COLORED LIGHTS spun and flashed in the bomb-riven night. Three of Yafo’s four lanes were closed, and the bus and surrounding sidewalk had been cordoned off. The walking wounded, even those desperately seeking loved ones, were ushered beyond the tape.
I shouted to a medic, “I’m a doctor!” but I was walked firmly to the cordon and sent away. I made my way around the obstacles and down the street to the hotel, where I found the lobby crowded with injured and panicked people. I took the stairs to my room, and first thing, I downed a minibottle of scotch from the honor bar. Then I stripped off my clothes and got under the sheet.
I lay on my back, absolutely still, and as I stared up at the ceiling, I thought about dead people.
Karl’s cold, dead face leapt into my mind, and so did the lifeless body of my precious baby, dressed in her christening, then burial, gown, wearing my cross and chain around her neck.
I flashed on the hundreds of dead at Kind Hands, or maybe it had been thousands—the babies, the BLM soldiers, Father Delahanty, and Colin—and the bulldozer pushing dirt over mass graves. I thought of Nissim, who had survived wars only to die on the street today.
Then something like a gust of wind rushed over me, clearing the thoughts from my mind.
My view of the past was gone, the dead people were gone, and I was seeing in two dimensions at once, as I had when I was both inside the airplane from Rome and flying outside it.
I was not insane. This was not delusionary. I was aware of the bed beneath me, the sheet draped over me. My arms were outstretched to the sides of the mattress, and my ankles were crossed. At the same time, my mattress and I were floating on a clear, sunlit, glass-colored sea.
It was simply amazing and completely real. As my raft and I bobbed on this blue-green water, I had a thought. If only I could stay here forever.
If only.
Just then, the air changed, becoming thick and oily with the stink of gasoline. There was a concussive ka-rump of an explosion, followed by a loud whoosh. The water had transformed into a dancing wall of flames surrounding me on all sides.
I think I screamed. I sat up and tried to get away from the inferno lapping at the sides of my raft of a mattress, singeing my skin and my bristly hair, but there was no escape. Fire was all around me, everywhere.
I collapsed back down onto the mattress.
I accepted this death. I wanted this consummation.
And then a new breeze brought another sea change.
The smoke thinned, and the dense blackness of it coalesced into marbled gray. Thunderheads formed at the height of the ceiling. Lightning sizzled and snapped.
I watched, transfixed by the swirling storm. A drop of water fell on my forehead, then on each of my eyes, like the softest of kisses. Another drop fell on my left hand, and my right, and then the drops came down in the thousands, the millions, merging into freezing-cold torrents.
I heard the hiss of doused flames. A mist rolled across my body, and, just as suddenly as it had risen from the sea, the fire was gone. Just gone.
The air brightened, and a warm breeze dried my face and the sheet still covering me. I remained motionless, suspended in place on my raft, which rose and fell, rocking gently on the waves.
Overhead, the gray sky diffused into a luminous blue veil, which became a pure-white ball of light enclosing me at its center.
I was overcome with awe, and I sensed His presence.
There was a feeling of warmth in my chest and a wordless voice in my mind. It was as if I was in a waking dream.
Brigid. This is your life. It belongs to you.
Chapter 63
I HEARD, with my deaf ears, those nine resonant words.
And then they were gone. The ceiling was plaster, not divine light. I was dry, and my skin was not burned.
I had not been sleeping or dreaming or hallucinating. The vision had come to me from outside my own mind, and I had been shocked and amazed at every turn.
I replayed the words in my mind.
Brigid. This is your life. It belongs to you.
I lay almost paralyzed on the bed.
I recalled the vision I’d had when I’d flown from Rome and had seen the beautiful Italian town beneath me. A baby carriage had rolled out into the street, under the wheels of a car. Hadn’t that baby’s mother called out to God?
Hadn’t she begged Him for her child’s life?
I saw the bird God had placed in my hand. I watched the small bird rise up and join the multitudes. And I heard the echo of God’s message to me: Can you care for your bird?
Weren’t millions of prayers going up to God now and in the last minute and the next? God, save my child. God, don’t let my wife find out. God, where are my car keys? Make the ball land on red. Lord, please let me get to class on time. God, bless my home, my marriage, my cat, my team.