Aria was spread out on a full-sized bed separated from mine by a small, cheap nightstand. She glanced up at me, ears plugged with music, then returned to flipping through an old Vanity Fair magazine the previous tenant had left behind.

She hadn’t spoken to me since yesterday. When I looked at her, I didn’t see the little girl who had decorated her hair with yellow dandelions or who clung to my leg when a stranger said hi. In a single week Aria had grown into an adult, with adult problems. I missed my little girl.

With the sunrise I felt dread rise with it. I was a homemaker without a home, a mother without a child, a wife without a husband. I hadn’t anticipated the perpetual state of panic I’d be stuck in when I slashed my husband’s neck. Little more than twenty-four hours ago it had been a tiny thought that crept in, then it fully formed in my mind. Take his life like he took yours.

When I picked up the knife, I hadn’t anticipated the butterfly effect that would ripple out from there. The years of anger, pain, and injustice had taken the wheel; my body was just along for the ride. Now here I was, gazing out the window at the Extended Stay hotel parking lot below, waiting for everything to come crashing down. Eventually the police would show up, slap on the handcuffs, and haul me off to prison. The fear had kept me awake all night, buzzing in my skull.

We hadn’t been allowed to return to the house yet as it was still being investigated and analyzed as the crime scene, so Aria and I checked into the only long-term hotel in town, since I wasn’t sure when we’d get to go home. Every phone call made me jump, and the patter of feet in the hallway outside our door made my heart skip a beat. It was a waiting game at this point: waiting for Detective Rossi to figure out I was a cold-blooded murderess.

It was shortly after ten o’clock when I recognized the detective’s black sedan pull into the parking lot. The temptation to run was strong, but I held my ground. He wasn’t accompanied by other policemen, so I figured I was safe . . . so far. I imagined when the day came that I was officially under arrest they would arrive with guns drawn and sirens blaring—just like on TV.

“Detective Rossi is here,” I said to Aria.

She closed the magazine and popped her earbuds out. “Then I’m going for a walk. Text me when he leaves.”

“Be safe, honey,” I reminded her ironically. The monster wasn’t out there on the streets; it was living with her.