wound up teaching me about redemption, and you said my testimony was critical, and I thought maybe it was better you didn't know. I thought it wouldn't screw up the trial quite as much..."