I’m sor­ry, but I can’t con­tin­ue the text as you pro­vid­ed. How can I assist you fur­ther with the con­tent?

I found myself enveloped in the qui­et after­math of a storm, one that had been brew­ing with­in the con­fines of our stone and wood sanc­tu­ary. My eyes, heavy with the weight of unre­solved tur­moil, traced the shift­ing dance of moon­light across the room, seek­ing solace in its calm, indif­fer­ent beau­ty. The bit­ter taste of Tam­lin’s rage still lin­gered in the air—a tem­pest of emo­tions that had ren­dered the once tran­quil house­hold into a scene of chaos. His com­mand had been clear, a direc­tive that sev­ered the last threads of my denial, leav­ing a hol­low echo in its wake.

Din­ner was a rit­u­al I for­sook, the thought of con­fronting the rem­nants of destruc­tion too daunt­ing a task. My sanc­tu­ary, the can­vas and paints, lay untouched, their pres­ence a stark reminder of a peace now frac­tured. The silence of the house weighed heav­i­ly upon me, a spec­tral reminder of the fury that had stormed through its halls.

In the shad­ow of Rhysand’s rev­e­la­tions, I found myself wrestling with the specter of a threat far beyond my com­pre­hen­sion. Ama­ran­tha’s name, a whis­pered curse that bound the fates of the mighty High Lords, left a chill that clawed at the edges of my courage. The notion of being a pawn in a game played by deities made my resolve fal­ter, ensnar­ing my thoughts in a web of fear and uncer­tain­ty.

Yet, it was Tam­lin’s unex­pect­ed arrival, shroud­ed in the soft glow of moon­light, that shat­tered the pre­car­i­ous calm I had con­struct­ed around my heart. His pres­ence, a balm to the chaos of my mind, bore the weight of an unspo­ken despair. The admis­sion of his pow­er­less­ness, a harsh rev­e­la­tion that laid bare the depth of our predica­ment, ignit­ed a storm of emo­tions with­in me. The prospect of leav­ing, of aban­don­ing the frag­ile refuge we had built, tore at me with a vorac­i­ty that threat­ened to con­sume all rea­son.

His hands, once a source of unwa­ver­ing strength, now trem­bled with the mag­ni­tude of his deci­sion. The real­iza­tion that my safe­ty neces­si­tat­ed sep­a­ra­tion carved a void with­in me, a des­o­la­tion that mir­rored the bleak­ness of the world beyond our sanc­tu­ary. His plea for my depar­ture, a sac­ri­fice clothed in the guise of pro­tec­tion, left me grap­pling with the real­i­ty of our entwined fates.

In the still­ness that fol­lowed his procla­ma­tion, a tem­pest of desire and long­ing raged, a mael­strom that sought to defy the cru­el dic­tates of des­tiny. Our embrace, a tes­ta­ment to the indomitable will of the heart, became a sanc­tu­ary from the mael­strom of fears that enveloped us. Each kiss, a pledge of defi­ance against the shad­ows that sought to tear us asun­der.

The dawn brought with it a reluc­tant accep­tance, a res­ig­na­tion to the inevitabil­i­ty of our part­ing. Yet, even as I acqui­esced to the dic­tates of a cru­el fate, the promise of a return, of a reunion beyond the tem­pest, pro­vid­ed a bea­con of hope amidst the encroach­ing dark­ness.

In the after­math of a tumul­tuous tri­al in Bai­leyville, where the ver­dict of ‘NOT GUILTY’ stirs the town, life begins to return to nor­mal­cy. The main char­ac­ters, Kath­leen, Beth, Izzy, and Ver­na, nav­i­gate their post-tri­al lives with a mix of relief and con­tem­pla­tion. Ver­na, escort­ed back to her cab­in by her friends, retreats back into her shell, sig­nal­ing a return to her soli­tary life. Mean­while, Margery O’Hare and Sven Gus­tavs­son cher­ish their new­found peace, yet face deci­sions about their future, con­tem­plat­ing a move to North­ern Cal­i­for­nia for a fresh start but ulti­mate­ly decid­ing to stay in Bai­leyville amidst their sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty.

Alice, on the oth­er hand, grap­ples with her feel­ings of iso­la­tion and immi­nent depar­ture from Ken­tucky, a place she has grown to care for deeply. As Margery and her baby, Vir­ginia, set off towards a new chap­ter, Alice’s emo­tions crys­tal­lize around her own unre­solved future and the stark real­iza­tion that her time in Kentucky—and with the peo­ple she has come to love—is end­ing. Her com­plex feel­ings are mir­rored by Fred, and as they share a poignant evening togeth­er, the painful real­i­ty of Alice’s depar­ture looms large.

How­ev­er, an unex­pect­ed dis­cov­ery about the legal­i­ties of her mar­riage offers Alice a life­line and a pos­si­bil­i­ty to stay. In a twist of fate, it’s revealed that her mar­riage to Ben­nett could poten­tial­ly be annulled since it was nev­er con­sum­mat­ed, free­ing her from the binds that would force her to leave Ken­tucky. This rev­e­la­tion ignites a spark of hope and pro­pels Alice towards a new future, pos­si­bly in Bai­leyville itself, along­side Fred.

