I can’t quit you, baby…so I’m gon’ have to put you down for a while. The words melted inside guitar licks weepy with self-loathing. He turned the volume way up, loud enough that he could hear it on the back porch where he went to sit, boots on the wooden railing, with the bourbon and the view of the pines surrounding the property, the old pond that had dried some over the years but was still wet and deep enough to attract bluebirds. Two of them—twins, Darren thought—flew from the woods behind the house and landed in the uncut grass at the edge of the pond. It nearly covered their bodies as they pecked their beaks in the water, looking up every few seconds to see what the other was doing, and then, by some quiet communication that existed between only the two of them, they decided to fly off the property at the same time, one dipping below the other as they cut across the sky, then reversing the formation so the other took the lead, and before he knew it, Darren was thinking of his uncles William and Clayton. Clayton had never forgiven William while he was still alive for taking Naomi from him, for becoming an officer on the wrong side of the law, for getting himself killed. And the split between them had broken something in Darren too, had cleaved his soul in two, made him unsure of who he was half the time or what he believed. He drank and watched the trees sway, watched bluebirds and warblers fly, saw a red-tailed hawk seem to dust the pine tops with his wings, and he waited for the dull comfort of ceasing to care, knew his tipping point was within reach.

He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there when he heard a car pull up around the front of the house, but it was long enough that the A side of Little Milton’s Grits Ain’t Groceries album had finished playing, which was the only reason he heard the car in the first place. He sat up suddenly, boots clacking on the floorboards of the back porch, having a panicked thought that it was Frank Vaughn come to arrest him. He left the bourbon on the porch railing and walked back into the farmhouse, through the living room, and into the parlor, feeling as he stood before the front door a sting of sweat breaking out under his shirt. He paused there for a moment, long enough to see if he could remember all the words to a favorite Freddie King song as a way to work up some courage. Let me down easy, baby, tell it to me slow. He was just lit up enough from the liquor to hum the tune softly as he opened the door.

Randie Winston was standing on the porch.

And then he was sure he was drunk.