In the afternoon Father Jackson came and found me sitting on the stairs. He had called several times and then drove out to the farm and found the back door unlocked.

He took me to Ashland Hospital—apparently I went along without protest—and they gave me something that put me to sleep. A week or so later when I was rational again, he came to see me.

He sat down beside my bed and shook his head, unable to say anything.

“Just don’t give me any shit,” I said. “Don’t tell me it was God’s will.”

“Maybe it was, Maggie.”

“Bullshit! You don’t even know what I was trying to do.”

“I read your letters.”

“Bastard!”

“The police read them too. I had to let them. They’ll be in to see you shortly. Dr. Fowler has managed to keep them away from you until now.”

“Where’s Duff?”

“Buried. The coroner hasn’t given a verdict yet except for the cause, but he let us—”

“Buried where!”

“Next to his father. Mr. Nichols had his men probe and there was room—”

“Goddamn you!”

“Maggie, we didn’t know how long it might be before you were capable of handling things, so the court appointed—”

“Appointed whom, some friend of Mrs. Reddy’s?”

“Your lawyer. Mr. Matson came forward and said he was your lawyer—”

“Goddamn them! You could’ve made them wait!”

“I couldn’t, Maggie. And there were no addresses on those letters. I didn’t know how to reach your sister or your Scarsdale lawyer.”

“You could’ve called long-­distance and found Bill Levitt in two minutes, but you didn’t have the guts.”

“I didn’t think it mattered that much, Maggie.”

“It matters this much. I’ll have him dug up and cremated.”

“I guess you can do that eventually if you like. Meanwhile you’d better consider what you’re going to tell the authorities. You could be charged with murder, you know, despite the letters.”

Then he apologized for that. He said he didn’t mean to imply that I had deliberately harmed my own son, but the police didn’t know me, didn’t know how close Duff and I had been. They might find it hard to understand how I could have let such a thing happen.

Shortly thereafter a sheriff’s deputy and an Ashland detective came in to ask me questions. I told them the truth, that I had been trying to commit suicide and I didn’t know how the cups of cocoa became switched.

Did I think my son knew what I was attempting? Could he have deliberately switched the cups? No, absolutely not. He couldn’t have known. It had to have been an accident. He had no reason to kill himself. He was happy, he was getting along well in school and looking forward to college.