Change of heart

M I C HAEL

When inmates tried to kill themselves, they'd use the vent. They would string coaxial cables from their television sets through the louvers, wrap a noose around their necks, and step off the metal bunk. For this reason, one week before Shay's execution, he was transferred to an observation cell. There was a camera monitoring his every move; an officer was stationed outside the door. It was a suicide watch, so that a prisoner could not kill himself before the state had its turn.

Shay hated it-it was all he talked about as I sat with him for eight hours a day. I'd read from the Bible, and from the Gospel of

Thomas, and from Sports Illustrated. I'd tell him about the plans I'd made for the youth group to host a Fourth of July pie auction, a holiday that he would not be around to celebrate. He would act like he was listening, but then he'd address the officer standing outside.

"Don't you think I deserve some privacy?" he'd yell. "If you only had a week left, would you want someone watching you every time you cried? Ate? Took a piss?"

Sometimes he seemed resigned to the fact that he was going to die-he'd ask me if I really thought there was a heaven, if you could catch stripers or rainbows or salmon there, if fish even went to heaven in the first place, if fish souls were just as good eating as the real kind.

Other times he sobbed so hard that he made himself sick; he'd wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his jumpsuit and lie down on the bunk, staring up at the ceiling. The only thing that got him through those darker times was talking about Claire Nealon, whose mother had reclaimed

Shay's heart. He had a grainy newspaper photo of Claire, and by now. he'd run his hands over it so often that the girl's pale face had become a blank white oval, features left to the imagination.

The scaffold had been built; throughout the prison you could smell the sap of the pine, taste the fine sawdust in the air. Although there had indeed already been a trapdoor in the chaplain's office, it proved too costly to decimate the cafeteria below it, which accommodated the drop. Instead, a sturdy wooden structure went up beside the injection chamber that had already been built. But when editorials in the Concord

Monitor and the Union Leader criticized the barbarism of a public execution (they speculated that any paparazzi capable of crashing Madonna's wedding in a helicopter would also be able to get footage of the hanging), the warden scrambled to conceal the scaffold. On short order, their best arrangement was to purchase an old big-top tent from a family-run Vermont circus that was going out of business. The festive red and purple stripes took up most of the prison courtyard. You could see its spire from Route 93: Come one, come all. The greatest show on earth.

It was a strange thing, knowing that I was going to see Shay's death. Although I'd witnessed the passing of a dozen parishioners; although

I'd stood beside the bed while they took their last breaths-this was different. It wasn't God who was cutting the thread of this life, but a court order. I stopped wearing my watch and kept time by Shay's life instead. There were seventy-two hours left, forty-eight, and then twenty-four. I stopped sleeping, like Shay, choosing instead to stay up with him around the clock.

Grace continued to visit once a day. She would only tell me that what had separated them before was a secret-something that had apparently been resolved after she visited June Nealon-and that she was making up for the time she'd lost with her brother. They spent hours with their heads bent together, trading memories, but Shay was adamant that he didn't want Grace at the execution-he did not want that to be her last memory of him. Instead, Shay's designated witnesses would be me, Maggie, and Maggie's boss. When Grace came for her visit, I'd leave her alone with Shay. I would go to the staff cafeteria and grab a soda, or sit and read the newspaper. Sometimes I watched the news coverage of the upcoming execution-the American Medical Association had begun to protest outside the prison, with huge banners that read FIRST DO NO HARM. Those who still believed that Shay was, well, more than just a murderer began to light candles at night, thousands of them, spelling out a message that burned so brightly airplane pilots departing from Manchester could read it as they soared skyward: HAVE MERCY.

Mostly, I prayed. To God, to Shay, to anyone who was willing to listen, frankly. And I hoped-that God, at the last minute, would spare

Shay. It was hard enough ministering to a death row inmate when I'd believed him to be guilty, but it was far worse to minister to an innocent man who had resigned himself to death. At night, I dreamed of train wrecks. No matter how loud I shouted for someone to throw the switch to the rail, no one understood what I was saying.

On the day before Shay's execution, when Grace arrived, I excused myself and wandered into the courtyard between buildings, along the massive perimeter of the circus tent. This time, however, the officers who usually stood guard at the front entrance were missing, and the flap that was usually laced shut was pinned open instead. I could hear voices inside:

... don't want to get too close to the edge...

