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September 27 - October 5, 2025
“You discussed this?” Patricia asked, and the betrayal made her voice weak. “We’ve been talking for weeks,” Leland said. “James Harris is one of the biggest investors in Gracious Cay. Over the past months he’s put, well, I won’t tell you how much money he’s put in, but it’s a substantial sum, and in that time he’s demonstrated to me that he’s a man of character.”
“Why are you treating me like this?” she asked. He ignored her, continuing his speech. “You live an isolated life,” Carter said. “Your reading tastes are morbid. Both your children are going through difficult phases. I have a high-pressure job that requires me to put in long hours. I didn’t realize how close to the edge you were.” He picked up the saucer, carried it to her end of the table, and set it down with a click. A green-and-white capsule rolled around in the center. “I’ve seen this turn people’s lives around,” Carter said. “I don’t want it,” she said. “It’ll help you regain your
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here because Ed wanted someplace quieter. We came down here because this was all he could find. Ed used up all his favors getting transferred.” She blew her nose. Patricia waited. “If anyone talks to the police,” Maryellen said, “they’re going to follow it back to Ed. That boy he hit was eleven years old. He will never find another job. Promise me, Patricia. No more.”
The doorbell got louder as Mrs. Greene opened the door. “I didn’t know you were helping Grace today,” Patricia said. “Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said, looking down at Patricia. “She’s feeling poorly.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Patricia said, trying to step inside. Mrs. Greene didn’t move. Patricia stopped, one foot on the threshold. “I’m just going to say hello for a quick minute,” Patricia said. Mrs. Greene inhaled through her nostrils. “I don’t think she wants to see anyone,” she said. “I’ll only be a minute,” Patricia said.
“The wedding china,” she said. She couldn’t help it. The words just fell out of her mouth. The entire set had been smashed. Shards were spread across the table like bone fragments. She felt horrified, as if she were seeing a mutilated corpse. “It was an accident,” Grace began. “Did James Harris do this?” Patricia asked. “Did he try to intimidate you? Did he come here and threaten you?” She tore her eyes away from the carnage and saw Grace’s face. It was pinched with fury. “Do not ever say that man’s name again,” Grace said. “Not to me, not to anyone.
“Clean all you want,” Patricia said. “But whenever Bennett has a drink, he’s still going to smack you in the mouth.” Grace stood, frozen in shock. Patricia couldn’t believe she had said that. They stayed like that in the freezing cold dining room for a long moment, and Patricia knew their friendship would never recover. She turned and left the room.
“I spoke with Mrs. Cavanaugh and she explained to me that y’all wouldn’t be able to help anymore,” Mrs. Greene said. “She told me everyone in Six Mile are on our own. She explained everything to me in great detail.” “It’s not true,” Patricia said. “It’s all right,” Mrs. Greene said, smiling dimly. “I understand. From here on out, I don’t expect anything from any of y’all.” “I’m on your side,” Patricia said. “I just need some time for everything to settle down.” “You’re on your side,” Mrs. Greene said. “Don’t ever fool yourself about that.”
Something exploded red and black inside Patricia’s brain and the next thing she knew she was storming into her house, standing on the sun porch, seeing Korey slumped in the big chair staring at the TV.
“Dad said I didn’t have to listen to you,” Korey told her. “He said you were going through a phase.” It touched off a fire inside her, but Patricia had the clarity to see how carefully Carter had built this trap for her. Anything she did would prove him right. She could hear him saying, in his smooth psychiatric tones, It’s a sign of how sick you are, that you can’t see how sick you are.
Gaslight. .mAd woman
“Tell me you mixed up the dosage,” Carter said. “Tell me you made a mistake.” She didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Patricia turned and stared out her window at the late-afternoon sunlight slashing across the upper floors of the Basic Sciences building and realized she was in the psych unit. “Do I have brain damage?” she asked. “Do you know who found you?” Carter asked, resting his hands on the bed rail. “Blue. He’s ten years old and he found his mother having a seizure on the kitchen floor and you probably would have brain damage if he hadn’t been smart enough to call 911.
“No one’s listening to you anymore,” Carter said. “You made a serious suicide attempt, however you try to explain it away. They have you on a twenty-four-hour involuntary hold, but I’m going to check you out of here first thing in the morning. There’s nothing wrong with you we can’t solve at home. But before any of that happens, I need to know right now: was this about James Harris?”
He can command all the meaner things, Van Helsing told the Harkers, explaining the powers of Dracula. The rat, and the owl, and the bat… The rat. In that moment, she knew who was responsible for Miss Mary’s death. Rarely had she known something with such certainty.
Carter walked to the door. He stopped when he got there and made a big production out of talking to her without turning around. “I don’t know if you care,” he said. “But they’ve put together a search committee to replace Haley.” “Oh, Carter,” she croaked, genuinely upset for him. “Everyone heard you were on a psychiatric hold,” he said. “Haley came down this morning to tell me I need to focus on my family right now and not my career. Your actions affect other people, Patricia. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you.”
every inch was crammed with people. There must be forty members these days,
Horse’s red face rising up over Marjorie’s shoulder. “Is that husband of yours around?” He leaned in unsteadily to peck Patricia on the cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and a yeasty cloud of beer hovered around his head.
The only one who came to the hospital had been Slick. She showed up at seven in the morning and knocked gently on the open door and came in and sat down next to Patricia. She didn’t say much. She didn’t have any advice or insight, no ideas or opinions. She didn’t need to be convinced it had all been an accident. She just sat there, holding Patricia’s hand in a kind of silent prayer, and around seven forty-five she said, “We all need you to get better,” and left. She was the only one of them Patricia cared about anymore.
