“No need. We’re here.”
They sat in the car for a bit, waiting for at least a momentary break in the rain. The cabin standing in front of them was a modest but clean little place, perched over the mine pond. Then David put a hand on her thigh and leaned over and kissed her. She could feel him breathing, trembling. Barely containing himself. It was getting close to Green Stripes territory, she thought.
Amy had been known to read Cosmo from time to time, and in every single issue they’d do some variety of a BRING OUT THE ANIMAL IN YOUR MAN! headline. David had once pointed out that every woman can remember the first time she got legitimately frightened by pushing the wrong button—or the right one—and actually saw that “animal.” Maybe it’s heels in the bedroom, maybe it’s a little bit of pain, maybe it’s dressing up in a schoolgirl outfit and doing baby talk. Every man, said David, has something, and sometimes even the man doesn’t know what it is until he sees it. Amy had stumbled across David’s “animal button” when she showed him the Ulala costume she’d made for the game convention.
There was nothing particularly scandalous about it, a flared white vinyl skirt—maybe a little too short—with a hoop sewn into it to give it a retro futurism look. White boots, the dumb pink wig, the gloves. Part of the costume she had added without David’s knowledge, though, was a modest pair of green-and-white-striped underpants. This was another inside joke, meant only for him. In the racier anime (Japanese animation, if you’re too old or cool to know that word), half the time the girls are wearing these green striped panties—some kind of culture-specific fetish, apparently. David thought anime was ridiculous, and Japanese fetishes even more so. She figured he would get a good laugh from them.
David had been on his way out the door when she walked out of the bedroom to show him the finished outfit. He gave her a cursory compliment and, right before he would have closed the door, she had playfully lifted the skirt to show him the striped underwear. She laughed. David did not. He had gotten this look in his eye, then came back inside and closed the door behind him. What followed had been … frantic. The underwear actually wound up with a little rip in them. She had found one of his animal buttons.
That was the vibe she was getting from him now.
David pulled back, looked out at the rain, and said impatiently, “We’re going to be waiting all weekend. Let’s just make a run for it.”
So, they ran through the rain and bumbled their way inside the cabin, giggling like teenagers. There were animal heads on the walls and the sound of the rain on the metal roof was deafening. Predictably, the moment they were inside, the winds died down and it was just rain again. Across town, John was investigating the trunk of Nymph’s car, their pursuit having ended with it getting sandwiched between the Jeep and a utility pole.
Amy and David went through to the screened-in porch, the rain now falling straight down in a steady, peaceful rhythm. Across the pond there was a little chapel perched up on a grassy hill. David kissed her and pawed at her and she asked if they could slow down a bit.
She said, “We have all weekend, right?”
“I’ll try to control myself, but I make no promises.” He looked out toward the pond. “Do you like it?”
Today, there was no hint of the shimmering teal water that could look at times like a setting from a fairy tale—flood water runoff had turned it into a swollen, muddy puddle, waves of fizzy drop splashes rolling across the surface.
“It’s beautiful.”
David sat down on a wicker sofa and patted the seat next to him. “I would say that I wished it was a nicer day, but I know better. This is Amy weather.”
“Yeah. Well, when I have a roof over me—I’m sure I wouldn’t like it if I was standing out in it all day. And, you know, if the whole town wasn’t under a flood warning. But yeah, this amount of rain right here—fat drops, falling straight down, just a cool breeze wafting in … makes me want to just curl up.”
David put an arm around her. She leaned into him, felt his warmth.
She said, “I know this isn’t your thing. The cabin, all that. Aside from, you know, a private place to have just tons of sex. But this right here, just sitting here and melting into each other, us under a roof while the rain falls out there. This is Heaven, for me. These moments, like this.”
“Do you believe in Heaven, Amy? Like a literal place?”
“I just meant it as a figure of speech.”
“Still. Serious question.”
“I don’t know. But if it’s real, maybe you get to pick what it’s like. Maybe everybody gets their own. Some burly biker dude, he gets to ride his Harley forever with his gang, maybe the warriors go to Valhalla. But I just want this. Not the rain or the cabin but … just for all the distractions to go away. The money, the work, having to constantly stick food and pills into your body to keep it functioning. All that stuff that puts distance between us, all those boundaries, all those fears, it all goes away until it’s just us, together. For as long as we want. Not even saying anything if we don’t want to. Just … being together.”
“What would Hell be like?”
She hesitated. “Well that took a dark turn.”
“You’ve never thought about it?”
She considered, then said, “In Auschwitz, they used to have these little cells called stand-up cells. There would be a door about a foot tall on the floor, you had to crawl into it, and once you were inside you were in this little space about the size of a coffin but only about four feet tall—not enough room to sit, or lie down. You can’t sleep or relax, you’re just hunched over, in like this vertical, airless concrete box. Then they closed that little door at your feet and it was pitch black—no window. And you just stood like that, hunched over and cramped, alone, in pitch darkness, for months. So I guess it would be like that, only forever.”
“Jesus.”
“You asked.”
“But you don’t believe in that, do you? Like any kind of Hell.”
“I know you do.”
“Yeah, because I say Heaven isn’t Heaven if you’ve got Hitler and rapists hanging around, just soaking in Jesus’s swimming pool and chatting up their former victims. And that wouldn’t even be Heaven for them anyway—some people aren’t happy unless they’re victimizing somebody. Their only possible Heaven would be everyone else’s Hell. So, do you believe in it? A place of eternal suffering?”
She said, “No.”
“Why?”
“How did we get off on this subject?”
“Bear with me.”
“I don’t believe in Hell because it would make Heaven impossible.”
“Because you couldn’t enjoy Heaven if you knew those people were suffering.”
“I think if you’re capable of enjoying an eternal paradise while millions of other people are screaming in agony, forever, you’re a sociopath.”
David said, “That’s my point. Right there. The assholes throw themselves into a fire, but then your happiness is ruined because they get burned. They use your sympathy against you. That’s the final trick of Hell—its fire burns everyone.”
Amy said nothing, because she wanted this tangent to end, already not liking where it was going. David thought for a moment, as if he was finally getting to what he really wanted to say, but having arrived there, wasn’t sure how to say it.
Finally, he said, “Do you remember when we were first talking about getting married, uh, seven or so years ago, and I said I wouldn’t do it until you had gotten your degree? Do you remember why I said that?”
“You wanted me to be self-sufficient. You didn’t want me to be getting married because I was scared of trying to make it on my own. Because then I’d be stuck with you even if I was unhappy later.”