The Good Daughter

Charlie brings Ava Wilson to the courthouse office she shares with Rusty. Lenore chides Charlie for confronting the SWAT officers by herself. Charlie sees the news: The father of Lucy Alexander is asking for justice for Lucy, calling Kelly a cold-blooded killer. Charlie senses public opinion is already against Kelly.

Rusty and Charlie discuss Kelly’s case. Rusty believes Kelly is a “unicorn”: the rare innocent client. Charlie disagrees. She shows him the yearbook she grabbed from Kelly’s home, but the student messages inside are abusive and suggest Kelly was heavily bullied at school. Charlie finds more abusive content against Kelly on social media, some of it sexually explicit. She intends to talk to these students.

Charlie hates going home to an empty house. It has been nine months since Ben moved out and she misses him. She reminisces about her life. Charlie’s time in college had been “a headlong plunge into a bacchanalia” (155), filled with alcohol and sexual encounters. She met Ben in law school at Duke, getting engaged on their third date. They had an idyllic marriage in the beginning, agreeing on nearly everything. Charlie feels that, over the years, she began to criticize Ben too much and belittle him in public.