In Chap­ter 41 of “We Solve Mur­ders,” Max High­field arrives at The Wilber­force, a pri­vate mem­bers’ club in Lon­don where he is set to meet Henk van Veen. The ambiance fea­tures oak and leather fur­nish­ings, with hushed con­ver­sa­tions denot­ing the exclu­siv­i­ty of the place. Hav­ing been there for pre­vi­ous film shoots, Max is famil­iar with the set­ting, yet finds him­self con­front­ed by a strict porter who dis­al­lows trainers—much to Max’s dis­may. After a brief exchange, where the porter rec­og­nizes Max as a film star, he insists that prop­er footwear com­plies with club deco­rum.

Despite Max’s protes­ta­tion about the expen­sive train­ers on his feet, the porter remains firm, even­tu­al­ly offer­ing him a pair of brown brogues. Although they clash with his black out­fit, Max reluc­tant­ly accepts, stress­ing the need for pri­va­cy dur­ing his vis­it. He feels a mix of frus­tra­tion and deter­mi­na­tion as he dons the bor­rowed shoes, reflect­ing on his past tem­pera­ment and how ther­a­py has helped him han­dle such sit­u­a­tions bet­ter.

As he pre­pares to meet Henk, he thinks about his cur­rent estrange­ment from Jeff Nolan, who has been unre­spon­sive late­ly. It’s evi­dent that Max is look­ing for oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect and col­lab­o­rate with Henk, rec­og­niz­ing the pro­fes­sion­al advan­tages that mutu­al asso­ci­a­tion could yield. How­ev­er, he is unset­tled by a recent threat­en­ing note he received that omi­nous­ly states, “You will die, High­field.” This fore­bod­ing mes­sage lingers in his mind as he con­tem­plates his ther­a­pist’s advice about mov­ing for­ward in life—a strat­e­gy he finds com­fort­ing, yet he ques­tions its affec­ta­tion on his rela­tion­ships.

Max appre­ci­ates the ther­a­peu­tic jour­ney, despite acknowl­edg­ing that not all of his ther­a­pist’s insights, espe­cial­ly regard­ing his ambi­tious pur­suits relat­ed to his film career, res­onate with him. When the porter inter­rupts his thoughts and leads him to the library, Max hands over his train­ers, reas­sured that they would be safe. As he ascends the stairs, he is marked by both an air of recog­ni­tion for the chal­lenges ahead and a deter­mi­na­tion to nav­i­gate them.

In Chap­ter 41 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” an inti­mate dia­logue unfolds between two char­ac­ters, reveal­ing lay­ers of emo­tion­al strug­gle and exis­ten­tial con­tem­pla­tion. The female char­ac­ter reflects on her child­hood, shar­ing how her moth­er sang to her dur­ing dark times, sug­gest­ing that music could sum­mon divine inter­ven­tion to restore hope and light in a seem­ing­ly hope­less world. She recounts her mother’s belief that singing about a tran­scen­dent place over the rain­bow could evoke good­ness from God, ignit­ing a metaphor­i­cal sun that would illu­mi­nate the shad­ows.

The male char­ac­ter, Patch, is depict­ed in a state of dis­tress, grap­pling with feel­ings of decay and entrap­ment. He reflects on a trau­mat­ic injury, sug­gest­ing it might have left a last­ing impact that could alter him inter­nal­ly, sym­bol­ized by the imagery of rust and rot intrud­ing upon his healthy flesh. Their con­ver­sa­tion tran­si­tions into a more pro­found philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion where Patch express­es a desire to under­stand the nature of their con­fine­ment, and the female char­ac­ter eeri­ly sug­gests that their exis­tence is enshrined in dark­ness, trapped with­in a void that they might car­ry with them even when they escape.

Patch seeks to know her name, a ges­ture sug­gest­ing his yearn­ing for con­nec­tion amidst despair. As they hear a noise, the woman for­ti­fies her voice with scrip­ture, recit­ing encour­ag­ing vers­es that speak of strength, courage, and trust in God. This invo­ca­tion seeks to instill a sense of resilience and hope even in dire cir­cum­stances.

In a moment of urgency, Patch express­es the need to return home, while the woman, with a soft whis­per, urges him to pray and main­tain hope for sur­vival. Patch iden­ti­fies him­self, reveal­ing his name and the real­i­ty of his abduc­tion. How­ev­er, just as he opens up, an exter­nal inter­rup­tion occurs— a key find­ing its lock—symbolizing the approach of change or rev­e­la­tion. The chap­ter con­cludes with a poignant moment as their hands con­nect, sug­gest­ing a bond that reflects both vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and strength, leav­ing Patch in a state of feel­ing pro­found­ly changed, already tied to her deeply.

