When the Heart Falls

I think about my parents again, about how stale their love has become. "How can you tell?"

"When two people devote their lives to each other, I don't care what it looks like, that's passion."

For the first time I wonder if my parents could still love each other, even after all of this.

We move on to The Gates of Hell in the garden, and I'm blown away by the level of detail and design in Rodin's work. The sculpture stands twenty feet high and thirteen feet wide and has miniature versions of his other work carved into it, with figures ranging from six inches to three feet in size. Independently, each of his pieces are amazing, but incorporated into this imposing gate they tell a grander story of human thought and suffering.

The weather has turned from sunshine to a slow drizzle. The other students take cover inside, but Winter and I stand in the rain admiring the sculpture.

There's almost too much to take in all at once. At the top, The Thinker is carved into the massive gate, forever stuck pondering his choices. That does sound like its own kind of hell—one I'm often stuck in myself.

But the images that strike me most powerfully are the tortured souls, carved into inhuman positions, destined to spend eternity suffering for their sins. "Are you Christian, Winter?"

She turns to face me, the rain misting her hair as it clings to her face. "I don't go to church or anything, but I was baptized as a baby. It's more like my heritage than my faith, I guess."

"You think hell exists?"

She shrugs. "Maybe for those who truly deserve it, though it seems to me people do a good enough job making their own hell on Earth."

"What about homosexuals? Do they deserve it?" I didn't expect to bring this up with her, now or ever, but it feels so natural to talk to Winter about everything.

Her response is instant as her eyes blaze with passion. "Of course not."

"What about those who take their own life? Do you think they deserve hell?" My heart falls into my gut as I wait for her answer.

"I don't think it matters how you die," she says. "My aunt and uncle used to work in the World Trade Centers. When the planes hit, they died painlessly, my parents told me. They died instantly, they told me. But I know that the heat melted the flesh from their bones like it melted the steel around them. I know that the smoke burned their throats and scorched their eyes until nothing but a corpse of ash remained."

Her voice hitches, and I reach for her hand, holding it as she talks.

"I can't think of a worse way to die." She squeezes my hand. "And I've tried. So, do I think there's a hell? Yes, I hope there is one. I hope the people who killed my aunt and uncle are there now, burning, just as my aunt and uncle burned. But do I think the way you die matters? No. Because life is hard and fleeting and cruel. And those that do well while alive, deserve some peace for it."

"What about those who are left behind?" I ask. This time it's her hand, her touch, giving me comfort. "Isn't it cruel to take your life, when it means leaving your loved ones behind to pick up the broken pieces?"

"Possibly, but I don't think that condemns them to hell. I imagine you're already living in hell if you feel forced to take your own life. We all do things that are construed as cruel by others, even if that's not our intention. Sometimes we, as humans, are just so wrapped up in our own misery we aren't capable of seeing past it into the lives of those we love. Isn't that level of pain punishment enough? If, indeed, any sort of punishment is even warranted."

I think back once again to my dad asking me, "What's bothering you, kid?" And I realize she's right. We are all cruel to each other, intentional or not, at one point or another. It's the nature of being human that, in our own blindness, we lash out and blind others.

Examining the sculpture with a new light, I smile and stroke her hand with my thumb. "I like it."

Winter grins. "Me too."

"I hope your novel does well, Winter." I can see her future, the success and dozens of books on the New York Times bestseller list. "Some people deserve to have their dreams come true."

Winter is silent for several minutes, deep in thought until she turns to me, a shy smile on her beautiful lips. "I can help you, you know? With your French."

I'd said no once before, convinced I could handle it myself. That didn't work out. So I surprise myself and go against my natural impulse for once. "I'd like that. I'd really like that."





WINTER DEVEAUX

CHAPTER 11