She takes a book, Make Way for Ducklings, and closes the door gently behind her. But when she returns to her room, Suzy is already asleep, her body twisted in the blankets, her rosebud mouth parted, the scarf still clenched in her fingers. Annie tucks Lolly in beside her, takes the scarf and folds it, places it on the dresser.

It’s time.

Mrs. Keller has her head propped up when Annie comes in, and she smiles slightly, the movement stretching like a mask over her worn face. “I upped the drip dosage. It’ll hit me any moment now.”

Annie nods and moves closer, startling as Mrs. Keller reaches out a crone-like hand and touches her wrist. “Thank you again. And thank you for loving my daughter in your own warped way.” She tries smiling again, but her lips jerk to the side instead, a soft, glazed look coming to her eyes. She closes them, and her hands fall limply to her sides.

Annie takes the pillow that’s sitting near Mrs. Keller’s head. It’s sturdy, filled with Dacron. She slipped it into its fitted case herself not so long ago. She clutches it to her chest and looks down at Mrs. Keller, who, for the first time since meeting her a year ago, looks serene, like a sleeping doll, her body so shrunken against the mattress.

And looking down at that helpless, frail, waning body, Annie hesitates, tightening her grip on the pillow. She looks out at the tranquil blue sky, at the lake through the trees. She sees a mother goose dip her head into the water, her goslings floating obediently after her. And she thinks of what Mrs. Keller had said. “If you find yourself unable to do it, just think about something that makes you fiercely unhappy. And use that pressure on me.”

Annie closes her eyes, feeling the phantom swell of her now flattened stomach, and winces, raising the pillow up, her fingers clutching the embroidered pillowcase.

And then she’s pressing it onto Mrs. Keller’s face, over her mouth, over her nose. And underneath, the body quakes, spasms. Hands claw for air as Annie presses harder, with all her strength. But Mrs. Keller is too weak, her body tired of fighting for itself, and in a matter of moments, it stills. Annie raises the pillow and tucks it behind Mrs. Keller’s head, then retreats from the room, closing the door behind her.

The house is still silent. Suzy has thirty minutes left of nap time. Annie goes to the kitchen to make some coffee, yearning for the gurgling of a machine.

33

“So you were, like, red-pilled? Or some kind of equivalent?” That’s what my ex-roommate Kelly said over coffee today as I tried to explain to her where I’d been the last few months. The words echo in my head as I cross Union Square for an appointment with my new therapist.