In Chap­ter 41, Nina accom­plish­es the gru­el­ing task of pulling out one hun­dred strands of her hair, as demand­ed by her cap­tor, Andy, her hus­band. She envi­sions a swift escape and the end of her mar­riage, fan­ta­siz­ing about serv­ing him divorce papers. Upon ful­fill­ing his request, she waits anx­ious­ly for his approval, yearn­ing for free­dom from her con­fine­ment and aching due to hunger and thirst, hav­ing been trapped with­out food for a day and run­ning low on water.

Nina’s brief hope is crushed when Andy, after inspect­ing the hairs, claims one is miss­ing a fol­li­cle, forc­ing her to restart the painful process. Des­per­ate, she pre­pares anoth­er set of strands, bat­tling phys­i­cal exhaus­tion and emo­tion­al dis­tress, dri­ven by her con­cern for her daugh­ter, Cecelia, and her own sur­vival.

The nar­ra­tive vivid­ly cap­tures Nina’s despair and deter­mi­na­tion amidst her strug­gle, cre­at­ing a tense atmos­phere filled with antic­i­pa­tion and the raw human will to per­se­vere. Andy’s manip­u­la­tion and cru­el­ty high­light a grim por­trait of abuse and con­trol, leav­ing Nina and the read­er on edge for her fate.

This chap­ter delves into the psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal tor­ment Nina endures, illus­trat­ing her resilience. The chap­ter ends with a mix­ture of relief and revul­sion when Andy final­ly releas­es Nina after ver­i­fy­ing the new batch of hair, sub­ject­ing her to fur­ther humil­i­a­tion under the guise of a les­son. This cru­el ordeal not only demon­strates Andy’s dom­i­nance but also sig­nif­i­cant­ly depicts Nina’s fight for sur­vival and her pro­found love for her daugh­ter, push­ing her beyond her lim­its.