... thirty seconds from the rear entrance to the steps...

... two of you out in front, three in back.

I poked my head in, expecting to be yanked away by an officer-but the small group inside was far too busy to even notice me. Warden

Coyne stood on a wooden platform, along with six officers. One was slightly smaller than the rest, and wore handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a waist chain. He was sagging backward, a deadweight in the other officers' hands.

The gallows itself was a massive metal upright with a crossbeam. set on a platform that had a set of double trapdoors. Below the trap was an open area where you'd be able to see the body drop. Off to both the left and right of the gallows were small rooms with a one-way mirror in the front, so that you could look out, but no one could look in.

There was a ramp behind the gallows, and two white curtains that ran the entire length of the tent-one above the gallows, one below it. As I watched, two of the officers dragged the smaller one onto the gallows platform in front of the open curtain.

Warden Coyne pushed a button on his stopwatch. "And... cut," he said. That's seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds. Nicely done."

The warden gestured to the wall. "Those red phones are direct hookups to the governor's office and the attorney general-the commissioner will call to make sure there's been no stay of execution, no last minute reprieve. If that's the case, then he'll come onto the platform and say so. When he exits, I come up and read the warrant of execution, blah blah blah, then I ask the inmate if he has any final words. As soon as he's finished, I walk off the platform. The minute I cross this taped yellow line, the upper curtain will close, and that's when you two secure the inmate. Now, I'm not going to close the curtains right now, but give it a try."

They placed a white hood over the smaller officer's head and fitted the noose around his neck. It was made of rough rope, wrapped with leather; the loop wasn't made from a hangman's knot, but instead passed through a brass eyelet.

"We've got a drop of seven feet seven inches," Warden Coyne explained as they finished up. "That's the standard for a hundred-and twenty- six-pound man. You can see the adjusting bracket above-that gold mark is where it should be lined up, at the eye bolt. During the actual event, you three-Hughes, Hutchins, and Greenwald-will be in the chamber to the right. You'll have been placed a few hours ahead of time, so that you aren't seen coming into the tent at all. You will each have a button in front of you. As soon as I enter the control chamber and close the door, you will push that button. Only one of the three actually electromagnetically releases the trapdoor of the gallows; the other two are dummies. Which of the three buttons connects will be determined randomly by computer."

One of the officers interrupted. "What if the inmate can't stand up?"

"We have a collapse board outside his cell-modeled after the one used at Walla Walla in '94. If he can't walk, he'll be strapped onto it and wheeled up by gurney."

They kept saying "the inmate" as if they did not know who they were executing in twenty-four hours. I knew, though, that the reason they would not say Shay's name was that none of them were brave enough. That would make them accountable for murder-the very same crime for which they were hanging a man.

Warden Coyne turned to the other booth. "How's that work for you?"

A door opened, and another man walked out. He put his hand on the mock prisoner's shoulder. "I beg your pardon," he said, and as soon as he spoke I recognized him. This was the British man who'd been at

Maggie's apartment when I barged in to tell her Shay was innocent-

Gallagher, that was his name. He took the noose and readjusted it around the smaller man's neck, but this time he tightened the knot directly below the left ear. "You see where I've snugged the rope? Make sure it's here, not at the base of the skull. The force of the drop, combined with the position of the knot, is what's meant to fracture the cervical vertebrae and separate the spinal cord."

Warden Coyne addressed the staff again. "The court's ordered us to assume brain death based on the measured drop and the fact that the inmate has stopped breathing. Once the doctor gives us the signal, the lower curtains will close as well, and the body gets cut down immediately.

It's important to remember that our job doesn't end with the drop." He turned to the doctor. "And then?"

"We'll intubate, to protect the heart and other organs. After that, I'll perform a brain perfusion scan to fully confirm brain death, and we'll remove the body from the premises."

"After the criminal investigation unit comes in and clears the execution, the body will go to the medical examiner's staff-they'll have an unmarked white van behind the tent," the warden said, "and the special operations unit will transport the body back to the hospital, along with them."

