Broken Bayou

Rattled, Travis and Willa head back to his truck. Willa wants to go to the sheriff and explain everything, that she dumped the car into the bayou at her mother’s request, decades ago. But Travis tells her that because he knew what she was doing that night, he is involved. His job is on the line, and he doesn’t want to lose it. He asks her to keep quiet for now. He drops her back at her aunts’ house. She heads back up to the attic. There is a box among her mother’s things that contains security footage, tapes that she stole on the night she dumped the car that could potentially implicate her. She needs to watch them, but she does not have a VCR. She orders one from Amazon, thinking back to that night: Her mother was on a manic upswing. She took Mabry out and left Willa to go on a date with Travis. Willa had been nervous letting her mother take Mabry. Mabry was “different.” It would be years before Willa realized that her sister had fetal alcohol syndrome, but even when the two were kids Willa considered it her job to keep Mabry safe.