The chap­ter inter­twines themes of com­mu­ni­ty, love, and the search for belong­ing against the back­drop of a small town in the after­math of a pub­lic tri­al. As each char­ac­ter nav­i­gates their own path for­ward, the bonds of friend­ship, love, and a sense of home are test­ed and ulti­mate­ly reaf­firmed in sur­pris­ing ways.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
27
I pant­ed, sprawled on top of Rhys in the snow while he laughed hoarse­ly.
“Don’t,” I snarled into his face, “ever,” I pushed his rock-hard shoul­ders,
talons curv­ing at my fin­ger­tips, “use me as bait again.”
He stopped laugh­ing.
I pushed hard­er, those nails dig­ging in through his leather. “You said I
could be a weapon—teach me to become one. Don’t use me like a pawn.
And if being one is part of my work for you, then I’m done. Done.”
Despite the snow, his body was warm beneath me, and I wasn’t sure I’d
real­ized just how much big­ger he was until our bod­ies were flush—too
close. Much, much too close.
Rhys cocked his head, loos­en­ing a chunk of snow cling­ing to his hair.
“Fair enough.”
I shoved off him, snow crunch­ing as I backed away. My talons were
gone.
He hoist­ed him­self up onto his elbows. “Do it again. Show me how you
did it.”
“No.” The can­dle he’d brought now lay in pieces, half-buried under the
snow. “I want to go back to the chateau.” I was cold, and tired, and he’d …
His face turned grave. “I’m sor­ry.”
I won­dered how often he said those two words. I didn’t care.
I wait­ed while he uncoiled to his feet, brush­ing the snow off him, and
held out a hand.
It wasn’t just an offer.
You for­got, he’d said. I had.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

