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The night is peaceful now – not like before. The ocean moves with a mournful meandering. We ride with the breathing, up and down. Little waves lap against the boat. They bubble up white in the moonlight, scatter like tiny crabs, then dissolve in the deep, dark water.
Thomas dumped us in the salty water. One of us has his class ring. I don't know which one -- one of us. Marsha looks over the edge of the boat at us. She vomits. Thomas pulls her back.
"Oh my God," she says. "Oh my God."
Thomas takes her shoulders and shakes her. Get a grip, he says. Yes, a grip. But you don't get what was. You get what you made – a murderer. Made him kill me, your husband, so you could be free to have him. All those times, looking at each other. Looking and wanting something so bad you could kill for it. Murderers.
"You’re hurt," she says, but she is talking to him. She is his comfort, his problem now. We are absolved from all responsibility. We are free.
"He almost tore my damned finger off," he says.
Yes, before you killed and cut. And cut. And cut. Now it is we – the parts of the one you murdered and chopped up in your lust.
Thomas brushes his hand in the dark seawater, bleeding into it. His blood calls to us. One of us has his class ring. His blood testifies that it is enough.
The boat flows off on the wavering path of light laid by the moon. The fish come up in the ripples to feed on us. We don't mind. We have the ring. They will not feed on the hand that holds his ring – the evidence against you both.
Let the law kill them or put them away to rot in their shame. I call on heaven. Let not remorse enter her heart lest she be forgiven for her sin.
You should never have killed us where the moon could see you, Thomas. Now the ocean rises in its swelling indignation. The moon draws the severed hand to shore in its hot displeasure. The moon saw what you did.
The ring has your name engraved in it, Thomas. When they find it, they will start asking questions. Hell waits. For you and her. Murderers.
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