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
41
We were most­ly silent dur­ing the flight and win­now­ing to Velaris. Amren
was already wait­ing in the town house, her clothes rum­pled, face
unnerv­ing­ly pale. I made a note to get her more blood imme­di­ate­ly.
But rather than gath­er in the din­ing or sit­ting room, Rhys strolled down
the hall, hands in his pock­ets, past the kitchen, and out into the court­yard
gar­den in the back.
The rest of us lin­gered in the foy­er, star­ing after him—the silence
radi­at­ing from him. Like the calm before a storm.
“It went well, I take it,” Amren said. Cass­ian gave her a look, and trailed
after his friend.
The sun and arid day had warmed the gar­den, bits of green now pok­ing
their heads out here and there in the count­less beds and pots. Rhys sat on
the rim of the foun­tain, fore­arms braced on his knees, star­ing at the moss-
flecked flag­stone between his feet.
We all found our seats in the white-paint­ed iron chairs through­out. If only
humans could see them: faeries, sit­ting on iron. They’d throw away those
ridicu­lous baubles and jew­el­ry. Per­haps even Elain would receive an
engage­ment ring that hadn’t been forged with hate and fear.
“If you’re out here to brood, Rhys,” Amren said from her perch on a lit­tle
bench, “then just say so and let me go back to my work.”
Vio­let eyes lift­ed to hers. Cold, humor­less. “The humans wish for proof
of our good inten­tions. That we can be trust­ed.”
Amren’s atten­tion cut to me. “Feyre was not enough?”
I tried not to let the words sting. No, I had not been enough; per­haps I’d
even failed in my role as emis­sary—
“She is more than enough,” Rhys said with that dead­ly calm, and I
won­dered if I’d sent my own pathet­ic thoughts down the bond. I snapped
my shield up once more. “They’re fools. Worse—frightened fools.” He
stud­ied the ground again, as if the dried moss and stone made up some
pat­tern no one but him could see.
Cass­ian said, “We could … depose them. Get new­er, smarter queens on
their thrones. Who might be will­ing to bar­gain.”
Rhys shook his head. “One, it’d take too long. We don’t have that time.”
I thought of the past few wast­ed weeks, how hard Azriel had tried to get
into those courts. If even his shad­ows and spies could not breach their inner
work­ings, then I doubt­ed an assas­sin would. The con­firm­ing shake of the
head Azriel gave Cass­ian said as much. “Two,” Rhys con­tin­ued, “who
knows if that would some­how impact the mag­ic of their half of the Book. It
must be giv­en freely. It’s pos­si­ble the mag­ic is strong enough to see our
schem­ing.” He sucked on his teeth. “We are stuck with them.”
“We could try again,” Mor said. “Let me speak to them, let me go to their
palace—”
“No,” Azriel said. Mor raised her brows, and a faint col­or stained
Azriel’s tan face. But his fea­tures were set, his hazel eyes sol­id. “You’re not
set­ting foot in that human realm.”
“I fought in the War, you will do well to remem­ber—”
“No,” Azriel said again, refus­ing to break her stare. His shift­ing wings
rasped against the back of his chair. “They would string you up and make
an exam­ple of you.”
“They’d have to catch me first.”
“That palace is a death trap for our kind,” Azriel coun­tered, his voice low
and rough. “Built by Fae hands to pro­tect the humans from us. You set foot
inside it, Mor, and you won’t walk out again. Why do you think we’ve had
such trou­ble get­ting a foothold in there?”
“If going into their ter­ri­to­ry isn’t an option,” I cut in before Mor could
say what­ev­er the tem­per limn­ing her fea­tures hissed at her to retort and
sure­ly wound the shad­owsinger more than she intend­ed, “and deceit or any
men­tal manip­u­la­tion might make the mag­ic wreck the Book … What proof
can be offered?” Rhys lift­ed his head. “Who is—who is this Miryam? Who
was she to Juri­an, and who was that prince you spoke of—Drakon? Per­haps
we … per­haps they could be used as proof. If only to vouch for you.”
The heat died from Mor’s eyes as she shift­ed a foot against the moss and
flag­stone.
But Rhys inter­locked his fin­gers in the space between his knees before he
said, “Five hun­dred years ago, in the years lead­ing up to the War, there was
a Fae king­dom in the south­ern part of the con­ti­nent. It was a realm of sand
sur­round­ing a lush riv­er delta. The Black Land. There was no cru­el­er place
to be born a human—for no humans were born free. They were all of them
slaves, forced to build great tem­ples and palaces for the High Fae who
ruled. There was no escape; no chance of hav­ing their free­dom pur­chased.
And the queen of the Black Land … ” Mem­o­ry stirred in his face.
“She made Ama­ran­tha seem as sweet as Elain,” Mor explained with soft
ven­om.
“Miryam,” Rhys con­tin­ued, “was a half-Fae female born of a human
moth­er. And as her moth­er was a slave, as the con­cep­tion was … against
her mother’s will, so, too, was Miryam born in shack­les, and deemed
human—denied any rights to her Fae her­itage.”
“Tell the full sto­ry anoth­er time,” Amren cut in. “The gist of it, girl,” she
said to me, “is that Miryam was giv­en as a wed­ding gift by the queen to her
betrothed, a for­eign Fae prince named Drakon. He was hor­ri­fied, and let
Miryam escape. Fear­ing the queen’s wrath, she fled through the desert,
across the sea, into more desert … and was found by Juri­an. She fell in with
his rebel armies, became his lover, and was a heal­er amongst the war­riors.
Until a dev­as­tat­ing bat­tle found her tend­ing to Jurian’s new Fae allies—
includ­ing Prince Drakon. Turns out, Miryam had opened his eyes to the
mon­ster he planned to wed. He’d bro­ken the engage­ment, allied his armies
with the humans, and had been look­ing for the beau­ti­ful slave-girl for three
years. Juri­an had no idea that his new ally cov­et­ed his lover. He was too
focused on win­ning the War, on destroy­ing Ama­ran­tha in the North. As his
obses­sion took over, he was blind to wit­ness­ing Miryam and Drakon falling
in love behind his back.”
“It wasn’t behind his back,” Mor snapped. “Miryam end­ed it with Juri­an
before she ever laid a fin­ger on Drakon.”
Amren shrugged. “Long sto­ry short, girl, when Juri­an was slaugh­tered by
Ama­ran­tha, and dur­ing the long cen­turies after, she told him what had
hap­pened to his lover. That she’d betrayed him for a Fae male. Every­one
believed Miryam and Drakon per­ished while lib­er­at­ing her peo­ple from the
Black Land at the end of the War—even Ama­ran­tha.”
“And they didn’t,” I said. Rhys and Mor nod­ded. “It was all a way to
escape, wasn’t it? To start over some­where else, with both their peo­ples?”
Anoth­er set of nods. “So why not show the queens that? You start­ed to tell
them—”
“Because,” Rhys cut in, “in addi­tion to it not prov­ing a thing about my
char­ac­ter, which seemed to be their biggest gripe, it would be a grave
betray­al of our friends. Their only wish was to remain hidden—to live in
peace with their peo­ples. They fought and bled and suf­fered enough for it. I
will not bring them into this con­flict.”
“Drakon’s aer­i­al army,” Cass­ian mused, “was as good as ours. We might
need to call upon him by the end.”
Rhys mere­ly shook his head. Con­ver­sa­tion over. And per­haps he was
right: reveal­ing Drakon and Miryam’s peace­ful exis­tence explained noth­ing
about his own inten­tions. About his own mer­its and char­ac­ter.
“So, what do we offer them instead?” I asked. “What do we show them?”
Rhys’s face was bleak. “We show them Velaris.”
“What?” Mor barked. But Amren shushed her.