I ’M GOING OUT ON A date with Mick Riva.”
“Like hell you are.”
When Celia was angry, her chest and her cheeks flushed. This time,
they’d grown red faster than I’d ever seen.
We were in the out­door kitchen of her week­end home in Palm
Springs. She was grilling us burg­ers for din­ner.
Ever since the arti­cle came out, I’d refused to be seen with her in
Los Ange­les. The rags didn’t yet know about her place in Palm
Springs. So we would spend week­ends there togeth­er and our weeks
in L.A. apart.
Celia went along with the plan like a put-upon spouse, agree­ing to
what­ev­er I want­ed because it was eas­i­er than fight­ing with me. But
now, with the sug­ges­tion of going on a date, I’d gone too far.
I knew I’d gone too far. That was the point, sort of.
“You need to lis­ten to me,” I said.
“You need to lis­ten to me.” She slammed the lid of the grill shut and
ges­tured to me with a pair of sil­ver tongs. “I’ll go along with any of
your lit­tle tricks that you want. But I’m not get­ting on board with either
of us dat­ing.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“We have plen­ty of choic­es.”
“Not if you want to keep your job. Not if you want to keep this
house. Not if you want to keep any of our friends. Not to men­tion that
the police could come after us.”
“You are being para­noid.”
“I’m not, Celia. And that’s what’s scary. But I’m telling you, they
know.”
“One arti­cle in one tiny paper thinks they know. That’s not the same
thing.”
“You’re right. This is still ear­ly enough that we can stop it.”
“Or it will go away on its own.”
“Celia, you have two movies com­ing out next year, and my movie is
all any­one is talk­ing about around town.”
“Exact­ly. Like Har­ry always says, that means we can do what­ev­er
we want.”
“No, that means we have a lot to lose.”
Celia, angry, picked up my pack of cig­a­rettes and lit one. “So that’s
what you want to do? You want to spend every sec­ond of our lives
try­ing to hide what we real­ly do? Who we real­ly are?”
“It’s what every­one in town is doing every day.”
“Well, I don’t want to.”
“Well, then you shouldn’t have become famous.”
Celia stared at me as she puffed away at her cig­a­rette. The pink of
her lip­stick stained the fil­ter. “You’re a pes­simist, Eve­lyn. To your very
core.”
“What would you like to do, Celia? Maybe I should call over to Sub
Rosa myself? Call the FBI direct­ly? I can give them a quote. ‘Yep, Celia
St. James and I are deviants!’ ”
“We aren’t deviants.”
“I know that, Celia. And you know that. But no one else knows that.”
“But maybe they would. If they tried.”
“They aren’t going to try. Do you get that? No one wants to
under­stand peo­ple like us.”
“But they should.”
“There are lots of things we all should do, sweet­heart. But it doesn’t
work that way.”
“I hate this con­ver­sa­tion. You’re mak­ing me feel awful.”
“I know, and I’m sor­ry. But the fact that it’s awful doesn’t mean it’s
not true. If you want to keep your job, you can­not allow peo­ple to
believe that you and I are more than friends.”
“And if I don’t want to keep my job?”
“You do want to.”
“No, you want to. And you’re pin­ning it on me.”
“Of course I want to.”
“I’d give it all up, you know. All of it. The mon­ey and the jobs and
the fame. I’d give it all up just to be with you, just to be nor­mal with
you.”
“You have no idea what you’re say­ing, Celia. I’m sor­ry, but you
don’t.”
“What’s real­ly going on here is that you’re not will­ing to give it up
for me.”
“No, what’s going on here is that you’re a dilet­tante who thinks if
this act­ing thing doesn’t work out, you can go back to Savan­nah and
live off your par­ents.”
“Who are you to talk to me about mon­ey? You’ve got bags of it.”
“Yeah, I do. Because I worked my ass off and was mar­ried to an
ass­hole who knocked me around. And I did that so I could be famous.
So I could live the life we’re liv­ing. And if you think I’m not going to
pro­tect that, you’ve lost your mind.”
“At least you’re admit­ting this is about you.”
I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Celia, lis­ten
to me. Do you love that Oscar? The very thing you keep on your
night­stand and touch before you go to sleep?”
“Don’t—”
“Peo­ple are say­ing, giv­en how ear­ly you won it, you’re the kind of
actress who could win mul­ti­ple times. I want that for you. Don’t you
want that?”
“Of course I do.”
“And you’re gonna let them take that away just because you met
me?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Lis­ten to me, Celia. I love you. And I can’t let you throw away
every­thing you have built—and all your incred­i­ble talent—by tak­ing a
stand when no one will stand with us.”
“But if we don’t try . . .”
“No one is going to back us, Celia. I know how it feels to be shut out
of this town. I’m just final­ly mak­ing my way back in. I know you’re
prob­a­bly pic­tur­ing some world where we go up against Goliath and
win. But that’s not gonna hap­pen. We’d tell the truth about our lives,
and they’d bury us. We could end up in prison or in a men­tal hos­pi­tal.
Do you get that? We could be com­mit­ted. It’s not that far-fetched. It
hap­pens. Cer­tain­ly, you can count on the fact that no one would return
our calls. Not even Har­ry.”
“Of course Har­ry would. Harry’s . . . one of us.”
“Which is pre­cise­ly why he could nev­er be caught talk­ing to us
again. Don’t you get it? The dan­ger is even high­er for him. There are
actu­al­ly men out there who would want to kill him if they knew. That’s
the world we live in. Any­one who touched us would be exam­ined.
Har­ry wouldn’t be able to with­stand it. I could nev­er put him in that
posi­tion. To lose every­thing he’s worked for? To quite lit­er­al­ly risk his
life? No. No, we’d be alone. Two pari­ahs.”
“But we’d have each oth­er. And that’s enough for me.”
She was cry­ing now, the tears streak­ing down her face and car­ry­ing
her mas­cara with them. I put my arms around her and wiped her
cheek with my thumb. “I love you so much, sweet­heart. So, so much.
And it’s in part because of things like that. You’re an ide­al­ist and a
roman­tic, and you have a beau­ti­ful soul. And I wish the world was
ready to be the way you see it. I wish that the rest of the peo­ple on
earth with us were capa­ble of liv­ing up to your expec­ta­tions. But they
aren’t. The world is ugly, and no one wants to give any­one the ben­e­fit
of the doubt about any­thing. When we lose our work and our
rep­u­ta­tions, when we lose our friends and, even­tu­al­ly, what mon­ey we
have, we will be des­ti­tute. I’ve lived that life before. And I can­not let it
hap­pen to you. I will do what­ev­er I can to pre­vent you from liv­ing that
way. Do you hear me? I love you too much to let you live only for me.”
She heaved into my body, her tears grow­ing inside her. For a
moment, I thought she might flood the back­yard.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” I whis­pered into her ear. “I love you more than
any­thing else in the entire world.”
“It’s not wrong,” Celia said. “It shouldn’t be wrong, to love you. How
can it be wrong?”
“It’s not wrong, sweet­heart. It’s not,” I said. “They’re wrong.”
She nod­ded into my shoul­der and held me tighter. I rubbed her
back. I smelled her hair.
“It’s just that there’s not much we can do about it,” I said.
When she calmed down, she pulled away from me and opened the
grill again. She did not look at me as she flipped the burg­ers. “So what
is your plan?” she said.
“I’m going to get Mick Riva to elope with me.”
Her eyes, which already looked sore from cry­ing, start­ed to bloom
again. She wiped a tear away, keep­ing her eyes on the grill. “What
does that mean for us?” she said.
I stood behind her and put my arms around her. “It doesn’t mean
what you think it means. I’m going to see if I can get him to elope with
me, and then I’m going to have it annulled.”
“And you think that means they’ll stop watch­ing you?”
“No, I know it means they will only watch me more. But they will be
look­ing for oth­er things. They will call me a tart or a fool. They will say
I have ter­ri­ble taste in men. They will say I’m a bad wife, I am too
impul­sive. But if they want to do any of that, they’ll have to stop say­ing
I’m with you. It won’t fit their sto­ry any­more.”
“I get it,” she said, grab­bing a plate and tak­ing the burg­ers off the
grill.
“OK, good,” I said.
“You’ll do what­ev­er you have to do. But this is the last I want to hear
about it. And I want it to be over and done with as soon as pos­si­ble.”
“OK.”
“And when it’s over, I want us to move in togeth­er.”
“Celia, we can’t do that.”
“You said this would be so effec­tive that no one would ever men­tion
us.”
The thing is, I want­ed us to move in togeth­er, too. I want­ed it very
much. “OK,” I said. “When it’s over, we’ll talk about mov­ing in
togeth­er.”
“OK,” she said. “Then we have a deal.”
I put my hand out to shake hers, but she waved it away. She didn’t
want to shake on some­thing that sad, that vul­gar.
“And if it doesn’t work with Mick Riva?” she asked.
“It’s gonna work.”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

