The Suicide Index

by Joan Wickersham

  This last thought decides me: I step on the gas and drive straight through the intersection.

  This, reader, is where I draw the line and the curtain.

  I could end this book in a lot of different places, just as I began by circling, over and over, back to the day of my father’s death. I could end in bed with my husband, in the graveyard, in the church in Italy, in my psychiatrist’s office.

  Or in my house, that first morning, hearing the news from Ted Tyson and thinking, “Oh no,” and “Of course.”

  Or I could end driving in Connecticut, toward the highway, away from the sign that says POLICE STATION. Knowing that I’ll never know the whole story. Knowing that I’ll never feel his death as fully and directly as I might wish to; and that perhaps as a result I’ll never be done feeling it.

  Knowing that if I could somehow get him back, rewind “the tape, look into his eyes, and say, “Please don’t do it,” he might look away from me and do it anyway.

  And knowing that wherever I am, I am always moving, and I will never be in one place for long.

  About the Author

  JOAN WICKERSHAM is the author of the novel The Paper Anniversary. Her work has appeared in the Best American Short Stories series, and she has won the Ploughshares Cohen Award for Best Short Story. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.