The first and most startling thing Benjamin felt was God’s presence. God accepted him, and maybe it was time for him to accept God. He learned that God understood him. But why couldn’t he understand the first thing about God? It didn’t make sense to Benjamin, who’d attended Catholic schools from kindergarten up to his senior year at Providence, where he studied philosophy and also art history. Benjamin had come to another conclusion in the darkness of his “prison cell” under the barn. He’d always thought that he was basically a good person, but now he knew that he wasn’t; and it didn’t have anything to do with his sexuality, as his hypocritical church would have him think. The way he figured it, a bad person was someone who habitually caused harm to others. Benjamin was guilty of that by his treatment of his parents and siblings, his classmates, his lovers, even his so-called best friends. He was mean-spirited, always acted superior, and continually inflicted unnecessary pain. He had acted like this ever since he could remember. He was cruel, a snob, a martinet, a sadist, a complete piece of shit. He’d always justified his bad behavior, because other people had caused him so much pain.

So was that why things had turned out like this? Maybe. But what was truly astonishing to Benjamin was the realization that if he ever got out of this alive, he probably wouldn’t change. In fact, he believed he would use this experience as an excuse to continue being a miserable bastard for the rest of his life. Cold, cold, I’m so cold, he thought. But God loves me unconditionally. That never changes either. Then Benjamin realized that he was incredibly confused, and crying, and had been for a long time, at least a day. He was shivering, babbling nonsense to himself, and he didn’t know what he really thought about anything. Not anymore, he didn’t.

His mind kept shifting back and forth. He did have good friends, great friends, and he’d been an okay son; so why were all these terrible thoughts shuttling through his head? Because he was in hell? Was that it? Hell was this foul-smelling, claustrophobic root cellar under a decaying barn somewhere in New England, probably New Hampshire or Vermont. Was that right?

Maybe he was supposed to repent and couldn’t be set free until he did? Or maybe this was it—for eternity.