Summary

Chapter 18 opens with the statement, “grief has a life cycle” (268). It took Sue roughly seven years to feel as though she had emerged from the fog and by 2006 she finally started to feel better. As Sue connected with other survivors of murder-suicide, she became more and more certain that suicide was the driving force behind their loss despite the public’s categorization as exclusively murders. She began to engage more regularly with her new community the distance that had begun to grow between her and Tom widened. In 2014, after 43 years of marriage, Sue and Tom decided to part ways. Sue writes, “We ended our marriage to save our friendship, and I believe we will always care for each other. I am grateful for that” (271).

Sue continued to have more and more severe panic attacks, which allowed her to understand what it feels like to...