In Chap­ter 20, Miri­am Wu con­cludes her inter­view with Modig, with Bublan­s­ki present, dis­cussing Lis­beth Salan­der. Miri­am chal­lenges the psy­chi­atric assess­ment of Lis­beth as men­tal­ly retard­ed, high­light­ing her advanced math­e­mat­i­cal abil­i­ties. Bublan­s­ki clar­i­fies mis­con­cep­tions about Lis­beth’s work and per­son­al life, assert­ing she is not a pros­ti­tute and is like­ly bisex­u­al. The chap­ter reveals dis­crep­an­cies in Lis­beth’s por­tray­al by author­i­ties ver­sus those who know her per­son­al­ly.

In Chap­ter 20, titled “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint is enveloped in unset­tling mem­o­ries as she glances back at a tall house before ven­tur­ing into the near­by Thur­ley State Park. The house, grand but aged, belongs to Dr. T, a famil­iar fig­ure in Mon­ta Clare, who has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in her life, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing her sick­ness. She walks past var­i­ous fruit trees and inhales the fra­grant hon­ey­suck­le, but a wild call star­tles her, lead­ing to feel­ings of pan­ic.

Despite her fear, she steels her­self and knocks on the door of Dr. T’s house, hop­ing for a clever solu­tion to uncov­er the mys­tery sur­round­ing her friend Patch, who may be in dan­ger. The library book she bor­rowed has pre­pared her for a stealthy approach. Peer­ing through the side win­dow reveals only her anx­ious reflection—intensifying her dis­tress. She knocks hard­er and sur­veys the dark­ened win­dows, know­ing they hide secrets.

With deter­mi­na­tion, she inves­ti­gates the rear porch, shin­ing her flash­light into the home, where she glimpses an old kitchen filled with pots but finds no signs of a pet, which height­ens her con­cern. She rat­tles the locked door in frus­tra­tion and calls for Patch, unsure of whether he is actu­al­ly there or if the doc­tor has deceived her.

Just as despair begins to set­tle in, she hears a chill­ing scream that sends her reel­ing in fear and tears. Sum­mon­ing her courage, she returns to the house, call­ing out for Patch. Sud­den­ly, she feels a hand on her shoul­der, trig­ger­ing a blood-cur­dling scream of her own. To her shock, it’s Dr. Tooms, whose pal­lid face and blood­ied hands send her flee­ing in hor­ror. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a tense moment, leav­ing read­ers uncer­tain about the fate of both Saint and Patch as she retreats from the unveiled ter­ror.

arrives at her hotel room. The encounter is fraught with ten­sion and con­fu­sion, as Phoebe grap­ples with the real­i­ty of their com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship. Matt stands before her, uneasy and unsure, while Phoebe process­es the impact of his pres­ence, real­iz­ing that he feels more like a stranger than her hus­band now. They nav­i­gate the awk­ward intro­duc­tion, with Gary, Phoe­be’s cur­rent part­ner, leav­ing with her daugh­ter, Juice, which inten­si­fies the strange­ness of the moment.

Matt express­es his con­cern for Phoebe, reveal­ing he thought she might be dead after her abrupt dis­ap­pear­ance. He reveals the emo­tion­al tur­moil he went through, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he lost their dog, Har­ry. Their dia­logue reflects deep unre­solved feel­ings; Matt still con­sid­ers Phoebe his wife, while she ques­tions their past and his actions that led to their sep­a­ra­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tion oscil­lates between painful mem­o­ries and heart­felt admis­sions, such as Mat­t’s per­sis­tent love for Phoebe, despite the years of silence since their divorce.

As they talk, Phoebe asserts her growth and inde­pen­dence, indi­cat­ing that their dynam­ics have shift­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly. She express­es anger toward how he aban­doned her and con­fronts him about his infi­deli­ty with Mia, empha­siz­ing the hurt and betray­al she felt. They embrace the com­plex­i­ty of their emo­tions, with Phoebe admit­ting she some­times hat­ed him but feels glad he cares enough to find her.