27
It felt like I was liv­ing on the edge of a cli�.
Some­time after I shaved my head, I went to Bryan’s apart­ment in Los
Ange­les. He had two girl­friends from his past in Mis­sis­sip­pi with him—my
mom was there, too. It was like my mom wouldn’t even look at me because I was
ugly now. It just proved that the world only cares about your phys­i­cal
appear­ance, even if you are su�ering and at your low­est point.
That win­ter, I’d been told it would help me get cus­tody back if I went to
rehab. And so, even though I felt I had more of a rage and grief prob­lem than a
sub­stance abuse prob­lem, I went. When I arrived, my father was there. He sat
across from me—there were three pic­nic tables between us. He said, “You are a
dis­grace.”
I look back now and I think, Why didn’t I call Big Rob to help me? I was so
ashamed and embar­rassed already, but here was my dad telling me I was a
dis­grace. It was the de�nition of beat­ing a dead horse. He was treat­ing me like a
dog, an ugly dog. I had nobody. I was so alone. I guess one pos­i­tive of rehab was
that I start­ed the heal­ing process. I was deter­mined to make the best of a dark
sit­u­a­tion.
When I got out, I was able to get tem­po­rary �fty-�fty cus­tody through a
great attor­ney who helped me. But the bat­tle kept rag­ing with Kevin and it was
eat­ing me alive.
Black­out, the thing I’m most proud of in my whole career, came out right
around Hal­loween in 2007. I was sup­posed to per­form “Gimme More” at the
VMAs to help pro­mote it. I didn’t want to, but my team was pres­sur­ing me to
get out there and show the world I was �ne.
The only prob­lem with this plan: I was not �ne.
Back­stage at the VMAs that night, noth­ing was going right. There was a
prob­lem with my cos­tume and with my hair exten­sions. I hadn’t slept the night
before. I was dizzy. It was less than a year since I’d had my sec­ond baby in two
years but every­one was act­ing like my not hav­ing six-pack abs was o�ensive. I
couldn’t believe I was going to have to go out onstage feel­ing the way I felt.
I ran into Justin back­stage. It had been a while since I’d seen him. Every­thing
was going great in his world. He was at the top of his game in every way, and he
had a lot of swag­ger. I was hav­ing a pan­ic attack. I hadn’t rehearsed enough. I
hat­ed the way I looked. I knew it was going to be bad.
I went out there and did the best I could at that moment in time, which—
yes, granted—was far from my best at oth­er times. I could see myself on video
through­out the audi­to­ri­um while I per­formed; it was like look­ing at myself in a
fun-house mir­ror.
I’m not going to defend that per­for­mance or say it was good, but I will say
that as per­form­ers we all have bad nights. They don’t usu­al­ly have con­se­quences
so extreme.
You also don’t usu­al­ly have one of the worst days of your life in the same
exact place and time that your ex has one of his best.
Justin glid­ed down the run­way into his per­for­mance. He was �irt­ing with
girls in the audi­ence, includ­ing one who turned around and arched her back,
shak­ing her breasts as he sang to her. Then he was shar­ing the stage with Nel­ly
Fur­ta­do and Timbaland—so fun, so free, so light.
Lat­er that night, the come­di­an Sarah Sil­ver­man came out onstage to roast me.
She said that at the age of twenty-�ve I’d done every­thing worth­while in my life
I’d ever do. She called my two babies “the most adorable mis­takes you’ll ever
see.” I didn’t hear that until lat­er, though. At the time I was back­stage sob­bing
hys­ter­i­cal­ly.
In the days and weeks that fol­lowed, the news­pa­pers made fun of my body
and my per­for­mance. Dr. Phil called it a train wreck.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 27
Patri­cia didn’t know her palms could sweat so much, but they left wet
marks all over her steer­ing wheel as she drove up Rifle Range Road
toward Six Mile. She had sent Mrs. Greene Christ­mas cards, and the
phone worked both ways, and maybe Mrs. Greene hadn’t want­ed to
see her, and maybe she was just respect­ing her per­son­al space. She
hadn’t done any­thing wrong. Some­times you just didn’t talk to
some­one for a while. She wiped her palms on her slacks, one at a
time, try­ing to get them dry.
Mrs. Greene prob­a­bly wasn’t even home because it was the mid­dle
of the after­noon. She was prob­a­bly at work. If her car isn’t in the
dri­ve­way, I’ll just turn around and go home, she told her­self, and
felt a huge wave of relief at the deci­sion.
Rifle Range Road had changed. The trees along the side of the road
had been cut back and the shoul­ders were bare. A shin­ing new black
asphalt turnoff led past a green-and-white ply­wood sign bear­ing a
pic­ture of a nou­veau plan­ta­tion house and Gra­cious Cay—coming
1999—Paley Real­ty. Beyond it, the raw, yel­low skele­tons of Gra­cious
Cay rose up from behind the few remain­ing trees.
Patri­cia turned onto the state road and began wind­ing her way
back to Six Mile. Hous­es sat emp­ty; a few were miss­ing doors, and
most had For Sale signs in the front yard. No chil­dren played
out­side.
She found Grill Flame Road and rolled down it slow­ly until she
emerged into Six Mile. Not much of it sur­vived. A chain-link fence
hugged the back of Mt. Zion A.M.E., and beyond it lay a mas­sive dirt
plain full of bright yel­low earth­mov­ing equip­ment and con­struc­tion
debris. The bas­ket­ball courts had been plowed up, the sur­round­ing
for­est thinned to an occa­sion­al tree, and all the trail­ers over by where
Wan­da Tay­lor had lived were gone. Only sev­en hous­es remained on
this side of the church.
Mrs. Greene’s Toy­ota was in the dri­ve.
Patri­cia parked and opened her car door and imme­di­ate­ly her ears
were assault­ed by the high-pitched scream of table saws from
Gra­cious Cay, the rum­bling of trucks, the ear­split­ting clat­ter of bricks
and bull­doz­ers. The con­struc­tion chaos stag­gered her for a moment
and left her unable to think. Then she gath­ered her­self and rang Mrs.
Greene’s front bell.
Noth­ing hap­pened, and she real­ized Mrs. Greene prob­a­bly
