To Paradise

by Hanya Yanagihara

His path was never his own to forge, for someone had already done it for him, clearing obstacles he would never know had once existed. He was free, but he was also not.

Once, when he and his siblings were still quite young, probably soon after they came to live in Washington Square, they had had a conversation with their grandfather about Heaven, and after Grandfather had explained it, John had promptly said, “I’d like mine to be made all of ice cream,” but David, who did not care, then, for cold things, had disagreed: His Heaven would be made of cakes. He could see it—oceans made turgid with buttercream; mountains made of sponge; trees dangling candied cherries. He did not want to be in John’s Heaven; he wanted to be in his own. That night, when his grandfather came to wish him good night, he had asked him, anxious: How could God know what each person wanted? How could He be certain they were in the place they had dreamed of? His grandfather had laughed. “He knows, David,” he had said. “He knows, and He will make as many Heavens as He needs.” And so what if this was Heaven? Would he know it if it were? Perhaps not. But he knew it was not whence he had come: That was someone else’s Heaven, but it was not his. His was somewhere else, but it would not appear in front of him; rather, it would be his to find. Indeed, was that not what he had been taught, been made to hope for, his entire life? Now it was time to seek. Now it was time to be brave. Now he must go alone. So he would stand here for another moment, the bag leaden in his hand, and then he would take a breath, and then he would make his first step: his first step to a new life; his ...

But I did none of those things. I simply nodded, and closed my eyes, and before I fell asleep again, I heard her say, “Good boy,” and then felt her lay her palm on my forehead, and as I lost consciousness, I had the feeling that I was a child again, and that I was being given the chance to live my life all over, and this time, I would do everything correctly.

Even though I’ve been married to my husband for more than five years, I still find it difficult to know what to say to him.

“Promise me you’ll never do anything that will get her in trouble,” I said, and he nodded. “I won’t,” he said. “I know how to be discreet.” Discreet—what a depressing word to hear used by someone so young. It was a word from before my grandfather’s time, not a word that should have had to make a reappearance in our lexicon.

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.