How We Do It: Part XXV in a series

She came to the house in spiked heels to update Sophie's files. She is afraid of dogs, even white poodles. Her hair was streaked and her lashes thick with mascara, her cleavage generous. She lay the papers on the dining room table, looked up and smiled cheerfully.

So, now that Sophie is eighteen, have you thought about conservatorship? she asked.

Yes, I've already begun the filing, I answered, and she checked off a box. She has been coming to the house for these updates for more than three years.

We, too, will have to meet with you and the courts when you're ready to file, she said and I raised my eyebrows.

Our interest is, of course, that Sophie is treated like an adult and that her needs as an adult are met, she explained. She might have used different words, but her intent was to educate me.

I nodded and asserted that my interests were the same.

Well, you know, she added, are you prepared for something like Sophie meeting a man and perhaps falling in love and wanting to be married? 

I smiled back and explained that surely she remembered that Sophie's intellectual disabilities were such that falling in love and marriage were probably not in the future.

She placated me by stating that Sophie had dignity as a human being, and while she checked off another of her boxes, I took the hatchet that I carry in the back pocket of my jeans, raised it over her head and sliced right through the middle of the box that she'd checked, her magenta-tipped nails resting lightly on either side, the only evidence a thin swirl of white smoke obscuring her view.