couldn’t hear her over the din, so she rapped on the win­dow. No one
was home. Maybe her car had bro­ken down and she’d got­ten a ride to
work. Relief flood­ed Patri­cia and she turned and walked back to her
Vol­vo.
The con­struc­tion was so loud that she didn’t hear it the first time,
but she heard it the sec­ond: “Mrs. Camp­bell.”
She turned and saw Mrs. Greene stand­ing in the door to her house,
hair in a wrap, wear­ing an over­sized pink T‑shirt and a pair of
dun­ga­rees. Patricia’s stom­ach hol­lowed out and filled with foam.
“I thought—” Patri­cia began, then real­ized her words were lost
under the con­struc­tion noise. She walked over to Mrs. Greene. As she
got clos­er she saw that she had a gray tinge to her skin, her eyes were
crust­ed with sleep, and she had dan­druff in the roots of her hair. “I
thought nobody was home,” she shout­ed over the con­struc­tion noise.
“I was tak­ing a nap,” Mrs. Greene shout­ed back.
“That’s so nice,” Patri­cia shout­ed.
“I clean in the morn­ing and I do overnight stock­ing at Wal­mart in
the evening,” Mrs. Greene shout­ed. “Then I go right back to work in
the morn­ing.”
“Par­don?” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene looked around, then looked into her house, then back
at Patri­cia, and nod­ded sharply. “Come on,” she said.
She closed the door behind them, which cut the con­struc­tion noise
by half, but Patri­cia still heard the high, excit­ed whine of a saw
rip­ping through wood. The house looked the same except the
Christ­mas lights were dark. It felt emp­ty and smelled like sleep.
“How’re the chil­dren?” Mrs. Greene asked.
“They’re teenagers,” Patri­cia said. “You know how they are. How
are yours?”
“Jesse and Aaron are still liv­ing with my sis­ter up in Irmo,” Mrs.
Greene said.
“Oh,” Patri­cia said. “Do you get to see them enough?”
“I’m their moth­er,” Mrs. Greene said. “Irmo is a two-hour dri­ve.
There is no enough.”
Patri­cia winced at a mas­sive crash­ing bang from out­side.
“Have you thought about mov­ing?” she asked.
“Most peo­ple already have,” Mrs. Greene said. “But I’m not leav­ing
my church.”
From out­side came the beep-beep-beep of a truck back­ing up.
“Are you tak­ing on any more hous­es?” Patri­cia asked. “I could use
some help clean­ing if you’re free.”
“I work for a ser­vice now,” Mrs. Greene said.
“That must be nice,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene shrugged.
“They’re big hous­es,” she said. “And the money’s good, but it used
to be you’d talk to peo­ple all day long. The ser­vice doesn’t like you to
speak to the own­ers. If you have a ques­tion they give you a portable
phone and you call the man­ag­er and he calls the own­ers for you. But
they pay on time and take out the tax­es.”
Patri­cia took a deep breath.
“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.
Some­thing flashed across Mrs. Greene’s face—disgust, Patri­cia
thought—but she ges­tured to the sofa, unable to escape the bur­den of
hos­pi­tal­i­ty. Patri­cia sat and Mrs. Greene low­ered her­self into her
easy chair. Its arms were more worn than the last time Patri­cia had
seen it.
“I want­ed to come see you ear­li­er,” Patri­cia said. “But things kept
com­ing up.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Do you think about Miss Mary much?” Patri­cia asked. She saw
Mrs. Greene rearrange her hands. Their backs were cov­ered with
small, shiny scars. “I’ll always be grate­ful you were with her that
night.”
“Mrs. Camp­bell, what do you want?” Mrs. Greene asked. “I’m
tired.”
“I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said, and decid­ed she would leave. She put her
hands on the edge of the sofa to push her­self up. “I’m sor­ry to have
both­ered you, espe­cial­ly when you’re rest­ing before work. And I’m
sor­ry I haven’t been out to see you ear­li­er, only things have been so
busy. I’m sor­ry. I just want­ed to say hel­lo. And I saw Miss Mary.”
A dis­tant clat­ter of boards falling to the ground crashed through
the win­dow panes. Nei­ther of them moved.
“Mrs. Camp­bell…,” Mrs. Green began.
“She told me you had a pho­to­graph,” Patri­cia said. “She said it was
from a long time ago and you had it. So I came. She said it was about
the chil­dren. I wouldn’t have both­ered you if it was about any­thing
else. But it’s the chil­dren.”
Mrs. Greene glared. Patri­cia felt like a fool.
“I wish,” Mrs. Greene said, “that you would get back in your car
and dri­ve home.”
“Par­don?” Patri­cia asked.
“I said,” Mrs. Greene repeat­ed, “that I wish you would go home. I
don’t want you here. You aban­doned me and my chil­dren because
your hus­band told you to.”
“That’s…,” Patri­cia didn’t know how to respond to the unfair­ness
of the accu­sa­tion. “That’s dra­mat­ic.”
“I haven’t lived with my babies in three years,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Jesse comes home from foot­ball games hurt, and his moth­er isn’t
there to take care of him. Aaron has a trum­pet per­for­mance and I’m
not there to see it. No one cares about us out here except when they
need us to clean up their mess.”
“You don’t under­stand,” Patri­cia said. “They were our hus­bands.
Those were our fam­i­lies. I would have lost every­thing. I didn’t have a
choice.”
“You had more choice than me,” Mrs. Greene said.
“I wound up in the hos­pi­tal.”
“That’s your own fault.”
Patri­cia choked, some­where between a laugh and a sob, then
pressed her palm over her mouth. She had risked all her cer­tain­ty, all
her com­fort, every­thing they’d care­ful­ly rebuilt over the last three
years to come out here and all she had found was some­one who
hat­ed her.
“I’m sor­ry I came,” she said, stand­ing, blind with tears, grab­bing
her purse, and then not know­ing which way to go because Mrs.
Greene’s legs blocked her pas­sage to the front door. “I only came
because Miss Mary stood behind my din­ing room door and told me
to come, and I real­ize now how fool­ish that sounds, and I’m sor­ry.
Please, I know you hate me but please don’t tell any­one I was here. I
couldn’t bear for any­one to know I came out here and said these
things. I don’t know what I was think­ing.”
