Death on the Installment Plan

"Grief isn't carnivorous," he said, "Grief is my hands."

"Your hands," Angie said.

"I can feel her flesh in them," he said. "Still. And the smells?" He tapped his nose. "Sweet Jesus. This scent of sand on her skin or the salt in the air coming through the screens of that fisherman's shack? Grief, I swear to God, doesn't live in the heart. It lives in the senses. And sometimes, all I want to do is cut off my nose so I can't smell her, hack my fingers off at the joint."


"Sacred" by Dennis Lehane