Page 73 of The Hangman's Rope

I drank and she sipped at the hot liquid.

“Don’t you worry about that, baby. Even asking for something like this isn’t liable enough to send you there.”

She snorted indelicately at that.

“I’m pretty sure premeditated murder is enough to send even the most pious of souls straight to Hell. Do not pass ‘go’ do not collect two hundred dollars, butdirectlyto Hell.”

“Come sit on the porch with me, honey,” I said and she nodded, standing up from her seat. I came around the island and put my hand to her back, lightly guiding her to the doors through the dining area and out onto the porch. There were a couple of seats back here, a small table between them. She took the one closest to the door and I went around to the other one taking a seat. She sat and we looked out over the ornate porch railing, over the darkened cemetery.

“Confession time,” I told her softly.

She looked over to me, curiously.

“I’m a firm believer that if there’s a Hell, we’re in it.”

Her curiosity deepened in her eyes as she stared at me over the rim of her mug as she sipped at her tea thoughtfully.

“Why do you say that?” she asked softly.

I sighed and leaned back, rocking in my seat. It was an old pair of porch rockers up here, still in good shape, maybe needing a fresh coat of paint, but otherwise serviceable.

“Some of the things I’ve seen, some of the shit I’ve done…” I trailed off. “Some of the shit I’ve seen other people do to other people…”the shit they did to someone as pure as you,I thought to myself but didn’t want to say it out loud.

She plucked the thought right out of my head when she said softly, “What they did to me…”

I gave her a look like she’d hit the nail on the head but didn’t respond, opting to take a swig of my beer, instead.

“Bad things happen to good people entirely too much for me to believe we aren’t all in some kind of fucked-up version of Hell. There’s no place we go when we die where we burn for all eternity…”

She looked out over the cemetery.

“Then where do we go?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Won’t find out until we get there,” I said. “I don’t believe it’s a place of suffering, or some eternal lake of fire, or whatever.”

“You think we all go to heaven?” she asked.

I started to shake my head, but then stopped.

“If we learned our lessons,” I said, “then maybe. I think we’re just reborn – that we just keep right on doing it over and over again until the lesson takes.”

She looked thoughtful then and nodded slowly.

“I could see that,” she murmured.

“What’d you think happens?” I asked.

“Honestly, I never thought about it before.”

“Before..?” I prompted.

“Any of this, I guess,” she said. “Before waking up on that cold steel table.”

I nodded, “You’re young yet, people your age don’t tend to think about their mortality unless they’re given a reason to.”

She closed her eyes, and let the steam from her mug relax her face.

“You talk as though you’re an old and decrepit man,” she teased.

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