The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(34)

“Then I did kill you.”

“A cart killed me.”

“It was my fault.”

“A cable’s fault.”

“I blocked it out.”

“You weren’t ready.”

“For what?”

“The truth.”

“That you died?”

“There’s more to truth than that.”

He stepped away, his work boots squishing the soft ground. “On earth, we get the what of things. The why takes a little longer.”

“No,” Annie insisted. “There was no why! There was just me being where I shouldn’t have been. And people covering it up. Nobody told me. I couldn’t remember, and my mother kept it secret.”

“She was protecting you.”

“From what?”

“From what you’re doing now—blaming yourself.”

“I heard a rumor. In high school.”

“And?”

Annie hesitated.

“I pretended like it didn’t happen. I switched schools. To be honest …”

She cupped her elbows and pulled them in.

“I was glad I didn’t remember.”

She couldn’t look at Eddie. “You gave your life for me,” she whispered. “You sacrificed everything. And I couldn’t even face the truth.”

Annie dropped to the ground, her knees smacking the mud. “I’m so sorry. If only I had run the other way. Then you wouldn’t have had to save me.”

“You’re not getting it,” Eddie gently replied. “I needed to save you. It let me make up for the life I took.

“That’s how salvation works. The wrongs we do open doors to do right.”



Tala took Eddie’s hand and rubbed it over her face and arms. The mottled scabs fell off. The singed skin peeled away. Her complexion was now perfect. She pushed five fingers into Eddie’s belly.

“Tala was my fifth person. You’re my next.”

“Your next?” Annie said.

“You meet five people, then you’re one of five for someone else. That’s how heaven connects everybody.”

Annie looked down. “My third person said I needed to make peace with you.”

“Who was that?”

“My mother.”

“Well, she was right about making peace,” he said. “But she didn’t mean me. You only have peace when you make it with yourself. I had to learn that the hard way.”

He glanced at Tala.

“The truth is, I spent years thinking I was doing nothing ’cause I was a nobody. You spent years doing lots of things and thinking they were all mistakes.”

He exhaled. “We were both wrong.”

He leaned over and helped Annie to her feet.

“Hey, kiddo?”

She looked up.

“There’s no such thing as a nobody. And there are no mistakes.”



With that, the landscape melted as if running down a drain. The darkness of war faded. Tala, whose Filipino name means “star,” lifted into the firmament, becoming the illumination for a perfect blue sky around them.

Annie felt herself rising, too, then dropping softly into the seat of a steel-rimmed Ferris wheel, rotating high above the sprawl of Ruby Pier. She gazed down on its colorful tents and rides. As she descended, the ground began to spark with tiny lights. They grew exponentially, miniature beams that, as Annie lowered, revealed themselves to be the eyes of children, splashing in the Shoot-the-Chutes, spinning in the Tilt-A-Whirl, riding every carousel horse, laughing and playing. There had to be thousands of them.

“I worked here my whole life,” Eddie yelled from their midst. “Keeping rides safe meant keeping kids safe. And because they were safe, they grew up and had kids of their own. And their kids had kids, and their kids will have kids.”

He motioned to the sea of young faces. “My heaven lets me see them all.”

Annie’s cart lowered to the platform.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I’m not sure,” Annie replied.

Eddie turned away.

“Because I saved you, as tough as those years were for you, as bad as it was with your hand, you got to grow up, too. And because you got to grow up …”

When he turned back, Annie froze. Eddie was holding a baby boy, with a small blue cap on his head.

“Laurence?” Annie whispered.

Eddie stepped forward and placed her son in her trembling arms. Instantly, Annie was whole again, her body complete. She cradled the infant against her chest, a motherly cradle that filled her with the purest feeling. She smiled and she wept and she could not stop weeping.

“My baby,” she gushed. “Oh, my baby, my baby …”

She wiggled his toes. She tickled his little fingers. Her tears dripped onto his tiny forehead and he swatted them away, eyes dancing with alertness. It was clear that somehow, he knew Annie, as Annie knew him back. Her son existed. He was safe here in heaven. Annie felt a serenity that mortal life had never allowed.

“Thank you,” she whispered to Eddie.

Before he could reply, she was whisked into the sky, away from the amusement park and past the single bright star of Tala, into the dead, black vacuum of another universe. When Annie looked down, she saw her arms were empty, and she howled in anguish, feeling utterly full and utterly vacant, which is what having and losing a child is like.