The word the doctors use is remission, and I have learned not to say it too loudly or trust it too completely, the way you learn not to trust a quiet stretch of road in a dangerous country — but she is well, and getting weller, and she laughs now, a real laugh, the laugh I dreamed about for four years in the barracks, and I never once take the sound of it for granted.

My mother and my sister answered for what they did.

The federal charges and the state charges both held; the evidence my wife had kept, and the evidence I had gathered, left them no room to run.

I have not spoken to either of them since the deputies led them out of that house, and I do not expect to again, and when people ask whether it is hard to have cut off my own blood, I tell them the truth, which is that I did not cut off my family.

My family is sitting across the porch from me right now, drinking tea in the evening light.

What I cut off were two people who shared my last name and had proven, past all doubt, that they would let my wife die for money.