Authenticity. It’s one of the fucking buzzwords on all their marketing materials, and here her mother is, blowing it all to shit.

“And her Nana Frances died before—”

It seems to happen in slow motion. Mama turning to regale her tablemates, the waiter moving forward at the same time, tray of champagne glasses lifted high. Not just any glasses, of course, but Southern Manors’ glasses, little champagne coupes shaped like peach halves, complete with glass leaves.

The collision is almost balletic, almost. Mama stepping on the hem of her dress, the waiter attempting to both catch her and somehow hang on to his tray.

Mama hits the ground to the sound of shattering glass, the waiter awkwardly crouched next to her, finally abandoning his tray to grip Mama’s elbow.

And Mama is laughing.

There’s a bloom of bright red blood on the heel of her hand, and she wipes it absentmindedly on her dress as Bea looks on, frozen.

“Whoopsy-daisy!” Mama calls out, laughing again, her face red, and still, Bea can’t move, can’t make herself cross the ballroom to see if she’s okay or to help her to her feet.

It’s Blanche who does that.

Years later, Bea will remember that so vividly, the way Blanche had helped Mama to her feet, babbling about these old carpets, about new shoes, giving Mama all the excuses she could want for what’s just happened as if it isn’t painfully clear just how drunk she is.

Only when Blanche glances over at her does Bea feel her limbs start to work again, and she makes her way over to the two of them, a rictus smile on her face as she takes her mother’s other arm.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” she says, and her mother, still smiling and floating happily on her cloud of booze and god knows what else, lets herself be led from the room like a child.

Later, Bea and Blanche sit in the living room of Bea’s suite. Blanche has a glass of wine, but Bea is drinking bottled water, unable to even stand the smell of alcohol right now.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?” Blanche asks, and what can Bea say? That she didn’t know it was this bad? That’s a lie. That she didn’t want anyone else to know how bad it really was?

That’s closer to the truth, but it feels too hard to admit, too shameful and big. Instead, she shrugs and says, “I’ve been so busy, I haven’t spent much time with her lately. I always knew she liked her evening cocktail, but this…”

She lets her gaze go slightly vague as though she’s never contemplated a world in which her mother gets drunk and embarrasses her, as if that hadn’t been a regular part of her childhood.

“Maybe she needs some help,” Blanche suggests. She tilts her wineglass up to drink more, then pauses, looks at the glass, and seems to realize that discussing rehab while guzzling pinot grigio might send a mixed message.

“I’ll go back down to Calera,” Bea finally says, setting her water bottle down on the bar with a thump. “Look after her a bit, get her back on the right path.”

Blanche’s brow wrinkles. “Are you sure—” she starts, but Bea cuts her off with a wave of her hand.

“I know what she needs.” No one knew her mother like Bea.

JANUARY, SIX MONTHS AFTER BLANCHE

Eddie didn’t come back for nearly a week after we slept together.

I’d expected it, in a way. I knew I’d fucked up, hinting about how he could trust me, but as the days slid by, I’d started to wonder if maybe this was finally it. Maybe he was just going to let my supplies run out, let me starve to death up here.

I couldn’t stop picturing it, my skeleton on this comfy bed with its white sheets, some new family moving in one day, finding me there. Maybe I’d become a ghost. Maybe I’d haunt this house forever, wailing away upstairs.

When I’d sold my mother’s house, the one she died in, I’d wondered whether her spirit was still there, wandering the halls.

But then, today, Eddie came back.

He had supplies this time and more books, like he’d felt guilty. I tried to decide whether it was for the sex or for staying away, but I couldn’t read him.

He just stood there for the longest time, looking at me as I sat on the bed, and I held my breath, waiting.

And then he crossed the room, scooping me up in his arms with this hungry sound, kissing me so hard I felt my teeth press against my lips, drawing the littlest bit of blood.

It had worked. Reminding him of what we were to each other. What we could be again. Even with my fuckup, he’d come back, and he still wanted me.

And I wanted him. Just as much, just as badly.

In spite of everything.

What the fuck am I going to do with that?

FEBRUARY, SEVEN MONTHS AFTER BLANCHE

Eddie was different today.

I couldn’t tell you why or how, just that something seemed off. He was rumpled again, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, and for the first time in weeks, we didn’t have sex. He just dropped off the water and food, and said he had to go.

There was a drop of blood on his shirt. Just on the cuff. A scrape, too, there on his wrist.

I asked him what happened, but he said it was nothing.

He didn’t look me in the eyes, though.

* * *

I hate this, feeling like I’m tracking his moods like the weather. Things were good, things were working, he had started to trust me. And now he’s distant again, dropping off food, barely stopping to talk.

He looks better each time he comes in, too. More like himself.

Like the monster I witnessed on Smith Lake is slowly re-forming into the Eddie I fell for, the Eddie I married.

He’s more confident in his skin now, and I wonder what has changed.

* * *

A girl.

Of course, there’s a girl.

Eddie didn’t tell me. I just know.

Today, when he came in, he was the closest to the Eddie I met in Hawaii that I’ve seen since that terrible night. Handsome. Competent. In control.

He couldn’t pull off that kind of turnaround by himself. I know Eddie. He is at his best when he has someone to reflect off of, someone to be someone for.

I wondered who she was. Some woman from the neighborhood? Someone I knew? I try to imagine him with Emily or Campbell, with Landry Cole, but it’s almost impossible. Eddie didn’t like those women, always said they were boring compared to me.