On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope. They got out of the EMS truck, as usual moving much too slowly in our opinion, and the fat one said under his breath, “This ain’t TV folks, this is how fast we go.” He was carrying the heavy respirator and cardiac unit past the bushes that had grown monstrous and over the erupting lawn, tame and immaculate thirteen months earlier when the trouble began.
***
There was no way I was going to stop there: “when the trouble began” is catnip to any reader! And the matter-off-fact response of the EMS guy is troubling…what’s really going on here?