Their shared his­to­ry, inter­spersed with nos­tal­gia, adds weight to their exchange as Matt laments his poor choic­es and reveals his long­ing to recon­nect. Yet, Phoebe push­es back, assert­ing that the rela­tion­ship they once had is irre­triev­ably altered. Despite the warmth of their past, she draws a line, indi­cat­ing she has changed and is not will­ing to revert to who she was dur­ing their mar­riage.

As they reflect on mem­o­ries togeth­er, the emo­tion­al inten­si­ty builds, cul­mi­nat­ing in a kiss that stirs con­flict­ing sen­sa­tions with­in Phoebe. She feels an unmis­tak­able attrac­tion ground­ed in their past, but also rec­og­nizes the new bound­aries she desires. The chap­ter encap­su­lates a moment of reck­on­ing between them, illus­trat­ing their strug­gle with love, regret, and the desire for a future shaped by their shared his­to­ry yet char­ac­ter­ized by indi­vid­ual growth.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

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.

20
When Sean Pre­ston was very lit­tle, Kevin start­ed work­ing hard­er on his own
music. He want­ed to make his own name, which was some­thing I encour­aged.
He was record­ing a lot, which was his pas­sion. Some­times I’d drop by a stu­dio
where he was work­ing and it seemed like a club­house. I could smell the weed
waft­ing out of the stu­dio door before I even walked in. He and the oth­er guys
would all be get­ting high, and it felt like I was in the way. I wasn’t invit­ed to their
par­ty.
I couldn’t stand being around pot smoke. Even the smell of it nau­se­at­ed me.
And I had the baby and was preg­nant, so it wasn’t like I could hang out all day.
So most­ly, I stayed home. It’s not as if that was such a hard­ship. I had a beau­ti­ful
home—a dream home. We would hire an amaz­ing chef—too expen­sive to use
very often. But one time, eat­ing some­thing the chef cooked, I said, “Oh my God,
this is the most deli­cious thing I’ve ever had and can you just live with us? I love
you so much!” And I meant it—I loved him. I was so grate­ful for any addi­tion­al
help around the house.
Maybe this is the way mar­ried cou­ples are, I thought as Kevin and I grew more
and more estranged. You take turns let­ting each oth­er be a lit­tle self­ish. This is his
first taste of fame for him­self. I should let him have it.
I gave myself pep talks: He’s my hus­band. I’m sup­posed to respect him, accept
him on a deep­er lev­el than I’d accept some­one I was just dat­ing. He’s the father of
my kids. His demeanor is dif­fer­ent now, but if it changed, it could change back.
Peo­ple say he’s going to break up with me while I have tiny chil­dren, like he did
with the moth­er of his first two chil­dren when they were infants, but no way! How
he was with his oth­er fam­i­ly won’t be the way he is with me.
In try­ing to make up all these excus­es in my head, I was lying to myself—
total­ly in denial this whole time that he was leav­ing me. I �ew to New York to see
him. He’d been so out of touch that I thought we need­ed to have some time
togeth­er as a fam­i­ly. In the city, I checked into a nice hotel, excit­ed to see my
hus­band.
But he wouldn’t see me. It seemed like he want­ed to pre­tend I didn’t exist.
His man­ag­er, who had been on my team for years, wouldn’t see me, either.
He was on Kevin’s team now and it seemed they were done with me.
“Damn, real­ly?” I said.
All I could think was that I want­ed to get close enough to Kevin that I could
ask him what was going on. I want­ed to say, “When you left to come out here,
we hugged. You kissed me. What’s going on? What hap­pened?”
I’d sus­pect­ed some­thing was up, that he was chang­ing, espe­cial­ly once he
