She had considered blaming Bob.
Finally, she had taken responsibility for the mess herself.
She sat next to her husband of more than fifty years. He was splayed out on the sofa, the back of his shattered skull tipped back like a broken marionette, blood and brain staining the serene pastoral print.
Her ears rang from the two shots she’d fired into his head. Her shoulder ached from the gun’s recoil.
He released his last breath and she smelled feces and burnt things. Like when her father branded a new cow back in Palmyra.
She had found her grandson in White Eagle’s back garden near Ginny’s childhood playhouse with the pink shutters and thatched roof. The boy was on his knees in the grass. Staring out to sea. His costume and his hands splattered with blood. Champ at his side, tail thumping happily as the dog licked her grandson’s round boyish face. She’d given the boy orders: hide your clothes in the woods. Burn them tomorrow. Shower quickly. Scrub your wrists and fingers and arms and chest and face. If anyone asked, tell them you’d practiced shooting with the Colonel that morning. Never, ever tell the truth. Never tell Maddie. The greatest gift he could give his sister, Veronica had said, shaking the shocked boy so his greasy black bangs whipped his cheeks, was ignorance.
She would save her family. What did it matter, the ruining of Veronica Pencott’s name, when her true self was unknown to anyone on the island. Anyone alive. Lucy Veronica Phelps. Bob’s mother had urged her to use Veronica. Elegant enough to hide the stink of cow shit between her toes.
As she slid the gun barrel into her mouth, the metal squeaking against her dentures (she wouldn’t be found toothless), she imagined Maddie sitting next to her. Her chiming laugh. Her scent. Like fresh-cut cantaloupe and white soap. Veronica told her to stay naïve, enough to believe in all their affirmations. And make up her own.
She would be leaving something behind after all. Her family. How silly she had been—believing she could erase herself from this world before leaving it.