On a beau­ti­ful spring day, Blomkvist dri­ves Berger’s car towards Nynäsvä­gen, look­ing for peace in his cab­in in Sand­hamn. He arrives ear­ly for a meet­ing with Björ­ck and decides to have cof­fee and read the papers. Blomkvist is keen to gath­er con­crete infor­ma­tion about Zala and meets Björ­ck, who appears more con­fi­dent than before. Björ­ck offers infor­ma­tion about Zala but sets the con­di­tion that he must remain anony­mous in the pub­li­ca­tion “Mil­len­ni­um.” Blomkvist agrees, know­ing the grav­i­ty of Björ­ck­’s request, which could have impli­cat­ing con­se­quences for him.

After a brief nego­ti­a­tion, Blomkvist makes it clear that he expects full dis­clo­sure in return for main­tain­ing Björck’s anonymi­ty. Björ­ck reluc­tant­ly agrees but insists on absolute con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. As they shake on it, Blomkvist decides he can cope with the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of his deci­sion; after all, Svens­son has already doc­u­ment­ed Björ­ck­’s sto­ry.

Lat­er, the dra­ma unfolds as Strängnäs police receive calls about two wound­ed men near a cab­in belong­ing to the deceased lawyer Nils Bjur­man. Amidst a busy day filled with police inves­ti­ga­tions, the offi­cers rapid­ly rec­og­nize the poten­tial link to Lis­beth Salan­der. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lates when Inspec­tor Bublan­s­ki, who is occu­pied in a meet­ing, is informed about the ongo­ing devel­op­ments.

Else­where, the police encounter sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence, includ­ing the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of a body, Ken­neth Gustafs­son, a local crim­i­nal known as the Vagabond, and also find a sus­pect, Son­ny Niem­i­nen, at the scene. The offi­cers deduce that two bik­er gang mem­bers suf­fered injuries, con­nect­ing them to a vio­lent con­fronta­tion.

Mean­while, Lis­beth, hav­ing just escaped from a chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion at Bjurman’s cab­in, joy­ful­ly nav­i­gates a Harley-David­son motor­cy­cle. She expe­ri­ences an adren­a­line rush rem­i­nis­cent of amuse­ment park rides before decid­ing to leave the bike and pro­ceed toward Stock­holm.

Back with Blomkvist, he reflects on Björck’s rev­e­la­tions about Alexan­der Zalachenko, the for­mer GRU agent who had defect­ed to Swe­den dur­ing the Cold War. Blomkvist learns about Zalachenko’s com­plex past and the gov­ern­men­tal deci­sions that allowed him to remain in Swe­den. As he pieces togeth­er the nar­ra­tive, he begins con­tem­plat­ing meet­ing with anoth­er key fig­ure, Hol­ger Palm­gren, for fur­ther insights.

In a tense con­clu­sion, Blomkvist con­tem­plates the pre­car­i­ous web sur­round­ing Zalachenko’s exis­tence while Björ­ck broods over his new­found align­ment with a dan­ger­ous his­to­ry, con­sid­er­ing the impend­ing risks of asso­ci­at­ing with some­one like Zalachenko .

In Chap­ter 27 of “The Art Thief,” we delve into a tense night for thief Bre­itwieser, who finds him­self impris­oned once again in a Swiss police sta­tion, echo­ing his ear­li­er arrest four years pri­or. The next day, on Novem­ber 21, 2001, a police inspec­tor named Roland Meier arrives to inter­ro­gate him. Both men share a sim­i­lar age and back­ground, con­vers­ing in their native Alsa­t­ian accents. Meier per­ceives Bre­itwieser as a mere pet­ty thief, hav­ing stud­ied his past arrest in Lucerne.

The inter­ro­ga­tion occurs in a stark, ster­ile room as Meier ques­tions Bre­itwieser about the recent theft of a his­tor­i­cal bugle from the Wag­n­er Muse­um. Bre­itwieser adamant­ly denies involve­ment, despite Meier’s calm per­sis­tence. The day of the theft had been qui­et, with few vis­i­tors. Esther Jaerg, the sole employ­ee present, dis­cov­ered the theft after a patron, donned in a dis­tinc­tive long green coat, left. After Jaerg’s call to the police, addi­tion­al details emerged when a near­by dog walk­er alert­ed author­i­ties upon see­ing a sus­pi­cious indi­vid­ual.

