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“In the interest of even fuller disclosure,” he said, “I must further confess to you that I nipped a bit at the cognac while you were out this afternoon. I don’t actually know why. Except that it was like, I really wasn’t craving a cigarette and that freaked me out. It was like nothing was wrong, y…

Standing over the rusty oil drum, I ripped out two blank pages and set fire to them. Then I ripped out the little girl and burned her up, too. When I came back into the kitchen, I heard the toilet flush upstairs. I listened to Steven’s footsteps going back to his workroom, then went out and brought…

I threw my sketchbook in the backseat—that would be my alibi—and drove to Webster’s, where I bought a jar of dried mint and a pack of Care Free peppermint gum. I’d chewed all five sticks by the time I got to the liquor store in Oneonta. They didn’t have pints of Rémy, so I had to buy the next size …

When we got home, he kissed me—on the lips, warm—and went up to work. He hadn’t had a cigarette, apparently, since sometime last night. If he was a man who could pick up a thing and then just drop it, where did that leave me? Thinking about Marilyn, I suppose. He was married to her for fifteen year…

Listening to his truck humming and rumbling as he plowed the driveway, I ate the cereal and looked over the pages I’d laid out yesterday, telling myself that one bowl of Count Chocula wasn’t so irresponsible; they probably spray the stuff with vitamins. And only then did it hit me what I’d done las…