The angels gathered in the kitchen for a hurried conference on the subject of Dr. Kate Calder. On one hand, it was simply too hard for Monica, Tess, and Andrew to believe that Kate’s time had come; on the other, they knew that Adam got his information on High Authority.
“She looks perfectly normal, Adam,” Monica protested. “What do you mean she’s going to die tonight? Are you sure?”
“Well, she has a disease,” said Andrew. “It’s fatal, but it’s slow. She said she had at least five years.”
Adam was matter-of-fact, almost to the point of flippancy. “Well she’s not going to die of that disease tonight,” he said. “It will be something else. A car accident, a stroke, a chandelier could fall on her head—”
“Oh hush, Adam,” said Tess.
Adam shrugged. “I don’t know how she’s going to die,” he said. “All I know is I was supposed to be there when it happened. It’s standard procedure—all of you know that.”
Andrew nodded. “And now I’m the one who has to be there,” he said. It was an assignment he was looking forward to fulfilling.
But Monica was still full of questions. “Out of all the men in that auction, what made her bid on an angel?” She looked around the room. “Any ideas?”
“Sometimes, when death is near, people get a sense of it,” Tess said gently. “I suppose God knew that, given the chance, she would want an angel with her today, whether she knew why or not.”
“I don’t know . . .” Andrew sounded far from convinced. “This lady is not the angel type, Tess.” He had been on enough assignments to know the type who needed an angel and those who didn’t. Kate Calder definitely fell into the latter category. If he was going to get through to her before it was too late—by the end of that very evening—he knew he had his work cut out for him.
But Tess was not convinced by Andrew’s intuition. “Maybe she knows that,” she replied. “Maybe deep down inside she wants to change that part of her before it’s too late.” She shrugged. She knew from experience that you could never quite read the map of the human mind, that human beings had an astonishing ability to change their minds in a split second.
Andrew shook his head slowly. He refused to be convinced. “I don’t know, Tess. That lady is an awfully tough case. One of the toughest I’ve ever encountered. She’s thought about death and life, and she’s made up her mind.”
“Maybe she just seems tough, Andrew,” Tess replied. “Sometimes it’s those hard types who see the light faster and sooner than the ones who never give the big questions a second thought.”
“Well, it’s later than she thinks. A lot later,” said Adam. “Monica, you may want to serve dessert with the entrée,” he said teasingly.
Monica was shocked that Adam could make light of such a solemn situation. She snapped at him with a dish towel. “You never change, you know that, Adam?”
Adam threw his arm up to protect himself. “Sorry, Monica—I’m too old to change.” Then he turned to Andrew. “Look, I’m really sorry you’re in this position, Andrew. It ought to be me out there, not you. If there’s anything I can do to help you out, just let me know.”
Before Andrew could answer, Tess stepped up, tossing an apron at him. “Yeah,” she barked. “Put this on and stir!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Adam meekly.
Andrew made for the door, Monica at his side. “I can’t believe it,” he said with a shake of his head. “This doesn’t feel right. It feels too soon for her to go.”
“Be very careful, Andrew,” Monica cautioned. “Remember to heed the advice that you’re always giving me: don’t get too emotionally involved with your charges.”
“I’m not getting too involved,” said Andrew. “Really, I’m not.” And he might have genuinely believed that—but no one else in that kitchen did.
Andrew hurried back to his table, feeling that he had been a very bad host and had left his guest alone for far too long. But Kate seemed unaware of his long absence and was sitting at the table, calm and composed, when he returned.
“Is everything okay?” Kate asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. He cocked an ear and listened to the piano for a moment or two, then extended his hand. “Would you care to dance, Kate?”
Kate hesitated a moment, then, beaming, took his hand and allowed herself to be guided onto the dance floor. They began to sway to the music, the two of them falling into the rhythm of the song. Kate was a graceful dancer, and Andrew was pretty light on his feet. She was impressed with his skill.
“If I believed in God,” said Kate, “which I don’t, I’d say this place was as close to heaven as I could get. I hope that doesn’t give you any ideas.”
Andrew smiled slyly. “Just one—heaven,” he said. “Funny you should bring that up. Play along with me for a minute. It won’t take long. Don’t worry.”
“Uh-oh,” said Kate. “I think I feel a sermon coming on. The big push from God’s representative.”
“No,” said Andrew, laughing lightly. “No sermon, I promise. But think about what you just said—people live and people die. What do you think happens after that, Kate?”
“Nothing,” she replied bluntly. Then she added with a shrug, “Decomposition. Probate. People grieve. They’ve just discovered that grief is something that never passes. Did you know that? It used to be that people thought it was something that passed, that scabbed over and eventually went away. And if that didn’t happen you were likely to have someone tell you to ‘put it behind you,’ or ‘get over it, already.’ But researchers have found that you carry grief with you until you die.”
“And then the cycle starts all over again, with the loved ones you’ve left behind,” said Andrew.
Kate smiled wanly. “The cycle can be broken. I don’t imagine I’m going to get much in the way of grief. But that’s just fine with me. I don’t want it.”
“What do you want?” Andrew asked.
