The Ghostwriter

The last time I spoke to my mother, I was dressed in black and huddled against the wind, staring down at a fresh gravestone. She tried to hug me. She told me she loved me. In response, I told her the truth. I told her I hated her for turning Bethany and Simon against me. For calling me unfit. For siding with him. For taking my daughter from me. All unforgivable sins, ones that I could only punish her for with cruel silence, ignored calls, and spiteful words snarled beside a black hearse. I vowed, in that graveyard, to never speak to her again unless she found a way to return my daughter to me

What’s happened to you, Helena?”

What’s happened to me? I have a story that I don’t have time to tell. I have an empty house that reeks of death. I have no friends, no family, and no one to ask for help. I’m dying, and it’s the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I shrug.

. “I’ve got a tumor. It’s spread just about everywhere. The doctors gave me three months.”

Maybe that’s why I’ve waited until now, the moment when I won’t be around to see the carnage, to deal with the police, the consequences, the judgement. Two thousand words a day. Three months that are already whittling down. My stomach heaves, and I open my mouth, inhale deeply, a panic attack rising, my body suddenly hot, this office stuffy, the glow of the computer’s screen too bright. I can’t do it. There is no way, not enough time, not enough hours to dedicate to what is the most important novel of my entire life.

I close my eyes and, despite every intention not to—feel the pull toward sleep. I hate Simon with my entire soul, and I love him with every other inch of my body, and neither really matters because he is dead, and I killed him.