Chapter 2

The next morning, the landlord pried open the basement door.

Mildew and the smell of medicine spilled out together.

The woman next door took one look and clapped a hand over her mouth, backing away.

"Call the police! Someone call the police!"

I lay beside the bed.

My face was ashen, my lips cracked and dry.

On the nightstand sat a half-full glass of water, and next to it a bottle of painkillers, mostly empty.

The landlord saw the diagnosis paper still in my hand, and his legs gave out. He sat down hard on the floor.

"What a waste of a life..."

"I should have called the police yesterday."

When the sirens cut through the mouth of the alley, Giles was eating breakfast in the estate's dining room.

Lillian handed him a cup of coffee.

"Looks like a patrol car just pulled up near the basement."

Giles glanced up.

"So she actually called the police?"

A servant rushed in.

"Sir, the officers say there's been a death at the basement."

The knife and fork stopped in Giles's hands.

Lillian went pale.

"A death?"

Giles shot to his feet.

"Sally, you'd better not push this too far."

By the time he reached the basement, the police tape was already up.

The landlord saw him and pointed, shouting,

"That's him! He's the dead woman's husband!"

Giles's steps froze.

"Dead woman?"

Then he laughed.

"Is this what she told you all to say?"

"Sally, come out. You win. I'm back."

No one answered.

An officer stopped him.

"Sir, please stay calm."

Giles shoved him aside.

"I'm her husband."

"You think I don't know what she's like? She just wants to force me to give in."

Then the white sheet was lifted.

He saw my face.

In that second it was as if a hand had closed around his throat, and every sound in him cut off.

They handed him the diagnosis paper.

"The deceased had a malignant tumor, already late-stage."

"From the condition of her body, she'd been malnourished for a long time. The pain would have gone on for a good while."

Giles stared at the words on the page, his fingers slowly going white.

"That's not possible..."

"She only asked me yesterday whether she was going to die soon."

"How could she really be dead?"

The landlord was shaking with rage.

"She started coughing up blood last month. I told her to go to the hospital. She said there was no money at home."

"She said you worked five jobs a day, and she couldn't be a burden to you."

The neighbor woman's eyes reddened too.

"Every night she came home holding onto the wall to stay up."

"I cooked her a bowl of noodles, and she still tried to send me five dollars for it."

"A grown man, and you let your wife get this sick. Are you blind?"

Giles's lips moved.

"I didn't know..."

The landlord sneered.

"You didn't know?"

"I called you yesterday, and you said she was faking."

"I said I'd call the police, and you said no."

"Now she's dead. Who are you telling you didn't know?"

When Lillian hurried over, she was still in her heels.

She stopped in the doorway and covered her nose first.

"Giles, the smell in here is awful..."

Giles slowly turned his head.

Lillian's eyes reddened at once.

"I'm not being cruel, I'm just scared."

She turned to the officer, her voice going soft.

"Was Sally always a little emotionally unstable?"

"I really never thought she'd do something this extreme."

Giles's grip crushed the diagnosis paper.

I drifted behind him.

And finally saw him start to shake.

Maybe he had finally understood that I was really dead.