start­ed get­ting press and feel­ing him­self. One time he came home late and told
me he’d been at a par­ty. “Justin Tim­ber­lake was there!” he said. “Lind­say Lohan
was, too!”
Do you think I care about your stu­pid par­ty? I thought. Do you have any idea
how many par­ties like that I’ve gone to? I’ve known some of those peo­ple longer than
I’ve known you. Do you know how much I went through in my years with Justin?
No—you know none of it. I didn’t say any of that, but I want­ed to say it and a
whole lot more.
Kevin was just so enthralled with the fame and the pow­er. Again and again in
my life I’ve seen fame and mon­ey ruin peo­ple, and I saw it hap­pen with Kevin in
slow motion. In my expe­ri­ence, when most people—especially men—get that
type of atten­tion, it’s all over. They love it too much. And it’s not good for
them.
Some celebri­ties han­dle fame well. They have per­spec­tive. They have fun
being admired but not too much fun. They know whose opin­ion to lis­ten to
and whose opin­ion to ignore. Get­ting awards and tro­phies is cool, and in the
beginning—those �rst two years when you become a celebrity—well, it’s a
feel­ing you can’t explain. I think some peo­ple are great at fame.
I’m not. My �rst two or three years I was good at it, and it was �ne, but my
real self? In school I was a bas­ket­ball play­er. I didn’t cheer­lead, I didn’t wan­na be
out there. I played ball. That’s what I loved.
But fame? That world isn’t real, my friends. It’s. Not. Real. You go along
with it because of course it’s going to pay the family’s bills and every­thing. But
for me, there was an essence of real life miss­ing from it. I think that’s why I had
my babies.
So get­ting awards and all that fame stu�? I liked it a lot. But there’s noth­ing
last­ing in it for me. What I love is sweat on the �oor dur­ing rehearsals, or just
play­ing ball and mak­ing a shot. I like the work. I like the prac­tic­ing. That has
more authen­tic­i­ty and val­ue than any­thing else.
I actu­al­ly envy the peo­ple who know how to make fame work for them,
because I hide from it. I get very shy. For exam­ple, Jen­nifer Lopez, from the
begin­ning, struck me as some­one who was very good at being famous—at
indulging people’s inter­est in her but know­ing where to draw lines. She always
han­dled her­self well. She always car­ried her­self with dig­ni­ty.
Kevin didn’t know how to do any of that. I’ll con­fess, I’m not great at it,
either. I’m a ner­vous per­son. I run away from most kinds of atten­tion as I’ve
got­ten old­er, maybe because I’ve been real­ly hurt.
At the time of that rough trip to New York, I should have known my
mar­riage was over, but I still thought it might be sal­vage­able. Lat­er, Kevin moved
on to anoth­er stu­dio, this one in Las Vegas. And so I went there, hop­ing to talk
to him.
When I found him, he had his head shaved. He was get­ting ready to shoot the
cov­er for his album. He was in the stu­dio all the time. He real­ly thought he was a
rap­per now. Bless his heart—because he did take it so seri­ous­ly.
And so I showed up in Vegas car­ry­ing Sean Pre­ston, still preg­nant with
Jay­den James, full of sym­pa­thy for Kevin’s sit­u­a­tion. He was try­ing to make
some­thing hap­pen for him­self and every­one seemed to be doubt­ing him. I knew
what that was like. It is scary to put your­self out there like that. You do real­ly
have to believe in your­self even when the world makes you won­der if you have
what it takes. But I also felt like he should have been check­ing in more and
should have been spend­ing time with me. Our lit­tle fam­i­ly was my heart. I’d had
his babies inside of me for a very long time, and I’d sacri�ced a lot. I had all but
aban­doned my career. I had done every­thing to make our life pos­si­ble.

