Start writing a story that…
Step 1: starts with this dialogue: I don't want to leave
Step 2: add a scene that takes place: in a coffee shop
Step 3: add this word: church
Step 4: add this word: pencil
Step 5: include dialogue that begins with: We have to go home
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"I don't want to leave," Jeremy says in his high-pitched six-year-old whine and pulls on my black skirt to keep me from moving.
I look at him, my eyebrow raised, trying to understand his reasoning. Around us are relatives, in their finest somber clothes, sitting shiva.
"Why don't you want to leave?" I ask him.
"They have donuts."
"I'll take you to the coffee shop nearby. They have donuts."
We take our coats and my purse and head for the door. I say goodbye to the few relatives in our path and we get outside with little fuss. I take Jeremy's hand and we walk the five blocks to the town center where a small coffee shop sits at the center of a series of tiny, local stores. Inside, I order a chocolate donut and milk for Jeremy and a coffee for myself. We sit at a booth near the window from which I can see dusk settling outside.
Jeremy jams half the donut in his mouth then looks at me.
"Is Uncle Raymond going to hell?" he asks, crumbs of chocolate falling from his wide open mouth and onto his shirt.
"What? No. Why?"
"I told Rebecca he died and she asked me if he went to church because she said if he didn't then he'll go to hell now that he's dead." He takes another bite of donut and chews it. "I don't want Uncle Raymond to go to hell."
"I'm sure he won't," I say, sipping my coffee. I try to recall when Rebecca's mother, Susan, may have mentioned church or religion, but I can't think of a time when we had any conversation about religion. It worries me, not to know.
Jeremy finishes his donut and grabs a napkin.
"Can I have a pencil?" he asks.
I dig in my purse and find a tiny pencil left over from a summer golf game. He takes it, laughs at its small size, and begins to draw on the napkin. Large swirls are formed into clouds and stick-figured people stand among them with large masses on their backs.
"What are you drawing?" I ask.
"Heaven," he says. "Cause I think Uncle Raymond should go there."
I drink my coffee and stare at his vision of heaven, full of clouds with stick-figure angels frolicking among them. I try to feel relief that Jeremy is no longer fearful that my brother will spend an eternity in hell, but I feel no better. I see the gravesite where we each took up the shovel and scooped dirt onto the lowered coffin. I imagine my brother's cold, injured body lying beneath the dirt, neither in hell nor in heaven. Just there, in the dirt, for eternity.
"We have to go home," I say.
