Bad Things. Michael Marshall

a rope. Ask someone who has lost their mother how they feel about Thanksgiving. But one day you realize that you're still alive, and you pour someone else's gravy over your turkey and are thankful there's any at all. If you want to stay sane, anyhow.

      ‘Are you okay?’

      I realized I'd been staring down at my hands, and glanced up to see Ellen looking at me. She seemed a little less tense than she had.

      ‘I'm fine. So …’

      ‘Not everyone believes that's what happened.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I don't know,’ she said. ‘I loved Gerry. We were happy.’

      ‘How much did you get?’

      She looked annoyed at the question. ‘Two million dollars. Is that enough?’

      I shrugged. Enough to kill someone for? Yes. But as people will whack each other over sneakers or an iPod, there's an argument that adding zeros doesn't constitute motivation. Money is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for murder, and two million dollars is not as much as it sounds.

      ‘Ellen,’ I said, firmly. My beer was almost done and so was I. ‘I came up here because—’

      ‘It's the house,’ she said.

      ‘The house?’ I said, confused. Part of my head was still processing having revisited my own property, and for a moment I thought that's what she was talking about. ‘Your house? What about it?’