The figure on the bed still hadn't moved.
Rosie's head drooped, crestfallen.
Then her eyes lit up, and she snatched up the pill bottle from the floor, the one I'd emptied into myself.
"Wow, pretty candy!"
Two stray pills still rolled in the bottom of the bottle. Pure poison.
Rosie popped them toward her mouth, delighted. "Sorry, lady, I'll only eat two. I'm just really, really hungry."
"No!"
The scream tore out of me, shrill and useless. I couldn't stop her. I couldn't touch anything.
That was the moment the door burst open with a crash.
Bruno Gilbert had come to see whether I'd finally caved. Instead he walked straight into this.
He ripped the bottle from her hand, read the label, and the color drained from his face. In an instant he had her cheeks pinned between his fingers, digging into her mouth. "Spit it out! Spit it out right now, you idiot child!"
Rosie wailed, terrified. "Daddy, don't hit me, I won't do it again, I promise…"
Only when he was sure she hadn't swallowed did he let go, white to the lips.
He turned toward me on the bed, worn down and bitterly disappointed.
Irma Finch had followed him in. One glance, and she gasped. "Ruth, no matter how much you hate us, how could you poison your own daughter? She's just a baby. You were going to kill her!"
Bruno wrenched his face away, unwilling to look at me a second longer.
One more step and he could have touched my cold, stiffened skin, caught the faint smell of death already thickening the air.
But he only scooped Rosie up, turned on his heel, and walked out.
Irma trailed after him, easy as anything.
Bruno drove to the most expensive restaurant in the city and ordered a whole table of lavish handmade brunch.
Rosie dug in, eating happily.
He couldn't settle.
The tea Irma poured for him sat pushed to one side. He lit one cigarette, then another.
Restless, he swiped his phone open. The last message between us still sat there, two days old.
My wife had her pride, deep in the bone, but she had never once gone dark this long.
Something inside him snapped taut and broke. A cold sweat broke out across his back.
"No… something's wrong with her!"
The blood left his face as he shoved his chair back. He didn't even spare a glance for the startled child. He bolted for the parking lot like a man who'd lost control of himself.
His hand was on the car door when Irma caught the hem of his jacket, breathless.
"Bruno, don't panic. The truth is, late last night I caught Ruth up rummaging through the fridge. I went over, meaning well, just to ask after her. She wouldn't even answer me. She shoved me, hard, and told me to mind my own business…"
Then she let go, deflated, and pressed her lips together. "Bruno… do you think Ruth still hasn't forgiven us?"
His step toward the car froze mid-motion.
He let out a quiet breath and turned around, the fury in his chest curdling into a sneer. "I knew it. So she's using a hunger strike for cover. She'd even gamble Rosie's life to play the martyr. How clever of her."
Cold-laughing, Bruno went back into the private room and set aside, for now, any thought of going home.
My soul drifted back to that empty mansion.
Before long, footsteps came stumbling and lurching through the front hall.
It was my mother.
Four years of helping me search for Rosie, like hunting a needle in the ocean, had cried her eyes nearly blind.
"Ruth, where are you? Mom brought you some rib soup…"
She felt her way to the nursery and pushed the door open.
When those trembling hands finally found my long-cold, stiffened cheek, a single scream of pure despair ripped through the dead silence.
Watching my mother clutch my corpse, sobbing as if her own breath would give out, my spirit body actually felt the pain of it.
Hours later, she wiped her eyes dry.
To keep my body from being defiled by Bruno's touch one more time, she steeled herself, hired a professional funeral team, and quietly carried me away.
