Notes on an Execution

The narrative shifts to September of 2011. Hazel, sleeping next to her husband Luis, experiences her first Summoning. She awakens with a sudden burning pain in her chest that subsides just as quickly. The following afternoon, as she looks after her children Alana and Mattie, the phone rings. Jenny is on the other end, declaring that she has taken a nursing job in Texas and has finally left Ansel, who took the news “really [badly].” She asks Hazel to come meet her at a hotel. Hazel is shocked; the plan for Jenny to leave Ansel has been in the works for months, but Ansel was not supposed to know about it until Jenny was already gone.

Hazel recalls how at Jenny’s wedding she watched Ansel perform a shallow facsimile of emotion. She felt a sick satisfaction at knowing that her sister’s life was not perfect. In the intervening years, Jenny has struggled with a substance use disorder. Now Hazel is happily married and a mom with a good job at a ballet studio. She secretly enjoys feeling Jenny’s envy.

Hazel meets Jenny and they go to Jenny’s home to collect her belongings. Ansel sulks on the couch, muttering that Jenny is proving his Theory correct, that “no one thing can be wholly good” (195). After collecting Jenny’s things, they drive to her hotel room as Ansel glowers from the porch.

Jenny confesses to Hazel the details of her encounter with Saffy. When Hazel pushes her on the question of Ansel’s guilt, Jenny retorts that she knows Hazel is enjoying her suffering.

After Jenny falls asleep, Hazel steps into the hotel’s hallway and finds Saffy’s contact information. She calls the detective but hangs up right away.

The following morning, Hazel drives Jenny to the airport. Jenny gives Hazel Lila’s ring before leaving. Hazel stashes the ring in her glove compartment, feeling distant from her twin.

The prison Chaplain arrives, carrying a bag from Polunsky. Inside is Ansel’s Theory. Ansel’s heart sinks as he realizes his words haven’t been distributed to the presses as he’d hoped. He spreads out his pages and reads a passage on morality. Ansel believes that morality is not concrete and always has the potential for change. He thinks that the Blue House proves even he is capable of goodness.

Ansel first learned about the Blue House a year after Jenny left him when he received a letter from his niece Blue, who had tracked him down through hospital records. The news that Baby Packer had lived was a revelation to Ansel, who realized that the screaming was not a punishment but an attempt to communicate something. He drove up to the diner the following weekend. When he laid eyes on Blue, the screaming in his head stopped because she looked just like Lavender.

The narrative shifts back to 2012. Saffy is 40 years old and has recently been promoted to police captain. She is overseeing a mistrial on an older case, a woman named Marjorie Lawson, who was bludgeoned to death with a frying pan by her husband Greg. Greg was a strong suspect, but a lieutenant named Kensington got drunk and proclaimed Greg’s guilt at the local pub, leading his defense to file for a mistrial.

Often after her workdays end, Saffy reopens the 1990 file on the three murdered girls. She dreams about them regularly, grown-up versions of who they might have become.

After yet another dream about Izzy, Saffy drives into Vermont to visit Ansel’s home again. She has been stalking him for over a decade. She knows Jenny has left for Texas and recalls observing how the relationship fell apart, with Jenny descending into alcoholism.

When Ansel emerges, Saffy tails him discretely to the Blue House and enters the diner after him. She observes him sitting with a young girl—Blue. Saffy also spots a small altar to Ellis Harrison, who died in 2003 at the age of 26. She asks Rachel how old Blue is. Rachel responds that she is 16, Ansel’s preferred victim age.

Back in the office, Saffy tries to focus on the Lawson case. She is upset by the recurrent pattern of men who wreak havoc on others and “still [demand] more” (224). Impulsively, she lets her favorite detective, Corinne, in on the 1990 case.

That night, Saffy checks her email. She is hoping for an email from her foster agency because she is trying to find her father.

The following day, Corinne excitedly tells Saffy of a new discovery: Ansel Packer is Ellis Harrison’s older brother, making Blue his niece. Saffy returns to the Blue House and is shocked to see Ansel still there. She realizes that he is staying at the house.

Kensington enters Saffy’s office and apologizes insincerely for the trouble he’s caused with the Lawson case. Saffy is reminded of Ansel’s empty apology in the doorway of Miss Gemma’s.

Two days out from the Lawson retrial, Saffy receives an email from the agency. They have found her father, Shaurya Singh, but he died in 2004. Saffy stumbles out of her office and drives back to the Blue House, watching Ansel from the parking lot. As she watches him laugh with Blue, she resents both his happiness and Blue’s ability to trust a man so easily.

The following morning, Saffy turns on her phone to find stacked voicemails from Corinne; Greg Lawson has died by suicide in his jail cell. Anger floods Saffy at murderous men who feel “entitled to their freedom” (241) even after taking the lives of others.

Saffy enters the Blue House and flashes her badge. She reveals that Ansel is a suspect in the 1990 murders and warns Blue and Rachel to stay away.

On the Monday which would’ve been the date of the Lawson retrial, Rachel calls to confirm that she has sent Ansel away. Saffy visits her mother’s grave.

Blue arrives at the Walls Unit. She doesn’t want to see or speak to Ansel. He remembers the happy days they spent together at the Blue House, sharing stories about Ellis. In her company, he felt himself growing into the goodness he knew he was capable of.

The chaplain returns to ask if Ansel has a message for Blue. Ansel asks how the state can carry out his execution when Blue is proof that he can be good. The chaplain responds that everyone can be good—the question is “how we ask for forgiveness” (248).

Jenny appears to Ansel in fleeting visions. He wishes he could ask her how to feel emotions.

After Rachel sent Ansel away from the Blue House, he drove to Texas, leaving behind all his belongings. He finds Jenny’s workplace through Facebook and waits for her to emerge, planning how he will win her back. When she appears, however, she is with a new boyfriend.

Furious, Ansel follows Jenny to her house and kicks down her door. Jenny grabs a kitchen knife to defend herself. Looking back, Ansel sees how the moment of her death could have gone differently, but at the time “she was just a Girl” (252).

With 30 minutes left until his execution, Ansel wonders why his intentions aren’t being considered. He wanted to love and learn how to be a good person. He only killed Jenny because of “what [he] knew [himself] to be” (252).