Three Wishes

by Barbara Delinsky

  “What about Barbara Walters?”

  Tom snorted. “You’ve done your homework.”

  “It’s my job. I’m all Panama’s got. So. How’d she treat you? Did she put you on the spot? She can be a tough one sometimes. Course, that’s what people like about her. Boy, she’s been at it for a long time now. How’d she look in person?”

  Tom raised a piece of veal, pondered it, returned it to his plate. Whoever in the diner hadn’t known who he was before this would know now, and it wouldn’t stop there. It was only a matter of time before the whole town knew.

  So let them know something else, he decided. With a resigned sigh and a meaningful look at the faces turned his way, he said loudly and to the point, “I bought a house in Panama because it seemed like the kind of place where people respected each other, the kind of place where I could go about my business without being questioned about the past. I chose Panama because I wanted privacy, and because it was far away from New York.” Though his gaze settled on Bonner, his voice was a warning for the rest. “If I wanted to tell the world I was here, I’d have taken out an ad in the Times. If the media track me here, I’m gone. Am I getting through?”

  Miraculously, he finished his dinner. No doubt stubbornness was part of it, since his hunger had left with the mention of Larry King. It wasn’t that he had a gripe with the man, or with Barbara Walters or any of the others who had interviewed him. The majority of those interviewers had simply asked the questions Tom’s publicist had fed them. They were questions Tom had helped formulate, each designed to show yet another flattering side, and he hadn’t felt a bit of guilt doing it. That was how the game was played. He had left those interviews walking on air, totally enamored with himself, sold on the flattery.

  Thinking back on it made him sick to his stomach. But he needed food if he planned to stay at the hospital again, and he most definitely did plan to stay. He felt good when he was there, felt decent and different and right. So he finished the veal, drank two cups of coffee, ordered desserts to go, and left.

  When Tom started high school, he was five feet eight, which would have been a fine height for a fifteen-year-old if he hadn’t wanted to play football. He had come off a summer of painting houses during the day and playing ball at night, so he was tanned and fit, but he lacked the bulk that the older players had.

  “You’re scrappy,” his mother pointed out when she caught him moping around on the eve of tryouts.

  “That doesn’t matter. I won’t make it. I’m too small.”

  “Smallness is a state of mind,” she said, as she puffed up every cushion in the living room except those on which he was slouched. “Walk onto that field with your head high, and you’ll look a foot taller. Look the coach in the eye, and he’ll think you’re more solid. Carry yourself like a quarterback, and people will see you as one.”

  It worked. He played backup to a senior quarterback that freshman year, then starting quarterback for his remaining three years. By the time he graduated, he was six four and strong. Though he no longer needed pretense, the lesson in projecting confidence was ingrained.

  It stood him in good stead now. For the third night in a row, well after visiting hours ended, he walked into the medical center past the nurse at the desk, swung into the stairwell, climbed the stairs, and strode down the second-floor corridor to Bree’s room as though he had every right in the world to be there. No matter that the nurses on duty were new and that his battered face made him look like a thug. Then again, perhaps they knew exactly who he was and didn’t dare stop him. Whatever, no one looked twice.

  He was the one to blink when Bree was nowhere in sight.

  Bree sat in the dark of the deserted lounge at the far end of the hall. The music drifting from wall speakers was classical, soft and soothing, exactly what she needed. Her room had grown oppressive. Even now, well after the last of her friends had left, she could still hear them telling her that they missed her, that they wished her a speedy recovery, that any out-of-body visions would end once her mind cleared.

  The thing was that her mind was perfectly clear. She had slept most of the morning, had cut back on pain pills, and if anything, her memory of that time in the operating room had sharpened. She didn’t tell her friends that. They weren’t inclined to listen, and she didn’t have the strength to make her case. Sitting here, with the mild night air whispering in through half-open windows, she found it hard to believe that a major snowstorm had hit three days before, much less that she had died, gone to heaven, and returned.

  It was all at the same time crystal clear and totally unreal. Unreal that it had snowed so hard so early in the season. Unreal that she had been at just that spot on Birch Hill at just that moment. Unreal that she had watched the goings-on in the operating room. Unreal that she felt the calming force of that bright light still. Unreal that silent Tom from the diner was Thomas Gates of national renown.

  Thomas Gates. Unreal.

  Shifting gingerly in the wingback chair, she started to raise her legs to tuck her cold feet beneath her. When the soreness in her abdomen wouldn’t allow for the movement, she settled for layering one foot over the other and burying her hands in the folds of her robe.

  She knew about Thomas Gates. Being a fan of his books, she had read articles on him. Many hadn’t been flattering. He wasn’t supposed to be very nice.

  Odd, but the Tom Gates she knew seemed perfectly nice.

  Releasing a breath, she put her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. She remembered those articles in detail. Thomas Gates was reputed to be callous and conceited, but she hadn’t seen either trait in him, and as for being the womanizer the articles implied, he hadn’t womanized in Panama. He hadn’t come on to her as had other men in the diner, hadn’t leered or teased or touched her in inappropriate ways.