I noticed that the warden did not speak the doctor's name, either.

"The rest of the visitors will be exiting from the front of the tent,"

Warden Coyne said, pointing to the opened flaps of the doorway and spotting me for the first time.

Everyone on the gallows platform stared at me. I met Christian Gallagher's gaze and he nodded imperceptibly. Warden Coyne squinted, and as he recognized me, he sighed. "I can't let you in here. Father," he said, but before the officers could escort me out, I had already slipped from the tent and back into the building where Shay was even now waiting to die.

That night. Shay was moved to the death tent. They had built a single cell there, one that would be manned round the clock. At first, it was just like any other cell... but two hours into his stay there, the temperature began to plummet. Shay kept shivering, no matter how many blankets were piled upon him.

"The thermostat says it's sixty-six degrees," the officer said, smacking the bulb with his hand. "It's May, for chris sake."

"Well, does it feel like sixty-six degrees to you?" I asked. My toes were numb. There was an icicle hanging from the bottom rung of my stool. "Can we get a heater? Another blanket?"

The temperature continued to drop. I put on my coat and zipped it tight. Shay's entire body was racked with tremors; his lips had started to turn blue. Frost swirled on the metal door of the cell, like a white feathered fern.

"It's ten degrees warmer outside this building," the officer said. "I don't get it." He was blowing on his hands, a small exclamation of breath that hovered in the air. "I could call maintenance..."

"Let me into the cell," I ordered.

The officer blinked at me. "I can't."

"Why? I've been searched twice over. I'm not near any other inmates.

And you're here. It's no different than a meeting in an attorney client conference room, is it?"

"I could get fired for this..."

Til tell the warden it was my idea, and I'll be on my best behavior,"

I said. I'm a priest. Would I lie to you?"

He shook his head and unlocked the cell with an enormous Folger

Adam key. I heard the tumblers click into place as he secured me inside; as I entered Shay's six-by-six world. Shay glanced up at me, his teeth chattering.

"Move over," I said, and sat down on the bunk beside him. I draped a blanket over us and waited until the heat from my body conducted through the slight space between us.

"Why... is it so... cold?" Shay whispered.

I shook my head. "Try not to think about it."

Try not to think about the fact that it is subzero in this tiny cell. Try not to think about the fact that it backs up to a gallows from which you will swing tomorrow. Try not to think about the sea of faces you will see when you stand up there, about what you will say when you are asked to, about your heart pounding so fast with fear that you cannot hear the words you speak. Try not to think about that same heart being cut from your chest, minutes later, when you are gone.

Earlier, Alma the nurse had come to offer Shay Valium. He'd declined-but now I wished I'd taken her up on his behalf.

After a few minutes. Shay stopped shaking so violently-he was down to an occasional tremor. "I don't want to cry up there," he admitted.

"I don't want to look weak."

I turned to him. "You've been on death row for eleven years. You've fought-and won-the right to die on your own terms. Even if you had to crawl up there tomorrow, there's not a single person who'd think of you as weak."

"Are they all still out there?"

By they, he meant the crowds. And they were-and were still coming, blocking the exits off 93 to get into Concord. In the end, and this was the end, it did not matter whether or not Shay was truly messianic, or just a good showman. It mattered that all of those people had someone to believe in.

Shay turned to me. "I want you to do me a favor."

"Anything."

"I want you to watch over Grace."

I had already assumed he'd ask that; an execution bound people together much like any other massive emotional moment-a birth, an armed robbery, a marriage, a divorce. I would be linked to the parties involved forever. "I will."

"And I want you to have all my things."

I could not imagine what this entailed-his tools, maybe, from when he was a carpenter? Td like that." I pulled the blanket up a little higher. "Shay, about your funeral."

"It really doesn't matter."

I had tried to get him a spot in the St. Catherine's cemetery, but the committee in charge had vetoed it-they did not want the grave of a murderer resting beside their loved ones. Private plots and burials were thousands of dollars-thousands that neither Grace nor Maggie nor I had to spend. An inmate whose family did not make alternate plans would be buried in a tiny graveyard behind the prison, a headstone carved only with his correctional facility number, not his name.

"Three days," Shay said, yawning.

"Three days?"

