Death smelled like...peppermint?

Kate opened her eyes. They ached.

Everything ached.

Death had old-fashioned taste: the room teemed with things covered in chintz.

What would she wear on the Oprah show? Kate's mind stopped for a second. If I am still thinking about what to wear on a ridiculous talk show, maybe I don't want to die. And she laughed. The pills, were they making her giddy? She wasn't sure. Betty, tough Betty had just willed herself to sleep.

She was wearing one of her old lady dresses, one of the dresses she'd bought when it was clear that she was never going to slenderize and slim as she once had, baggy, partly polyester--it made Kate's skin creep--with plenty of pockets. Kate reached into her shopping cart and loaded the pockets with stones.

They would find the note, eventually. They would notice that she had stopped all connections to the outside world, eventually. Someone else would live in that little house, and her ex-husband would use the money he used to send to her for...what? Paper napkins? If there had been any hope that her son wanted to see her again, if there had been any hope that she could find her son, she'd keep going, like one of those ridiculous Beckett characters she never knew how to play.

But it was all done, all gone. Blink would probably put her picture up on the wall, and that would be nice, or she wouldn't, because it would make her sad. Kate walked to land's end. The water was low tonight, and she would make some noise jumping into the water, but not enough to raise any kind of alarm. She would go quietly.

And she did.