Actually, they do, Joanna thought, and they usually aren’t lucky enough to be revived after they code.
“The cardiologist will be here in a few minutes,” she said. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what happened?” She switched on the minirecorder.
“Okay,” he said. “I was on my way back to the office from playing racquetball—I play racquetball twice a week, Stephanie and I go hiking on the weekends. You can see it’s impossible for me to have had a heart attack.”
“You were on your way back to the office—” Joanna prompted.
“Yeah,” Greg said. “It’s snowing, and the road’s really slick, and this idiot in a Jeep Cherokee tries to cut in front of me. I slam on my brakes and end up in the ditch. I’ve got a shovel in the car, and I start digging myself out, and I don’t know what happened then. I figure a piece of ice off a truck must have hit me in the head and knocked me out, because the next thing I know, there’s a siren going, and I’m in an ambulance and a paramedic’s sticking these ice-cold paddles on my chest.”
Of course, Joanna thought resignedly. I finally get a subject Maurice Mandrake hasn’t already corrupted and who’s willing to talk, and he doesn’t remember anything.
“Can you remember anything at all between the—between being hit in the head and waking up in the ambulance?” Joanna asked hopefully. “Anything you heard? Or saw?” but he was already shaking his head.
“It was like when I had my cruciate ligament operated on last year. I tore it playing softball,” he said triumphantly. “One minute the anesthesiologist was saying, ‘Breathe deeply,’ and the next I was in the recovery room. And in between, nothing, zip, nada.”
Oh, well, at least she was keeping him in bed until the cardiologist got there.
“I told the nurse when she said you wanted to talk to me that I couldn’t have had a near-death experience because I wasn’t anywhere near death. I was knocked out,” he said. “When you do talk to people who’ve died, what do they say? Do they tell you they saw tunnels and lights and angels like they say on TV?”
“Some of them,” Joanna said.
“Do you think they really did or that they just made it up?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If I ever do have a heart attack and have a near-death experience, you’ll be the first one
I’ll call.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Joanna said.
“I’ll need your phone number,” he said, and grinned that adorable grin again. “Just in case.”
“Well, well, well,” the cardiologist said, coming in with Vielle. “What have we here?”
“Not a heart attack,” Greg said, trying to sit up. “I work out at the gym three times a week.”
“That’s what they all say,” the cardiologist said, grinning. He turned to Joanna. “Will you excuse us for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” Joanna said, gathering up her recorder. She went outside and leaned against the hall. There was probably no reason to wait, Greg Menotti clearly didn’t remember anything, but she wanted to thank Vielle, even though it hadn’t worked out. And she was too tired and hungry to go back to her office and face Dr. Wright, whoever he was, right now. She continued to lean.
“Why hasn’t he been taken to CICU?” the cardiologist’s voice, clearly talking to Vielle, said.
“I’m not going anywhere till Stephanie gets here,” Mr. Menotti boomed.
“She’s on her way,” Vielle said. “She’ll be here in just a few minutes.”
“Where was she?”
“Over on Monaco,” Vielle said. “Just a few blocks away.”
“All right, let’s have a listen to this health club heart,” the cardiologist said. “No, don’t sit up. All right …”
There was a minute or so of silence, while the cardiologist listened to Greg Menotti’s heart, and then instructions that Joanna couldn’t hear.
“Yes, sir,” Vielle said.
More murmured instructions.
“I want to see Stephanie as soon as she gets here.”
“She can see you upstairs,” the cardiologist said. “We’re taking you up to CICU, Mr. Menotti. You’ve had a major myocardial infarction, and we need to—”
“This is ridiculous,” Greg said. “I’m fine. I got knocked out, is all. I didn’t have a heart—” and then, abruptly, silence.
“One amp epy,” the cardiologist said. “One amp bicarb.”
“Mr. Menotti?” Vielle said. “Greg?”
“He’s coding,” the cardiologist said. “Get a cart in here and get him intubated.”
The buzz of the code alarm went off, and people converged on the room, running. Joanna backed out of the way across the hall.
“Get a board under him,” the cardiologist said, and something else Joanna couldn’t hear. The code alarm was still going, an intermittent ear-splitting buzz.
Was it a buzzing or a ringing? Joanna thought irrelevantly. And then, wonderingly, that’s the sound they’re hearing before they go into the tunnel.
“Get those paddles over here,” the cardiologist said. “And turn off that damned alarm.”
The buzzing stopped. An IV pole clanked noisily as someone hung another bag.
“Ready for defib, clear,” a voice, not the cardiologist’s, said, and there was a different kind of buzz. “Again. Clear.”
“Too far away,” Greg Menotti’s voice said, and Joanna breathed a sigh of relief.
“Let me see a rhythm strip,” the cardiologist said.
“Come on, Mr. Menotti,” Vielle said. “Just hang on. You’re going to be fine.”
“Greg,” he said, his voice still strong. “Mr. Menotti’s my father.”
“All right, Greg,” Vielle said. “You’re going to be fine. Just hang on.”
“No,” Greg said. “To far for her to get here in time.”
“Your girlfriend’s on her way,” Vielle said. “Stephanie will be here in just a few minutes.”
There was another pause. Joanna strained to hear the reassuring beep of the monitor.
“What’s the BP?” the cardiologist said.
“Fifty-eight,” but it was Greg Menotti’s voice.
“Forty over thirty,” another voice said.
“No,” Greg Menotti said angrily. “Fifty-eight. She’ll never get here in time.”
“She was just a few blocks away,” Vielle said. “She’s probably already pulling into the parking lot. Just hang on, Greg.”
Another pause.
“I can’t get his blood pressure.”
“Fifty-eight,” Greg Menotti said, but weaker.
The nurse’s aide who’d been in the room before came hurrying toward it, a pretty blonde in a blue parka behind her, trying not to look panicked. The blonde pushed into the room. “How bad is it?” Joanna heard her say.
“Stephanie’s here, Greg,” Vielle said. “I told you she’d get here.”
“Greg, it’s me, Stephanie,” the blonde said tearfully. “I’m here.”
Silence.
“I just left my cell phone in the car for a minute while I ran into the grocery store. I’m so sorry. I came as soon as I could.”
Silence again, and then Greg Menotti’s voice, hardly audible. “Too far away for her to come.”
And the steady flatline whine of the heart monitor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connie willis has won six Nebula Awards (more than any other science fiction writer), six Hugo Awards, and for her first novel, Lincoln’s Dreams, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her novel Doomsday Book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, and her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book. Her other works include Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, and Uncharted Territory. Ms. Willis lives in Greeley, Colorado, with her family and is hard at work on her next novel.
“Miracle” first appeared in
Asimov’s, December 1991. Copyright © 1991 by Doubleday Dell magazines. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Inn” first appeared in Asimov’s, December 1993. Copyright © 1993 by Doubleday Dell magazines. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“In Coppelius’s Toyshop” first appeared in Asimov’s, December 1996. Copyright © 1996 by
Dell magazines, a division of Crosstown Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Pony” first appeared in Mile High Futures, November 1985, and Asimov’s.
December 1986. Copyright © 1986 by Doubleday Dell magazines. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Adaptation” first appeared in Asimov’s, December 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Doubleday Dell magazines. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Newsletter” first appeared in Asimov’s, December 1997. Copyright © 1997 by Dell magazines, a division of Crosstown Publishing. Reprinted by permission of the author.
This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
MIRACLE AND OTHER CHRISTMAS STORIES
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam Spectra hardcover edition published November 1999
Bantam Spectra mass market edition / November 2000
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Connie Willis.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-15686.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-57366-7
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