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 20
“But I said you could spend the night with Lau­rie,” Patri­cia told
Korey.
“Well, now I changed my mind,” Korey said.
She stood in the door­way to Patricia’s bath­room while Patri­cia
fin­ished doing her make­up. Korey had come home from soc­cer camp
and increased Patricia’s stress expo­nen­tial­ly. It was hard enough to
make sure Blue was always some­where safe after dark, but Korey
hung around the house aim­less­ly, watch­ing TV for hours, and then
she’d get a phone call and sud­den­ly need to bor­row the car to go see
her friends in the mid­dle of the night. Except for tonight, when
Patri­cia actu­al­ly want­ed her out of the house.
“I’m host­ing book club,” Patri­cia said. “You haven’t seen Lau­rie
since you got back from camp.”
One of the rea­sons they were hav­ing it at her house was because
she’d exert­ed gen­tle pres­sure on Carter to take Blue out for sup­per at
Quincy’s Steak House and then to a movie (they decid­ed on
some­thing called So I Mar­ried an Axe Mur­der­er). Korey was
sup­posed to be spend­ing the night down­town.
“She can­celed,” Korey said. “Her par­ents are get­ting divorced and
her dad wants to spend qual­i­ty time. That skirt’s too tight.”
“I haven’t decid­ed what I’m wear­ing yet,” Patri­cia said, even
though her skirt was def­i­nite­ly not too tight. “If you have to be home
you need to stay in your room.”
“What if I have to go to the bath­room?” Korey asked. “Can I leave
my room then, Moth­er? Most par­ents would think it was great that
their child want­ed to spend more time with them.”
“I’m only ask­ing you to stay upstairs,” Patri­cia said.
“What if I want to watch TV?” Korey asked.
“Then go to Lau­rie Gibson’s.”
Korey slouched off and Patri­cia changed her skirt because it felt
tight, and then she fin­ished her make­up and sprayed her hair. She
wasn’t going to put out any­thing to eat, but she’d made cof­fee and
put it in a ther­mal jug in case the police want­ed some. What if they
want­ed decaf? She didn’t have any and wor­ried that might affect
their mood.
She felt tense. Before this sum­mer she had nev­er inter­act­ed with
the police, and now she felt like that was all she did. They made her
ner­vous, but if she could get through tonight, James Har­ris would no
longer be her prob­lem. All she had to do was con­vince the police that
he was a drug deal­er, they’d start look­ing into his affairs, and all his
secrets would come spilling out. And she wasn’t doing it alone; she
had her book club.
Patri­cia won­dered what they would have said if she told them that
she thought James Har­ris was a vam­pire. Or some­thing like that. She
wasn’t sure of the exact ter­mi­nol­o­gy, but that would do until a bet­ter
name came along. How else to explain that thing com­ing out of his
face? How else to explain his aver­sion to going out in sun­light, his
insis­tence on being invit­ed inside, the fact that the marks on the
chil­dren and on Mrs. Sav­age all looked like bites?
When she’d tried to per­form CPR on him he had looked sick and
weak and at least ten years old­er. When she saw him the fol­low­ing
week he’d pos­i­tive­ly glowed with health. What had hap­pened in
between? Francine had gone miss­ing. Had he eat­en her? Sucked her
blood? He’d cer­tain­ly done some­thing.
When she got rid of her prej­u­dices and con­sid­ered the facts,
vam­pire was the the­o­ry that fit best. For­tu­nate­ly, she’d nev­er have to
say it out loud to any­one because this was just about fin­ished. She
didn’t care how they ran him out of town, she just want­ed him gone.
She went down­stairs and jumped when she saw Kit­ty wav­ing at her
through the win­dow by the front door. Slick stood behind her.
“I know we’re a half hour ear­ly,” Kit­ty said as Patri­cia let them in.
“But I couldn’t sit around at home doing noth­ing.”
Slick had dressed con­ser­v­a­tive­ly in a knee-length navy skirt and a
white blouse with a blue batik vest over it. Kit­ty, on the oth­er hand,
had appar­ent­ly lost her mind right before she got dressed. She wore a
red blouse bedaz­zled with red rhine­stones and a huge flo­ral skirt.
Look­ing at her made Patricia’s eyes hurt.
Patri­cia put them in the den, then went to make sure Korey had
her bed­room door closed, then checked the dri­ve­way, and walked
back into the den just as Maryellen opened the front door.
“Yoo-hoo? Am I too ear­ly?” Maryellen called.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Patri­cia hollered.
“Ed went to pick up the detec­tives,” Maryellen said, com­ing in and