He smiled at me, and for the first time in hours, I actually felt warm to the core. "That's when I'm coming back."

At nine o'clock on the morning of Shay's execution, a tray was brought up from the kitchen. Sometime during the night, the frost had broken; and with it, the cement that had been poured for the base of the holding cell. Weeds from the courtyard sprouted in tufts and bunches; vines climbed up the metal wall of the cell door. Shay took off his shoes and socks and walked across the new grass barefoot, a big smile on his face.

I had moved back to my outside stool, so that the officer watching over Shay would not get into trouble, but the sergeant who arrived with the food was immediately wary. "Who brought in the plants?"

"No one," the officer said. "They just sort of showed up overnight."

The sergeant frowned. I'm going to tell the warden."

"Yeah," the officer said. "Go on. I'm sure he's got nothing else to think about right now."

At his sarcasm. Shay and I looked at each other and grinned. The sergeant left, and the officer handed the tray through the trapdoor.

Shay uncovered the items, one by one.

Mallomars. Corn dogs. Chicken nuggets.

Kettle com and cotton candy, s'mores.

Curly fries, ice cream crowned with a halo of maraschino cherries.

Fry bread sprinkled with powdered sugar. A huge blue Slurpee.

There was more than one man could ever eat. And it was all the sort of food you got at a country fair. The sort of food you remembered from your childhood.

If, unlike Shay, you'd had one.

"I worked on a farm for a while," Shay said absently. "I was putting up a timber-frame barn. One day, I watched the guy who ran it empty the whole sack of grain out into the middle of the pasture for his steers, instead of just a scoop. I thought that was so cool-like Christmas, for them!-until I saw the butcher's truck drive up. He was giving them all they could eat, because by then, it didn't matter."

Shay rolled the French fry he'd been holding between his fingers, then set it back on the plate. "You want some?"

I shook my head.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I guess I'm not so hungry, either."

Shay's execution was scheduled for ten a.m. Although death penalty sentences used to be carried out at midnight, it felt so cloak-and dagger that now they were staggered at all times of the day. The family of the inmate was allowed to visit up to three hours prior to the execution, although this was not an issue, since Shay had told Grace not to come. The attorney of record and the spiritual advisor were allowed to stay up to forty-five minutes prior to the execution.

After that. Shay would be alone, except for the officer guarding him.

After the breakfast tray was removed. Shay got diarrhea. The officer and I turned our backs to give him privacy, then pretended it had not happened. Shortly afterward, Maggie arrived. Her eyes were red, and she kept wiping at them with a crumpled Kleenex. "I brought you something," she said, and then she saw the cell, overrun with vegetation.

"What's this?"

"Global warming?" I said.

"Well. My gift's a little redundant." Maggie emptied her pockets, full of grass. Queen Anne's lace, lady's slippers, Indian paintbrushes, buttercups.

She fed them to Shay through the metal mesh on the door. "Thank you, Maggie."

"For God's sake, don't thank me," Maggie said. "I wish this wasn't the way it ended. Shay." She hesitated. "What if I-"

"No." Shay shook his head. "It's almost over, and then you can go on to rescuing people who want to be rescued. I'm okay, really. I'm ready."

Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but then pressed her lips together and shook her head. Til stand where you can see me."

Shay swallowed. "Okay."

"I can't stay. I need to make sure that Warden Coyne's talked to the hospital, so that everything happens like it's supposed to."

Shay nodded. "Maggie," he said, "promise me something?"

"Sure, Shay."

He rested his head against the metal door. "Don't forget me."

"Not a chance," Maggie said, and she pressed her lips against the metal door, as if she could kiss Shay good-bye.

Suddenly, we were alone, with a half hour stretching between us.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Urn," Shay said. "Never better?"

"Right. Stupid question." I shook my head. "Do you want to talk?

Pray? Be by yourself?"

"No," Shay said quickly. "Not that."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," he said. "Tell me about her again."

I hesitated. "She's at the playground," I said, "pumping her legs on a swing. When she gets to the top, and she's sure her sneakers have actually kicked a cloud, she jumps off because she thinks she can fly."

"She's got long hair, and it's like a flag behind her," Shay added.