As evi­dence against him mounts, includ­ing fin­ger­prints and pos­si­bly video record­ings, the pres­sure on Bre­itwieser esca­lates. How­ev­er, he catch­es on to Meier’s bluff; no defin­i­tive evi­dence exists link­ing him to the crime. This gives Bre­itwieser a glim­mer of hope—if he can reach out to his accom­plice, Anne-Cather­ine, he believes they might return the stolen bugle to exon­er­ate him.

After the brief inter­ro­ga­tion, he is returned to a high-secu­ri­ty cell, where he learns he is clas­si­fied as a high-secu­ri­ty inmate and may not make calls. Meier’s ini­tial assess­ment of Bre­itwieser as a minor crim­i­nal now seems naïve, as he rec­og­nizes Breitwieser’s cun­ning dur­ing the ques­tion­ing. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of him being a ser­i­al thief looms, prompt­ing Meier to seek judi­cial approval to keep him detained and to pur­sue an inter­na­tion­al search war­rant, lead­ing to inves­ti­ga­tions in France regard­ing Bre­itwieser’s past crimes .

In Chap­ter 27, Wiley inter­acts with Daniel Decatur Emmett of the Vir­ginia Min­strels, who seeks a replace­ment for their miss­ing tenor. Hav­ing lost their vocal­ist dur­ing a drunk­en episode on a train, Emmett wants to recruit a slave he believes has a beau­ti­ful singing voice. He hands Wiley tick­ets to their per­for­mance and express­es admi­ra­tion for the slave’s vocal tal­ent, imply­ing it sur­pass­es that of their lost per­former, Raleigh Nuggets.

Wiley is tak­en aback by Emmet­t’s propo­si­tion to pur­chase the slave, Jim. Eth­i­cal dilem­mas arise as Wiley acknowl­edges Jim’s lack of a bill of sale, while also rec­og­niz­ing the legal notion that pos­ses­sion equals own­er­ship. Emmett prompt­ly offers two hun­dred dol­lars for Jim, a sum that aston­ish­es Wiley.

As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Emmett clar­i­fies that they per­form in black­face, explain­ing their strange prac­tice of using boot pol­ish to mim­ic black per­form­ers, which Wiley finds amus­ing. Despite his reser­va­tions, Wiley reluc­tant­ly agrees to the sale, refer­ring to Jim deroga­to­ri­ly while Emmett insists on acquir­ing a bill of sale to for­mal­ize the trans­ac­tion.

Wiley directs East­er to fetch paper, demon­strat­ing his reluc­tance to open­ly con­nect him­self to the sale. When the paper arrives, Jim con­tem­plates the nature of his own agency, real­iz­ing that his fate is being decid­ed with­out his input. This inter­ac­tion serves as a poignant reflec­tion on his sta­tus as property—an object deemed valu­able for his singing rather than acknowl­edged as a per­son.

After the exchange of mon­ey and a bill of sale, Emmett intro­duces him­self to Jim, offer­ing a handshake—a ges­ture that dis­ori­ents both Wiley and East­er. Despite the cir­cum­stances, Jim rec­i­p­ro­cates, mark­ing the begin­ning of a new chap­ter in his life. Emmett is opti­mistic about inte­grat­ing Jim into their per­for­mances, and the group of min­strels wel­comes him aboard, leav­ing the sta­ble as a new­ly unit­ed ensem­ble. This scene encap­su­lates the com­plex­i­ties of race, iden­ti­ty, and own­er­ship in the con­text of the min­strel show and high­lights Jim’s tran­si­tion from prop­er­ty to per­former under new, yet still pre­car­i­ous, cir­cum­stances.

In Chap­ter 27, titled “We Solve Mur­ders,” Steve pre­pares for a quick trip to Amer­i­ca to pre­vent a poten­tial crime involv­ing Amy. After con­firm­ing a pre­vi­ous­ly arranged dri­ver, Ken, Steve reflects on recent inter­ac­tions with his col­league, Lin­da, who offers him updates from the Hamp­shire Police and ten­ta­tive­ly invites him out for drinks—a request Steve awk­ward­ly declines. Pack­ing light­ly for his jour­ney, he informs Mar­garet about the sit­u­a­tion while ensur­ing their pet, Trou­ble, receives his eye drops. Steve’s lug­gage con­sists of essen­tials, a book of puz­zles, and snacks in case of lim­it­ed in-flight options.

