Free The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

your father. Compared to him, it’s as if all other men are homeless dogs that bed in the mud.”
    â€œWas Walt Whitman the one to write about the road less traveled by?” Mom used her napkin to dab her sweat.
    â€œThat was Robert Frost,” Grand answered.
    â€œAnd he was gay?”
    â€œNo, Mom, Walt Whitman was the”—Grand glanced at Dad and swallowed the word he was going to say—“the one who wasn’t into women. Or so they say. But if he’s not in hell, maybe he was straight. Ain’t that whatcha said, little devil?” Grand looked across the table at Sal. “That Whitman’s not in hell?”
    â€œHomosexuality is not flammable. You can’t burn by it alone.” Sal was helping himself to another spoon of green beans.
    â€œWell, they do say it is a sin.” Mom held her glass of ice water to her cheek. “Like my momma used to say, when you play in the thorns, you ain’t gonna get nothin’ but scratched.”
    â€œHmm-mmm.” Dad scrunched his brow as he buttered his roll. “I think it’s more of a psychological disease. Just something a little off in the mind. They could probably fix it with a little determination.”
    â€œThen there’s this new sickness goin’ around.” Mom clicked her tongue in sympathy. “I feel bad for ’em, I really do, but some say it’s God punishin’ ’em for their lifestyle. Maybe He is, punishin’ ’em, that is. I mean this sickness is from that moment of ’em comin’ together. It makes ya think maybe God is tellin’ ’em to stop comin’ together. Maybe He’s tellin’ ’em to stay apart.” She patted the sides of her neck. “Lordy, this heat has a fury, don’t it?”
    Grand leaned to one side, as if the chair he was sitting in was teetering on an edge and he had to shift his weight to keep from falling over. He asked me to pass the salt, though he never actually used it once I gave it to him. He just held it so tight, before setting it down.
    â€œSal?” Dad lightly drummed his fork against his plate. “I’m interested, if you are the devil, that is, what is hell like?”
    Sal quickly swallowed his mouthful of potatoes and briefly wiped his mouth before saying hell is a hallway of doors.
    â€œAnd behind each door is a suffering of the individual soul. One door I opened was to a man sitting in a desert. There was nothing scary about it. There was blue sky. White fluffy clouds. Rose-colored sands. There were no snakes hissing at him. No scorpions about to sting. The heat nor the sun was a threat. A thornless saguaro shaded him, and he was neither hot nor thirsty, as he had a full canteen by his side, would always have it full and by his side, no matter how much he drank. To someone else, that empty desert might have been paradise, but to that man it was absolute hell.
    â€œAnother door opened to a woman in lipstick and a dress that would cost the farm. She was sitting in a room full of flowers and tea and those little frosted cakes. She was holding a beautiful, gold-fringed blanket, cradling it as if it were wrapped around a child. You could hear the child, hear him crying, hear him laughing, hear him sleeping even. But never was he seen. All she could do was to stare into the empty blanket and will continue to do so even after grief becomes a word too small for the feeling.
    â€œAnother door opened to a day. The third Wednesday in an October. It was a country festival, the Pumpkin Show, they called it, where thousand-pound pumpkins were being judged and autumn leaves were confetti in the air. No one was crying. No one was sad. No one was noticing the man whose hell this was and who stood in the middle of the largest pumpkin pie ever baked and screamed. He screamed long. He’s screaming still, but no one hears him but himself … and me.
    â€œPeople think hell is about flames