"Fairy-tale hair. So blond it's nearly silver."

"A fairy tale," Shay repeated. "A happy ending."

"It is, for her. You're giving her a whole new life. Shay."

"I'm saving her again. I'm saving her twice. Now with my heart, and once before she was ever born." He looked directly at me. "It wasn't just Elizabeth he could have hurt. She got in the way, when the gun went off... but the other... I had to do it."

I glanced over my shoulder at the officer standing watch, but he had moved to a far corner and was speaking into his walkie-talkie. My words were thick, rubbery. "Then you did commit capital murder."

Shay shrugged. "Some people," he said simply, "deserve to die."

I stood, speechless, as the officer approached. "Father, I'm really sorry," he said, "but it's time for you to leave."

At that moment, the sound of bagpipes filled the tent, and an accompanying swell of voices. The people outside, maintaining their vigil, had begun to sing:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound...

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

Was blind, but now I see.

I didn't know if Shay was guilty of murder, or innocent and misunderstood.

I didn't know if he was the Messiah, or a savant who channeled texts he'd never read. I didn't know if we were making history, or only reliving it. But I did know what to do: I motioned Shay forward, closed my eyes, and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. "Almighty

God," I murmured, "look on this your servant, lying in great weakness, and comfort him with the promise of life everlasting, given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

I opened my eyes to find Shay smiling. "See you around. Father," he said.

Maggie

As soon as I left Shay's cell, I stumbled out of the circus tent-that's what this was, you know, a circus -and threw up on the grass in the courtyard.

"Hey," a voice said, "you all right?" I felt an arm steadying me, and I glanced into the dizzying sunlight to find Warden Coyne, looking just as unhappy to see me as I was to see him.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get you a glass of water."

He led me through dark, dismal corridors-corridors far more suited to an execution, I thought, than the beautiful spring day outside, with its brilliant blue sky and tufted clouds. In the empty staff cafeteria, he pulled out a chair for me, then went to the cooler to get me something to drink.

I finished the whole cup of water, and still could taste the bitterness in my throat.

"Sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to vomit on your parade."

He sat down in a chair beside me. "You know, Ms. Bloom, there's a hell of a lot about me you don't know."

"Nor do I want to," I said, standing.

"For example," Warden Coyne continued blithely, "I don't really believe in the death penalty."

I stared at him, snapped my mouth shut, and sank back into my chair.

"I used to, don't get me wrong. And I'll perform an execution if I have to, because it's part of my job. But that doesn't mean I condone it," he said. "Truth is, I've seen plenty of inmates for whom life in prison is just as well served. And I've seen inmates I wish would be killed-there are just some people you cannot find the good in. But who am I to decide if someone should be killed for murdering a child... instead of for murdering a drug addict during a deal that went bad... or even if we should be killing the inmate himself? I'm not smart enough to be able to say which life is worth more than the other. I don't know if anyone is."

"If you know it's not fair, and you still do this, how do you sleep at night?"

Warden Coyne smiled sadly. "I don't, Ms. Bloom. The difference between you and me is that you expect me to be able to." He got to his feet.

"I trust you know where you go from here?"

I was supposed to wait at the Public Information Office, along with

Father Michael, so that we could be brought to the tent apart from the witnesses for the state and the victim. But somehow, I knew that wasn't what Warden Coyne had meant.

And even more surprising... I think he knew that I knew that.

The inside of the circus tent was painted with blue sky. Artificial clouds rose into the peaks, above the black iron of the gallows that had been constructed. I wondered if Shay would look at it and pretend that he was outside.

The tent itself was divided by a line of correctional officers, who kept the witnesses for both sides separated, like a human dam. We had been warned about our behavior in the letters from the Department of Corrections: any name-calling or inappropriate actions would result in us being hauled out of the tent. Beside me, Father Michael was praying a rosary.

On my other side sat Rufus Urqhart, my boss.

I was shocked to see June Nealon sitting quietly in the front row across from us.

Somehow I'd assumed she'd be with Claire, especially given the fact that Claire would be getting ready for her heart transplant. When she'd called to tell me she wanted Shay's heart, I hadn't asked any questions-I hadn't wanted to jinx it. Now I wished I could go over to her and ask whether Claire was all right, if everything was on schedule-but I would run the risk of the officers thinking I was harassing her; and truth be told, I was afraid to hear her answer.