“You can’t mean to bring them here,” I said.
“Of course not. The risks are too great, enter­tain­ing them for even a night
would like­ly result in blood­shed.” Rhys said. “So I plan to mere­ly show
them.”
“They’ll dis­miss it as mind tricks,” Azriel coun­tered.
“No,” Rhys said, get­ting to his feet. “I mean to show them—playing by
their own rules.”
Amren clicked her nails against each oth­er. “What do you mean, High
Lord?”
But Rhys only said to Mor, “Send word to your father. We’re going to
pay him and my oth­er court a vis­it.”
My blood iced over. The Court of Night­mares.
There was an orb, it turned out, that had belonged to Mor’s fam­i­ly for
mil­len­nia: the Ver­i­tas. It was rife with the truth-mag­ic she’d claimed to
possess—that many in her blood­line also bore. And the Ver­i­tas was one of
their most val­ued and guard­ed tal­is­mans.
Rhys wast­ed no time plan­ning. We’d go to the Court of Night­mares
with­in the Hewn City tomor­row after­noon, win­now­ing near the mas­sive
moun­tain it was built with­in, and then fly­ing the rest of the way.
Mor, Cass­ian, and I were mere dis­trac­tions to make Rhys’s sud­den vis­it
less suspicious—while Azriel stole the orb from Mor’s father’s cham­bers.
The orb was known amongst the humans, had been wield­ed by them in
the War, Rhys told me over a qui­et din­ner that night. The queens would
know it. And would know it was absolute truth, not illu­sion or a trick, when
we used it to show them—like peer­ing into a liv­ing painting—that this city
and its good peo­ple exist­ed.
The oth­ers had sug­gest­ed oth­er places with­in his ter­ri­to­ry to prove he
wasn’t some war­mon­ger­ing sadist, but none had the same impact as Velaris,
Rhys claimed. For his peo­ple, for the world, he’d offer the queens this slice
of truth.
After din­ner, I wan­dered into the streets, and found myself even­tu­al­ly
stand­ing at the edge of the Rain­bow, the night in full swing, patrons and
artists and every­day cit­i­zens bustling from shop to shop, peer­ing in the
gal­leries, buy­ing sup­plies.
Com­pared to the sparkling lights and bright col­ors of the lit­tle hill
slop­ing down to the riv­er ahead, the streets behind me were shad­owed,
sleep­ing.
I’d been here near­ly two months and hadn’t worked up the courage to
walk through the artists’ quar­ter.
But this place … Rhys would risk this beau­ti­ful city, these love­ly peo­ple,
all for a shot at peace. Per­haps the guilt of leav­ing it pro­tect­ed while the rest
of Pry­thi­an had suf­fered drove him; per­haps offer­ing up Velaris on a sil­ver
plat­ter was his own attempt to ease the weight. I rubbed at my chest, an
ache build­ing in there.
I took a step toward the quarter—and halt­ed.
Maybe I should have asked Mor to come. But she’d left after din­ner,
pale-faced and jumpy, ignor­ing Cassian’s attempt to speak with her. Azriel
had tak­en to the clouds to con­tact his spies. He’d qui­et­ly promised the
pac­ing Cass­ian to find Mor when he was done.
And Rhys … He had enough going on. And he hadn’t object­ed when I
stat­ed I was going for a walk. He hadn’t even warned me to be care­ful. If it
was trust, or absolute faith in the safe­ty of his city, or just that he knew how
bad­ly I’d react if he tried to tell me not to go or warn me, I didn’t know.
I shook my head, clear­ing my thoughts as I again stared down the main
street of the Rain­bow.
I’d felt flick­ers these past few weeks in that hole inside my chest—
flick­ers of images, but noth­ing sol­id. Noth­ing roar­ing with life and demand.
Not in the way it had that night, see­ing him kneel on that bed, naked and
tat­tooed and winged.
It’d be stu­pid to ven­ture into the quar­ter, any­way, when it might very well
be ruined in any upcom­ing con­flict. It’d be stu­pid to fall in love with it,
when it might be torn from me.
So, like a cow­ard, I turned and went home.
Rhys was wait­ing in the foy­er, lean­ing against the post of the stair
ban­is­ter. His face was grim.
I halt­ed in the mid­dle of the entry car­pet. “What’s wrong?”
His wings were nowhere to be seen, not even the shad­ow of them. “I’m
debat­ing ask­ing you to stay tomor­row.”
I crossed my arms. “I thought I was going.” Don’t lock me up in this
house, don’t shove me aside—
He ran a hand through his hair. “What I have to be tomor­row, who I have
to become, is not … it’s not some­thing I want you to see. How I will treat
you, treat oth­ers …”
“The mask of the High Lord,” I said qui­et­ly.
“Yes.” He took a seat on the bot­tom step of the stairs.
I remained in the cen­ter of the foy­er as I asked care­ful­ly, “Why don’t you
want me to see that?”
“Because you’ve only start­ed to look at me like I’m not a mon­ster, and I
can’t stom­ach the idea of any­thing you see tomor­row, being beneath that
moun­tain, putting you back into that place where I found you.”
Beneath that mountain—underground. Yes, I’d for­got­ten that. For­got­ten
I’d see the court that Ama­ran­tha had mod­eled her own after, that I’d be
trapped beneath the earth …
But with Cass­ian, and Azriel, and Mor. With … him.
I wait­ed for the pan­ic, the cold sweat. Nei­ther came. “Let me help. In
what­ev­er way I can.”
Bleak­ness shad­ed the starlight in those eyes. “The role you will have to
play is not a pleas­ant one.”
“I trust you.” I sat beside him on the stairs, close enough that the heat of
his body warmed the chill night air cling­ing to my over­coat. “Why did Mor
look so dis­turbed when she left?”
His throat bobbed. I could tell it was rage, and pain, that kept him from
telling me outright—not mis­trust. After a moment, he said, “I was there, in
the Hewn City, the day her father declared she was to be sold in mar­riage to
Eris, eldest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court.” Lucien’s broth­er.
“Eris had a rep­u­ta­tion for cru­el­ty, and Mor … begged me not to let it
hap­pen. For all her pow­er, all her wild­ness, she had no voice, no rights with
those peo­ple. And my father didn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly care if his cousins used their
off­spring as breed­ing stock.”
“What hap­pened?” I breathed.
“I brought Mor to the Illyr­i­an camp for a few days. And she saw Cass­ian,
and decid­ed she’d do the one thing that would ruin her val­ue to these
peo­ple. I didn’t know until after, and … it was a mess. With Cass­ian, with
her, with our fam­i­lies. And it’s anoth­er long sto­ry, but the short of it is that
Eris refused to mar­ry her. Said she’d been sul­lied by a bas­tard-born less­er
faerie, and he’d now soon­er fuck a sow. Her fam­i­ly … they … ” I’d nev­er
seen him at such a loss for words. Rhys cleared his throat. “When they were
done, they dumped her on the Autumn Court bor­der, with a note nailed to
her body that said she was Eris’s prob­lem.”
Nailed—nailed to her.
Rhys said with soft wrath, “Eris left her for dead in the mid­dle of their
woods. Azriel found her a day lat­er. It was all I could do to keep him from
going to either court and slaugh­ter­ing them all.”
I thought of that mer­ry face, the flip­pant laugh­ter, the female that did not
care who approved. Per­haps because she had seen the ugli­est her kind had
to offer. And had sur­vived.
And I understood—why Rhys could not endure Nes­ta for more than a
few moments, why he could not let go of that anger where her fail­ings were
con­cerned, even if 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 WAS IN LOVE WITH Con­nor from the moment she looked at me.
With her full head of hair and her round blue eyes, I thought, for a
moment, she looked just like Celia.
