What Could Have Been

My grandfather died in 2012. At the funeral in South Carolina, my brother and I sat on either side of my grandmother. My grandparents had split on a hot, muggy August night in 1977. "This time for good!" she said, and this time she meant it. Why this time? He had a done a lot of terrible things, but this was the first time he had shot at her. After the bullet missed, she ran barefoot out of the back of the house, through the woods, and never returned.

But they never divorced. You see, even though he was a rampant philanderer, wife beater, and felon a couple of times over, he thought divorce was the one thing in particular that would keep him out of heaven. By the day of the funeral, he might have found out if he was correct.

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