He might have perceived her as unusually emotional, with an unexpectedly positive attitude towards the refurbishment in which she had previously been barely interested. But he didn’t ask any questions, talking on and seeming more content than he had for a long time.

His enthusiasm made her feel calmer for the moment but did nothing to alter her thoughts once silence fell. She went over what had happened from all angles, clumsily trying to shake the feeling of guilt. In her head was a constant dialogue between herself and some kind of superior moral entity:

Why should a dead man be allowed to drag me through the mud?

Because he might not have been dead.

After that crash and with those injuries, he must have been dead—he wouldn’t have survived until the paramedics arrived.

How do you know? Do you have any medical training?

Anyone could see that he was dead or almost dead. His life would have been intolerable had he been saved.

Who are you to decide what constitutes tolerable?

True.

If he had been saved, you said? So there was a tiny chance he could have been saved?

No. No, there wasn’t. Not even one in a million.

But still. Just leaving him there? Bleeding to death. Not able to breathe. Is that humane?

There was nothing to be done.

I’m not the first person to have a little something on the side.

Nor the last person to be seen as a whore on those grounds either. I have my life ahead of me—he was dead or dying. What does it matter?

It matters to someone. Wife, children, siblings, and parents who will miss him. Who have a right to know.

I acted in a way that benefitted me. Most of what I do is for others’ benefit, but I helped myself and my future. I did what was reasonable in the situation.

Jeanette fought with her internal demons, struggling to convince herself that her actions had been rational. To persuade herself of the long-term positive effects. But her conscience gnawed at her, eating into every single one of her thoughts and dreams.

She had to do something to avoid succumbing to the burden of guilt.

7

Sandra

“YOU’RE WASTING AWAY, sweetheart,” said Dad, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Sandra jumped hard, which is what she did in response to any unpredicted touch nowadays. It wasn’t the first time that her parents—whom she often ate with but was not currently confiding in—had remarked that she had lost weight. The fact that her appetite had been blown away was a welcome side effect of that awful thing that she would have preferred to forget but couldn’t.

“Gosh, you frightened me,” said Sandra with a small laugh that was intended to trivialise her reaction.

Her father didn’t look especially convinced.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said with a concerned frown between his eyes. “Sorry.”

Both he and her mother had almost certainly noticed that something was off, but they maintained discretion and gave her the room she needed without expressing excessive curiosity. She was particularly unappreciative of unexpected sounds. She would glance constantly over her shoulder, semi-neurotically ensuring that no one was watching her from a distance. She struggled to fall asleep at night and found it hard to focus on work during the day. Of course, it wasn’t all that intellectually demanding, but she had to pay attention to customers’ expectations, perceive their needs as they wandered around the shop, and accompany them to the shelf they were looking for. And her distance learning course on which she normally spent her evenings was on hold for the time being. Her thoughts were elsewhere.