Con­nor was always hun­gry and hat­ed being alone. She want­ed
noth­ing more than to lie on me, qui­et­ly sleep­ing. She absolute­ly
adored Har­ry.
Dur­ing those first few months, Celia shot two movies back-to-back,
both out of town. One of them, The Buy­er, was a movie I knew she was
pas­sion­ate about. But the sec­ond, a mob movie, was exact­ly the sort of
work she hat­ed. On top of the vio­lence and dark­ness, it shot for eight
weeks, four in Los Ange­les and four in Sici­ly. When the offer came in, I
was expect­ing her to turn it down. Instead, she took the part, and John
decid­ed to go with her.
Dur­ing the time they were gone, Har­ry and I lived almost exact­ly
like a tra­di­tion­al mar­ried cou­ple. Har­ry made me bacon and eggs for
break­fast and ran my baths. I fed the baby and changed her near­ly
hourly.
We had help, of course. Luisa was tak­ing care of the house. She was
chang­ing the sheets, doing the laun­dry, clean­ing up after all of us. On
her days off, it was Har­ry who stepped in.
It was Har­ry who told me I looked beau­ti­ful, even though we both
knew I’d seen bet­ter days. It was Har­ry who read script after script,
look­ing for the per­fect project for me to take on once Con­nor was old
enough. It was Har­ry who slept next to me every night, who held my
hand as we fell asleep, who held me when I was con­vinced I was a
ter­ri­ble moth­er after I scratched Connor’s cheek giv­ing her a bath.
Har­ry and I had always been close, had long been fam­i­ly, but dur­ing
that time, I tru­ly felt like a wife. I felt like I had a hus­band. And I grew
to love him even more. Con­nor, and that time with her, bond­ed Har­ry
and me in ways I could nev­er imag­ine. He was there to cel­e­brate the
good and sup­port me dur­ing the bad.
It was around that time that I start­ed to believe that friend­ships
could be writ­ten in the stars. “If there are all dif­fer­ent types of soul
mates,” I told Har­ry one after­noon, when the two of us were sit­ting out
on the patio with Con­nor, “then you are one of mine.”
Har­ry was wear­ing a pair of shorts and no shirt. Con­nor was lying
on his chest. He hadn’t shaved that morn­ing, and his stub­ble was
com­ing in. It had just the slight­est gray patch under his chin. Look­ing
at him with her, I real­ized how much they looked alike. Same long
lash­es, same pert lips.
Har­ry held Con­nor to his chest with one hand and grabbed my free
hand with the oth­er. “I am absolute­ly pos­i­tive that I need you more
than I’ve ever need­ed anoth­er liv­ing soul,” he said. “The only
excep­tion being—”
“Con­nor,” I said. We both smiled.
For the rest of our lives, we would say that. The only excep­tion to
absolute­ly every­thing was Con­nor.
  *  *  *  
WHEN CELIA AND John came home, things went back to nor­mal. Celia
lived with me. Har­ry lived with John. Con­nor stayed at my place, with
the assump­tion that Har­ry would come by days and nights to be with
us, to care for us.
But that first morn­ing, just around the time Har­ry was due for
break­fast, Celia put on her robe and head­ed to the kitchen. She start­ed
mak­ing oat­meal.
I had just come down, still in my paja­mas. I was sit­ting at the island
nurs­ing Con­nor when Har­ry walked in.
“Oh,” he said, look­ing at Celia, notic­ing the pan. Luisa was wash­ing
dish­es in the sink. “I was com­ing in to make bacon and eggs.”
“I’ve got it,” Celia said. “A nice warm bowl of oat­meal for every­body.
There’s enough for you, too, if you’re hun­gry.”
Har­ry looked at me, unsure what to do. I looked at him, equal­ly
uncer­tain.
Celia just kept stir­ring. And then she grabbed three bowls and set
them down. She put the pot in the sink for Luisa to wash.
It occurred to me then how odd this sys­tem was. Har­ry and I paid
Luisa’s salary, but Har­ry didn’t even live here. Celia and John paid the
mort­gage on the home Har­ry lived in.
Har­ry sat down and grabbed the spoon in front of him. He and I
dug into our oat­meal at the same time. When Celia’s back was to us,
we looked at each oth­er and gri­maced. Har­ry mouthed some­thing to
me, and even though I could bare­ly read his lips, I knew what he was
say­ing, because it was exact­ly what I was think­ing.
So bland.
Celia turned back to us and offered us some raisins. We both took
her up on it. And then the three of us sat in the kitchen, eat­ing our
oat­meal qui­et­ly, all aware that Celia had staked her claim. I was hers.
She would make my break­fast. Har­ry was a vis­i­tor.
Con­nor start­ed cry­ing, so Har­ry took her and changed her. Luisa
went down­stairs to grab the laun­dry. And when we were alone, Celia
said, “Max Girard is doing a movie called Three A.M. for Para­mount.
It’s sup­posed to be a real art-house piece, and I think you should do it.”
I had kept in touch with Max, on and off, since he direct­ed me in
Boute-en-Train. I nev­er for­got that it was with him that I was able to
cat­a­pult my name to the top again. But I knew Celia couldn’t stand
him. He was too overt in his inter­est in me, too sala­cious about it. Celia
used to jok­ing­ly call him Pepé Le Pew. “You think I should do a movie
with Max?”
Celia nod­ded. “They offered it to me, but it makes more sense for
you. Regard­less of the fact that I think he’s a Nean­derthal, I can
rec­og­nize that the man makes good movies. And this role is exact­ly
your thing.”
“What do you mean?”
Celia got up and took my bowl with hers. She rinsed them both in
the sink and then turned back to me, lean­ing against it. “It’s a sexy
part. They need a real bomb­shell.”
I shook my head. “I’m someone’s moth­er now. The whole world
knows it.”
Celia shook her head. “That’s exact­ly why you have to do it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a sex­u­al woman, Eve­lyn. You’re sen­su­al, and you’re
beau­ti­ful, and you’re desir­able. Don’t let them take that away from you.
Don’t let them desex­u­al­ize you. Don’t let your career be on their
terms. What do you want to do? You want to play a mom in every role
you take from now on? You want to play only nuns and teach­ers?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not. I want to play every­thing.”
“So play every­thing,” she said. “Be bold. Do what no one expects
you to do.”
“Peo­ple will say it’s unbe­com­ing.”
“The Eve­lyn I love doesn’t care about that.”
I closed my eyes and lis­tened to her, nod­ding. She want­ed me to do
it for me. I real­ly believe that. She knew I wouldn’t be hap­py being
lim­it­ed, being rel­e­gat­ed. She knew I want­ed to con­tin­ue to make
peo­ple talk, to tan­ta­lize, to sur­prise. But the part she wasn’t
men­tion­ing, the part I’m not even sure she tru­ly under­stood, was that
she also want­ed me to do it because she didn’t want me to change.
She want­ed to be with a bomb­shell.
It’s always been fas­ci­nat­ing to me how things can be simul­ta­ne­ous­ly
true and false, how peo­ple can be good and bad all in one, how
some­one can love you in a way that is beau­ti­ful­ly self­less while serv­ing
them­selves ruth­less­ly.
It is why I loved Celia. She was a very com­pli­cat­ed woman who
always kept me guess­ing. And here she had sur­prised me one more
time.
She had said, Go, have a baby. But she had meant to add, Just don’t
act like a moth­er.
For­tu­nate­ly and unfor­tu­nate­ly for her, I had absolute­ly no inten­tion
of being told what to do or of being manip­u­lat­ed into a sin­gle thing.
So I read the script, and I took a few days and thought about it. I
asked Har­ry what he thought. And then I woke up one morn­ing and
thought, I want the part. I want it because I want to show I’m still my
own woman.

