Page 33 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer

JEN: Of course they do. They are rational, methodic, calculating.

SANDY: Diabolical. Erratic. Amoral.

“That’s not the correct use of the word circa.” Amy points at the photo caption.

“I don’t think anyone cares, Amy!” I hiss.

“Mobs of people at the nursery? Yeah, that tracks,” Jaq scoffs. I look at Amy, she gives a little shrug. Because, in truth, that probably was the best story we could come up with on the fly. Which is pathetic. I used to be so much better at lying.

What is happening to me?

“Can we go now?” Jaq looks a little panicked.

“You don’t want breakfast?” I ask. Yes, that is me gaslighting my kid. I wonder what I should wear when they present me with my mother of the year award.

“There’s no time!” Jaq cries.

JEN: I think you guys are describing two different crimes. One that’s premeditated and one that’s a crime of passion.

MOLLY: Oh – do you think they were lovers?

SANDY: Not all passion is sex related.

JEN: Isn’t it though?

MOLLY: Does anyone else have footage?

SANDY: Not me.

JEN: I’ll check later tonight.

MOLLY: Tonight?? What if you have the evidence to convict the killer???

JEN: Then I’ll send it to them tonight.

“Mom!”

“Okay, okay, go get in the car I’ll be right there.” I toss my phone face down on the counter and inhale deeply through my nose. No one’s identified me yet. I’m just a blurry figure in a sea of true crime-obsessed suburbanites who all secretly hope it was a murder so they can be interviewed on Dateline.

I can play this cool.

Calm.

Collected.

Totally not like a woman who brained Doug Finch in the Jenkin’s yard last night with a garden gnome and then came home to make shitty pancakes for her kids. I toss a few said pancakes in paper towels for them to eat on the way, grab my phone and keys, then remember what’s in the car—“Wait, Jaq!”—and race after them.

eighteen

. . .

Elle

Amy ridesshotgun and searches the neighborhood sites on her phone for anything else on the‘garden décor assault.’

“Not finding anything yet,” she murmurs.

I nod and turn onto the main road leading to the kids’ school, like I’m not harboring a corpse in the back of my car.