"She's actually mad at you?"
"Sherry, you're just too pure, too kindhearted."
"A gold-digger like Lorna Delgado would never have the guts to die."
"Don't even mention her. She's a headache."
I drifted there between the two of them, listening to them cheerfully debate what to have for dinner.
The last thread of longing in my heart finally broke.
Five years.
I gave him the five most precious years of my youth, building everything up from nothing.
And all I got in the end was one word. Gold-digger.
Fabian Gilbert.
Have you forgotten?
When you started out, you were so broke you couldn't even afford to rent a studio.
It was me, the gold-digger you keep talking about.
I sold the gold bracelet my family gave me to help you pay the rent.
It's fine.
You won't be bothered anymore.
Lorna Delgado is dead. There's no one left to stand between you two and get in the way.
They drove straight home.
Seeing Fabian back from the dead, my mother-in-law showed not a flicker of surprise.
Her color was good, her clothes tidy, nothing like the woman from the day before.
She only asked, offhand,
"Where's Lorna? She didn't come back with you?"
Sherry hooked her arm through Beth Gilbert's, all sweet and coaxing.
"It's all my fault, giving such a bad idea."
"Now Lorrie's too embarrassed to come home."
Beth caught Sherry's hand and patted it fondly.
"How is any of this your fault? You were only looking out for Fabian."
"It's that country girl Lorna, loose as she is!"
I drifted behind them, watching them fawn over one another like a real family.
What was there left to not understand?
The grief of losing my husband, the grief that cost me my life.
From beginning to end it was an elaborate show Fabian had staged.
Everyone was an audience. I was the only clown.
My spirit followed them through the front door.
The table was already spread with dishes Beth had prepared.
Fabian ruffled Sherry's hair and said to her, smiling,
"See how much my mom dotes on you."
"Everything on that table is your favorite."
"She knows you can't handle spice, that you don't eat cilantro. Even the side dishes were picked out just for you today."
I drifted by the table, looking at the spread laid out with such care.
I gave a helpless little smile.
Five years married to Fabian, and neither he nor his mother ever once remembered what I liked.
The dish I said I loved never appeared on that table again.
I said I didn't eat scallions, and after that there were scallions in every single meal.
A few times I couldn't help complaining to Fabian.
He only scolded me, impatient.
"My mom's getting on in years, her memory's bad. Can't you show a little understanding?"
"Forget my mom. Even I can't keep track of all your annoying little habits."
But he remembered Sherry couldn't eat spice, remembered Sherry didn't eat cilantro.
The one thing he couldn't remember was that I didn't eat scallions.
Five years through hard times together counted for less than Sherry's three months in Harborview.
While Fabian was peeling shrimp for Sherry, my body was slowly going cold in a hotel suite ten miles away.
"Ma'am? Are you all right? Do you need help?"
The attendant lifted me up, took one look, and was scared out of his wits.
A face white as paper, eyes still open in refusal.
At the corner of my mouth, a trail of blood long since dried.
"Aah! Someone's dead!"
The attendant scrambled out of the room on hands and knees and called the hotel manager at once.
Ten minutes later, a patrol car and an ambulance pulled up together.
The medic didn't even attempt resuscitation, just gave the police his verdict straight.
"Time of death was over half an hour ago. There's no point in trying."
"From the symptoms, she swallowed a lethal dose of chloride poison."
The police found my phone under the couch, and in the contacts they turned up a number saved as Husband.
