16. July 24, 2021

On July 24, 2021, Hol­ly arrives ear­ly at her late mother’s house in Mead­ow­brook Estates. Hol­ly watch­es the A.D. Clean­ing crew leave the house, a com­pa­ny spe­cial­ized in post-mortem cleanups, indi­cat­ing her moth­er died of nat­ur­al caus­es, neces­si­tat­ing only a COVID-relat­ed dis­in­fec­tion. Hol­ly retrieves an enve­lope left by the clean­ers, con­firm­ing no items were removed from the house.

Hol­ly reflects on her mother’s fru­gal lifestyle despite being a mil­lion­aire, expe­ri­enc­ing mixed feel­ings of resent­ment and anger over her mother’s choic­es and their strained rela­tion­ship. She sar­cas­ti­cal­ly mus­es about her drink of choice, mai-tai, which reminds her of hap­pi­er fan­tasies, stark­ly con­trast­ing with her cur­rent emo­tions faced with enter­ing her mother’s prop­er­ty and deal­ing with her pass­ing.

Holly’s past inter­weaves with her present sit­u­a­tion. She met Bill Hodges, who treat­ed her kind­ly, at her grand­moth­er Eliz­a­beth Wharton’s funer­al, mark­ing the begin­ning of a trans­for­ma­tion in her life. Despite her fam­i­ly’s dis­ap­proval, Bill’s encour­age­ment led Hol­ly to find her own path and sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to solv­ing major cas­es with Hodges.

Hol­ly recalls her family’s finan­cial deceit orches­trat­ed by her moth­er, Char­lotte, and her Uncle Hen­ry, con­vinc­ing her of a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial loss due to a scam, lead­ing Hol­ly to reluc­tant­ly con­sid­er clos­ing her pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tion busi­ness. How­ev­er, her resolve strength­ens against this manip­u­la­tion.

As Hol­ly pre­pares to meet Coun­selor David Emer­son and his asso­ciates for legal mat­ters regard­ing her mother’s estate, she encoun­ters neigh­bor­ly con­do­lences and a sense of oblig­a­tion towards han­dling her moth­er’s belongings—a duty that feels both bur­den­some and emo­tion­al.

Inside her mother’s house, mem­o­ries flood back as Hol­ly deals with the for­mal­i­ties of her inher­i­tance and dis­cov­ers her moth­er had amassed a con­sid­er­able col­lec­tion of valu­able jew­el­ry unknown to Hol­ly. This rev­e­la­tion, cou­pled with the con­ver­sa­tion with Emer­son, adds lay­ers to Holly’s under­stand­ing of her mother’s secre­tive nature and the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship.

After the legal pro­ce­dures, Hol­ly indulges in a rare act of rebel­lion by smok­ing indoors, a sim­ple plea­sure denied by her mother’s strict rules. This act, along with reflec­tions on her dif­fi­cult past, high­light­ed by expe­ri­ences of bul­ly­ing, an abu­sive boss, and the impact of her mother’s con­trol­ling ten­den­cies on her life choic­es, under­lines Holly’s jour­ney towards inde­pen­dence.

Holly’s explo­ration of her child­hood room brings a mix of nos­tal­gia and pain, lead­ing her to dis­card ele­ments of her past sym­bol­i­cal­ly. She con­tem­plates the gen­uine yet com­pli­cat­ed love her moth­er had for her, despite the manip­u­la­tive and dam­ag­ing aspects of their rela­tion­ship.

In a cathar­tic act, Hol­ly destroys her mother’s col­lec­tion of chi­na fig­urines, dis­tanc­ing her­self from the objects that rep­re­sent­ed her mother’s con­trol and deceit. This phys­i­cal act of break­ing away from her past is jux­ta­posed with Holly’s emo­tion­al strug­gle to rec­on­cile with her mother’s actions and their impact on her life.

Holly’s depar­ture from her mother’s house, leav­ing behind the shat­tered rem­nants of a con­flict­ed rela­tion­ship, sig­ni­fies her ongo­ing strug­gle to under­stand her mother’s choic­es and nav­i­gate the emo­tion­al after­math of her pass­ing. Through this, Hol­ly faces the real­i­ty of their com­plex rela­tion­ship, grap­pling with feel­ings of loss, betray­al, and the pur­suit of per­son­al free­dom and iden­ti­ty beyond her mother’s shad­ow.