He drew the line at the menstrual blood I had gathered in a jar of Bonne Maman.
– What’m I sposed to do with that???
– Mix it in with the gravy.
His turn to flinch.
Later, she was in the papers. She had been strangled. Found in her bedroom. No sign of break and enter. They said it was murder but it’s not true; it was an accident.
– You didn’t kill her did you?
– No. Not I.
– I looked him straight in the eye. He took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaled into my face.
– I know you think you’ll always win a stare-down, like I know you can look a person straight in the eye and lie to their face. Did you or didn’t you?
– You decide.
Joan Barbara Simon Author 