me and one thing came to another."
"It always does," said Don. But the truth was it didn't always. As Sylvie talked about reaching the end of her rope, Don wondered: Why hadn't he ever reached the end of his? Sure, yesterday he had broken down and cried, but when did he ever just lose it and start screaming? Maybe if he'd gone a little crazy, he could have broken through the barriers that kept him from justice.
Of course, look what "losing it" did for Sylvie.
"She accused me of the most terrible things," said Sylvie. "She called me everything, she said no wonder my mother died, no wonder my father died, anything was better than living with me. She wasn't my friend anymore, you know? She wasn't even human. Her face all twisted up, screwed up, her mouth open, her teeth like - it was like the monkey island at the zoo. An animal. She didn't justify herself, she didn't argue, she just went on the attack, saying I was worthless and boring and nobody liked me till she took me on as a project, to try to prove that there was nobody so lame and hopeless that she couldn't bring them out and give them a life. I tried to scream back at her about how she wasn't giving me a life, she was taking it away, but she never heard me. She wouldn't shut up and listen at all, and I admit it, I was an animal too. We were both animals right then. And there was a loose stone. Lots of loose stones. I just wanted to shut her up, to hurt her. But I'd never hit anyone before. In my whole life, Don. Never hit anybody. And I'm not very strong. So I didn't know how hard to hit. I just swung with all my might. The rock hit her in the side of her head."
"Bet it shut her right up," said Don.
Sylvie nodded. "You see people get knocked out on TV all the time. They go unconscious and then they get up and in the next scene they aren't even groggy."
"I take it she wasn't groggy, either."
"I shook her and shook her and she didn't wake up. It was terrible, what she'd been doing to me, the things she said to me, but she didn't deserve to die."
"You're sure you killed her?"
"There was so much blood."
"There always is, from head injuries. But it's usually just from the skin."
"You think I didn't try to feel her breath? Her pulse? I screamed at her, I slapped her, I got her blood all over me trying to wake her up and nothing worked. And then it finally dawned on me what I had done. My life was over, too. I couldn't live with it. Don't you see?"
"No, I don't. Why wasn't there an investigation when she disappeared? Why weren't you arrested?"
"Nobody knew. She didn't have any family, either. Just like me. And her boyfriend, Lanny - he never came back. Can you believe it? What a jerk. She disappears and he doesn't even look for her. Doesn't even ask."
"And you never left this place."
"The landlord gave up on the house that summer. It stood empty. What could I do? Go out and live my life as if I hadn't committed murder? Take the job? I didn't have the heart for it. I couldn't even go pick up my diploma. I already defended my dissertation. I was done. But I couldn't bear to go out there and... be alive. When I had killed her."
"So you stayed there by her body? You checked her? You buried her in the tunnel?"
She looked horrified. "Of course I didn't," she said. "When I knew she was dead I ran out of the tunnel. I... put up that barricade. From stones near the entrance. I was crying the whole time, it kept collapsing, I kept piling it up. And then suddenly the stones started staying where I put them. Balancing themselves. The house was helping me, you see. Because now I belonged to the house. I was never going to leave."
"So how do you know she didn't wake up two hours later and go out the back way?"
"She was dead, Don!"
"That would explain why the boyfriend never came back. She went and met him and told him how you were going to turn her in for cheating and they split."
"It didn't happen that way. I wish it had!"
"But how do you know it didn't happen?"
Sylvie