  Footsteps came from the hall, and suddenly he was there. Thinking she might have imagined him, she blinked, but he remained.

  She hadn’t wished him there. She was being careful not to make wishes accidentally. But she was inordinately pleased that he’d come.

  “Hi,” he said. Backlit as he was, she couldn’t see his face, but his voice was gentle, smiling.

  Her heart beat a little faster. She smiled back. “Hi.”

  “Walk all the way down here yourself?”

  “Uh-huh.” Dryly, she added, “It took everything I had.”

  He made a show of looking around. “No more IV. That’s progress.”

  “Uh-huh. I had solid food for dinner. Chicken.”

  “Bet it wasn’t as good as Flash’s.”

  “No. But that’s okay. I was full after two bites.” She felt revived now that he had come. “Want to turn on a light?”

  “Not if you prefer the dark.”

  “I don’t.”

  He slipped a hand under the shade of a nearby lamp. The soft light that filled the room made him real, in an unreal sort of way. He was gorgeous, with his tousled hair and his athlete’s build, and he was there.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.

  “I promised I would. You just slept through the promise.”

  No. She had heard. Then she had wondered if she had simply dreamed it up because she wanted it so much. “I thought you might go home and think about it and decide I was loony.”

  “If you are, then so are a hell of a lot of other people.” He lowered a leather knapsack from his shoulder at the same time that he lowered himself to a chair. The knapsack settled on the floor between his knees. He unstrapped the top and pulled out a folder that was a solid inch thick. “Printouts from my computer. They’re personal accounts of other people who have experienced what you did.”

  Bree’s heart beat even faster than before. She looked from the folder to Tom and back. She didn’t know whether to be more pleased that there were others like her or that Tom had made the effort of seeking them out.

  The first took precedence. Taking the folder from him, she put it on her lap and cov
ered it with a proprietary hand. Cautiously, she asked, “Did you read them?”

  “Every one.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Much of what you do,” he answered gently. He had his elbows on his thighs. His hands dangled between. “An accident or a medical crisis occurs. The victim is conscious of leaving his body, rising up above it, and looking back down. Sometimes it happens at the scene of the accident, sometimes in an operating room. He sees people working on him, hears their voices. Then there’s the light. It’s always very bright. It’s always benevolent. It conveys a sense of well-being. It speaks without actually talking.”

  “It did,” Bree breathed, delighted. She hadn’t realized how alone she had felt until she suddenly felt less so. “What else?” She put her fingertips together in front of her mouth and tried to contain her excitement.

  “There’s a lot of the same uncertainty that you feel. The person knows he’s had an out-of-body experience, but he’s still not sure.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He knows people don’t believe him, but he can’t forget what happened. He’s afraid to talk about it. Some people hold it in for years—twenty-five, by one account.”

  “Oh, my. But I know the fear that person felt.” She reversed her feet, putting the bottom one on top. “Did anyone else mention being promised three wishes?”

  Tom gave a quick head shake. “That doesn’t mean anything. No two accounts I read were exactly alike. One person said that the air around the being of light was purple. Another passed through a tree during his experience and woke up covered with sap. Another left his body and floated around the city for a while before waking up in the hospital. Another tried to open a door while he was out of his body, but couldn’t. Some remember feeling a sense of belonging when they’re with this being.”

  Bree had, now that she thought of it.

  Tom went on. “Lots of people report being sucked out of their bodies and up through a dark tunnel. The bright light is at the end of that tunnel. Some of them report hearing a buzzing or jangling noise. Some say they fought it, fought the noise and the light, fought being sucked up.”

  Bree shook her head. She hadn’t experienced anything like that. There had been nothing to fight. She had simply been in her body one minute and out of it the next. Once she was with the being of light, she wouldn’t have fought anyway. That being had been compelling. If anything, she had been sad to leave it.

  “Some people say they were given a choice and made a conscious decision to return to life. Others believe they were returned to life for a reason. Being granted three wishes is a reason.”

  “But no one else mentioned getting wishes?” she asked, knowing that the concept would be more credible if it had happened before.

  The small lines that furrowed his brow did nothing negative. Black eye and all, he looked great.

  “No one else mentioned getting wishes,” he said. “One person mentioned coming back to take care of a sick parent, another coming back to be with a lover, but neither mentioned it as a response to a wish. There were reports from people who said that they had done things wrong and were being given a second chance, and reports from people who said that the being of light showed them what hell looked like, so they were reformed. Some specifically said they’d been to heaven. They wrote about seeing dead relatives and friends.”

  “I didn’t,” Bree said, and was grateful for it. She might have liked to see her father, but if the dead congregated, he would have been with his parents, and they were dour people. Their presence in a room put a damper on everyone and everything. It would have surely dulled the luster of the being of light. She was glad that had remained unspoiled.

  Of course, it was still possible that the being didn’t exist. “What do you think?” she asked Tom. “Was it real, what happened to me?”