Somewhere behind that curtain, Christian was checking to make sure the rope and noose were exactly as they should be to ensure as humane a hanging as possible. I knew this was supposed to comfort me, but to be honest, I had never felt more alone in my life.

It was a hard thing, accepting to myself that I had befriended someone convicted of murder. Lawyers knew better than to become emotionally and personally involved with their clients-but that didn't mean it didn't happen.

At exactly ten o'clock, the curtains opened.

Shay seemed very small on the gallows platform. He wore a white

T-shirt, orange scrub pants, and tennis shoes, and was flanked by two officers

I'd never seen before. His arms were fastened behind him, and his legs were bound together with what looked like a strap of leather.

He was shaking like a leaf.

Commissioner Lynch walked onto the platform. "There has been no stay of execution," he announced.

I thought about Christian's hands checking the knot against Shay's neck. I knew the mercy of his touch; I was grateful that Shay's last physical contact with a human would be gentle.

The warden stepped onto the platform as Lynch exited, and he read the entire warrant aloud. The words slipped in and out of my mind:

... Whereas on the sixth day of March, 1997, Isaiah Matthew Bourne was duly and legally convicted of two counts of the crime of capital murder...

... said court pronounced sentence upon Isaiah Matthew Bourne in accordance with said judgment fixing the time for the execution for ten a.m. on

Friday, the twenty-third of May, 2008...

... command you to execute the aforesaid judgment and sentence by hanging in a manner that produces brain death in said Isaiah Matthew Bourne...

When the warden finished, he faced Shay. "Inmate Bourne, do you have any final words?"

Shay squinted, until he found me in the front row. He kept his eyes on me for a long moment, and then drifted toward Father Michael. But then he turned to the side of the tent where the witnesses for the victim were gathered, and he smiled at June Nealon. "I forgive you," he said.

Immediately afterward, a curtain was drawn. It reached only to the floor of the gallows, and it was a translucent white. I didn't know if the warden had intended for us to see what was happening behind it, but we could, in macabre silhouette: the hood being placed over Shay's head, the noose being tightened against his neck, the two officers who'd secured him stepping backward.

"Good-bye," I whispered.

Somewhere, a door slammed, and suddenly the trap was open and the body plummeted, one quick firecracker snap as the weight caught at the end of the rope. Shay slowly turned counterclockwise with the unlikely grace of a ballerina, an October leaf, a snowflake falling.

I felt Father Michael's hand on mine, conveying what there were not words to say. "It's over," he whispered.

I don't know what made me turn toward June Nealon, but I did. The woman sat with her back straight as a redwood, her hands folded so tightly in her lap that I could see the half-moons her own nails were cutting in her skin. Her eyes were tightly squeezed shut.

After all this, she hadn't even watched him die.

The lower curtain closed three minutes and ten seconds after Shay had been hanged. It was opaque, and we could not see what was happening behind it, although the fabric fluttered with movement and activity. The officers in the tent didn't let us linger, though-they hustled us out separate doors to the courtyard. We were led out of the prison gates and immediately inundated with the press. "This is good," Rufus said, pumped up with adrenaline. "This is our moment." I nodded, but my attention was focused on June. I could see her only briefly, a tiny crow of a woman ducking into a waiting car.

"Mr. Urqhart," a reporter said, as twenty microphones were held up to his face, a bouquet of black roses. "Do you have any comment?"

I stepped back, watching Rufus in the limelight. I wished I could just vanish on the spot. I knew that Rufus didn't mean to use Shay as a pawn here, that he was only doing his job as the head of the ACLU-and yet, how did that make him different from Warden Coyne?

"Shay Bourne is dead," Rufus said soberly. "The first execution in this state in sixty-nine years... in the only first world country to still have death penalty legislation on the books."

