The linoleum in the kitchen of our little house on Maple Street had a yellow stain right where Arthur dropped his percolator coffee back in nineteen-eighty-two, and for forty-three years I walked around it like it was a holy relic. Arthur was a man who believed in contracts. He had a filing cabinet in the basement with three decades of automobile titles, insurance policies, and appliance warranties, all sorted alphabetically in faded manila folders. When he died of a sudden ticker failure on a chilly Tuesday morning in October, I spent three days going through his drawers just to make sure he hadn’t hidden a secondary life insurance policy behind the winter coats.

That was Arthur. He liked knowing where the period went at the end of every sentence.

Three years later, my own heart finally gave out while I was trying to reach a jar of peach preserves on the top shelf of the pantry. I remember the floor coming up to meet me, and then I remember the light. It wasn’t the kind of blinding white light you see on television shows. It looked more like the late afternoon sun coming through our front bay window right after I washed the glass with vinegar and water. And right there by the pearly entrance, leaning against a marble pillar like he owned the place, was Arthur. He was wearing his favorite green cardigan with the leather buttons I sewed on myself.

The moment I saw him, I felt that familiar tug in my chest, the one that used to make me drop my grocery bags when he came home early from the hardware store.

I ran across that shiny floor as fast as my newly repaired knees would carry me, my arms wide open. “Honey! We’re finally together again!” I shouted, breathless and grinning from ear to ear. I went in for the embrace, ready to fall right against his shoulder the way I had a thousand times before. But he didn’t catch me. He stepped back. Right into the shadow of the pillar.

“Whoa! Hold on a second, Arlene,” he said, holding his palms up like I was a stray dog coming too close to his porch. I stopped dead in my tracks, my arms still half-spread, staring at him like he had grown a second head. “Why?” I asked, my voice dropping an octave because the warmth in my chest was turning cold. He gave that little half-smile he always used when he was about to explain why we couldn’t afford a new washing machine until the spring thaw. “Remember our wedding vows?” he asked, tilting his head. “Of course I do,” I snapped, feeling the old irritation spike right through my eternity. “We promised to stay together until death.” He nodded, looking terribly pleased with himself. “Exactly.” He smiled wider. “Well… death finally did its job.”

I stood there on the clouds, blinking at him. “What do you mean by that?” I asked. He cleared his throat, adjusting his collar the way he did whenever he was reciting church bylaws to the deacon. “Our marriage contract has expired, Arlene. We signed up for the duration of our earthly existence. The ink is dry. The term is up.” I stared at him for a long, silent beat. The silence didn’t feel deafening, but it felt remarkably quiet, like the house after Arthur junior moved out for college. I looked down at my sensible walking shoes, then back up at his smug, familiar face. I didn’t yell. I didn’t throw a cloud at him. Instead, a slow, warm feeling started right at the back of my neck and spread all the way down to my toes.

Then I smiled. “Okay, honey.” He relaxed his shoulders instantly, letting out a long breath of relief that ruffled his thinning gray hair. “I knew you’d see the logic in it,” he started to say, turning back toward whatever celestial golf course he had clearly spent the last three years exploring.

Then I added, “But I already talked to God.” He froze mid-step, his foot hovering over a patch of golden moss. He slowly turned his head back around, his eyes wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “What did He say?” he whispered, and for the first time since I got there, he looked like he wasn’t quite sure where his filing cabinet was.

I smiled wider, leaning against the marble pillar just the way he was doing. “He said Heaven has no divorce.” Arthur swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his collar. For three whole seconds, the great accountant of Maple Street looked like a man who had just realized he forgot to sign the bottom line of a thirty-year mortgage. Then I leaned in close, right up to his ear, and whispered the rest of it. “Oh no… but it DOES have guest rooms.” He didn’t say a word. He just stood there staring at me, while I turned around and went to look for the front desk to see about getting a key on the opposite side of the property.