putting her purse on the den table. She took two busi­ness cards out
of her day plan­ner. “Detec­tive Claude D. Can­non and Detec­tive Gene
Bus­sell. He says Gene is from Geor­gia but Claude is local and they’re
both good. They’ll lis­ten to us. He can’t promise how they’ll react, but
they’ll lis­ten.”
They each exam­ined the cards for lack of any­thing else to do.
Grace walked into the den.
“The door was open,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind?”
“Do you want some cof­fee?” Patri­cia asked.
“No, thank you,” Grace said. “Ben­nett is at a heart asso­ci­a­tion
din­ner. He won’t be back until late.”
“Horse is at the Yacht Club with Leland,” Kit­ty said. “Again.”
As July had got­ten hot­ter, Leland had con­vinced Horse to put what
mon­ey he could scrape togeth­er into Gra­cious Cay. Then the Dow
had surged and Carter had cashed out some AT&T shares Patricia’s
father had giv­en them as a wed­ding present and he’d put that mon­ey
into Gra­cious Cay, too. The three men had all start­ed going out for
din­ner togeth­er, or meet­ing for drinks at the back bar of the Yacht
Club. Patri­cia didn’t know where Carter found the time, but male
bond­ing seemed to be the in thing these days.
“Patri­cia,” Grace said, pulling a sheet of paper from her purse. “I
wrote all your talk­ing points down in an out­line just in case you
need­ed to jog your thoughts.”
Patri­cia looked at the hand­writ­ten list, num­bered and let­tered in
Grace’s care­ful cal­lig­ra­phy.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you want to go over it again?” Grace asked.
“How many times are we going to hear this?” Kit­ty asked.
“Until we have it right,” Grace said. “This is the most seri­ous thing
we’ve ever done in our lives.”
“I can’t keep hear­ing about those chil­dren,” Kit­ty moaned. “It’s
hor­ri­ble.”
“Let me see it,” Maryellen said, reach­ing toward Patri­cia.
Patri­cia hand­ed her the paper and Maryellen scanned it.
“Lord help us,” she said. “They’re going to think we’re a bunch of
cra­zies.”
They sat around Patricia’s kitchen table. The liv­ing room had fresh
cut flow­ers in it, the fur­ni­ture was new, and the lights were just right.
They didn’t want to go onstage until it was time. No one had much to
say. Patri­cia went over her list in her head.
“It’s eight o’clock,” Grace said. “Should we move to the liv­ing
room?”
Peo­ple pushed back their chairs, but Patri­cia felt like she need­ed to
say some­thing, give some kind of pep talk, before they com­mit­ted
them­selves to this.
“I want every­one to know,” Patri­cia said, and they all stopped to
lis­ten. “Once the police get here there is no turn­ing back. I hope
everyone’s pre­pared for that?”
“I just want to go back to talk­ing about books,” Kit­ty said. “I want
this all to be over with.”
“What­ev­er he’s done,” Grace said, “I don’t think James Har­ris is
going to want to call any more atten­tion to him­self after tonight.
Once the police start ask­ing him ques­tions, I’m sure he’ll leave the
Old Vil­lage qui­et­ly.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Slick said.
“I just wish there were anoth­er way,” Kit­ty said, shoul­ders
slump­ing.
“We all do,” Patri­cia said. “But there isn’t.”
“The police will be dis­creet,” Maryellen said. “And this will all be
over very quick­ly.”
“Will y’all join me in a moment of prayer?” Slick asked.
They bowed their heads and joined hands, even Maryellen.
“Heav­en­ly Father,” Slick said. “Give us strength in our mis­sion,
and make us right­eous in your cause. In thy name we pray, amen.”
Sin­gle file, they walked through the din­ing room and into the
liv­ing room, where they arranged them­selves and Patri­cia real­ized
her error.
“We need water,” she said. “I for­got to put out ice water.”
“I’ll get it,” Grace said, and dis­ap­peared into the kitchen.
She brought the water back at five after eight. Every­one adjust­ed
and read­just­ed their skirts, their col­lars, their neck­laces and
ear­rings. Slick took her three rings off, then put them back on, then
took them off again, and put them back on one more time. It was
8:10, then 8:15.
“Where are they?” Maryellen mut­tered to her­self.
Grace checked the inside of her wrist.
“Ed doesn’t have a car phone, does he?” Patri­cia asked. “Because
we could call if he does and see where he is.”
“Let’s just sit tight,” Maryellen sug­gest­ed.
At 8:30 they heard a car pull up in the dri­ve­way, then anoth­er.
“That’s Ed and the detec­tives,” Maryellen said.
Every­one came awake, sat up straighter, touched her hair to make
sure it was in place. Patri­cia walked to the win­dow.
“Is it them?” Kit­ty asked.

