Premeditated murder. It was almost too easy to do and get away with.

I moved on, met Sadie, fell in love, got married. Enter Camille.

She took care of me in ways Sadie never could. I never imagined all that she’d do for me over the years. Morgan wasn’t the first woman she killed for me. Because there was Carrie Laemmer, too, a student of mine who accused me of sexual harassment.

Again Sadie speaks. “They say I disassociate. That I’m only one of many parts. That there are people living inside of me,” she says. “It’s ludicrous. I mean, if you, my husband, didn’t see it, how could they?”

“It’s one of the many things I love about you. Your unpredictability. Different every day. I’ll tell you this, Sadie—you were never boring. I just never came up with a diagnosis for your condition,” I say, though it’s a lie, of course. I’ve known for eons what I was dealing with. I learned how to turn it in my favor.

“You knew?” she asks, aghast.

“It’s a good thing, Sadie. The silver lining. Don’t you see? The police don’t think that you killed Morgan. They believe that Camille did. You can plead not guilty by reason of insanity. You won’t go to jail.”

She gasps, coming undone. It’s fun to watch. “But I’ll be sent to a psychiatric institution, Will. I won’t be able to go home.”

“That’s better than jail, isn’t it, Sadie? Do you know what kind of things happen in jail?”

“But, Will,” she tells me, desperate now. “I’m not insane.”

I step away from her. I go to the door because I’m the only one of us with the freedom to leave. There’s power in that. I turn and look at her, my face changing, becoming visibly apathetic because the sham-empathy is getting exhausting.

“I’m not insane,” she tells me again.

I hold my tongue. It wouldn’t be right to lie.

SADIE

Sometime after Will has gone, Officer Berg steps into the room with me. He leaves the door open.

I know my rights. I demand to see a lawyer.

But he just shrugs half-heartedly at me and says, “No need,” because they’re letting me go. They have no evidence to hold me on. The murder weapon and the washcloth that I said I saw were nowhere to be found. The going theory is that I made them both up in an effort to throw off the investigation. But they can’t prove that either. They say I killed Morgan. That I transformed into some other version of me and killed her myself. But the police need probable cause before they can arrest me. They need something more than mere suspicion. Even Mr. Nilsson’s statement isn’t damning enough because it doesn’t place me at the crime scene. The cell phone in my home also doesn’t do that. These things are circumstantial.

It feels like some phantom thing. There are parts of my life I can’t account for, including that night. It’s in the realm of possibility that I murdered that poor woman—or some version of me did—though I don’t know why. The pictures Officer Berg showed me come to mind and I stifle a cry.

“Would you like us to call your husband to come get you?” Officer Berg asks, but I say no. Truth be told, I’m a bit upset that Will left me at the police station alone. Though the weather outside is still inclement, I need to be alone with my thoughts. I need fresh air.

Officer Berg himself offers me a ride, but I say no to that, too. I need to get away from him.

I start to shrug off the coat Officer Berg gave me, but he stops me, saying I should keep it. He’ll get it another time.

It’s dark outside. The sun has set. The world is white, but for now the snow has stopped coming down. Traffic moves slowly. Headlights maneuver through snowbanks. Tires scrape against the packed-down snow. The streets are messy.

There are slippers on my feet, though they’re a far cry from shoes. They’re knit and a faux fur that only absorbs the moisture, making my feet wet, red, numb. My hair hasn’t seen a comb today. I have no idea what I look like, though I’d venture to guess it’s just a hairbreadth away from a madwoman.

As I walk the few blocks home, I piece together the last few hours of my life. I left Otto alone with the washcloth and the knife. The police came searching for these things. By the time they did, they were gone. Someone did something with the washcloth and the knife.

As I make my way toward our street, I put my head down and walk, my arms tied into a knot to stave off the night’s fierce wind. The snow on the ground still blows about. There are icy patches on the street, which I slip on, falling once, twice, three times. Only on the third time does a Good Samaritan help me to my feet, taking me for a drunk. He asks if he can call someone to come pick me up, but by then I’m almost home. I just have our street to climb, and I do so gracelessly.

I see Will in the window when I arrive, sitting on the sofa, the fireplace red-hot. His legs are crossed and he’s lost in thought. Tate dashes through the room, smiling merrily, and on his way past, Will tickles his belly and he laughs. Tate takes off, running up the stairs and away from Will, and then he’s gone, to some other part of the house where I can no longer see him. Will returns to the sofa, laces his hands behind his head and leans back, seemingly content.

There are lights on in the upstairs windows, Otto’s and Imogen’s, which face the street, though the curtains are closed. I can’t see anything but the glowing peripheries of the windows, though it surprises me that even Imogen is home. At this time in the evening, she isn’t often home.

From the outside, the house looks perfectly idyllic as it did that first day we arrived. The rooftops, the trees are covered with snow. It covers the lawn, sparkling white. The snow clouds have cleared, the moon illuminating the picturesque scene. The fireplace spews smoke from the chimney, and though outside the world is freezing, inside it looks undeniably homey and warm.

There’s nothing amiss with this scene, as if Will and the kids have moved on without me, no one noticing my absence.