The Witch Elm

by Tana French

“Stick it up your holes. I’ll tell you why she keeps looking over at you, anyway, fuckfeatures,”

Worrying had always seemed to me like a laughable waste of time and energy; so much simpler to go happily about your business and deal with the problem when it arose, if it did, which it mostly didn’t.

Within a couple of years they had two kids and much of their conversation revolved around toilet training and school choices and various other things that made me want to get a vasectomy and go on a coke binge.

Faye had always been sweet, flaky but sweet, unlikely to ask about your problems but deeply concerned about them if you reminded her they existed.

“The thing is, I suppose,” he said, “that one gets into the habit of being oneself. It takes some great upheaval to crack that shell and force us to discover what else might be underneath.”

A lot of people were schizophrenic, and they mainly hung out together, but there were a couple of depressives and a guy on the autism spectrum who were surprisingly good company. The autistic guy in particular was very restful to be around. All he wanted to do was talk for hours about Lord of the Rings, and he didn’t require any input or even any attention from me; I would sit by the dayroom window and look out at the gardens, wide lawns and decorous topiary and spreading oak trees, while his flat rhythmic monotone went on and on like running water.