Epilogue

EPILOGUE

I sleep like the dead after burying my husband in the backyard. I thought I would be plagued by restless dreams of zombie husbands scraping their way through the dirt and shuffling into my bedroom, hungry for brains. I thought I would be waking up in a cold sweat, a scream on my lips. But instead, I get the best night of sleep I have had in years—not one zombie-husband dream. I don't wake up even once, and when my eyes finally crack open, the sun is already high in the sky.

For the first time in a long time, I am truly free. And it feels fantastic.

I stretch in bed, raising my arms high over my head and reaching with my toes toward the foot of the bed. I let out a long, luxurious yawn that lasts several seconds. I plan to enjoy this day as much as I possibly can. On my own.

One thing I will do today is write a great big check for Marnie, even though Grant was never her husband. Now that I don't have a baby on the way, I can afford to be generous. I feel responsible for her well-being, considering that I, you know, accidentally murdered her husband.

I roll out of bed, intending to take a long, hot shower, but then I realize the shower is already running. The bathroom door is closed, and the distinctive sound of droplets of water hitting the porcelain of the tub floats into the bedroom.

What's going on? Why is the shower on?

I suppose I could have left it on last night. But no, that doesn't make sense. If I left the shower on, I would have noticed it when I went to sleep. No, it's clear that someone entered our bathroom and turned on the shower and is in there right now .

My heart is doing one-hundred-meter dashes as I slide out of bed in my blue silk nightgown. I pad across the bedroom in the direction of the master bathroom. I push open the door with a trembling hand, and sure enough, the shower is running. The entire bathroom is fogged up with steam, but I can make out the silhouette of a man behind the glass doors.

Almost like I'm in a trance, I move forward. In the back of my head, it occurs to me that I could be in danger, but I can't make myself stop. When I reach the shower, my hand shoots out and opens the glass doors to reveal the naked man inside. My breath catches at the sight of the man standing in my shower, his bare skin pink from the steaming-hot water, his blond hair plastered to his scalp as he swivels his head to offer me a smile.

"Good morning," says a man who looks exactly like my husband.

No. No .

I shut the door to the shower and stumble out of the bathroom, my head spinning. How could this be? It's impossible. I killed my husband and buried him—twice. Well, the first time I killed his brother, but the second time it was most definitely him. Yet here he is, showering in our bathroom like nothing ever happened.

It was all a dream.

No, wait. It can't have been a dream because my hands are covered in calluses from the shovel last night, and there is still some dirt ground into my fingernails. I definitely buried somebody last night. I didn't dream it.

So what is going on here? I rub my eyes, wondering if I'm imagining the man in our shower. But even after shutting my eyes for the count of three and then reopening them, he is still there. His foggy silhouette is massaging shampoo into his hair. He is most definitely real.

The alarm goes off on my phone, practically jolting me out of my skin. The ringtone is one of my favorite Nickelback songs, "Photograph." I stand at the window, my body rigid as the insightful lyrics about looking at photographs wash over me.

Wait. That's it .

My body is buzzing as I roll out of bed. I head straight for the dresser and yank open the top drawer where I shoved Grant's wallet last night. I flip it open and finger through the photographs. It takes me a few seconds to find the one I'm looking for—the photograph of Grant and his identical twin brother.

I pull out the old, creased photo. I stare at the identical towheaded boys in the picture. When Grant showed me this photo, I noticed something about it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It didn't hit me until this second what was wrong with this photo.

Gently, I reach behind the photo and unfold the left corner.

Now I can see the photograph in its entirety. And I finally realize what I am looking at. I had thought it was a photo of two brothers playing together. But instead of Grant and Brant alone, the full image reveals there are actually three little boys.

Oh my God.

Identical triplets.

THE END