Change of Heart Read online

  As soon as I put him on the witness stand, a quiet pall fell over the people in the gallery. You are not like us, their silence seemed to say. You never will be. And there, without me asking a single question, was my answer: no amount of piousness could erase the stain on the hands of a murderer.

  I walked in front of Shay and waited until he caught my eye. Focus, I mouthed, and he nodded. He gripped the front of the witness box railing, and his chains clinked.

  Dammit. I'd forgotten to tell him to keep his hands in his lap. It would be less of a reminder to the judge and the gallery that he was a convicted felon.

  "Shay," I asked, "why do you want to donate your heart?"

  He stared right at me. Good boy. "I have to save her."

  "Who?"

  "Claire Nealon."

  "Well," I said, "you're not the only person in the world who can save Claire. There are other suitable heart donors."

  "I'm the one who took the most away from her," Shay said, just like we had practiced. "I have the most to give back to her."

  "Is this about clearing your conscience?" I asked.

  Shay shook his head. "It's about clearing the slate."

  So far, I thought, so good. He sounded rational, and clear, and calm.

  "Maggie?" Shay said just then. "Can I stop now?"

  I smiled tightly. "Not quite yet, Shay. We've got a few more questions."

  "The questions are bullshit."

  There was a gasp in the rear of the gallery--probably one of the blue-haired ladies I'd seen filing in with their Bibles wrapped in protective quilted cozies, who hadn't stumbled across a cuss word since before menopause. "Shay," I said, "we don't use that language in court. Remember?"

  "Why is it called court?" he asked. "It's not like a tennis court or a basketball court, where you're playing a game. Or maybe you are, and that's why there's a winner and a loser, except it has nothing to do with how well you make a three-point shot or how fast your serve is." He looked at Judge Haig. "I bet you play golf."

  "Ms. Bloom," the judge said. "Control your witness."

  If Shay didn't shut up, I was going to personally cover his mouth with my hand. "Shay, tell me about your religious upbringing as a child," I said firmly.

  "Religion's a cult. You don't get to choose your own religion. You're what your parents tell you you are; it's not upbringing at all, just a brainwashing. When a baby's getting water poured over his head at a christening he can't say, 'Hey, man, I'd rather be a Hindu,' can he?"

  "Shay, I know this is hard for you, and I know that being here is very distracting," I said. "But I need you to listen to the question I'm asking, and answer it. Did you go to church when you were a kid?"

  "Part of the time. And part of the time I didn't go anywhere at all, except hide in the closet so I wouldn't get beat up by another kid or the foster dad, who'd try to keep everyone in line with a metal hairbrush. It kept us in line, all right, all the way down our backs. The whole foster care system in this country is a joke; it ought to be called foster don't care, don't give a shit except for the stipend you're getting from the--"

  "Shay!" I warned him with a flash of my eyes. "Do you believe in God?"

  This question, somehow, seemed to calm him down. "I know God," Shay said.

  "Tell me how."

  "Everyone's got a little God in them ... and a little murder in them, too. It's how your life turns out that makes you lean to one side or the other."

  "What's God like?"

  "Math," Shay said. "An equation. Except when you take everything away, you get infinity, instead of zero."

  "And where does God live, Shay?"

  He leaned forward, lifted his chained hands so that the metal chinked. He pointed to his heart. "Here."

  "You said you used to go to church when you were a kid. Is the God you believe in today the same God you were taught about at church?"

  Shay shrugged. "Whatever road you take, the view is going to be the same."

  I was nearly a hundred percent certain I'd heard that phrase before, at the one and only Bikram yoga class I'd attended, before I decided that my body wasn't meant to bend in certain ways. I couldn't believe Greenleaf wasn't objecting, on the grounds that channeling the Dalai Lama wasn't the same as answering a question. Then again, I could believe Greenleaf wasn't objecting. The more Shay said, the crazier he appeared. It was hard to take someone's claims about religion seriously when he sounded delusional; Shay was digging a grave big enough for both of us.

  "If the judge orders you to die by lethal injection, Shay, and you can't donate your heart--will that upset God?" I asked.

  "It'll upset me. So yeah, it'll upset God."

  "Well, then," I said, "what is it about giving your heart to Claire Nealon that will please God?"

  He smiled at me then--the sort of smile you see on the faces of saints in frescoes, and that makes you wish you knew their secret. "My end," Shay said, "is her beginning."

  I had a few more questions, but to be honest, I was terrified of what Shay might say. He already was talking in riddles. "Thank you," I replied, and sat down.

  "I have a question, Mr. Bourne," Judge Haig said. "There's a lot of talk about odd things that have occurred at the prison. Do you believe you can perform miracles?"

  Shay looked at him. "Do you?"

  "I'm sorry, but that's not how a courtroom works. I'm not allowed to answer your question, but you still need to answer mine. So," the judge said, "do you believe you can perform miracles?"

  "I just did what I was supposed to. You can call that whatever you want."

  The judge shook his head. "Mr. Greenleaf, your witness."

  Suddenly, a man in the gallery stood up. He unzipped his jacket, revealing a T-shirt that had been emblazoned with the numbers 3:16. He started yelling, his voice hoarse. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son--" By then, two U.S. marshals had descended, hauling him out of his seat and dragging him up the alley, as the news cameras swiveled to follow the action. "His only son!" the man yelled. "Only! You are going to hell once they pump your veins full of--" The doors of the courtroom banged shut behind him, and then it was utterly silent.

  It was impressive that this man had gotten into the court in the first place--there were checkpoints with metal detectors and marshals in place before you entered. But his weapon had been the fundamental fury of his righteousness, and at that moment, I would have been hard-pressed to decide whether he or Shay had come off looking worse.

  "Yes," Gordon Greenleaf said, getting to his feet. "Well." He walked toward Shay, who rested his chained hands on the witness stand rail again. "You're the only person who subscribes to your religion?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "I don't belong to a religion. Religion's the reason the world's falling apart--did you see that guy get carted out of here? That's what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It's a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion's not about being holy," Shay said. "Just holier-than-thou."

  At the plaintiff's table, I closed my eyes--at the very least, Shay had surely just lost the case for himself; at the most, I was going to wind up with a cross being burned on my lawn. "Objection," I said feebly. "It's not responsive."

  "Overruled," the judge replied. "He's not your witness now, Ms. Bloom."

  Shay continued muttering, more quietly now. "You know what religion does? It draws a big fat line in the sand. It says, 'If you don't do it my way, you're out.' "

  He wasn't yelling, he wasn't out of control. But he wasn't in control, either. He brought his hands up to his neck, started scratching at it as the chains jangled down his chest. "These words," he said, "they're cutting my throat."

  "Judge," I said immediately, alert to a rapidly approaching meltdown. "Can we take a recess?"

  Shay started rocking back and forth.

  "Fifteen minutes," Judge Haig said, and the U.S. marshals approached to remand Shay into custody. Panicking, Shay cowered a