46.

To a Catholic, some issues have no if. There simply is. Things are.

A certain way. The way they are. Beyond debate.

One doesn’t need proof of fingernails. Or gravity. Or death.

“My daughter Misty was a loving person,” Grandma said. She stood from the sofa, like an alcoholic proclaiming her disease. She nodded at Murray: “Misty loved you. Deeply.” Her eyes revealed a level of sorrow, and of hesitation, that McKenna had never seen.

The children watched and listened.

McKenna’s throat constricted. Lunch was long gone, dammit, nothing there.

“She loved each of you children,” Grandma said. One by one, she fastened the kids with a wistful stare. McKenna. Tears lustrous in Grandma’s eyes. Toby. Big, simple Toby. She dabbed snot with her hanky. With Audrey, her expression changed. Disapproval. That’s because Audrey refused to look up; she pulled at a loose thread in the carpet.

The nuns made a mental note of Audrey’s latest infraction.

Grandma Pencil cleared her throat. Turned to face Murray.

After the torturous foreplay, Grandma Pencil finally uttered what McKenna already knew she was going to utter: That Misty was now being broiled on the hottest griddles in the cosmos.

Grandma Pencil used the word “convinced.” As in, “I am convinced she is in Hell.” Clearly, it was the wrong word. “Convinced” implies that doubt was, at some point, a possibility. “Convinced” suggests that she’d been swayed by a body of compelling evidence before arriving at this view. “Convinced” leaves open the idea that she might have resisted, or questioned, or, God forbid, even wanted it to be untrue.

Her utterance spread through the room like poisonous gas. Everyone sucked it in.

Murray and Audrey had no real reference point. Hell? It was disrespectful to suggest this about anybody who had died—they knew this much—but really, what the hell was Hell? Something you made jokes about. A red guy with horns and a pitchfork.

Murray’s first response was a hammer-and-chisel laugh. It whacked at the air. His hands shot into his jean pockets. He rocked on his heels while his bottom teeth scratched his upper lip.

Grandma Pencil wouldn’t wait for him to speak. Her words spilled feverishly. This woman had never doubted herself, yet now she seemed afraid to leave even the smallest gap into which someone might insert a response. She quoted Corinthians: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” She cited the Fifth Commandment, adding that suicide, by the way, is self-murder. “It is God’s decision alone when life should be taken. To do it ourselves is to say we know better than God. Most importantly,” she said, “my daughter was not a believer. An unbeliever who kills herself only hastens her trip to the lake of fire .”

Spent, Grandma dropped onto the sofa beside the nuns. The Sears clock ticked. Outside, Snoodles barked at phantoms.

Toby broke the spell. His thick neck twisted so he could face Murray: “I don’t get it, Dad.” He frowned.

Nobody wanted to look at anyone.

“Mom didn’t commit suicide,” Toby continued. Like a boy, those eyes. Confused, hurt. But I thought you were going to measure my feet.

“The death certificate,” Murray answered, “is unambiguous.” His voice was scarcely a whisper. He’d never gotten angry in front of the children before. Not in eighteen years. He’d always worked things out in the basement. Maybe he wanted to run to the basement now. A vein throbbed on his temple. “Accidental overdose is the exact wording. I’m with Toby on this.” He turned to Grandma, his face the color of rug burn. “I don’t get what you’re saying .”

Before the nuns had another chance to squirm, and before Grandma Pencil could reply, the noise began.

It was Audrey. She lay on the carpet halfway between Toby’s recliner and the geezers’ sofa. Hair spread like spilled paint beneath her head. Her mouth, that raven hole, opened wide and belted out a preposterous, shocking laugh.

The nuns plugged their ears. They were frightened.

A liquefied honey bun climbed out of McKenna’s throat. Forgot about you !

It was ugly, Audrey’s laugh. An automatic rifle: hateful, hollow. She added to the noise with her fists, which pounded the floor. “Ha ha ha ha!” Boomboomboomboom.

Murray retreated a couple of steps, eyeing her as if she might explode.

Audrey’s face contorted. She gasped, the laughter firing and firing. The noise was so loud that no one could hear Toby imploring her to stop.

“I get it!” she yelled, breathlessly, between bursts. “I get it! Good one, Grandma! Ha ha ha! I get it!”

Toby lifted Audrey and carried her upstairs.

The nuns excused themselves, each one touching Murray on the arm as they passed. They vanished out the front door.

Murray and Grandma studied different spots on the carpet.

McKenna chewed.