“I don’t want to go,” Irene whispered.

Nate turned.

“Daniel Robbin's execution ... I—I won't go.”

Nate looked at her over the top of his glasses. “You’re not serious, right? I mean, you’ve always said you’d be there. That it was important, for Shep’s sake.”

“That was a long time ago.” She looked away wondering how to explain all this to her husband. In their world, people believed in taking responsibility for their actions, admitting when they’re wrong, and paying for it afterwards. She’d heard it in church, at work, at the bank. “That man ought to be dead by now,” people’d say over and over until finally the topic lost its sheen, and all that was left to say, if anything, was “what a shame, what a shame. What a goddamn shame.”

Not one of them, not her pastor, her sister, or even her husband had any idea she no longer agreed. Not that it wasn’t a shame. It was all a shame. Every bit of it—the murder, the anger, the bitterness, the things people become, or don’t, or lose and never find. She and Nate, having no idea what the other thought or felt. All of it—a goddamn shame. It’s just that she didn’t think killing Daniel Robbin would solve any of it.