Heaven Is A Deal by Michael Gerber

Ladies and Gents, I definitely married up.

“I put it in his cubby,” Griselda said. “Nobody’ll come looking for him, not even Priscilla.” My wife had an icy relationship with her co-teacher ever since they’d had a big argument around Christmas. Priscilla had told the kids that Episcopalians were Christian.

In the backseat, Anthony was happy as a clam, making his dinosaur fly around, eating cavemen. Hayden would know which kind of reptile it was, but I wouldn’t. Truth be told, the whole dinosaur thing makes me vaguely uncomfortable. They’re like a gateway drug. First you start liking dinosaurs, and pretty soon, you’re believing in evolution. It’s the same with space. That’s why Hayden didn’t learn about the Moon until she was nine. But shoot, he wasn’t my kid, I said to myself. Five minutes with Jesus, and he’d be on our side for good.

Tiny hollers from the backseat meant that another caveman had met his maker. “Hey Anthony, hey buddy,” I said. “Who wants to go to McDonald’s?”

I saw Griselda’s raised eyebrow. “Trying to butter him up,” I mumbled. “It’ll be cheap, I promise. We’ll go to Ar_y’s.”

“Okay.” Griselda nodded, then wrinkled her nose. “What smells?”

“Soon as this book sells, I’m going to buy a new ice-brush,” I said, tossing it out the window. “Forget Ar_y’s, we’re going to McDonald’s.”

 •     •     • Fifteen minutes later, we were at the drive-through. “Nothing for us,” I said to the unintelligible voice coming out of the box. “Just a Happy Meal for our little buddy in the back seat. Who is our son. Who belongs to us.”

“Which do you want,” Griselda said, looking through the mirror, “hamburger or chicken?”

“Hamburger!” Anthony chirped with a big smile. He really was a nice kid. Jesus was going to love him.

“And a milk?” I asked.

“No thank you. Coke!”

“Now, Anthony, little boys should always drink milk,” Griselda said, channeling her own father. Mr. Stemmons had a dairy farm for thirty years, until the whole hippy-dippy lactose intolerance thing happened. “They need it to grow big and strong.”

“But I can’t. God says.”

My ears pricked up. “What do you mean ‘God says,’ Anthony?” I turned to face him. “Being a pastor, I can assure you that nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say we can’t drink—”

“But not with a hamburger,” Anthony smiled.

Griselda’s hand flew to her mouth. “Kosh—”