Ed has become very attentive lately. And affectionate. What I took for reassurance has taken on a more sinister tone. He talks a lot about how we'll be safe, and how we can just pick up after we return to town, after the temperature drops.
If any of us are left.
Four more suicides in the last three days. Two by hanging, one walked into the river, and Will Harper's wife took his gun and blew her own head off in the middle of the night last night. Am I an awful person for wishing she had taken Will out with her?
If I had a gun in my hand right now, could I do it?
Olivia went back to the wood crew, looking like a quiet, pale shadow of herself. I'll continue to sit with her after work every evening for a couple of hours, and wake her up each morning. Ed thinks that losing Jess has pushed her over the edge. Let him think that.
She's showed me things over the last couple of days, and shared what she could. For a former Toronto woman, Olivia is frighteningly capable. And I think she's rapidly losing patience with me.
"You'll know it when it happens," she told me. But she wouldn't tell me what 'it' was. "Just be ready, and try to keep your boys close. You can manage that, right?"
You know, I'm so tired of her thinking I can't handle anything. Okay, so maybe she's had reason. But I'm stronger than she thinks. Stronger than Ed thinks, too. In the end it doesn't matter, because no matter what happens, I'll either handle it, or somebody will die.
