My Husband Cooked Dinner, and Minutes After My Son and I Ate, We Both Collapsed. I Played Dead on the Floor and Heard Him on the Phone: “Soon They’ll Both Be Gone”

I heard his keys scrape at the lock.

I emptied my lungs slow, and went slack, and became, again, a woman on a floor.

Chapter 10 — He Came Back for the Plate

The front door opened, and Christopher stepped back into the house, and he did not come to check on us.

He did not glance down at the two bodies on his kitchen floor.

He walked straight past us to the dining table, picked up the blue plate, and slid it into a heavy black trash bag, and I lay there with my eyes shut and listened to him do it.

“That takes care of the main one,” he said, half to himself, tying a quick knot in the plastic.