Even her flat sorry-I’m-not-available-to-take-your-call speech pierced him, mundane and poignant at the same time. He wondered if he would hear her voice again, or see her.

“Sam, I love you, I love you more than I can say. Listen, the call just came. A heart match. I’m flying out. I arranged with Dr. Hobb and his team to do the surgery. I didn’t tell you because you would think I’m paranoid, but I don’t think I am, Sam, I think what I did was what I had to do. Maybe I didn’t handle the diagnosis well, maybe it made me a little crazy, and maybe paranoia is a side effect of these medications, but I don’t think so. Anyway, I’ll sort all that out when I’m well, when I get back, if I make it. Sam, Sam, my God, Sam, I want you with me, I wish you could be, but not if I die, and I might, it is a possibility. So it’s best you stay here. What I want for you, no matter what, is that you finish the novel, that it’s a huge success for you, and that you are always as happy as you so very much deserve to be. Maybe you could dedicate the book to me. No, scratch that. It’s not right for me to ask. Dedicate it to anybody you want, to some idiot who doesn’t deserve it, if that’s what you want. But if the book is at all about love, Sam, and knowing you I think it has to be, if it’s at all about love, maybe you can tell them you learned at least a little bit about the subject from me. I learned everything about it from you. Call you soon. See you soon. Sam. Precious Sam.”

Ryan’s suitcase had been packed for weeks. At 5:45, he rode with it in the elevator down to the main floor and carried it through the grand, silent rooms to the front door.

This was his dream house. He had devoted much time and thought to the design and the construction of every element. He loved this house. But he did not say good-bye to it or waste a moment admiring it one last time. In the end, the house didn’t matter.

At this hour, neither the domestic staff nor the landscaping staff was in evidence. Outside in the predawn dark, the neighborhood lay quiet except for the hollow hoot of an owl and the idling engine of the ambulance in the driveway.

Dr. Hobb had ordered the van-style ambulance. Using Ryan’s security password, he had phoned the guard gate to ensure that the vehicle would be admitted to the community.

One of the paramedics waited at the front door. He insisted on carrying the suitcase for Ryan.

After putting the bag in the back of the van and assisting Ryan inside, the paramedic said, “Would you like me to ride back here with you or up front with my partner?”

“I’ll be fine here alone,” Ryan assured him. “I’m not in any imminent danger.”

He lay on his back on the wheeled stretcher for the trip to the airport.

Around him were storage cabinets, a bag resuscitator, a suction machine, two oxygen cylinders, and other equipment: reminders that for a while to come, his world would shrink to the dimensions of a hospital.

Not long from now, Dr. Hobb would saw through Ryan’s breastbone, open his chest, remove his diseased heart while a machine maintained his circulation, and transplant into him the heart of a caring stranger.

Instead of escalating, his fear diminished. For so long, he had felt helpless, at the mercy of Fate. Now something positive could be done. We are not born to wait. We are born to do.

The driver used the array of rotating beacons on the roof to advise traffic to yield. At this hour, the freeways should not be clogged, and a siren might not be necessary.

As a driver, Ryan had a need for speed, and as a passenger, he had never before gone as fast as this-especially not while flat on his back. He liked the loud swash of the tires, which reminded him of breaking surf, and the whistle of the wind, which the ambulance created as it knifed through the early morning, a whistling that was to him neither a banshee shriek nor the keening of an alarm, but almost a lullaby.

They were nearing the airport when he realized that he had not called either his mother or his father. He had half intended to phone them.

He had never told them about his diagnosis. Bringing them up to speed would be tedious, especially at this early hour, when his mother would be set on CRANKY and his father would be set on STUPID, and neither of them would have the desire or the capacity to switch to a different mode.

Anyway, they had nothing to give him that he needed and much to give that he did not want.

If the worst happened, he had taken care of them generously in his will. They would be able to cruise through the rest of their lives with even greater self-indulgence than they had displayed to this point.

He felt no animosity toward them. They had never loved him, but they had never hit him, either. Although they were not capable of love, they were capable of hitting, so they deserved credit for their restraint in that regard. What they had done to themselves was worse than anything they had done to him.

If he wanted to take the time for a good-bye, he would receive far less emotional satisfaction from saying good-bye to his parents than he would have received if he had delayed to say good-bye to his house.

Their destination was Long Beach Airport. Arranging an emergency flight out of LAX would have been too time-consuming and frustrating.

In the early light, standing on the Tarmac, the Medijet loomed larger than the corporate Learjet that Ryan had intended to use. Dr. Hobb preferred to charter this aircraft to accommodate both his team and a contingent of the patient’s friends and family. In this case, Ryan’s contingent consisted of the image of Samantha that he carried in his mind, which sustained him.

Furthermore, the Medijet came with medical equipment that might be required en route, and it had the capability of handling patients who were not ambulatory or otherwise had special needs.

Three ambulances, which had ferried Dr. Hobb and his team from different points in the Los Angeles area, were lined up near the jet. The last of their suitcases and other baggage was being transferred to the aircraft.

While a paramedic took his suitcase to the Medijet steward, Ryan stood for a moment, peering east, savoring the pink and turquoise and peach celebration of the risen sun.

Then he boarded the jet to fly to his rebirth or to his death.

Ryan walked in yellow radiance, and yellow crunched under his shoes, and the melting yellow warmth of an autumn sun buttered his skin.

In the yellow distance, someone called his name, and though the voice was faint, he thought he recognized it. He could not identify who summoned him, but the voice made him happy.

He seemed to walk for a long time out of yellow into yellow, untroubled by the sameness or by his lack of a destination, and then he lay supine on a black bench that he found comfortable in spite of it being iron. Overhead hung a canopy of yellow and all around him spread a yellow carpet.

When he breathed in, he discovered what yellow smelled like, and when he breathed out, he regretted expelling the yellow that he had inhaled.

Gradually he became aware that someone stood over him, holding his right wrist, timing his pulse.

Dazzling yellow sun pierced the canopy of yellow aspen leaves at a thousand points, yellow burnishing yellow into a more intense and brighter yellowness, backlighting the person who attended to him and simultaneously enveloping that presence in a misty yellow aurora through which Ryan could see no features that would allow him to identify his caregiver.