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Show 80 Annis is silent a long time, stroking the motionless head of Luel's child. A slight wind stirs the trees; the steady hum of traffic on the main coast road is faintly audible. Rod shifts himself down one step, then up again; he finds the hard stone uncomfortable. "Didn't your father tell you he was going to do it too?" she asks. "We've lived our lives together, we were going to end them that way." "No," growls Rod. "Absolutely not." Now the surveillance increases, and the loose arrangements that had been so informal at first become regimented quickly: Rod spends the morning working on the materials from his office, while Evan watches Annis; Evan reads during the afternoon, while Rod keeps his eyes on her; Rod's wife fills in at lunch, and sometimes during supper. John is watching all the time; occasionally he sets out for his office or the lab, but if he arrives at all he does not stay long, and returns quickly home again. Luel's child is not trusted any longer, and when both brothers go out, they hire a sitter in. It is torture to Annis to be watched so continuously, and it quickly begins to be a torture to the watchers too: Roderick and his wife, Evan are impatient to go home, to return to their normal lives, to have the matter settled and under control. But they respond to this tension by redoubling their efforts; they make regular searches of the house, in case there is any little cache of sleeping pills or razor blades they have not yet discovered; they inspect Annis' purse, empty out the pockets of her coat; they buy a child-proof medicine chest, and lock the prescribed pills in it. They remove the knives from the kitchen, and let her use |