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She stops dead in her tracks and glares at me.
“Men like you get everything…and get away with everything. You, Ned Sinclair, won’t.”
I try to swallow back my fear, but my throat hurts too much. My tonsils burn like logs crackling in a fireplace.
“Your parents paid the price. Your illustrious father for enabling you. Always covering up and buying you out of your messes. Your equally illustrious mother for looking the other way when it came to her precious son. Now, Ned, you have to pay.”
Now what? Fear like I’ve never known seeps into every pore. A cold wave of terror descends from the crown of my head past my torso to the tips of my limbs.
“You’ll be happy I injected you. You won’t feel a thing with the next thing I have planned. Though in retrospect…maybe I shouldn’t have spared you the pain.”
I can no longer shake in fear, or feel any pain. Yet, every molecule of my being is convulsing. And my brain is about to implode.
Marley sits back down on the bed, crisscrossing her long, tanned legs. She unwraps the napkin. If my unblinking eyes could, they’d grow as wide as silver dollars and pop out of their sockets. This is no cheese knife. It’s a bone-cutting meat cleaver! The foot-long blade is shaped like a shark’s fin.
“Ned, remember that movie I told you I was writing? The end is in sight.”
My end is in sight.
“Well, since I’m on a very tight schedule, I’m going to give you the elevator pitch…They hired her to take care of their baby. Not knowing she was there to ‘take care’ of them.”
She lowers the knife a millimeter.
“Too bad you won’t be around to get it made. But this is how it almost ends…”
My life is over. I’m hopeless, helpless, hapless.
The frightening metal blade descends upon me—oh, God, she’s going to chop off my manhood—and suddenly, I start convulsing like a fish out of water. Flopping madly. My mouth gaping, gulping. An unbearable pain thunders in my chest and breaks through the numbness. It’s like my heart wants to explode through my ribcage. The excruciating pain spreads like an oil spill to my arms, back, neck, and jaw. Even my teeth are killing me. Cold, tar-like sweat covers every inch of my being as I gasp desperately for air.
My eyes stay on Marley, who just sits there half-stunned, half-amused, the cleaver still in her gloved hand, while my life flashes before me.
She tsks. “It’s a shame, Ned, you won’t be able to see your beautiful daughter grow up. But don’t worry. I’ll make sure she’s loved and well-taken care of.”
Isa. My perfect baby. With her soft dewy skin, rosebud lips, and silky tuft of buttery hair.
Then, I think of my mother, beautiful Maman, with her red-painted lips, lustrous golden hair, and warm breathy voice. All I want is to be curled up in her womb again, to be shrouded in her warmth. If I could, I’d cry like a baby.
They say you never know what you’re going to think about when you’re about to die.
“Je ne regrette rien,” Maman used to say.
I regret everything. Forgive me, God, for all the sins I’ve committed.
Forgive me, Ava, for the shitty husband I’ve been.
Forgive me, Isa, my sweet daughter, for…everything.
My unblinking eyes stay open as my world, like the end of a screenplay, fades to black.
FORTY-ONE
MARLEY
All the color has drained from him. His face is a shade of gray.
I take his pulse. Then take it again for good measure.
Ned is dead.
