Three Wishes by Barbara Delinsky

about a thing.”
    Bree wasn’t worried. She hadn’t thought about what would come after, was still trying to figure out what had come before. “I died on the operating table.”
    â€œNo, you didn’t. Your heart stopped for a few beats before they started it up again. That’s not dying.”
    But she wasn’t being put off. Flash was one of her best friends. She needed to tell him what had happened. “I knew when it stopped. I felt things.”
    He looked skeptical. “What kinds of things?”
    â€œLightness. Out-of-my-body kinds of things. I went through the ceiling.”
    â€œSo did I when Eliot told me about the accident. I knew I should have driven you all the way home. If I had, you wouldn’t be lying here now. Whoever was driving that truck is in deep shit.”
    He wasn’t listening. Frustrated, Bree closed her eyes. But a greater need forced them open again. “What do you know about near-death experiences?”
    â€œAs much as I want,” he said, with a snort that said he didn’t think they were real. “When we die, we die. I don’t believe in heaven or hell.”
    He didn’t believe in God, either. He had told her that more than once, and while she didn’t agree with him, she respected his feelings. She also respected the fact that he had a graduate degree in art history from Columbia. He wasn’t dumb.
    â€œWhat if I said I’d had a look at heaven?” she asked.
    â€œI’d say it’s the medication talking. They have you on morphine. That’s strong stuff.”
    She gave a tiny head shake. “It’s not the medication.”
    â€œNo? Listen to you. Your words are slurred. It’s the medication.”
    Possibly. Still, she saw that scene and felt that light, felt the benevolence of it. “I don’t usually believe in things like this.”
    â€œDamn right you don’t,” Flash scolded. “Verity does. Do you want people laughing at you the way they laugh at her?”
    â€œBut I see this so clearly,” she pleaded.
    â€œI’m telling you, it’s the morphine and, if not that, the anesthesia. It’ll pass.” With more fear than humor, he added, “It better. I need you with your feet on the ground. You’re the sane one, Bree. Don’t flip out on me, huh?”
    Bree wasn’t flipping out. He was right. She was the sane one.
    But each time she closed her eyes, she was back in the operating room, hovering over the table, then rising, rising, and then there was that light. As confused as she was about what was real and what wasn’t, she couldn’t deny the calm that flowed through her each time she thought of that light. And there was more to the experience. She hadn’t told Flash the half of it. More returned with each wakeful stretch, much of it sketchy still, but exciting, baffling, even scary, if what she thought she had heard was true.
    Â 
    Dusk fell. Bree dreamed about the operating room again, dreamed of hovering above it and looking down. This time she saw a mole on the nape of the neck of one of the nurses.
    She awoke convinced that it wasn’t a dream at all. She had seen a mole in the operating room that night. But how, if she had been unconscious? There was only one way.
    Shaken, she forced her eyes open. The only light in the room was the dim glow of a corner lamp. It was a gentle light, less harsh than the overheads, but reassuring. She wouldn’t have wanted to wake up to total darkness and wonder which world she was in.
    She lay without moving for a while, trying to separate pain from other needs, deciding whether she wanted to act on any and, if so, how. First priority, easiest to meet, was water. Her mouth was still abominably dry.
    She had barely reached for the overhead bar, in an attempt to sit up, when the chair in the corner came alive. Her eyes widened on the man who approached. Uncommon height, tapering