Page 20 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven

Annie approaches, hoping he has pipe cleaners in his pocket.

“’Scuuuse me, Eddie Maint’nance?”

He sighs. “Just Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Um-hmm?”

“Can you make me... ?”

She puts her hands together as if praying.

“C’mon, kiddo. I don’t have all day.”

When she asks for an animal, he begins twisting yellow pipe cleaners together. He hands her a figure, shaped like a rabbit, which she takes happily and runs back to the umbrella table.

She plays with it for a while. But soon she is bored again. It is only two o’clock. She walks to the midway and tries a game, throwing wooden rings at glass bottles. It costs her a ticket, but they give you a prize no matter what.

After three missed tosses, she is handed a small plastic package: inside is a balsa wood airplane. She fits one piece into the other. She throws it high. It flies in a loop. She does it again.

On her last toss, the plane glides over the heads of customers and lands on the other side of a railing, the one that blocks access to the base of Freddy’s Free Fall. Annie looks both ways. The adults tower over her.

She slides under the rail.

She picks up the plane.

Then a woman screams.

Everyone is pointing at the sky.

SUDDENLY,it all made sense, who Sameer was, why they were in this hospital. Annie’s spirit was inside her childhood body, lying in the hospital bed, looking out through youthful eyes. She wiggled her feet, covered in yellow hospital socks.

“You were my doctor,” Annie whispered.

“Your voice is returning,” Sameer said.

Annie coughed, trying to bring more heft to the words.

“I sound like a child.”

“You work your way along in heaven.”

“Why am I reliving this?”

“Because it all ties together. When I grew up, I realized how lucky I’d been. I got serious. I studied. I went to college, then medical school. I specialized in replantation.”

Annie squinted. “Replantation?”

“A fancy word for reconnecting body parts.”

“So you saved my hand?”

“Me and three other doctors. You only had a few hours. After that, it would have been too late.”

Annie stared at her young, bandaged appendage.

“I can’t remember the accident,” she said. “I blacked the whole thing out.”