Murdering Mr. Monti: A Merry Little Tale of Sex and Violence by Judith Viorst Page A

You’re entitled.”
    “And feeling more mature than you.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because what you’re planning is very immature. You’re not going to give me an argument on that, are you?”
    I cleared my throat and fiddled with the zipper on my cozy flannel bathrobe. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Rose, but if you were doing it, I’d think it was immature. My doing it is . . . is a, well, it’s an exhaustively thought through, fully responsible choice. Not admirable. I’m not saying admirable. But when you look at the total picture—not immature.”
    You can tell how improved our relationship is by the fact that Rose just shook her head, and laughed at me, after which she excused herself, hustled into the kitchen, and came right back with a bag of frozen Clark Bars. “Speaking of immature . . .” she said, and then the room fell silent, except for the snuffle of Hubert’s stuffed nose and the sound of our busy teeth chomping through chocolate.
    Rosalie yawned, “So tell me, on this TV show you’re taping tomorrow morning—what are you going to say about food and guilt?”
    I stood up and brushed the crumbs off my lips and licked the last of the chocolate off my fingers.
    “I’m going to say that there’s nothing that a womancould do in bed that could possibly, in a million years, make her feel as guilty as eating four Clark Bars.”
    •  •  •
    I’m getting concerned that I’m coming across as devil may-care about guilt. Not true—I am a deeply guilty person. I’ll go even further and say that I believe I am gifted in guilt the way some folks are gifted in athletics. A sense of guilt is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of healthy adulthood. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. But having asserted that principle, I must add that although guilt is good, we must not overdo it—a point I have underscored in several columns, like I T’S N OT Y OUR F AULT T HAT I T’S R AINING and F ORGETTING H ER B IRTHDAY D ID N OT G IVE Y OUR M OTHER A S TROKE and (one of my profounder explorations of the subject) N OBODY’S G OD— M AYBE N OT E VEN G OD.
    I believe I have learned to distinguish the things that I shouldn’t feel guilty about from those things about which I most assuredly should. Like (despite what they taught me in parenting class) preferring Wally to Jake. Like (despite an excess seven pounds and a two-eight five cholesterol) eating candy. Like (despite the fact that Mrs. Monti won’t ever find out about it) sleeping with the husband of a wonderful wife and mother and future grandmother.
    I knew at the time that Mrs. Monti would never find out about it because Mr. Monti had sworn a fearsome oath. I didn’t know at the time that (even though our secret would go with us to the grave, and even though I posed no threat to their marriage, and even though I wasn’t the first—or even the fifteenth—woman he had slept with) I would nonetheless feel I had injured Mrs.Monti, I didn’t know I would feel so small, so mean, so wrong, so unbelievably guilty.
    I told you I’m good at guilt but, as I often explain to my readers, guilt must then be followed by forgiveness. We need to forgive other sinners—and ourselves. And so I’m in the process of forgiving myself for injuring Mrs. Monti, a process I am hoping to complete by the time I’ve managed to murder her husband.
    •  •  •
    It was while I stood in his office back on August 24, hearing him bellowing to the police that my younger son was a kidnapper and a thief, that I let myself think it: I want to kill Mr. Monti. Look what he’s doing destroying my Wally’s life. But not so fast! It seems the police could not call Josephine “kidnapped” unless she was being held against her will. (“Find my child,” Mr. Monti roared, “and when I’m finished talking to her, I guarantee she’ll say it’s against her will.”) As for the theft of the money, “Yeah, okay, I got it