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.

20
JUNE
“We should go to the lake this week­end.”
I’m sit­ting at the kitchen counter, pag­ing through anoth­er bridal mag­a­zine when Eddie speaks, his
tone casu­al as he pours him­self a cup of cof­fee.
It’s been a week since Detec­tive Lau­rent showed up and while nei­ther of us have men­tioned her
vis­it, it’s still been there between us, a third pres­ence in the room all the time.
And now Eddie wants to go to the lake? The same place where Blanche and his wife died? Oh
wait, were mur­dered?
“Like, the house there?” I ask inane­ly, and he smirks slight­ly.
“That was the idea, yeah. Might be nice to get out of town for a lit­tle bit, you know? And you’ve
nev­er seen the house.”
I’m tem­porar­i­ly stunned into silence. Final­ly, I say, “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”
Eddie fix­es me with his eyes. He’s still smil­ing, his pos­ture loose and relaxed, and it’s some­how
worse than if he were angry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
It feels like a dare. It is a dare. He wants me to say it out loud, to ask about the police
inves­ti­ga­tion. Does he won­der if I read into Detec­tive Laurent’s vis­it, if I sus­pect him at all? Because,
if I’m being hon­est with myself, I don’t know what to think any­more. But I also think that in a twist­ed
way, going to the lake could give me some clar­i­ty.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to the lake.”
We leave on Fri­day after­noon, Eddie wrap­ping up work ear­ly. The dri­ve to Smith Lake is about an
hour from the house in Moun­tain Brook, and it’s pret­ty, tak­ing us away from the sub­urbs and into the
more rur­al parts of Alaba­ma, hills rolling gen­tly, the sky a blaz­ing blue.
We stop in a town called Jasper to eat lunch, Eddie as at ease in a lit­tle bar­be­cue joint with
plas­tic tables and a roll of paper tow­els for nap­kins as he is at the fan­cy French place back in the
vil­lage.
Watch­ing him with his slop­py sand­wich, man­ag­ing to get not one drop of sauce on his pris­tine
white shirt, I laugh, shak­ing my head.
“You fit in any­where,” I tell him, and he looks up, eye­brows raised.
“Is that a com­pli­ment?” he asks, and I’d meant it as one, def­i­nite­ly. But not for the first time, I
won­der about Eddie’s past. He rarely talks about it, like he just sprang into the world, ful­ly formed
when he met Bea.
“No, if I want­ed to com­pli­ment you, I’d tell you how hot you look with bar­be­cue sauce on the
cor­ner of your mouth.”
He smiles and winks. “You think I’m hot, huh?”
Shrug­ging, I poke at the lemon in my sweet tea with my straw. “Most days you’re just pass­able,
but right now, yes.”
That makes him laugh, and he toss­es a balled-up nap­kin at me. “This is why I love you, Jane,” he
says. “You won’t let my head get too big.” Even though it’s dumb as hell, I almost want to tell him my
real name then. Just to hear him say it.
Instead, I fin­ish up my lunch, and we head back to the car, the dri­ve short now.
We make our way down wind­ing roads, dim under the canopy of leaves, the lake sparkling in the
dis­tance. There are lots of hous­es, but the far­ther we dri­ve, the more spread out they become until
final­ly, there’s just the woods, the lake, and as Eddie rounds a cor­ner, the house.
It’s not as grand as the one in Thorn­field Estates, and it was clear­ly built to look like a rus­tic lake
house, the kind of place where you bring kids fish­ing, but it’s still sprawl­ing, and I feel the cozi­ness
of lunch start to ebb away.
It’s so qui­et here. So iso­lat­ed.
And it’s the last place Bea was ever alive.
As Eddie gets our bags from the trunk, I think he might be feel­ing some­thing sim­i­lar because he’s
qui­et except to call out, “The code for the door is the same one at the house.”
6–12-85. Bea’s birth­day.
I enter it into the key­pad on the front door, and step inside.
More sim­i­lar­i­ties to Eddie’s house—our house. It’s clear­ly been expen­sive­ly dec­o­rat­ed, but it’s
designed to look lived-in, too. There’s dark­er wood here, dark­er fur­ni­ture, the whole place a lot more
mas­cu­line, a lot less … Bea.
As I stand beside the heavy front door, my sur­prise must reg­is­ter on my face because as Eddie
steps past me with our stuff, he asks, “What?”
“It’s just…”
This house looks so much more like him. Even though Bea died here, her ghost doesn’t feel near­ly
as present.
“This is a very man-cavey place,” I final­ly say, and one cor­ner of his mouth kicks up as he toss­es
