To Paradise

by Hanya Yanagihara

It wasn’t until I got home that I cried. Charlie was still at work, thank goodness, and so I was alone. I cried for Charlie, for how much I loved her, and for how I hoped she would know that I did what I thought best for her, how I had chosen her safety over her fulfillment. I cried for her perhaps-husband, for his need to protect himself, for how limited this country had made his life. I cried for the man he loved, who would never be able to make a life with him. I cried for the men in the cards I’d seen and rejected on Charlie’s behalf. I cried for Nathaniel, and David, and even Eden, all of them long disappeared, none of whom Charlie remembered. I cried for my grandparents and for Aubrey and Norris and for Hawai‘i. But mostly, I cried for myself, for my loneliness, and for this world I’d helped make, and for all these years: all the dead, all the lost, all the vanished.