Dina & Dan's Progeny

The little girl asked her mother, asked her "what does heaven look like?" and her mother said, "I don't know, I was never much of a believer." Which was not exactly true, she pictured her father and her grandparents together somewhere, doing something like drinking tea or eating fried chicken. She pictured them together the night she decided she was going to kill herself, the night, drunk, she convinced her boyfriend Dan, the little girl's father, to slit her throat, she took the knife and put it in his hand, on her knees put the blade to her throat, screamed at him to do it, please, please, she is weeping and he is weeping, Dan puts the blade down on the counter, the little girl's mother in a fetal position on the kitchen floor crying, why can't you just do it you fucking retard, why can't you just kill me. She is thinking of her grandparents and her father, what the fuck are they doing right now. I have people to see, she says. And then, she wakes up the next day. She needs Gatorade but all that is in the refrigerator is coconut water, she gulps it down, almost chokes with her hard gulping. Gatorade would be so much better. She smokes a cigarette. She fingers her newly formed scab on her neck. She goes to Planned Parenthood and she is pregnant. "What does heaven look like?" she asks her mom, the little girl, "what does heaven feel like? does it smell good? what does it smell like? are there colors we have never seen before? tell me what heaven is like, mama."

What can you say to a child like this, heaven is not real, or believe whatever you want, whatever makes you happy, even if it doesn't make me happy, your grandmother, my mother, used to say, whatever makes you happy, thrills me to death--that's a nice saying, isn't it? Full of acceptance and love. Whatever makes you happy makes me even happier. What can you say to a child who asks about heaven more than heaven is not real. I'm sorry but there are no colors or smells or people, my love. There is nothing there. And your grandparents and great-grandparents are not together and that was a stupid thing for me to think so many years ago. I just wanted to be with family, you will tell her when she is older and you explain your scar on your throat, all I could think about was your grandpa and your great-grandparents and I had had enough of your dad, and I was done, I hope you never understand.