The Witch Elm

by Tana French

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.

The pain was so huge and diffuse that it felt like an element intrinsic to the air, something to be taken for granted because it had always been there and would never go away.

Have you ever been in this much pain? I have. After, I realized why some people commit suicide, and I don’t judge them anymore.

It was like stretching out a hand to your dog and seeing him back away, hackles rising.

For me, it would be like stretching out a hand to my cat and getting a big bite for it.

“And always remember the longer you live, the sooner you’ll bloody well die!”

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.

wych

Perfectly good word. Odd (to me), though, that you’d use it instead of “witch” elm, considering the book title and all.

“What have you done?”

“What have you done?” When I hear this sentence in my head, I emphasize “you,” not “have.”

but even without any of that I would have known, because the air around us had split open and whirled and re-formed itself and there was one less person in the room.