The last time she ran, there was nobody to miss.
Well, there were two. Two she could have missed, if she were the kind of person who missed anybody. She wasn't.
Gerard was a dog. Dogs die. You can't get attached to them; it's like getting attached to a boquet of tulips or a sunset-it fades out, and you're left with less than you started with, since a piece of you has gone missing with the fading colors.
Jack was a three-year-old, all grubby fingers and sweaty hugs. Children are porous, flexible, elastic. Give them something new to slobber over and drag through the dirt, and they'll forget you had to throw raggedy Raggedy Ann away. Let them have a constant-a good mother, a beloved brother-and they'll grow just fine, untouched by chaos.
They do not miss her, and she does not miss them.
The dog had to disappear with the house, with Leela. There was no option. Dogs know things, and it would have followed her out the side window to the train. If she had locked it in the garage, it would have barked, whined, cried there for hours until someone rescued it from the flames. And when they did, it would have run around the house and down the road, sniffing for her, tracing her steps. People would write off her husband's doubts as paranoia; as grief if they were over-generous or blind. Not so with the dog. They'd look harder for the body, and when they didn't find it, they'd come for her. People trust dogs.
So the dog burned with the house. Not alive; not even Kalinda was that cold. Leela certainly wasn't. She waited until it slept, then swiftly twisted its neck. It died quickly, the heartbeat slowing beneath her fingers. She placed the animal against the locked door. Who thinks to autopsy a dog?
The boy, she didn't kill. Clearly. The week before she left, his mother was sick, so Leela offered to take him to the park, scuffed sneakers prancing along beside softly clicking low-heeled boots and furry paws.
"Babysit me always, please?"
She had smiled down on him and tousled his curls. "Always."
On the way home, they watched a squirrel get run over by a truck. The rodent bled, the boy cried, and she cuddled him before squaring his shoulders. Looking straight into those hazel eyes, she told him that everything dies, things change or fall apart, and all you can do is build them up again.
She called off that Tuesday, told his mother she didn't feel well. Morning sickness, you understand. She could watch him Friday, instead? As she hung up the phone, Leela wiped away one tear. No more. Leela would not cry again, and Friday would be one day past her exit.
The dog, and the boy. Easily taken care of. Easy enough to wipe away.
This time, running will hurt.