Hideaway

chaos had descended.
    Sometimes, when he thought about the troublesome bureaucrats they had dealt with six weeks ago, when they had first decided to adopt, he wanted to go back to those agencies and throttle the social workers who had thwarted them, just choke a little common sense into them. And wouldn't the expression of that desire make the good nuns and priests of St. Thomas's Home eager to commend one of their charges to his care!
    “You're still feeling well, no lasting effects from your ordeal, eating well, sleeping well?” Father Jiminez inquired, obviously just to pass the time while they waited for the subject of the meeting to arrive, not meaning to impugn Hatch's claim to a full recovery and good health.
    Lindsey—by nature more nervous than Hatch, and usually more prone to overreaction than he was—leaned forward on the sofa. Just a touch sharply, she said, “Hatch is at the top of the recovery curve for people who've been resuscitated. Dr. Nyebern's ecstatic about him, given him a clean bill of health, totally clean. It was all in our application.”
    Trying to soften Lindsey's reaction lest the priests and nuns start to wonder if she was protesting too much, Hatch said, “I'm terrific, really. I'd recommend a brief death to everyone. It relaxes you, gives you a calmer perspective on life.”
    Everyone laughed politely.
    In truth, Hatch was in excellent health. During the four days following reanimation, he had suffered weakness, dizziness, nausea, lethargy, and some memory lapses. But his strength, memory, and intellectual functions returned one hundred percent. He had been back to normal for almost seven weeks.
    Jiminez's casual reference to sleeping habits had rattled Hatch a little, which was probably what had also put Lindsey on edge. He had not been fully honest when he had implied he was sleeping well, but his strange dreams and the curious emotional effects they had on him were not serious, hardly worth mentioning, so he did not feel that he had actually lied to the priest.
    They were so close to getting their new life started that he did not want to say the wrong thing and cause any delays. Though Catholic adoption services took considerable care in the placement of children, they were not pointlessly slow and obstructive, as were public agencies, especially when the would-be adopters were solid members of the community like Hatch and Lindsey, and when the adoptee was a disabled child with no option except continued institutionalization. The future could begin for them this week, as long as they gave the folks from St. Thomas's, who were already on their side, no reason to reconsider.
    Hatch was a little surprised by the piquancy of his desire to be a father again. He felt as if he had been only half-alive, at best, during the past five years. Now suddenly all the unused energies of that half-decade flooded into him, overcharging him, making colors more vibrant and sounds more melodious and feelings more intense, filling him with a passion to go, do, see, live. And be somebody's dad again.
    “I was wondering if I could ask you something,” Father Duran said to Hatch, turning away from the Satsuma collection. His wan complexion and sharp features were enlivened by owlish eyes, full of warmth and intelligence, enlarged by thick glasses. “It's a little personal, which is why I hesitate.”
    “Oh, sure, anything,” Hatch said.
    The young priest said, “Some people who've been clinically dead for short periods of time, a minute or two, report … well … a certain similar experience. …”
    “A sense of rushing through a tunnel with an awesome light at the far end,” Hatch said, “a feeling of great peace, of going home at last?”
    “Yes,” Duran said, his pale face brightening. “That's what I meant exactly.”
    Father Jiminez and the nuns were looking at Hatch with new interest, and he wished he could tell them what they wanted to hear. He glanced at Lindsey on the sofa beside him, then around at the assemblage, and said, “I'm sorry, but I didn't have the experience so many people have reported.”
    Father Duran's thin shoulders sagged a little. “Then what did you experience?”
    Hatch shook his head. “Nothing. I wish I had. It would be … comforting, wouldn't it? But in that sense, I guess I had a boring death. I don't remember anything whatsoever from the time I was knocked out when the car rolled over until I woke up hours later in a hospital bed, looking at rain