Notes on an Execution

In 2018, Saffy changes into a mourning dress. She gets a text from Blue, informing her that the execution is about to happen. Saffy declines to be present for it. Instead, she heads to a vigil for the murdered girls. A news crew is in attendance; Saffy is upset that they are there for the spectacle of Ansel. She thinks of Ansel receiving the lethal injection and knows that “the system has failed them all” (289).

After the vigil, Saffy returns to the police station, unable to stand going home to her empty house. Instead, she immerses herself in yet another case, missing 14-year-old Tanisha Jackson. Saffy believes that Tanisha is alive and that “not every girl must become a Girl” (290).

On the day of Ansel’s execution, Hazel and her mother review pre-execution paperwork before driving to the Walls Unit to witness his death. Hazel disagrees with the death penalty. Before his death, Ansel will get all the attention he wants, and then he will get to stop existing, freed from the consequences of his actions. She is sickened at the knowledge that some women will remember him with “bizarre, primitive lust” (293).

In the time since Jenny’s murder, Hazel has been hounded by the press, but the questions have never been about Jenny.