He looked out over the crowd. "Some people say that the reason we have a death penalty in this country is because we need to punish certain inmates. It's said to be a deterrent-but in fact, murder rates are higher in death penalty jurisdictions than in those without it. It's said to be cheaper to execute a man than to keep him in prison for life-but in fact, when you factor in the cost of eleven years of appeals, paid for with public funds, it costs about a third more to execute a prisoner than to sentence him to life in prison. Some people say that the death penalty exists for the sake of the victims' family-that it offers closure, so that they can deal, finally and completely, with their grief. But does knowing that the death toll has risen above and beyond their family member really offer justice? And how do we explain the fact that a murder in a rural setting is more likely to lead to a death sentence than one that occurs in the city?

Or that the murder of a white victim leads to the death penalty three and a half times more often than the murder of a black victim? Or that women are sentenced to death only two-thirds as often as men?"

Before I realized what I was doing, I had stepped into the tiny circle of space that the media had afforded to Rufus. "Maggie," he whispered, covering the mikes, "I'm working this here."

A reporter gave me my invitation. "Hey, weren't you his lawyer?"

"Yes," I said. "Which I hope means I'm qualified to tell you what I'm going to. I work for the ACLU. I can spout out all the same statistics that

Mr. Urqhart just did. But you know what that speech leaves out? That I am truly sorry for June Nealon's loss, after all this time. And that today, I lost someone I cared about. Someone who'd made some serious mistakes-someone who was a hard nut to crack-but someone I'd made a place for in my life."

"Maggie," Rufus hissed, pulling at my sleeve. "Save the true confessional for your diary."

I ignored him. "You know why I think we still execute people? Because, even if we don't want to say it out loud-for the really heinous crimes, we want to know that there's a really heinous punishment. Simple as that. We want to bring society closer together-huddle and circle our wagons-and that means getting rid of people we think are incapable of learning a moral lesson. I guess the question is: Who gets to identify those people? Who decides what crime is so awful that the only answer is death? And what if, God forbid, they get it wrong?"

The crowd was murmuring; the cameras were rolling. "I don't have children. I can't say I'd feel the same way if one of them was killed. And I don't have the answers-believe me, if I did, I'd be a lot richer-but you know, I'm starting to think that's okay. Maybe instead of looking for answers, we ought to be asking some questions instead. Like: What's the lesson we're teaching here? What if it's different every time? What if justice isn't equal to due process? Because at the end of the day, this is what we're left with: a victim, who's become a file to be dealt with, instead of a little girl, or a husband. An inmate who doesn't want to know the name of a correctional officer's child because that makes the relationship too personal. A warden who carries out executions even if he doesn't think they should happen in principle. And an ACLU lawyer who's supposed to go to the office, close the case, and move on. What we're left with is death, with the humanity removed from it." I hesitated a moment. "So you tell me... did this execution really make you feel safer? Did it bring us all closer together? Or did it drive us farther apart?"

I pushed past the cameras, whose heavy heads swung like bulls to follow my path, and into the crowd, which carved a canyon for me to walk through. And I cried.

God, I cried.

I turned on my windshield wipers on the way home, even though it was not raining. But I was falling apart at the seams, and sobbing, and I couldn't see; somehow I thought this would help. I had upstaged my boss on what was arguably the most important legal outcome for the

New Hampshire ACLU in the past fifty years; even worse-I didn't particularly care.

I would have liked to talk to Christian, but he was at the hospital by now, supervising the harvest of Shay's heart and other organs. He'd said he'd come over as soon as he could, as soon as he had word that the transplant was going to be a success.

Which meant that I was going home to a house with a rabbit in it, and not much else.

I turned the corner to my street and immediately saw the car in my driveway. My mother was waiting for me at the front door. I wanted to ask her why she was here, instead of at work. I wanted to ask her how she'd known I'd need her.

But when she wordlessly held out a blanket that I usually kept on the couch, one with fuzzy fleece inside, I stepped into it and forgot all my questions. Instead, I buried my face against her neck. "Oh, Mags," she soothed. "It's going to be all right."

I shook my head. "It was awful. Every time I blink, I can see it, like it's still happening." I drew in a shuddering breath. "It's stupid, isn't it?

Up till the last minute, I was expecting a miracle. Like in the courtroom.

That he'd slip out of the noose, or-I don't know-fly away or something."

"Here, sit down," my mother said, leading me into the kitchen. "Real life doesn't work that way. It's like you said, to the reporters-"

"You saw me?" I glanced up.

