Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

I heard footsteps and saw Grace hurrying toward me again. "I almost forgot! I'm supposed to give this to you."

It was a large shoe box, wrapped with a rubber band. The green cardboard had begun to peel away from the corners, and there were spots that were watermarked. "What is it?"

"My brother's things. The warden, he gave them to me. But there was a note inside from Shay. He wanted you to have them. I would have given it to you at the funeral, but the note said I was supposed to give it to you today."

"You should have these," I said. "You're his family."

She looked up at me. "So were you. Father."

When she left, I sat back down beside Shay's grave. "Is this it?" I said aloud. "Is this what I was supposed to wait for?"

Inside the box was a canvas roll of tools, and three packages of Bazooka bubble gum.

He had one piece of gum, I heard Lucius say, and there was enough for all of us.

The only other item inside was a small, flat, newspaper-wrapped package. The tape had peeled off years ago; the paper was yellowed with age. Folded in its embrace was a tattered photograph that made me catch my breath: I held in my hands the picture that had been stolen from my dorm when I was in college: my grandfather and I showing off our day's catch.

Why had he taken something so worthless to a stranger? I touched my thumb to my grandfather's face and suddenly recalled Shay talking about the grandfather he'd never had-the one he'd imagined from this photo. Had he swiped it because it was proof of what he'd missed in his life? Had he stared at it, wishing he was me?

I remembered something else: the photo had been stolen before I was picked for Shay's jury. I shook my head in disbelief. It was possible

Shay had known it was me when he saw me sitting in the courtroom. It was possible he had recognized me again when I first came to him in prison. It was possible the joke had been on me all along.

I started to crumple up the newspaper that the photo had been wrapped in, but realized it wasn't newspaper at all. It was too thick for that, and not the right size. It was a page torn out of a book. The Nag

Hammadi Library, it read across the top, in the tiniest of print. The

Gospel of Thomas, first published 1977. I ran a fingertip along the familiar sayings. Jesus said: Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.

Jesus said: The dead are not alive, and the living will not die.

Jesus said: Do not tell lies.

Jesus said.

And so had Shay, after having years to memorize this page.

Frustrated, I tore it into pieces and threw them on the ground.

I was angry at Shay; I was angry at myself. I buried my face in my hands, and then felt a wind stir. The confetti of words began to scatter.

I ran after them. As they caught against headstones, I trapped them with my hands. I stuffed them into my pockets. I untangled them from the weeds that grew at the edge of the cemetery. I chased one fragment all the way to the parking lot.

Sometimes we see what we want to, instead of what's in front of us. And sometimes, we don't see clearly at all. I took all of the bits I'd collected and dug a shallow bowl beneath the spray of lilies, covered them with a thin layer of soil. I imagined the yellowed paper dissolving in the rain, being absorbed by the earth, lying fallow under winter snow. I wondered what, next spring, would take root.

'There are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle."

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

Claire

I have been someone different now for three weeks. It's not something you can tell by looking at me; it's not even something I can tell by looking at myself in the mirror. The only way I can describe it, and it's weird, so get ready, is like waves: they just crash over me and suddenly, even if

I'm surrounded by a dozen people, I'm lonely. Even if I'm doing everything

I want to, I start to cry.

My mother says that emotion doesn't get transplanted along with the heart, that I have to stop referring to it as his and start calling it mine. But that's pretty hard to do, especially when you add up all the stuff I have to take just to keep my cells from recognizing this intruder in my chest, like that old horror movie with the woman who has an alien inside her. Colace, Dulcolax, prednisone, Zantac, enalapril,

CellCept, Prograf, oxycodone, Keflex, magnesium oxide, nystatin, Valcyte.

It's a cocktail to keep my body fooled; it's anyone's guess how long this ruse might continue.

The way I see it, either my body wins and I reject the heart-or I win.

And become who he used to be.

My mother says that I'm going to work through all this, and that's why I have to take Celexa (oh, right, forgot that one) and talk to a shrink twice a week. I nod and pretend to believe her. She's so happy right now but it's the kind of happy that's like an ornament made of sugar: if you brush it the wrong way. it will go to pieces.

I'll tell you this much: it's so good to be home. And to not have a lightning bolt zapping me from inside three or four times a day. And to not pass out and wake up wondering what happened. And to walk up the stairs-upstairs!-without having to stop halfway, or be carried.

"Claire?" my mother calls. "Are you awake?"

Today, we have a visitor coming. It's a woman I haven't met, although apparently she's met me. She's the sister of the man who gave me his heart; she came to the hospital when I was totally out of it. I am so not looking forward to this. She'll probably break down and cry (I would if I were her) and stare at me with an eagle eye until she finds some shred of me that reminds her of her brother, or at least convinces herself she has.

"I'm coming," I say. I have been standing in front of the mirror for the past twenty minutes, without a shirt on. The scar, which is still healing, is the angriest red slash of a mouth. Every time I look at it, I imagine the things it might be yelling.

I resettle the bandage that I'm not supposed to peel off but do when my mother isn't there to see it. Then I shrug into a shirt and glance down at Dudley. "Hey, lazybones," I say. "Rise and shine."

The thing is, my dog doesn't move.

I stand there, staring, even though I know what's happened. My mother told me once, in her dump truck-load of fun facts about cardiac patients, that when you do a transplant the nerve that goes from the brain to the heart gets cut. Which means that it takes people like me longer to respond to situations that would normally freak us out. We need the adrenaline to kick in first.

You can hear this and think. Oh, how nice to stay calm.

Or you can hear this and think. Imagine what it would be like to have a brand-new heart, and be so slow to feel. front of the dog. I'm afraid to touch him. I have been too close to death;

I don't want to go there again.

By now the tears are here; they stream down my face and into my mouth. Loss always tastes like salt. I bend down over my old, sweet dog.

"Dudley," I say. "Come on." But when I scoop him up-put my ear against his rib cage-he's cold, stiff, not breathing.

"No," I whisper, and then I shout it so loud that my mother comes scrambling up the stairs like a storm.

She fills my doorway, wild-eyed. "Claire? What's wrong?"

I shake my head; I can't speak. Because, in my arms, the dog twitches. His heart starts beating again, beneath my own two hands.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

For those wishing to learn more about the topics in this book, try these sites and texts, which were instrumental to me during this journey.

Death Penalty Information Center: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.