  Again those small creases touched his forehead. He frowned at his palms, let them fall to his thighs, and met her gaze. “I don’t know. Your claim is certainly more plausible than some of the others. Take young children having near-death experiences. Kids of three or four, even seven or eight, are imaginative. They’re wide open to the power of suggestion. And I have a hard time believing near-death experiences reported by people who acknowledge that they were either stoned or drunk at the time. I also have a hard time believing the stories written by people whose lives were unstable to begin with. They may be prone to hallucinating. Same with a person who suffers a severe head injury.

  “Then there are those people who report a cataclysmic awakening. They’re walking down the street and—wham—they suddenly see something or know something or feel something that may or may not have to do with God. I wouldn’t call that a near-death experience. An epiphany, maybe. Same thing with people who recover from a serious illness and report having seen Saint Peter and the pearly gates. Serious illnesses naturally spawn thoughts of mortality, which naturally spawn thoughts of religion.”

  Bree shook her head. “Not in me. My dad was a Congregationalist, but I’m not much of anything.”

  Tom smiled and sat straighter. “So then there are people like you. They’re well-adjusted adults. They’re intelligent. They may or may not be religious, but they’re good people. They aren’t hopped up or soused, they’re in accidents not of their own making, and somewhere along the line their hearts stop. Medical personnel verify it and reverse it. These momentarily dead return to the world of the living with stories that are so much alike that it gives you chills. These people come from all walks of life. They don’t know each other. They may or may not have ever read an account of a near-death experience, still the experiences they report have eerie similarities.” He blew out a breath. “Hard not to believe people like that.”

  Bree felt suddenly lighthearted. “You’re very convincing.”

  “When you sum it up, it is convincing. The only theory I found at all plausible made the argument that the end of life is like the very beginning, that things come full circle, that there are parallels between the birth process and near-death accounts. The dark tunnel that some people claim they’re sucked into at the moment of death is like the birth canal. The bright light is what the delivery room must seem like to the newborn after the dark of the womb. Same with the noise. The implication is that at the moment of death, or just prior to death, the human mind reverts in time to the moment of birth.”

  “Then what I saw were memories?” She shook her head again. “Babies aren’t given three wishes. Besides, I saw a mole.”

  “A mole.”

  “On the neck of one of the nurses who was in the operating room that night. She was bending over me, and it was on the back of her neck. How could I have seen it there if I wasn’t above her?” Bree held up a hand. “Okay. I know. Maybe she was in the recovery room when I woke up, and I saw it when she turned away from me, and I’m just confusing the two locations. But there was only one nurse in the recovery room—I asked—and she wasn’t in the operating room during the time my heart stopped, and besides, she doesn’t have a mole. I checked.”

  “Have you checked the OR nurses?”

  “One. She didn’t have a mole. The other has long hair. She only puts it up when she’s in the operating room.” Bree tucked her hands inside each other on the folder. “I should just come out and ask her about it, but I feel silly.” At times, she felt silly, period. “Word’s already going around town. What if the whole near-death thing is bogus?” She reversed her feet again, rubbing them together to generate heat. Flash had brought her robe, which was fleece, large and warm, but he hadn’t thought to bring slippers. The hospital provided foam ones that were barely better than nothing.

  Tom slid to the floor, shifted her feet to his lap, and began to chafe them. The warmth of it went all the way to her cheeks.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “I want to.”

  “You must have better things to do with your time.”

  He shook his head, looking pleased.
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br />   “You’re feeling guilty,” she insisted, “but I told you, the accident wasn’t your fault.” And he was a celebrity and movie-star handsome. But did she move her feet out of his grasp? No. “This is embarrassing.”

  “Why? You have nice feet. Nice icy feet.”

  “They’re always that way.”

  “My mom used to say that it’s a female thing, that women’s warmth is concentrated in the region of their hearts, so their extremities suffer.”

  Bree laughed, then hugged her middle when the movement hurt.

  Tom’s hands stopped. Troubled eyes went to her stomach. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s fine now. But what a nice thought. You say things like that in your books, little gems of wisdom. Is that where you get them, from your mom?”

  His reply was snide. “I never thought so. I thought it was all me.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  Quietly, he said, “She died last year.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  When he resumed his rubbing, it seemed more a massage, a gentle kneading that involved both of his hands and both of her feet, from the tips of her toes to her ankles.

  Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to the feeling. It occurred to her that she could easily spend a wish on a permanent foot masseur, if the business of wishes was real.

  She wondered if it was. No one else had ever reported being granted three wishes.

  So maybe it was just her. Or maybe someone had used all three wishes and died before writing about it.

  She wouldn’t use the third wish, wouldn’t take the risk. Then again, maybe none of it was real.

  The massage stopped. Tom reached into his bag, pulled out a sweater, and was about to wrap it around her feet, when she said, “I’m getting tired. I’d better go back to bed.”

  He returned the sweater to the knapsack, pushed to his feet, and hitched the knapsack to his shoulder. Holding the folder in one hand, he helped her up with the other. He kept one arm around her as they walked.