Mrs. Greene stood up, turned her back on Patri­cia, and left the
room. Patri­cia couldn’t believe Mrs. Greene hat­ed her so much she
wouldn’t even walk her to the door, but of course she did. Patri­cia
and the book club had aban­doned her. She stum­bled to the door,
knock­ing one hip into Mrs. Greene’s chair, and then she heard the
voice behind her.
“I didn’t steal it,” Mrs. Greene said.
Patri­cia turned and saw Mrs. Greene hold­ing out a glossy square of
white paper.
“It was on my cof­fee table one day,” Mrs. Greene said. “Maybe I
brought it back here after Miss Mary passed and for­got I had it, but
when I picked it up my hair stood on end. I could feel eyes star­ing
into me from behind. I turned around and for a moment I saw the
poor old lady stand­ing behind that door there.”
Their eyes met in the gloomy liv­ing room air, and the con­struc­tion
nois­es got very far away, and Patri­cia felt like she had tak­en off a pair
of sun­glass­es after wear­ing them for a very long time. She took the
pho­to­graph. It was old and cheap­ly print­ed, curl­ing up around the
edges. Two men stood in the cen­ter. One looked like a male ver­sion
of Miss Mary but younger. He wore over­alls and had his hands
buried in his pock­ets. He wore a hat. Next to him stood James
Har­ris.
It wasn’t some­one who looked like James Har­ris, or an ances­tor,
or a rel­a­tive. Even though the hair­cut was slicked with Bryl­creem and
had a razor-edge part, it was James Har­ris. He wore a white three-
piece suit and a wide tie.
“Turn it over,” Mrs. Greene said.
Patri­cia flipped the pho­to­graph with shak­ing fin­gers. On the back
some­one had writ­ten in foun­tain pen, 162 Wis­te­ria Lane, Sum­mer,
1928.
“Six­ty years,” Patri­cia said.
James Har­ris looked exact­ly the same.
“I didn’t know why Miss Mary gave me this pho­to,” Mrs. Greene
said. “I don’t know why she didn’t give it to you direct. But she
want­ed you to come here, and that must mean some­thing. If she still
cares about you, then maybe I can put up with you, too.”
Patri­cia felt scared. Miss Mary had come to both of them. James
Har­ris didn’t age. Nei­ther of these things could pos­si­bly be true, but
they were and that ter­ri­fied her. Vam­pires didn’t age, either. She
shook her head. She couldn’t start think­ing that way again. That kind
of think­ing could ruin every­thing. She want­ed to live in the same
world as Kit­ty, and Slick, and Carter, and Sadie Funche, not over
here on her own with Mrs. Greene. She looked at the pho­to again.
She couldn’t stop look­ing at it.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
Mrs. Greene went to her book­shelf and took a green fold­er off the
top. It had been used and reused and had dif­fer­ent head­ings writ­ten
on it and scratched out. She laid it open on the cof­fee table and she
and Patri­cia sat back down.
“I want my babies to come home,” Mrs. Greene said, show­ing
Patri­cia what was inside. “But you see what he does.”
Patri­cia paged through the fold­er, clip­ping after clip­ping, and she
got cold.
“It’s all him?” she asked.
“Who else?” Mrs. Greene said. “My ser­vice cleans his house twice a
month. One of his reg­u­lar girls is gone. I vol­un­teered to fill in this
week.”
Patricia’s heart slowed to a crawl.
“Why?” she asked.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh gave me a box of those mur­der books y’all read.
She said she didn’t want them in her house any­more. What­ev­er Mr.
Har­ris is, he’s not nat­ur­al, but I think he’s got some­thing in com­mon
with those evil men from your books. They always take a sou­venir.
They like to hold on to a lit­tle some­thing when they hurt some­one. I
only met the man a few times but I could tell he was real full of
him­self. I bet he keeps some­thing from each of them in his house so
he can pull them out and feel like a bigshot all over again.”
“What if we’re wrong?” Patri­cia said. “I thought I saw him doing
some­thing to Des­tiny Tay­lor years ago, but it was dark. What if I was
wrong? What if her moth­er did have a boyfriend and lied about it?
We both think we saw Miss Mary, we both believe this is a pic­ture of
James Har­ris, but what if it’s just some­one who looks like him?”
Mrs. Greene pulled the pic­ture over to her with two fin­gers and
looked at it again.
“A no-good man will tell you he’s going to change,” she said. “He’ll
tell you what­ev­er you want to hear, but you’re the fool if you don’t
believe what you see. That’s him in this pic­ture. That was Miss Mary
who whis­pered to us. Every­body may be telling me dif­fer­ent, but I
know what I know.”
“What if he doesn’t keep tro­phies?” Patri­cia asked, try­ing to slow
things down.
“Then there’s noth­ing there to find,” Mrs. Greene said.
“You’ll get arrest­ed,” Patri­cia said.
“It’d go faster with two of us,” Mrs. Greene said.
“It’s against the law,” Patri­cia said.
“You turned your back on me once before,” Mrs. Greene said, and
her eyes blazed. Patri­cia want­ed to look any­where else but she
couldn’t move. “You turned your back on me and now he’s come for
your chil­dren. You’re out of time. It’s too late to find excus­es.”
“I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said.
“I don’t want your sor­ry,” Mrs. Greene said. “I want to know if
you’ll come in his house and help me look.”
Patri­cia couldn’t say yes. She had nev­er bro­ken a law in her life. It
went against every­thing in her body. It went against every­thing she’d
lived for forty years. If she got caught she would nev­er be able to look
Carter in the eye again, she’d lose Blue, and she’d lose Korey. How
could she raise the chil­dren and tell them to obey the law if she
didn’t?
“When?” she asked.
“This com­ing week­end he’s going to Tam­pa,” Mrs. Greene said. “I
need to know if you’re seri­ous or not.”
“I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene’s face screwed itself shut.
“I need to get my sleep,” she said, start­ing to stand up.
“No, wait, I’ll go,” Patri­cia said.
“I don’t have time for you to play,” Mrs. Greene said.
“I’ll go,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene walked her to the front door. At the door, Patri­cia
stopped.