his leather bag onto a couch done in green-and-blue tar­tan.
“This place was Bea’s wed­ding present to me,” he says. “So, she let me dec­o­rate.” Anoth­er
smile, wry this time. “Which means I said yes to every­thing she picked out.”
So, Bea’s stamp is still here—it’s just her ver­sion of what she thought Eddie would like. Should
like.
I move into the liv­ing room, see­ing it through Bea’s eyes, imag­in­ing how she saw Eddie. Even
though this is on a lake, not the ocean, there’s a whole coastal theme hap­pen­ing. Paint­ings of
schooners, dec­o­ra­tions made with heavy rope, even an old Chelsea Clock on the wall.
“I worked on sail­boats when I was younger, up north. Char­ter boats in Bar Har­bor, that kind of
thing,” he says, nod­ding at the seascape over the fire­place. “I guess Bea want­ed to remind me of it.”
“Because you liked it or because you hat­ed it?”
The ques­tion is out before I real­ize what a stu­pid thing it is to ask, how much it reveals.
His head jerks back slight­ly, like the ques­tion was an actu­al phys­i­cal blow, and he nar­rows his
eyes. “What does that mean?” he asks, and I feel my face go hot as I shrug, nudg­ing the edge of an area
rug with my toe.
“You’ve just nev­er men­tioned that to me before, so I thought … maybe you were try­ing to for­get
it? Your past. Maybe this reminder of it might not have actu­al­ly been a nice thing to do.”
“You think Bea was that kind of bitch?” he asks, and god, I have roy­al­ly fucked this up.
“Of course not,” I say, but to my sur­prise, he just laughs, shak­ing his head.
“I can’t blame you for it. I imag­ine you saw some real cun­ty stuff when you worked in the
neigh­bor­hood.”
It’s a relief, both that he doesn’t think my ques­tion was that weird, and also that he gets me. I may
not always be hon­est with Eddie, but he still sees these parts of me some­times, and I like it.
It makes me think that even though I’ve been play­ing a cer­tain role, he might have picked me—the
real me—anyway.
“It was still a dumb thing to say,” I tell him now, slid­ing clos­er to him. Over his shoul­der is a
glass door lead­ing out to a screened-in porch; beyond that is a slop­ing green lawn, a nar­row pier, and
the dark water of the lake. This time of the after­noon, the sun sends lit­tle sparks of gold danc­ing
across its sur­face.
It’s hard to believe that this pret­ty, spark­ly water took Bea’s life. And Blanche’s. And it’s even
hard­er to believe Eddie would want to be any­where near it again. How can we sit out there tonight
and drink wine and not think about it?
But Eddie just gives my ass a pat, pro­pelling me slight­ly in the direc­tion of the hall­way off the
liv­ing room. “Go ahead and get set­tled, and I’ll unpack the gro­ceries.”
The mas­ter bed­room is nowhere near as big as the one back at Thorn­field, but it’s pret­ty and, like
the rest of the house, cozy and com­fort­able. There’s a quilt on the bed in swirling shades of blue, and
a big arm­chair near the win­dow with a good view of the lake.
I set­tle into the chair now, watch­ing the water.
After twen­ty min­utes, I still haven’t seen a sin­gle per­son out there.
No boats, no Jet Skis, no swim­mers. The only sound is the lap­ping of the water against the dock
and the wind in the trees.
When I come out of the bed­room, Eddie is pour­ing us both a glass of wine.
“It’s real­ly qui­et out here,” I say, and he nods, look­ing out the back door toward the water.
“That’s why we picked it.”
And then he releas­es a long deep breath and says, “It made me crazy. After Bea.”
I look up, star­tled. I hadn’t expect­ed him to vol­un­tar­i­ly men­tion her after my fuck­up ear­li­er.
“The qui­et,” he goes on. “Think­ing about that night and how qui­et it would’ve been, how dark.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the water. “It’s deep out there, you know. The deep­est lake in
Alaba­ma.”
I hadn’t known that, and I don’t say any­thing. I’m not even sure if he’s talk­ing to me, to be hon­est.
It’s almost like he’s talk­ing to him­self, star­ing out at the lake.
“They flood­ed a for­est to make it,” he goes on. “So there are trees under the water. Tall ones,
six­ty feet high in some places. A whole fuck­ing for­est under the water. That’s why they thought they
nev­er found her. They thought she was some­where in the trees.”
The image seeps into my mind. Bea, her skin white, her body tan­gled in the branch­es of an
under­wa­ter for­est, and it’s so awful I actu­al­ly shake my head a lit­tle. I’d won­dered why it had been so
hard to find the bod­ies, and now that I knew, I wish I didn’t.