“I told you. I hope to have a plaque somewhere with my name on it. That’s it, Andrew. The rest is wishful thinking. You die and what? You ‘go to heaven.’ There’s no proof of heaven. So how can you be so sure of going there?” She finished her statement with the air of a prosecutor who had delivered a stunning blow to the case for the defense.
But Andrew had run into this argument before, and he countered without much effort. “Oh, that’s easy,” he said with a smile. “It’s been done.”
Kate laughed tolerantly. “Okay, let’s assume that I die, and I go to heaven. Then what? I float around like some kind of bliss-filled amoeba with no food, no champagne, no cable TV. That doesn’t sound like anyone’s idea of heaven, Andrew. I mean, let’s face it, who wants to live forever like that?”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Andrew. “Nobody wants to live like that, and God would not ask you to. It’s funny. If I asked you what hell was like, you’d know in a minute—people have a much clearer idea of what hell is like than heaven.”
“Right. That’s because deep down I think we’re all sure there’s a hell but can’t believe there’s a heaven. And a lot of us are sure we are headed to hell.” Kate sounded serious. “There must be a reason that painters have painted pictures of hell over the centuries. I can’t recall a single painting of heaven.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” said Andrew. “But I can’t paint you a picture. I can’t draw to save my life.”
Kate smiled. “No? Okay then, why don’t you tell me something about heaven?”
“Anything,” Andrew replied. “Ask me anything.”
“So how many cable channels has He got?” She stopped dancing dead in the middle of the floor. “’Cause if He hasn’t got cable, I’m not going near the place. Understood?”
Andrew laughed and led her from the dance floor, the two of them taking stools at the intimate little bar at Chez Tess.
“You are really something,” he said, shaking his head. “Really something.” He gazed at her for a moment. “Okay . . .” He paused for a moment. “Okay. I want you to imagine you’re locked in a closet. For years.”
Kate smiled broadly. “I know all about that. You’re talking about my laboratory. Much as I love my work, sometimes that lab feels as confining as a prison cell.”
Andrew ignored the joke and plunged on. “And it turns out that during this incarceration, you give birth to a baby.”
“I do?”
Andrew nodded. “Yes, you do.”
“This is getting very weird,” Kate said. “Any idea who the father might be?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Andrew. He refused to be pushed off the topic at hand. “Stick with me here. You don’t know if you’re ever going to get out, but you hope so. In the meantime, you draw little pictures of dogs and trees and birds. You do this to show your baby, who has never seen any of it, what life is like out in the real world.”
Kate nodded slowly. “Okay . . .”
“And then one day,” Andrew continued, “the baby comes to you and says something like ‘Gee, trees and dogs and birds and houses in the real world are pretty small and flat, aren’t they, Mom?’”
The look on Andrew’s face intensified, and his eyes seemed to become an even deeper shade of blue. “And that’s when you realize that no matter how hard you try to draw the picture, you’ll never be able to get that baby of yours to imagine what reality looks like. Not until he sees it for himself. So until then, you tell your child you love him, and you ask him to trust you.”
Andrew paused to let the full weight of his words sink in. They were staring at each other, their eyes locked together. The only sound in the room was the tinkling of the piano keys.
“So,” said Kate after a while, “you’re telling me that heaven is the ultimate reality, huh? Is that what you tell your dying patients? How do they react to that?”
“No,” Andrew replied. “I don’t tell them that. That’s what I share with them. Because I go through it with them.” His face was still and solemn.
Kate’s eyes had not left his face. “I’ve never met anyone like you before,” she said. “You really believe this—you really believe in God—but you’re not one of those angry, pushy types. You know the kind of person I mean.”
Andrew knew where she was going, but he refused to pass judgment on anyone or their beliefs. “God makes Himself known to everyone in His own way, Kate,” he said gently.
“See,” she said. “That’s what I mean about you. You are so . . . understanding.”
As she spoke her face seemed to soften, and her eyes grew misty.
“You remind me of . . . I don’t know . . .” Her cheeks colored as she flushed with embarrassment. “I know this isn’t going to come out right.” She paused another moment or two, as if summoning up the courage to speak her heart. “You look like . . . love.”
She laughed and looked away, feeling silly and self-conscious at such a naked display of emotion. In that moment not one of her colleagues at the laboratory would have recognized her as the stern and severe Dr. Kate Calder.
Andrew took her by the hand. “That is the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever said to me.” Then he lowered his lips to her hand and kissed it lightly before leading her back to the dance floor.
Standing in the doorway of her kitchen, Tess saw the kiss and was not pleased. She really disliked it when one of her angels became emotionally involved in a case—and yet angels were naturally compassionate, so not getting involved was very difficult. Still, Tess did not like it.
“What is it with that boy?” she said aloud.
Behind her, Adam was slaving over a hot stove. He opened his mouth to answer her question (Adam always had an opinion on any subject you could care to name and he was not afraid to give it), but Tess stopped him. She stepped back into the kitchen and waved a threatening finger at the angel.
“I don’t need to hear from you,” she snapped. “You just keep stirring!”