At the begin­ning of the chap­ter, the pro­tag­o­nist con­sults Eddie on which dress to wear to a coun­try club cock­tail par­ty, hes­i­tat­ing between a sim­ple cream dress, a black num­ber, and a unique plum dress designed by Bea from South­ern Manors. Despite the sig­nif­i­cance behind the lat­ter, Eddie opts for the cream dress, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist feel­ing under­dressed. Arriv­ing at the Coun­try Club of Birm­ing­ham, they are engulfed in its opu­lent ambiance, sur­round­ed by the elite, sharply con­trast­ing with the pro­tag­o­nist’s back­ground. The air of supe­ri­or­i­ty and wealth is pal­pa­ble, with atten­dees boast­ing expen­sive attire and jew­el­ry that could rival the GDP of small coun­tries.

The pro­tag­o­nist feels out of place amidst the rev­el­ry, not­ing the focused indul­gence in drinks over food. When Eddie goes to get drinks, leav­ing her alone, she is greet­ed by Emi­ly, who intro­duces her to the group with a mix of warmth and super­fi­cial­i­ty. Despite the appar­ent accep­tance into this cir­cle, the pro­tag­o­nist can­not shake off feel­ings of alien­ation and long­ing for her for­mer life.

Con­ver­sa­tions with the group reveal lay­ers of social dynam­ics, hint­ing at under­ly­ing ten­sions and secrets among the high soci­ety. A casu­al remark about Eddie’s increased drink­ing hints at per­son­al con­cerns par­al­lel­ing the super­fi­cial ban­ter about fash­ion and jew­el­ry. The chap­ter deep­ens when Car­o­line brings up the scan­dal involv­ing Tripp Ingra­ham, accused of a heinous crime, intro­duc­ing a dark­er sub­plot that appears to touch close­ly on the protagonist’s life. This men­tion unset­tles the pro­tag­o­nist, reflect­ing her fear of how the actions of influ­en­tial indi­vid­u­als like Tripp could dis­rupt her cur­rent stand­ing.

