Page 40 of Born to be Wilder

She looked around at the gift shop, at the wooden Ark on the shelves, at the families around us.

“Maybe one of them is exactly right. Maybe they’re all a little right. Maybe none of them are. But I’ll tell you what I cannot believe.” She met my eyes. “I cannot believe that if there is a God who built all of this”—she gestured upward and outward, at the Ark, at everything—“he would make you spend eternity without us. You’ve been praying for us for years. You’ve been good enough for four people your whole life. I think if anyone’s earned a favor, it’s you. And I think your favor is us.”

I stared at her.

“Maybe,” she continued, “you’re so good, and your prayers are so loud, that He’ll just drag us up there along with you whether we deserve it or not. You’re our loophole, Doris. You always have been.”

“You really think that?” I whispered.

“I think that if He can fit seven thousand animals on a wooden boat and invent a self-managing manure system in the Bronze Age, He can figure out how to get three delinquents into heaven on your behalf.”

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob came out of me.

“You’re always our savior, Doris,” Alice said, rubbing my shoulder. “I don’t see why that would change just because we’re dead.”

Sylvie squeezed my hand. “You’ve been carrying this the whole time and never said anything?”

“I didn’t want to make it about me,” I said. “It’s Alice’s cancer. It’s not about my feelings about Heaven.”

“Your feelings about Heaven are allowed to exist,” Sylvie said firmly. “They don’t take anything away from Alice.”

Alice nodded once, confirming this.

I took a long, shaky breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve been praying hard enough for all four of us for years,” I said, mostly to myself. “Ever since I met you all… loved you all. And I’ve worried deep down about what it means to love people who aren’t believers. But now with Alice’s diagnosis, it suddenly feels so real. Our deaths aren’t an abstract thought anymore. It’s going to happen. Maybe not now, but someday we’re all going to die. And it just scares me so much not knowing what my afterlife is going to be without you all. What if they don’t let you in?”

Marge snorted. “Come on, Doris. You know us. First off, I do think you’re going to drag us to Heaven with you, but if for some reason you don’t, you really think a little pearly white gate is gonna keep us away from you? Nah. We’ll pound on that thing day and night until we annoy them enough to open it up and let us join you in the good place.”

I chuckled despite my enormous and complicated feelings. “I can see you doing that.”

“God is going to let us in because you’re you and you’re good and you’re wonderful,” Sylvie said. “But Marge is right. If He doesn’t, He’ll let us in because we don’t take no for an answer and we’ll annoy Him to let us come play with you until He agrees.”

I laughed, which surprised me. Then I laughed a little more. I found my travel pack of tissues in my cardigan pocket and blew my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was a lot. I’ve never said any of that out loud before.”

“Don’t apologize,” Sylvie said. “I hate that you’ve been worried about this all alone and never shared it with us, but it also goes to show, once again, what a good person you are. You’re not just worried for your soul; you’re worried for ours. And Marge is right: If there is a God, and He’s half as good as you say He is, He won’t make you spend eternity without your best friends.”

I blinked, looking up through watery eyes at the three faces of the women I couldn’t imagine living without.

“I think you’re so good,” Marge said, “that God is going to look at your record and say, ‘Fine, Doris. You can bring those three delinquent misfits with you. Just keep them away from the kangaroos.’”

I let out a shaky, wet laugh.

Alice laughed too. “They’re right. You’re our savior, Doris. You always have been. I don’t see why that would change just because we stopped breathing. You’ll save us. I know you will.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t have a big religious breakthrough,” Sylvie said. “But it just doesn’t work that way. And God should understand that He made us the way He made us, and it turns out He made us skeptics. Now, can He really fault us for that when the time comes to join you in the clouds?”

I wiped my face with a tissue. “I guess not. He did make you the way He made you, so maybe He understands why it’s so hard for you to have faith like I do. You’re just not built that way.”

“Exactly.” Marge pointed a finger at her. “You can’t fault your creations for behaving how you created them.”

“You really think He’d have a system in place for people like me? Who just happen to love people who can’t find their way on their own?”

“Doris, you’re our ‘get into Heaven free’ card,” Marge joked. “And thank God for that, because now I feel like I can do all sorts of shady crap and I’ll still get into the good place.”

“Marge! You wouldn’t!” I swatted at her, and the movement made my Viking hat fall over my eyes.

Marge lifted it back up and put it in place. “Serial killer? Nah. Too gruesome. Bank robber? Eh, I’m rich now. Oh! I know… I could be an art thief! Mission Impossible style!” She started pretending to creep around on a mission, and I couldn’t help but laugh.