Heaven Adjacent

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

“A piece of motherly advice,” Roseanna said. “I’m letting you down. I get that. People always will. That’s not as much of a downer as it sounds. There’s a reason people will always let you down. It’s because they came to this weird planet to live their own lives. Not anybody else’s. Classic case of needs in conflict. You get what I’m saying?”

Why do we live like we’re not going to die?”

“Nonsense,” Roseanna said. “I’m beginning to think that’s the reason we’re all down here on this planet together. To try to make things a little easier for each other. Why else would we interact with people at all?

When people are young, excitement is a good thing. Living like I’m living now seems boring. Then you get older and you’re wearing the scars of all that excitement you’ve chased after your whole life, and then what you used to call boring starts to look serene. Then you start to view boring as a lofty goal. But maybe you’ll get to be my age and still love the city. Plenty of people do. The idea is that we get to do what suits us. The idea is not that what suits me has to suit you, too. If you can accept where I want to live, I can accept where you want to live. Has to be a two-way street, right?”