Exhale.

Let’s think about this for a second. In every Law & Order you have ever watched, the murderer panics. This is the moment they start to make all sorts of panicked decisions. This is the moment they screw up.

I will not screw this up.

It was not my fault. Right?

It was self-defense.

The knife is no longer in her hand, but it’s next to her on the landing.

That means . . . there will be fingerprints. That will prove it was self-defense.

Don’t move anything.

Leave it just as it is. Call 911.

That’s it!

Call 911!

You were only defending yourself.

Let the cops come, be honest. Don’t move anything.

I tiptoe backward, searching for my phone, which I always lose, I swear to God. Where is it?

It’s not on the bed, it’s not on the bedside table.

Don’t think about what’s below, just concentrate on the phone, Daffodil.

Maybe it’s in the bathroom, check over there. . . .

No, it’s not in the bathroom, maybe back in the bedroom, maybe it fell on the floor—

Wait.

I catch a glimpse.

Wait.

What the . . . ?

No.

No no no no no.

It can’t be.

It’s out of the corner of my eye that I see it. I want to tell myself it’s not there. I want to try to keep my head on straight. Just fasten it on.

But there it is.

Now I turn.

I turn fully toward it.

I turn fully toward it and it envelops me.

Chapter 26

If you were me, you would be standing at the top of the third-floor landing in a beautiful old house, hyperventilating.

If you were me, you would be looking down at the second-floor landing, where you would be seeing something you could not quite comprehend.

If you were me, you would be, at this moment, convinced that perhaps you had lost your faculties.

Because what is on that landing is much worse than anything you could imagine.

Because what is on that landing is . . .

Nothing.

. . .

There is nothing on that landing now at all.

No crumpled flower fabric, no blood seeping down, no body curled in on itself, no chinoiserie shards, no gleaming butcher knife.

Nothing.

The only thing worse than what was there is now what isn’t there.

Okay, let’s start this again.

Exhale. Three. Two. One.

“Daffodil.” I say my name. Maybe somehow my name can ground me.

I begin to look around and, again, a start, when I see, next to me, on the side table . . . oh please God . . . please God, what is happening . . .

On the side table.

The chinoiserie vase.

Standing upright.

Back in one piece now.

The room is seeming to spin now to dizzying heights as my calming breaths seem not to hold me and my knees decide to buckle.

The floor can be hard or it can be soft—in this moment, it’s nonexistent because everything turns to black before I hit it.