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.

41
As the hol­i­days approached, I was feel­ing pret­ty good. Aside from my fear that
my father was plot­ting some­thing, I felt strong and inspired by the women I’d
met in AA. In addi­tion to being bril­liant, they had so much com­mon sense, and
I’d learned a lot from them about how to be an adult woman nav­i­gat­ing the
world with hon­esty and brav­ery.
For my birth­day, Hesam took me some­where spe­cial. I start­ed mak­ing
hol­i­day plans, but my father insist­ed that he would be tak­ing the boys for
Christ­mas. If I want­ed to see them, I’d have to see my father, too. When I pushed
back, my father said, “The boys don’t want to be with you this year. They’re
com­ing home to Louisiana with me and your mom, and that’s that.”
“This is news to me,” I said, “but if they’d real­ly rather be in Louisiana that
week, I guess that’s okay.”
The Vegas show hadn’t been can­celed yet. I was hir­ing new dancers and going
over the rou­tines. At a rehearsal one day, I’d been work­ing with all the dancers—
both new and old—when one of the dancers who’d been with the show the past
four years did a move for us all. I winced when I saw it; it looked real­ly
chal­leng­ing. “I don’t want to do that one,” I said. “It’s too hard.”
It didn’t seem like a big deal to me, but sud­den­ly my team and the direc­tors
dis­ap­peared into a room and shut the door. I got the feel­ing that I had done
some­thing hor­ri­bly wrong, but I didn’t under­stand how not want­i­ng to do one
move in a rou­tine could qual­i­fy as that. I mean, I was almost �ve years old­er than
I’d been when the �rst res­i­den­cy start­ed; my body had changed, too. What
di�erence did it make if we changed it up?
We’d all been hav­ing fun, from what I could tell. I have social anx­i­ety, so if
there’s any­thing to feel uncom­fort­able about, I usu­al­ly feel it �rst. But that day
all seemed well. I was laugh­ing and talk­ing to the dancers. Some of the new ones
could do gain­ers, mean­ing a stand­ing back tuck going for­ward. They were
amaz­ing! I asked if I could learn it, and one of them o�ered to spot me on it. All
of which is to say: We were play­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing. Noth­ing was going
wrong. But the way my team had behaved made me wor­ried some­thing was up.
A day lat­er in ther­a­py, my doc­tor con­front­ed me.
“We found ener­gy sup­ple­ments in your purse,” he said. The ener­gy
sup­ple­ments gave me a sense of con�dence and ener­gy, and you didn’t need a
pre­scrip­tion for them. He knew that I had been tak­ing them dur­ing my shows in
Vegas, but now he made a big deal out of it.
“We feel like you’re doing way worse things behind our backs,” he said. “And
we don’t feel like you’re doing well in rehearsals. You’re giv­ing every­one a hard
time.”
“Is this a joke?” I said.
Instant­ly, I was furi­ous. I had tried so hard. My work eth­ic was strong.
“We’re going to be send­ing you to a facil­i­ty,” the ther­a­pist said. “And before
you go to this place, over Christ­mas break, we’re going to have a woman come to
run psy­cho­log­i­cal tests on you.”
A �ashy doctor—who I’d seen on TV and instinc­tive­ly hated—came to my
house against my will, sat me down, and test­ed my cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties for hours.
My father told me that this doc­tor had con­clud­ed that I’d bombed the tests:
“She said you failed. Now you have to go to the men­tal health facil­i­ty. There’s
some­thing severe­ly wrong with you. But don’t worry—we found you a small
rehab pro­gram in Bev­er­ly Hills. It will only cost you six­ty thou­sand dol­lars a
month.”
As I gath­ered my stu�, cry­ing, I asked how long I should pack for, how long
they’d make me stay there. But I was told there was no way to know. “Maybe a
month. Maybe two months. Maybe three months. It all depends on how well
you do and how well you demon­strate your capa­bil­i­ties.” The pro­gram was
sup­pos­ed­ly a “lux­u­ry” rehab that had cre­at­ed a spe­cial pro­gram for me, so I’d be
alone and wouldn’t have to inter­act with oth­er peo­ple.

