I called him sir, but his name wasn’t sir. I don’t ever need to say his name again, so I won’t. I’ll just leave it with ‘him’ and be done with that.

I guess once people read this, they’ll say I didn’t take good care of him. They might even call me a bad person. In the end, that’s just name calling.

I guess I never thought to tell him. Why should I? It was a strange thing. A foreign thing. And if he didn’t know about it, he wouldn’t go worrying himself about it. But I always knew it was there.

That’s the strange thing about necks, more often than not, you don’t see the back of your own from one harvest to the next.

He never let the doctor come to the house. Says we didn’t need no doctor. Not even when I my arm got broke that time. He said it’d heal just fine without some witch doctor come prying into our house.

I swear he loved the house more than me. Was painting it all year long, between times he was out in the fields or off selling our goods at market. No sooner would he finish painting it top to bottom, inside and out, than he’d start over again.

If you’re reading this, then I guess we’re both gone. If you’re reading this, then I guess you know the truth of it all. That doesn’t matter me much. I did what I had to do.

He had a family somewhere. He must have done. Not that he spoke a word about them. Not that he spoke a word to any folk, bar holding up that goddamn pitchfork of his and telling them to leave his property. He took good care of that pitchfork. That and the house.

I saw it on his neck. I could have said something. I could have said a lot of things, but I didn’t. He didn’t like me to speak much if he hadn’t told me to. Seemed to think he was the one in charge. He wasn’t the one in charge. Neither of us were.

The thing on his neck grew, over time. He didn’t notice it. I could have said something, but I was never going to, not after the broken arm. Not after that.

It took two years to take him fully. Two long years. He got thinner, but the idiot didn’t think much on it. When he was lying on his death bed, I’d visit him every day, just the two of us. He was quiet by then, and I could speak all I wanted.

And whilst I spoke, I took a brush in my hand and I painted the house all manner of colours he hated. And I took a plane to that pitchfork, and every day I’d shave the handle down a little bit more. Slowly, he disappeared.

I was a good woman, and I took good care of him.