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Help me, he said.
I smiled and told him I was.
Afterward, I texted Ann and told her what I’d done.
That was brave of you Sadie, she wrote back. Call you later.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
HER
Of everyone, she means the most to me. My little girl. I can recall vividly the day we brought her home from the hospital. She was so tiny, so wrinkled and pink. She was and still is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I’d hoped she would turn out to be a boy, because a part of me always knew it would come to this. There is only one other person I have ever loved more, and that is her mother. The day she was born was the day I realized an even greater love was possible, and that I would do whatever was in my power to protect it all. Forever.
That tiny thing grew, as tiny things tend to do. As she grew more beautiful and more like her mother by the minute, it crossed my mind that inevitably she would meet a man like him. He was my worst fear materialized.
Unfortunately, I had been too busy to see. But not too busy to know that sooner or later you lose the things you love. I just hadn’t thought it would come so soon.
She’s not a girl, not yet a woman.
She’s not completely innocent. No one is.
I know that.
But there are a few things he should have known.
Like the law.
She’s underage.
She’s my daughter.
And I protect what’s mine.
This is how he ended up drugged, bound, naked, and just alert enough to be afraid. I placed him in his bathtub, where I cut into him slowly. I wasn’t precise, the way I am in the operating room. I drew it out slowly, in the way that would make sense if one were attempting to slit their own wrists. All the while, I told him the story of her birth, and how fortuitous it turned out it was the day his death was decided.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
SADIE
I didn’t see her put my husband in the tiny bathtub of his small rental apartment and slit his wrists that afternoon, but I’m certain she had something to do with it.
Also, she was right. Hearts are tricky. I know because Ann fixes my life, and the next thing I know, she is pushing me to hang myself with a resistance band. In asphyxiation, the most important component between succeeding and failing is the type of knot you use. The figure-eight knot is a good one.
Ann knows this, so I know this.
The biggest drawback to using the figure eight is that it can be extremely hard to untie. But that’s irrelevant, and in this case, a complication I won’t have to worry about. One more thing to be left for someone else. This, Ann says, is why paramedics carry knives.
If I can’t master the figure eight, she says, there’s always the bowline. A bowline knot forms a loop on the end of a rope, and the knot tightens further with any increase in pressure. This is why it is useful for hanging things.
Don’t stress, Ann says.
There’s time to figure it out, Ann says.
She tells me to imagine my funeral and work backward, so we can ensure the right number of people will be in attendance. A funeral is more important than a wedding, Ann says, because unlike marriage, you only get one shot at dying.
So far as we know.
