Page 33 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer
JEN: Of course they do. They are rational, methodic, calculating.
SANDY: Diabolical. Erratic. Amoral.
“That’s not the correct use of the word circa.” Amy points at the photo caption.
“I don’t think anyone cares, Amy!” I hiss.
“Mobs of people at the nursery? Yeah, that tracks,” Jaq scoffs. I look at Amy, she gives a little shrug. Because, in truth, that probably was the best story we could come up with on the fly. Which is pathetic. I used to be so much better at lying.
What is happening to me?
“Can we go now?” Jaq looks a little panicked.
“You don’t want breakfast?” I ask. Yes, that is me gaslighting my kid. I wonder what I should wear when they present me with my mother of the year award.
“There’s no time!” Jaq cries.
JEN: I think you guys are describing two different crimes. One that’s premeditated and one that’s a crime of passion.
MOLLY: Oh – do you think they were lovers?
SANDY: Not all passion is sex related.
JEN: Isn’t it though?
MOLLY: Does anyone else have footage?
SANDY: Not me.
JEN: I’ll check later tonight.
MOLLY: Tonight?? What if you have the evidence to convict the killer???
JEN: Then I’ll send it to them tonight.
“Mom!”
“Okay, okay, go get in the car I’ll be right there.” I toss my phone face down on the counter and inhale deeply through my nose. No one’s identified me yet. I’m just a blurry figure in a sea of true crime-obsessed suburbanites who all secretly hope it was a murder so they can be interviewed on Dateline.
I can play this cool.
Calm.
Collected.
Totally not like a woman who brained Doug Finch in the Jenkin’s yard last night with a garden gnome and then came home to make shitty pancakes for her kids. I toss a few said pancakes in paper towels for them to eat on the way, grab my phone and keys, then remember what’s in the car—“Wait, Jaq!”—and race after them.
eighteen
. . .
Elle
Amy ridesshotgun and searches the neighborhood sites on her phone for anything else on the‘garden décor assault.’
“Not finding anything yet,” she murmurs.
I nod and turn onto the main road leading to the kids’ school, like I’m not harboring a corpse in the back of my car.
