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Other men choose women they can’t live without. Mine chose a woman who was unlikely to live without him.
My mother used to say that she’d cut the balls off any man who ever cheated on her.
I almost envied the reckless disregard she had for other people’s impressions. She wanted something, she took it. She found something entertaining, she did it. She disliked someone, or something they did, she let her opinion be known.
God, I could use some color. Right now I was so boring I was falling asleep on myself.
This house was my castle and she and Jacob my sheep, and everything would happen as it should because intelligence was the gravity that pinned all the pieces onto the board. While I might not be the handsomest or most athletic man in the room, I’d always been the smartest and would, as always, win.
It was nice, wearing the skin of another woman, even if I was the only one who knew of her intricacies. Maybe that was what my husband was keeping from me. A search for another life more exciting than our own.
We hadn’t kissed—we hadn’t done anything that violated the terms of my marriage—but there was an electric wire between us, one that held a flame under the thin string of my self-control. The break was coming, and the anticipation of it was vibrating through my chest.
He should have had an affair years ago. The benefits were starting to outweigh the pain of it all.
was like I was a sail, coming free of its mast and whipping wildly into the wind. Untethered.
My job is to provide for and protect my family, by any means necessary. I’m fucking great at my job.
Lillian, we had agreed, would be my responsibility, though Sam never seems to stay in his lane where she is concerned. And that’s the problem with people. They don’t stay where you put them, not unless they are dead.
He’s the one who always prides himself on his insight into and manipulation of human behavior.
Of course Lillian would put me here. Even in death, she is a weakness in my armor.
Excellent communication. Always on time, if not early. Always has me finish first, regardless of whether he does.
I replace the drive and tuck the cords back in, returning the cabinet to its normal operation and the key to the can, though there is no longer anything of value inside. You still need to put things back in their place; otherwise your home, your marriage, your life is just one continually crumbling edifice.
Inside, I groan. Only Lillian would pick such an inconvenient time to die.
Cállate la boca y ponte a comer! Él no está aquí para hablar contigo.”
Suficiente! Una palabra más y le diré a tu padre que te castigue a golpes.”
How do you justify murder? I had two reasons: jealousy and revenge.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail, and killing someone wasn’t something I could afford to fail at. Imprisonment, along with poverty and emotional abandonment, would not be in my future, and I spent hundreds of hours envisioning the perfect way to end Lillian Smith’s life.