“Neither of us has time to drive them back and forth separately every Saturday.” “You’re both housewives,” he said. “What else do you do all day?” She felt her veins tighten, but didn’t say anything. She could find the time if it was that important to him. She felt her veins relax. What bothered her more were his comments about Slick.
“Can you tell me what happened at school today?” Blue huffed, throwing himself backward in his desk chair. “God,” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal.” “Blue,” Patricia said. “That is not true. You abused an animal.” “Let him speak for himself,” Carter said.
“Next week you and I are going to sit down and I’m going to give you a test called a Conners Scale. It’s just to determine if paying attention is harder for you than it is for other people.”
Her moods ranged from virtually comatose to explosive rage, and Patricia didn’t know what set her off. Carter told her he saw it all the time in his practice: it was her junior year, the SATs were coming, she had to apply for colleges, Patricia shouldn’t worry, Patricia didn’t understand, Patricia should read some articles about college stress he’d give her if she felt concerned.
“I’m not going to take the blame for the way he’s acting,” Carter said, following Patricia down the stairs. “He has zero self-control. You’re supposed to be teaching him how to handle his emotions.”
Hate this fr her
She didn’t want to think about Blue acting out because she knew it was her fault. His behavior had changed from the minute he found her on the kitchen floor.
“If I leave the house you’re calling the police?” he asked. “I don’t want to do that, Blue,” Carter said. “But you’ll be leaving me with no choice.” “Good luck calling the police without any phone cords,” Blue said. He pulled his hands out and for a moment Patricia thought he held spaghetti noodles, and then she realized he was holding the cords to their telephones. Before the sight had fully registered, he ran out of the den and she and Carter trotted after him, getting to the front hall just as the door slammed. By the time they were on the porch, Blue had vanished into the twilight murk.
Lol wut
“Listen to your Uncle James,” Carter said, and then James Harris was back on the phone.
“It’s good talking this way again,” James said. “Would you like to come over for some coffee? We can catch up.”
As she stepped into the den, a voice behind the dining room door said: patricia She turned. No one was there. And then, through the crack along the hinges of the dining room door, she saw a staring blue eye crowned by gray hair, and then nothing but the yellow wall behind the door.
She’d had some kind of olfactory hallucination and it made her believe she’d heard Miss Mary’s voice.
As she passed the open dining room door again, Miss Mary whispered from behind it: patricia
go to ursula “Who?” ursula greene
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.
Gentrification
“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.”
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.
Gagged!!!!!!
On the back someone had written in fountain pen, 162 Wisteria Lane, Summer, 1928. “Sixty years,” Patricia said. James Harris looked exactly the same.
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.
Sadie chap 1 call back?
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.
“A no-good man will tell you he’s going to change,”
Oops
“She’s burning in Hell,” Mrs. Greene said. “I asked my minister and he says that’s where ghosts come from. They burn in Hell and they can’t go into the cool, healing waters of the River Jordan until they let go of this world. Miss Mary suffers the torments of Hell because she wants to warn you. She burns because she loves her grandchildren.”
“Three things are never satisfied,” Mrs. Greene said, and Patricia recognized the quotation from somewhere. “And four is never enough. He’ll eat up everyone in the world and keep on eating. The leech has two daughters and their names are Give and Give.” Patricia had an idea. “If two of us make it go faster,” she said, “it’ll go even faster with three.”
Riddles three
“Three things are never satisfied,” Mrs. Greene said, and Patricia recognized the quotation from somewhere. “And four is never enough. He’ll eat up everyone in the world and keep on eating. The leech has two daughters and their names are Give and Give.” Patricia had an idea. “If two of us make it go faster,” she said, “it’ll go even faster with three.”
Riddles three
“Three things are never satisfied,” Mrs. Greene said, and Patricia recognized the quotation from somewhere. “And four is never enough. He’ll eat up everyone in the world and keep on eating. The leech has two daughters and their names are Give and Give.” Patricia had an idea. “If ...
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Come on kerplunk!!!!
“I’m against Halloween in all its forms because of the Satanism,” Slick said, pulling open her stainless-steel refrigerator and taking out the half-and-half. “So this year, on All Hallows’ Eve, I will be holding a Reformation Party.
“What do you think about James Harris?” Patricia asked. “Oh,” Slick said, and she sounded genuinely disappointed. “We’ve been here before, Patricia.” “Something’s happened,” Patricia said. “Let’s not go back there again,” Slick said. “All that’s behind us now.” “I don’t want to do this again, either,” Patricia said. “But I’ve seen something, and I need your opinion.” She reached into her purse. “No!” Slick said. Patricia froze. “Think about what you’re doing. You made yourself very sick last time. You gave us all a scare.” “Help me, Slick,” Patricia said. “I genuinely don’t know what to think.
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“Mrs. Greene put these together,” Patricia said, opening the green folder.
Green x2
child a year, for three years,” Patricia said. “I know they’re not our children, but they’re children. Are we not supposed to care about them because they’re poor and black? That’s how we acted before and now he wants Blue. When will he stop? Maybe he’ll want Tiger next, or Merit, or one of Maryellen’s?”
monster?
From the summary!
“Let me pray on this,” she said. “I won’t tell Leland, but let me keep the photograph and the folder and pray on them.” “Thank you,” Patricia said. It never occurred to her not to trust Slick.
“Hi, Mrs. Campbell,” Greer said, rolling down the window.
Ok Greer is a cool girl name
She saw Mrs. Greene’s car parked in James Harris’s driveway, next to a green-and-white Greener Cleaners truck.
More green
the door opened to reveal Mrs. Greene in a green polo shirt.
Riddles green?
Slick’s Saab wasn’t in the driveway. It wasn’t like her to be late, although if she’d lost her nerve at the last minute maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
She told someone instead
