Chapter 73 2025
“Mom, you’re not even paying attention.”
I blink several times and look from the dancing sparkles on the water to my daughter practicing cartwheels on the beach.
“Okay. I’m watching.”
Ivy spirals hand over hand in the clover. A few grazing rabbits freeze, then go back to their nibbling.
“Wonderful!” I say, though her arms were bent and her body bowed.
A natural athlete she’s not, and for that, I’m grateful.
Her talents lie in her wide-open heart and curious appreciation for the world.
Like me, she loves animals. Unlike me, she only sees the good in everything.
Her life has been blessed, safe, and full of unconditional, enveloping love.
It’s early evening, a magical time at the pond. A summer storm is brewing, and the sky is mostly shadow with just gleams of sunlight breaking through. I breathe in the mossy, damp scent and return my gaze to the dappled water.
Remarkably, I still find peace here, despite all that’s happened in this very spot.
I sit on the flat rock, in the same spot Bart left Nick’s body all those years ago.
I still think of Nick. Him and Profe and Mother and Boodo.
It’s hard letting go of those we’ve lost. I imagine it will be the same for those who love me when I’m gone, a hollow in the place I used to fill.
I’m out on bail, awaiting the plea deal my attorney is negotiating.
Both sides are eager to avoid a trial, which would be a media spectacle and of which I’m unlikely to survive long enough to hear the verdict.
My doctor anticipates I have a few weeks left, but with melanoma, it’s hard to know exactly.
When I was first diagnosed, a few days before Halloween, the doctor said that with aggressive treatment I could live two years.
Without aggressive treatment, I’d be lucky to survive a third that.
It’s been nine months, and I’m still here.
Melanoma—my nevus’s final revenge on my life.
Thunder rumbles, a distant drumroll, and I close my eyes and soak in the sound.
In the court of public opinion, I’ve already been tried and convicted, and the story has made for wonderful drama—ice princess turned murderer of the man who caused the death of her beloved mentor.
It seems somehow fitting that, in my final chapter, I find myself once again in the spotlight of fame and that the world has it wrong.
Some say my illness caused me to lose my mind. Others are convinced I was never sane in the first place, and that my “handlers” kept my madness hidden. It’s easy to believe someone who doesn’t look like you is different in other ways as well, not right in the head and off their rocker.
I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m frail now and my nevus has grown so unsightly. In the mug shot taken after my arrest, my face is revolting, and I imagine, looking at it, it’s not difficult to imagine me a murderer.
“She’s been unstable since the last Olympics,” one reporter said. “Remember her bizarre final performance, the backflip she did for no reason and the way she skated off after, not even waiting for her scores?”
Another newscaster called me “nutty as a three-eyed squirrel.”
I smiled at that one, trying to imagine it. Kai emailed me an AI-generated image of the animal, which gave me a much-needed laugh. Despite the brave face I’m putting on for Ivy, I’m struggling. It’s not necessarily dying I’m scared of so much as the idea of leaving those I love.
Meanwhile, at the same time as I’m being vilified, Bart is being revered.
2025 is a strange time of extremes. One conservative podcaster said, “The man devoted his life to God and his country. Bravely he reported an illegal alien charged with murder, and for that he was cut down by a raving liberal lunatic.”
Ironically, the only person, outside my family and friends, who seems wholly convinced of my innocence is the man who arrested me.
The sheriff has visited multiple times to plead with me to tell him what actually happened so he can set things right.
He even went so far as to say he never would have arrested me had he known it would come to this.
A drop falls from the sky followed by another.
“It’s raining,” Ivy squeals and runs up the knoll toward Meryl’s house.
I push to my feet with a groan and follow. Every part of me feels old now, every part except my heart, which still loves as it did when I was a child.
By the time I reach the patio door, I’m dizzy from the exertion.
Meryl opens the sliding door, and the dogs leap and bounce in greeting.
I collapse into a chair at the kitchen table, drop my face to my hands, and work to keep the sickness in my throat.
Meryl hands me a glass of water, her hand trembling so bad water sloshes out.
“We make quite the pair,” she says.
I want to laugh but can’t quite manage it.
She sets her shaky hand on mine. “It’s time,” she says. “You need to call him.”