After Pat was very sound asleep, Tiffany ventured back to the dining room. She sat down at the dining room table she had kept with her since Tommy, though it was much too big for the space in the guest house. She slapped a piece of paper and began to scrawl half-legible and mostly unprintable comments to the author of the epistle Pat had delivered. The pencil lead snapped twice before she had finished half a page, which was when she gouged right through the paper. For a moment, she lifted the paper and stared with a look approaching horror at the gray mark on the table. She quickly applied a little spit, and the mark quickly faded. She placed her hands flat on the table and took long, deep breaths for several minutes. Then she took out a piece of paper and a pen, and began to write:

Tommy,

When I received a letter in your name, there were moments when my heart lifted. There were many things I could believe you would say, and I needed to hear very much. Then I read things I did not know, and you would, which I later verified. I know Pat didn't do it himself, I don't know who did, and at this point, I don't really care. All I want to say is, whatever is going on here, it must stop. It makes sense that there would be rules against people over there talking to people over here. I can say from experience, it is not a nice experience to feel like we're talking, even if I don't believe it is really you. If this was someone's idea of payback for tricking Pat, then fine, mission accomplished. Enough.

But, it's not. Pat and I watched Pet Semetary tonight, and it actually made him cry because he felt for the guy so much. I just thought he was an idiot, but I am the same way. As long as this line is open, I cannot bring myself to let it go. I keep wanting to talk to you, Tommy, even though I know it will hurt me and I know you are not really there. So I am going to pretend one more time, and say something nobody else but my therapist knows. Tommy, you know how good I was at self-defense training. I have not done a proper work-out in more than a year, though I have tried practicing basic moves with Pat. All he has learned is that I can wipe the floor with him. Sometimes, he asks me why I gave the training up. At first, I told him the same thing I told my friends, because it brought back too many memories, which was true enough. Later, I said that all the kicks and punches bring out too much negative emotion, which was getting close. What I have never told anyone is that I was scared of what I wanted to do.

Tommy, the drunk who killed you is still out there. They caught him, but he wasn't just rich enough to pay for a good defense, he was a high-powered lawyer himself. He was caught stone cold, but he got a breathalyzer test thrown out, he made the witnesses' testimony looked like a telephone game, and he even had the balls to say you were careless for standing too far from the side of the road! In the end, he pled out to a year, and got out for good behavior in six months. Good behavior, after he never even slowed down! That was when I really went into a downward spiral. I wanted you back, and I had already done a lot of bad things just so I could close my eyes and pretend I was with you again. But when Jonny told me he was out, it all came down. If the man who killed you was back on the streets, then you were gone and never coming back. I got so twisted around, I felt like there was only one thing to do. I found where he lived and worked, mostly from your friends. Then I started thinking what to do. Later, I wrote it down in letters addressed to him, that only my therapist ever saw.

I wrote to him that I was going to kill him. I was not just going to kill him, I was going to do everything to his body that his car did to you with nothing but my own hands and feet. I was going to make every second he was dying seemed like hours, and it was going to take hours. I wrote out exactly how I was going to do it, one compound fracture at a time. I told him that was going to be for what he did to you. But first, for what he did to me, for taking you from me, for taking away the chance to give you a son, I was going to have to do something much worse, so terrible even I hated it, but I would do it just the same.

I was going to kill his kid, right in front of him.

Tommy, wherever you are, please forgive me for wanting to do this for you. And someone, anyone, please help me, because I am afraid. The baby will be here any day, and I am getting more headaches. The headaches make me want to kick and punch again, and sometimes I catch myself wanting the headaches. I am afraid I am really going to hurt someone. If it ever came to that, Pat could never defend himself against me. I doubt if he could ever match me, but when I try to get him to practice with me, he will not even try. Sometimes, all he does is stand there and let me rough him up. He is actually happy knowing he would not stand a chance, because he hurt someone in one of his own episodes, and he is afraid of hurting me. It does not seem to register that I might try to hurt him, and the baby too.

The one time I tried to tell him this, he said something that scares me even more. I told him I could have an episode of my own, and he smiled and said, "If anything happens, I take the blame. The worst they will do to me is send me back to the bad place."

I said to him, "But you said you would rather be dead than back there."

He said, "I would rather go there than hurt you."

I am so afraid. I feel so alone. Someone, anyone, please help.

Tiffany

At 2 AM, Patrick came out and found his wife slumped across the table. One hand clutched a sealed envelope.