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Show 46 with which she was choosing to live. He grabs the ticket and races into the bathroom, enraged, waving the ticket. "What is this?" he explodes. She shrinks back, involuntarily and futily attempting to cover the indiscrete folds of her body with the single washcloth. "What did you use for money?" he demands. She is astonished; in all their years together they have never quarrelled over money, and she is startled that he should think of it now. She removes the washcloth from her body, wrings it out, drapes it carefully over the edge of the tub. With effort, she lifts herself out of the water, stands at full length before him, so that he sees the way her used breasts sag, her skin lies loosely across her fallen belly, and the hair between her legs has grown sparse and pale. She pulls a towel around herself. "Money," she says. "Well, I will tell you," and she explains something which he has known all along but avoided remembering: when they had first agreed to end their lives together, years ago, she had suggested that they start a little "final fund," so that whatever expenses would need to be paid could be drawn from it, and not from the pockets of their heirs and children. He follows her into her study. "There was a lot left over," he watches her say, and she shows him an envelope in the drawer of her desk. In the envelope is a formal-looking document, printed like a certificate; Robeck finds his eyes travelling across the name of a funeral company, the legend "prepaid plan." "It was the cheapest I could find," says Annis. "It's all paid for." |