"On television. Every channel, Maggie. Even CNN." Her face glowed.

"Four people already called me to say you were brilliant."

I suddenly remembered sitting in my parents' kitchen when I was in college, unable to decide on a career. My mother had sat down, propped her elbows on the table. What do you love to do? she had asked.

Read, I'd told her. And argue.

She had smiled broadly. Maggie, my love, you were meant to become a lawyer.

I buried my face in my hands. "I was an idiot. Rufus is going to fire me.

"Why? Because you said what nobody has the guts to say? The hardest thing in the world is believing someone can change. It's always easier to go along with the way things are than to admit that you might have been wrong in the first place."

She turned to me, holding out a steaming, fragrant bowl. I could smell rosemary, pepper, celery. "I made you soup. From scratch."

"You made me soup from scratch?"

My mother rolled her eyes. "Okay, I bought soup someone else made from scratch."

When I smiled a little, she touched my cheek. "Maggie," she said,

"eat."

Later that afternoon, while my mother did the dishes and cleaned up in my kitchen, and with Oliver curled up at my side, I fell asleep on the living room couch. I dreamed that I was walking in the dark in my favorite

Stuart Weitzman heels, but they were hurting me. I glanced down to discover I was not walking on grass, but on a ground that looked like tempered glass after it's been shattered, like the cracked, parched landscape of a desert. My heels kept getting stuck in the crevasses, and finally

I had to stop to pull one free.

When I did, a clod of earth overturned, and beneath it was light, the purest, most liquid lava form of it. I kicked at another piece of the ground with my heel, and more beams spilled outward and upward. I poked holes, and rays shined up. I danced, and the world became illuminated, so bright that I had to shade my eyes; so bright that I could not keep them from filling with tears.

June

This, I had told Claire, the night before the surgery, is how they'll transplant the heart:

You'll be brought into the operating room and given general anesthesia.

Grape, she'd said. She liked it way better than bubble gum, although the root beer wasn't bad.

You'll be prepped and draped, I told her. Your sternum will be opened with a saw.

Won't that hurt?

Of course not, I said. You'll be fast asleep.

I knew the procedure as well as any cardiac resident; I'd studied it that carefully, and that long. What comes next? Claire had asked.

Sutures-stitches-get sewn into the aorta, the superior vena cava, and the inferior vena cava. Catheters are placed. Then you're put on the heart-lung machine.

What's that?

It works so you don't have to. It drains blue blood from the two cava, and returns red blood through the cannula in the aorta.

Cannula's a cool zvord. I like how it sounds on my tongue.

I skipped over the part about how her heart would be removed: the inferior and superior vena cava divided, then the aorta.

Keep going.

His heart (no need to say whose) is flushed with cardioplegia solution.

It sounds like something you use to wax a car.

Well, you'd better hope not. It's chock-full of nutrients and oxygen, and keeps the heart from beating as it warms up.

And after that?

Then the new heart goes to its new home, I had said, and I'd tapped her chest. First, the left atriums get sewn together. Then the inferior vena cava, then the superior vena cava, then the pulmonary artery, and finally, the aorta. When all the connections are set, the cross clamp on your aorta is removed, warm blood starts flowing into the coronaries, and...

Wait, let me guess: the heart starts beating.

Now, hours later, Claire beamed up at me from her hospital gurney. As the parent of a minor, I was allowed to accompany her to the OR, gowned and suited, while she was put under anesthesia.

I sat down on the stool provided by a nurse, amid the gleaming instruments, the shining lights. I tried to pick out the familiar face of the surgeon from his kind eyes, above the mask.

"Mom," Claire said, reaching for my hand.

"I'm right here."

"I don't hate you."

"I know, baby."

The anesthesiologist fitted the mask to Claire's face. "I want you to start counting for me, hon. Backward, from ten."

"Ten," Claire said, looking into my eyes. "Nine. Eight."

Her lids dropped, half-mast. "Seven," she said, but her lips went slack on the last syllable.

"You can give her a kiss if you want. Mom," said a nurse.

I brushed my paper mask against the soft bow of Claire's cheek. "Come back to me," I whispered.