In Chap­ter 41, Patri­cia is vis­it­ed by the spec­tral fig­ure of Miss Mary dur­ing a fever-induced delir­i­um, leav­ing a last­ing, indeli­ble mem­o­ry unlike any oth­ers in her life. This vis­i­ta­tion, seem­ing­ly from beyond to deliv­er a warn­ing, marks a piv­otal change in Patri­ci­a’s life, empha­siz­ing her dis­tinct rec­ol­lec­tion amidst a sea of for­got­ten mem­o­ries. Her fever breaks, and the real­i­ty of her strained rela­tion­ship with Carter, cou­pled with their dire finan­cial sit­u­a­tion over a failed invest­ment, comes to the fore­front. The chap­ter ele­gant­ly tran­si­tions Patri­cia from a vul­ner­a­ble, bedrid­den state to a woman tak­ing deci­sive steps towards inde­pen­dence by demand­ing a divorce from Carter.

Sub­se­quent­ly, Patri­cia vis­its her dying friend Slick in the hos­pi­tal, where they share a dark con­fes­sion, under­lin­ing their trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences and the irre­versible changes they’ve under­gone. Slick­’s near­ing death and con­cern for her pos­si­ble trans­for­ma­tion into some­thing mon­strous teth­er their fate to a dis­turb­ing, enig­mat­ic fig­ure, James Har­ris. Despite the grim cir­cum­stances, a mutu­al under­stand­ing of shared hard­ship and resilience under­pins their con­ver­sa­tion, with Patri­cia assur­ing Slick of a pres­ence till her end. The por­tray­al of their friend­ship encap­su­lates a pro­found con­nec­tion, offer­ing solace and accep­tance in the face of unchange­able, trag­ic real­i­ties.

