The Plans I Have for You: A Novel

She must have sunk her claws into him well before his wife died—a young, beautiful, healthy body, always eager to cook for him, clean for him, warm his bed in the way his dying wife no longer could. It usually visited her at the tail end of her long afternoon naps, emerging from the shadows in the walls and crouching over her body: a dark, silent, faceless figure that took its rest directly on her beating heart. She swayed on the spot, and it was as though she were cradling her own body, rocking herself the way a mother soothes an infant. His head lolled limply to the side, and Nathaniel Lee lay in the water, his body flushed pink, motionless, finally at rest.