My Husband and My Mother Poisoned Us and Put Us in the Ground. They Forgot One Thing: I Woke Up First

Help us, I tried to say.

Nothing came.

Kenneth did not kneel.

He did not reach for his phone.

He looked down at me with a face empty of any panic at all, and took one slow step backward.

And my mother stepped into the frame beside him, and crossed her arms over her silk blouse, and looked down at me and her dying grandsons with no tears in her eyes — only a cold, settled satisfaction.

Somewhere far away, as the dark closed over me, I heard her voice, calm as a woman discussing the weather.