In Chap­ter 20, titled “Jun­gle Island Again,” the nar­ra­tive returns to the strand­ed par­ty on Jun­gle Island, led by Tarzan, strug­gling for sur­vival. Tarzan empha­sizes the con­struc­tion of a ves­sel to return to the main­land, a daunt­ing task that caus­es dis­cord and lazi­ness among the crew, rais­ing Tarzan’s con­cern for Jane’s safe­ty with the increas­ing­ly unre­li­able Kin­caid’s crew. Con­verse­ly, on the island’s north coast, the muti­neers of the schooner Cowrie, under Gust, Momul­la, and Kai Shang, plot greed­i­ly over their stolen pearls, unaware of their ship being the poten­tial sal­va­tion for Tarzan’s group.

Gust har­bors plans to aban­don his cohorts with the Cowrie, manip­u­lat­ing fears of being pur­sued by a man-of-war seen days ear­li­er to stall depar­ture. This lie, cou­pled with his claim about the war­ship’s sup­posed wire­less eaves­drop­ping, buys time, reflect­ing his cun­ning yet cow­ard­ly nature.

Unex­pect­ed­ly, Momul­la encoun­ters Schnei­der and Schmidt from the Kin­caid, who con­spire to leave the island, tak­ing Jane as a means to ensure their pay­ment. Their plan aligns with Momul­la’s group’s needs, lead­ing to a pro­posed alliance to cap­ture Jane and use the Cowrie for their escape, poten­tial­ly leav­ing Gust obso­lete.

The chap­ter shifts towards action as Gust, over­hear­ing Kai Shang and Momul­la’s mur­der­ous intent towards him due to his nav­i­ga­tion­al skills, flees into the daunt­ing jun­gle, pri­or­i­tiz­ing sur­vival over his fear of its unknown dan­gers. This depar­ture marks a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point, empha­siz­ing the pre­vail­ing dis­loy­al­ty and des­per­a­tion among the strand­ed par­ties on the island.