Ken waits patient­ly for Steve, who ulti­mate­ly opts to ride in the front seat—believing the back is only for chil­dren and prisoners—leading to an engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion on their way to Farn­bor­ough Air­port. Upon arrival, Ken dis­plays friend­li­ness by escort­ing Steve direct­ly up to the plane, where a pass­port offi­cer greets him and Brad, the flight atten­dant, presents cham­pagne. They share con­tact details, as Ken, a musi­cian, invites Steve to one of his band’s gigs.

Board­ing the pri­vate jet, Steve finds him­self alone, which ini­tial­ly sur­pris­es him. The pilot, Sask­ia, per­mits him to sit in the cock­pit dur­ing take­off, an exhil­a­rat­ing first for Steve. After set­tling into his plush seat, Brad offers sushi and var­i­ous drinks, includ­ing twelve types of beer. Nos­tal­gi­cal­ly, Steve recalls a less lux­u­ri­ous trip to Turkey, where he suf­fered from an upset stom­ach and enjoyed lim­it­ed tele­vi­sion options.

While fly­ing, Steve reviews details of Andrew Fairbanks’s mys­te­ri­ous mur­der at sea and begins doc­u­ment­ing his find­ings using his Dic­ta­phone, focus­ing on poten­tial sus­pects, includ­ing François Lou­bet and Joe Blow, the lat­ter asso­ci­at­ed with Max­i­mum Impact Solu­tions. Brad soon arrives with a unique tast­ing of var­i­ous beers, but Steve learns he’s unable to drink with the flight crew due to reg­u­la­tions. How­ev­er, after con­vinc­ing Sask­ia to allow it, Brad pre­pares the drinks, and they kick off the tast­ing ses­sion, mark­ing a sur­pris­ing­ly enjoy­able start to Steve’s adven­ture.

In Chap­ter 27 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint encoun­ters win­ter’s stark real­i­ty as she walks through Main Street, where she sees Dick Low­ell and some oth­ers nurs­ing hang­overs from the Super Bowl. The cold, col­or­less win­ter leaves her pon­der­ing the bleak­ness that seems to over­shad­ow their lives. Encour­aged by her grand­moth­er Nor­ma, who sug­gests hob­bies or ther­a­py, Saint takes up knit­ting, spend­ing her evenings cre­at­ing scarves and hats rem­i­nis­cent of her grand­moth­er’s past.

One Sat­ur­day, Saint’s rou­tine is dis­rupt­ed by a vis­it from Jim­my Wal­ters, who her grand­moth­er wel­comes inside despite Sain­t’s annoy­ance. As they share hot choco­late on the back porch, Jim­my excit­ed­ly talks about the wildlife around them, includ­ing com­ments about a cot­ton mouse and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of see­ing a tur­tle. Saint feigns a smile, care­ful­ly guard­ing her bit­ter­sweet mem­o­ries of vis­it­ing the marsh­land with Patch, where they once sailed paper boats togeth­er.

Lat­er, they watch a box­ing match between George Fore­man and Ron Lyle, with Nor­ma hilar­i­ous­ly get­ting into the spir­it of the fight. As news of dev­as­tat­ing tor­na­does rolls in, the harsh real­i­ty of life con­trasts sharply with the ear­li­er light­heart­ed­ness of the box­ing match. Nor­ma reflects on the tragedy, impact­ed by the fig­ures and dev­as­ta­tion report­ed on the screen, and then switch­es to a Gold­en Globe awards show, reveal­ing her fond­ness for escapism from real­i­ty with pop cul­ture.

As the snow blan­kets the town, Jim­my brings frost flow­ers tied with pur­ple rib­bons, but Saint is reluc­tant to see him. Nor­ma insists that Jim­my’s resilience mir­rors hope, prompt­ing mixed feel­ings in Saint. Dur­ing a snowy walk, he teach­es her about the sur­vival of plants against the odds. Saint is con­flict­ed; she acknowl­edges the beau­ty in sur­vival but strug­gles with her own inabil­i­ty to escape her emo­tions and her cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of loss, resilience, and the strug­gle to find joy amidst sad­ness as Saint nav­i­gates her feel­ings towards friend­ships and mem­o­ries.

Wait­ing ai

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

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.