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“How do I know you will stick to your word?” I ask and my words are sluggish and slurred from the drugs.
“You don’t,” he says directly. “But I will. I have nothing against you personally. I’m paid to do a job. That is all.”
I nod.
“Anything else?”
I think on that. “I want to leave a note for my wife.”
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Will you send a message to her?” I ask. “Will you tell her that I love her?”
“If she doesn’t already know that, then you weren’t living your life right in the first place.”
“That’s true,” I agree with my captor. I don’t know why, but he sounds logical and I’m swimming in a sea of doubt.
He leaves
, just like that, without another word.
I sit on the floor and I know it’s for the last time.
I won’t have to go through this cycle again. It will be over soon.
I open the last box.
There is a .45 revolver inside, and it gleams in the moonlight. I check the barrel. One bullet is in the chamber.
The last journal page is folded beneath it.
I take a deep breath.
The drugs have dulled all of my senses. I’m not afraid. I’m not even sad. I’m an empty shell, and all I need is the last piece of this puzzle. I need to know.
I put the gun on my lap, and I pull out the paper. The ink on this page is fresh, a vibrant blue.
I’ve thought a lot over the years about why Susanna had acted like she did that night.
She rejected me, and refused to go with me, and I have to admit, that was a surprise. It took the wind out of my sails.
I know now, though, why she did it.
She must’ve thought I would kill her son.
She didn’t trust me when I said I wouldn’t.
If it had only been her and I, I know she would have gone with me in a split second. I would’ve saved her from that life. But her son came in, and she had to put on a show for him. She had to act like she didn’t love me. I know it was a show. I saw how she’d looked at me every time I delivered their mail, day in and day out. She watched me, and she was lustful and she wanted me. I know it now, and I knew it then.
But some women, their instincts to be mothers overtakes everything else.
That’s what happened that night.
I’m sure of it.
She fought for that snot-nosed kid. And in the end, I asked her why. Right before he rushed in and killed her, I asked her why she was fighting so hard for him.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were so wide and full of tears. And she said-
