After the sun set, the atmos­phere at the Osprey Lodge shift­ed as can­dles were lit at the tables. Guests min­gled in new pairs, shar­ing sto­ries and laugh­ter. Amidst the live­ly con­ver­sa­tion, I dis­creet­ly slipped Aidan’s phone, left unat­tend­ed on the table, into my lap while excus­ing myself for a restroom break. How­ev­er, my real inten­tion was to seek out Cather­ine Gard­ner, Aidan’s moth­er, as Gwen­dolyn had omi­nous­ly hint­ed at her sig­nif­i­cance.

Nav­i­gat­ing the lodge, I was greet­ed by a long line of women wait­ing for the restroom before mak­ing my way upstairs. I knocked on the door of the mas­ter suite, greet­ed by silence. With Aidan’s phone, I unlocked the door and stepped into a dim­ly lit hall­way that led to a room filled with clothes and an over­whelm­ing garbage-like odor. The chaos of the room was star­tling, as dress­es and blous­es lay strewn about, cre­at­ing an unset­tling impres­sion of neglect.

To my sur­prise, there sat Cather­ine Gard­ner, her appear­ance bear­ing lit­tle resem­blance to the poised woman I had seen in pho­tographs. Clad in a stained bathrobe and with unkempt make­up, she seemed detached from real­i­ty, engrossed in a game show. When she noticed me, her ini­tial expres­sion sug­gest­ed con­fu­sion, but upon hear­ing my con­nec­tion to Mar­garet, she attempt­ed to muster her hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

Despite the clut­ter around us, Cather­ine poured gin into glass­es and com­ment­ed on the chal­lenges of online shop­ping. She quick­ly warmed up, shar­ing insights about Aidan and address­ing trou­bling rumors, specif­i­cal­ly men­tion­ing Dawn Tag­gart. Her words became increas­ing­ly ani­mat­ed as she recount­ed the com­plex­i­ties sur­round­ing Aidan’s rela­tion­ship with Dawn, her enti­tle­ment, and claims about their famil­ial con­nec­tion.

A dis­turb­ing rev­e­la­tion emerged about Cather­ine’s hus­band Errol, who alleged­ly had a sor­did his­to­ry of affairs that com­pli­cat­ed their fam­i­ly dynam­ics. The con­ver­sa­tion swayed abrupt­ly, oscil­lat­ing between jest and a hor­ri­fy­ing rec­ol­lec­tion of Cather­ine’s own vio­lent response to Dawn’s demands, cul­mi­nat­ing in an unin­tend­ed inci­dent on the stairs.

As my thoughts raced with dis­be­lief, the arrival of oth­ers dis­rupt­ed our exchange. I tried to extract clar­i­ty about Margaret’s involve­ment, only for Cather­ine’s state to dete­ri­o­rate fur­ther, lead­ing to a hur­ried exit for me as I con­front­ed unset­tling truths regard­ing my daughter’s rela­tion­ship amidst a veil of lies.