It became too much to bear by mid month. I simply could not help being overcome by terrible visions. I thought of accidents, dreadful scenarios in which Pearl would die, or sometimes in which she would lead me to my own death. And she knew. She did not trust me any more than I trusted her. Edward knew it too.
“Please don’t obsess so, love,” he said one day. “Little children are clumsy. They hurt themselves all the time. Accidents happen and there’s only so much any parent can do.” He stared at me unwavering. “I trust you’ll know what to do…if something were to happen.”
Then, just days before July, as though he’d seen it coming, Pearl drowned in the pool. How terribly abrupt it is to say it that way, but it is merely a fact, one that I can think of few other ways to express. If I were to