The chap­ter also nar­rates the decline of Patri­ci­a’s dog, Rag­tag, draw­ing a poignant par­al­lel between per­son­al loss and famil­ial dis­in­te­gra­tion. The col­lec­tive care for Rag­tag by Patri­cia, her chil­dren Korey and Blue, epit­o­mizes a fleet­ing uni­ty and shared love with­in the fam­i­ly amidst impend­ing sep­a­ra­tion. Rag­tag’s con­di­tion serves as a cat­alyt­ic moment, lead­ing to Korey’s pre­ma­ture return home, illus­trat­ing the deep bonds between her, Blue, and Ragtag—a stark con­trast to the dis­pas­sion shown by their father, Carter. The nar­ra­tive grace­ful­ly bal­ances the emo­tion­al weight of immi­nent death, the dis­so­lu­tion of mar­riage, and the strength found in fam­i­ly bonds and loy­al­ty, con­clud­ing with the heart­felt bur­ial of Rag­tag and the stark rev­e­la­tion of Patri­cia and Carter’s divorce to their chil­dren, under­scor­ing a chap­ter rich in emo­tion­al depth, trans­for­ma­tion, and the stark real­i­ties of life and death.

Chap­ter 41 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të begins with the nar­ra­tor, Mrs. Helen Hunt­ing­don, express­ing relief at her hus­band’s depar­ture and rein­vig­o­rat­ed spir­its to improve her son Arthur’s upbring­ing, coun­ter­ing the neg­li­gent influ­ence of his father. Helen out­lines her efforts to instill good val­ues in Arthur, par­tic­u­lar­ly deter­ring him from the vices his father encour­aged. She cau­tious­ly plans for a future escape from her abu­sive mar­riage, con­tem­plat­ing a move to an old fam­i­ly Hall under an assumed iden­ti­ty, should her hus­band, Mr. Hunt­ing­don, resume his cor­rupt­ing influ­ence upon their return. Helen seeks the con­sent and assis­tance of her broth­er, Fred­er­ick, in this plan, hint­ing at a strained but hope­ful rela­tion­ship that might offer sal­va­tion.

When Fred­er­ick vis­its, Helen dis­cuss­es her fears and plans. While Fred­er­ick is ini­tial­ly skep­ti­cal of Helen’s dras­tic inten­tions, his indig­na­tion towards Mr. Hunt­ing­don and his cir­cum­stances even­tu­al­ly sways him to agree to pre­pare their old fam­i­ly Hall as a refuge. This plan, how­ev­er, is to be a last resort, empha­siz­ing Helen’s com­mit­ment to her cur­rent respon­si­bil­i­ties and her attach­ment to the peo­ple and the estate tied to her present life.

Par­al­lel­ly, Helen intro­duces a sub­plot involv­ing her friend Esther Har­grave, who resists soci­etal pres­sures to mar­ry an unde­sired suit­or, Mr. Old­field. This sub­plot mir­rors Helen’s own strug­gles with soci­etal expec­ta­tions and the pur­suit of auton­o­my. Esther’s defi­ance and Helen’s coun­sel high­light the nov­el­’s cri­tique of mar­riage as a finan­cial trans­ac­tion or social strat­e­gy devoid of affec­tion and respect.

The chap­ter jux­ta­pos­es Helen’s deep resolve to pro­tect her son and secure their future against soci­etal con­ven­tions that threat­en indi­vid­ual wel­fare. Bron­të employs these nar­ra­tives to cri­tique the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage, parental influ­ence, and the soci­etal expec­ta­tions of women, advo­cat­ing for per­son­al agency and moral integri­ty amidst adver­si­ty.