Heaven Adjacent

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

People come into our lives, she thought, and it’s not always a forever kind of thing, and not always meant to be. Not every deal is for keeps.

But it’s a funny thing about insurance companies. They love to take your money when you’re healthy, but then when you get sick, they don’t pay nearly as much as you were set to expect.

Maybe everything deteriorates in time, and maybe that doesn’t make it any less worth having while it lasts.

There is no better way to learn how desperately you hate waiting than to think the waiting is over and then find out you were wrong.

But it just never does me a damn bit of good. Stuff happens no matter how I might feel about it.”