He didn’t know what to tell Samantha when she kept asking him how and what happened and where he went. He simply smiled and then told her what he could.
“I’m here,” Joe said.
He didn’t know what to say because he was still processing everything. There hadn’t been some sort of guiding light summoning him. He didn’t see anybody flying around, no flapping wings, no golden gates. He didn’t hear the voice of Morgan Freeman.
What he did feel now, and what he thought he had just felt, was this overwhelming sense of awe. A soul-crushing, knee-scraping, out-of-breath and blinding sort of awe. A fear, yes, but a glorious kind of fear. The kind that scared you until you felt that hand on your shoulder asking you to look up, telling you that things were going to be okay. The kind a child might feel when they were lost in a crowd, and then suddenly and inexplicably found their father standing on the curb waiting. The feeling of what it would be like to be wrapped into his arms, safe again, secure and absolutely loved.
The door opened and the nurse walked in followed by the doctor.
Ah, Dr. Farell. Now this is gonna be good.
The doctor had a different look now, one Joe had never seen. It was complete and utter amazement.
He’s putting the dumb in the word dumbfounded.
“Impossible,” the doctor said looking directly at Joe. “You were dead. Dead. For over twelve minutes.”
Samantha didn’t move or even look at the doctor. The nurse only watched and waited for Dr. Farell to do something. The doctor rushed over to check the machines. He fiddled with their settings, convinced they were broken. But he only grew more confused and bewildered at the realization that it wasn’t the monitors that seemed off.
For a moment, the doctor didn’t look so doctorly. He looked like a normal guy, suddenly scared and unsure of anything.
“I want a full blood panel immediately,” the doctor suddenly ordered, finally regaining himself. “White and red cell counts. Hematocrit. Hemoglobin and mean platelet volume. Liver function ALT and AST. And a definite identification of the infection.”
Elena began to get some of the tools for testing the blood. Joe simply smiled and looked up at the doctor.
“They’re not gonna find anything, Doc.”
“It’s a miracle,” Elena said, her expression of astonishment still very much there.
The doctor looked at the nurse with his usual arrogance. “There’s no such thing as miracles.”
The nurse stopped and simply looked at Dr. Farell. “Do you have a better theory . . . Doctor?”
Joe noticed something he had never seen before, something that probably rarely happened in this educated and assertive man. Dr. Farell remained silent, not sure of an answer, unable to say anything.
Joe decided to fill the silence.
“For having eyes, they will not see. And having ears, they will not hear.”
The doctor looked irritated, angry now. “Don’t speak to me like I’m an idiot.”
“Okay, Doc,” Joe said with a simple grin he couldn’t help. “But the man whose death certificate you signed is sitting here talking to you. And you don’t believe in miracles? I’m just saying—you might wanna reconsider.”
Joe reached over to the nightstand and picked up the wooden cross. Then he looked at the doctor and offered it to him.
Joe wasn’t trying to be a know-it-all. Really, he didn’t know anything. He just knew what it was liked to be saved.
Make that saved and then saved again.
The doctor looked at the cross then simply looked away. As easy as that.