Sarah ate her moo goo gai pan while the man lay dying on the floor. The food was tasteless on her tongue and the stench of vomit hanging over the cramped kitchen ruined her appetite. Death was messier than the fantasy she had played out in her mind. Her daydreams had never included the smells and the unsettling sounds of death, just relief from her torment.
She pushed the mushrooms to the side to save for her brother, an old habit that lingered despite his absence. She recognized the absurdity, but she couldn’t bring herself to eat them.
Months of planning had led to this moment, but the satisfaction she was hoping for didn’t come. Sitting on a barstool in his tiny, shabby home, Douglas James Miller wasn’t the monster from her memories, only a fragile human being on the brink of death. No outward sign betrayed the darkness she knew he harbored. His features were mundane, almost disappointingly so, compared to the ominous perception she had carried in her mind for so long. He had an unremarkable face and brown hair tinged with flecks of gray. There was a small scar just below his left ear Sarah never noticed before.
The phantom of her brother’s arms still pressed around her, that final, desperate hug in the courthouse hallway. Everything will be okay, he had whispered, a lie that turned sour after his death in a holding cell. A brief phone call from the State and her already broken world shattered beyond repair. The dying man’s face blurred into the one from the witness stand. His finger, as good as a gun, aimed at her brother’s chest. She had etched every line of that face into her memory.
An eerie quiet blanketed the room as the man’s gasps turned to shallow, panting breaths. The only other sound was the incessant ticking of the clock hanging on the wall. Each beat scraped against her raw nerves like sandpaper. Furniture that was too large for the space cluttered the room. A worn brown leather couch, end tables buried under unopened mail, no extra coasters on the coffee table. His unfinished container of general tso chicken sat on the counter. By the time she slipped into Douglas’s house with the spare key she found stashed outside he was already losing consciousness, unaware that his food had been tampered with on his doorstep while he sat inside. Poison had seemed discreet, clean, and it required no physical confrontation.
He deserves this. He deserves this. Doesn’t he? Sarah repeated it to herself to steady her shaking hands, listening to his slowing breaths. The plastic fork stalled hovering in the air, the piece of cabbage hanging in the balance before she forced it in her mouth. Twelve people believed Douglas James Miller’s words over her brother’s and that was all it took. He was gone forever and she couldn’t let that injustice go unpunished. Maybe the man really believed it was her brother he saw that night, or maybe it didn’t even matter to him which brown boy did the crime as long as someone paid. The damage was the same either way. She just wanted to finally stop seeing her brother’s lifeless face every time she closed her eyes.
Sarah wiped her hands and slipped off the barstool to look at the man lying at her feet, Douglas James Miller. She hoped he felt a fraction of the pain and confusion he had inflicted on her and her brother. Did his friends call him Doug or Dougie? Did he have friends? In her weeks of monitoring him and his home, she hadn’t seen much evidence of any relationships besides the delivery people who brought his weekly takeout and his groceries. A delivery driver called him Joe once. A mistake, she’d assumed. There were some framed photos of a smiling little girl on the mantle, but no children had visited the house in the month that she had been surveilling him. The thought of his loneliness felt like justice.
Sarah snapped a blue latex glove over her hand and bent down to check whether he was still breathing or if it was finally over. She leaned in close and laid a finger on his neck, just under his jaw. He let out one last wet gasp. Startled, Sarah fell back against one of the end tables, knocking loose the mail perched on the edge. It fell around her like confetti on the floor.
Douglas’s eyes were open, unblinking. Sarah reached out to touch him again. Though his skin was still warm, there was no movement of blood pumping beneath. Her chest became a hollow chamber. Even though she had been waiting for this moment for years, she didn’t feel joy at taking someone’s life. She didn’t feel remorse either. Her only desire was to finish up and get the hell out of this house.
She found a bag under the kitchen sink and shook it open. The loud snap of the bag echoed in the room, silent now except for Sarah’s heavy breathing. After gathering her trash she moved on to the final thing there was to do. The part that she dreaded the most, but was essential to her plan’s success.
She removed a piece of chicken from his container and carefully opened Doug’s mouth, pushing it as far back into his throat as she could. The lack of resistance from his tongue was unsettling as her fingers disappeared from sight. A strong garlic odor came from his mouth and her stomach began to roil. Every sense in her body was screaming at the wrongness of what was happening. Putting one hand over her own mouth to stifle her gag, she gave one final push until the flesh of his throat gave way. She forced down the bile that had risen in her throat and told herself again that this was simply righting a wrong. It would look like he choked while eating dinner alone. Based on his lack of visitors it could be days before anyone even came to check on him.
She surveyed the room one final time, pausing at the envelopes scattered on the floor. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that he bumped into the table while gasping for air, but she didn’t want to leave anything that looked out of place. She picked up an envelope. It was addressed to Douglas Joseph Miller.
Her vision wavered. The room drained of color, the floor tilting, as if she were standing on a precipice. The clock ticked loudly, each beat a fragmented thought she couldn’t quite catch. She wished she could turn down the volume so she could focus more clearly. Sarah recalled the man she had seen in the courtroom three years ago, the details of his face she had memorized with such certainty. Yet, doubt wormed its way into her brain, too deep for her to claw out.
Sarah’s heart raced, her breath in short, shallow pants. She stared at his vacant face. Had his nose always been that sharp? Had his eyes been hazel or more green? She took a sharp inhale of the stale air. There was no turning back. No time or room for a guilty conscience.
She dug her hands into the pockets of his pants. The softness of his muscles pressed against her finger tips. Vomit and urine overwhelmed the air, an oppressive sickly sweet. A throb started to beat behind her eyes, in rhythm with her heartbeat. His body was just a few degrees too cold now, just enough for her base animal instincts to recognize the danger. A chill ran up her spine. In his back left pocket, she found what she was looking for: a black leather wallet.
Bracing herself, she flipped it open. Douglas Joseph Miller. Bile rose in her throat again. She choked on it. Her mind spun. His ID or the court documents were incorrect. She couldn’t be wrong. She couldn’t think of what it would mean if she were wrong. The lines of her memory became hazy.
The short rap of knuckles against the front door froze the spiral Sarah was descending into. Still on her knees beside the body, the coldness of the floor seeping into her shins. She felt the sound before she registered what it was. The clock continued its unceasing count of the seconds passing, indifferent to the rapid change of circumstances for the room’s occupants.
Certainty had once felt solid in her hands, something she could hold onto. The certainty that she was doing the right thing, had the right man, that she was resetting the balance. She stared at the blue latex of the gloves, a slight sheen of saliva coating them. She understood then that certainty did not always belong with the truth.
The lock turned. The door began to open. It was too late for regrets. Sarah didn’t know now if she had been right. Only that she had been certain just moments ago.
Hayley Grace was born and raised in rural Missouri where she currently lives with her husband and daughter. When she is not writing she works as a human resources professional. She is drawn to stories about the complexity of family and relationships. Her hobbies include cooking, reading, and laughing obnoxiously loud. Her work has been published in Discretionary Love and is upcoming in JMWW. She is currently working on her debut novel.
Published 8/7/26