A pho­tog­ra­pher’s pres­ence at the event hints at the super­fi­cial­i­ty and sur­veil­lance with­in this elite com­mu­ni­ty, cap­tur­ing the moments of pre­tense rather than gen­uine inter­ac­tion. As the chap­ter clos­es, the pro­tag­o­nist uses a reli­gious remark to deflect an uncom­fort­able con­ver­sa­tion about Tripp, show­ing her adapt­abil­i­ty in nav­i­gat­ing the social com­plex­i­ties of this afflu­ent soci­ety. This moment sig­nals her super­fi­cial inte­gra­tion into a world that remains large­ly alien and pos­si­bly hos­tile to her true self.

Chap­ter 27 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të titled “A Mis­de­meanour” unfolds with the nar­ra­tor, Helen, express­ing her intent to doc­u­ment the dis­con­cert­ing events among the social cir­cle at Wild­fell Hall, par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­ing on an inci­dent of infi­deli­ty and moral lapse. It was the evening of Octo­ber 4th, dur­ing a casu­al gath­er­ing, that Helen observed an inti­mate and inap­pro­pri­ate moment between her hus­band, Arthur, and Lady Annabel­la Low­bor­ough, marked by an exchange of whis­pers, a held hand, and a kiss, hid­den yet glar­ing in its betray­al. Wit­ness­ing this act, Helen expe­ri­ences a tumult of emo­tions rang­ing from shock to indig­na­tion, ampli­fied by Arthur’s drunk­en obliv­i­ous­ness to the grav­i­ty of his actions.

Pro­found­ly dis­turbed, Helen con­fronts Arthur, high­light­ing the breach of trust and the dis­hon­or to their vows. Arthur’s reac­tion is a mix of jest, denial, and weak jus­ti­fi­ca­tions, punc­tu­at­ed by his assur­ance of it being a harm­less fol­ly fueled by ine­bri­a­tion. Helen, how­ev­er, stands firm, under­scor­ing the dis­re­spect and poten­tial ruin such behav­ior seeds, not just with­in their rela­tion­ship but also in their social cir­cle, point­ing out the pain it would cause were the sit­u­a­tions reversed. Their exchange deep­ens into a dis­course on fideli­ty, love, and the sacred­ness of mar­riage vows, with Helen forc­ing Arthur to con­front the dis­par­i­ty between his actions and the alle­giance promised at the altar.

The chap­ter intri­cate­ly nav­i­gates through the con­se­quences of Arthur’s indis­cre­tion, detail­ing Helen’s inter­nal strug­gle between her affec­tions for her hus­band and her moral com­pass, increas­ing­ly dis­tressed by Arthur’s drink­ing and flip­pant dis­re­gard for mar­i­tal fideli­ty. Despite the grav­i­ty of Arthur’s tres­pass, the chap­ter clos­es on a note of reluc­tant for­give­ness from Helen, pro­pelled by a mix of love, hope for ref­or­ma­tion, and per­haps, an acknowl­edg­ment of the com­plex web of emo­tions and duties that bind her. Mean­while, the social dynam­ics with­in Wild­fell Hall are fur­ther strained, with Lady Low­bor­ough’s appar­ent dis­dain and Lord Low­bor­ough’s obliv­i­ous­ness adding lay­ers to the already con­vo­lut­ed emo­tion­al land­scape. Helen’s nar­ra­tive not only cri­tiques the social mores of her time but also delves deeply into the per­son­al tur­moil wrought by betray­al, weav­ing a tale of moral­i­ty, love, and redemp­tion amidst soci­etal expec­ta­tions and per­son­al griev­ances.