Paula and Carol Peletier in “Unfinished Business”

I was a secretary before. I fetched coffee for my boss and made him feel good about himself. I spent most of my days reading stupid inspirational e-mails to try and feel good about myself. There was this one that kept going around. A young woman was having a hard time and told her mom she wanted to give up, so her mom went to the kitchen and started boiling three pots of water. She put a carrot in one, an egg in another, and ground coffee beans in the last one. After they had boiled a while, her mom said, "Look, all three things went through the same boiling water. The carrot went in strong and came out soft. The egg was fragile and came out hard. But the coffee beans changed the water itself." You're supposed to want to be the coffee beans. See, to me, coffee was just a thing that my boss would drink up. No matter how many times I refilled his damn cup, it was just never enough. I was at work when the Army took over DC. We weren't allowed to leave. They had to evacuate all the important people first-- members of Congress, government employees. So I was stuck with my boss. Not my family-- my husband, my four girls. My boss was weak and stupid and he was going to die and he was going to take me down, too. He was the first person I killed so that I could live. I stopped counting when I hit double digits. That's right around the time I stopped feeling bad about it. I am not like you. I'm still me, but better. I lost everything and it made me stronger.

Carol Peletier

You sure about that?

I'm alive.

Carol Peletier

With those people, those killers.

Your people are killers, Carol. That makes you a killer.

Carol Peletier

You-- you're the one.

Excuse me?

Carol Peletier

You're the one who's afraid to die. And you're going to. You will die. It's what's gonna happen if you don't work this out.

Are you going to kill me?

Carol Peletier

I hope not.