Episode 12 was the ugliest of all: “A Mother’s Love.” Diana’s genteel Southern cadence, her pretty voice saying all those horrible, awful words after Paul coaxed out a confession. His forgiveness, the promise of his forever devotion and love, but only if she turned herself in. She plunked herself down at Sam’s desk and told him how she’d lured Sienna to the edge of town then bashed in her skull with a garden shovel, which she ditched along with Jax’s necklace and the costume jewelry in a firepit at the Singing Waters campground. By the time Sam got to it, there was nothing but melted plastic and charred metal, licked clean of her fingerprints by weather and flames. But there wasn’t a lawyer on the planet who could keep Diana out of jail after that confession.

As ugly as Diana’s episode was, I could relate to a lot of what she said. That her entire world revolves around this beautiful being, a tiny piece of herself she was designed to love and protect. That motherhood changes you, that it leaves behind a ghostly afterbirth you can never quite scrub off. It didn’t happen to my mother, but I can feel it happening to me, this growing fire to give our daughter everything I never had. Security. Three meals eaten together at a table. Love. The things I was so desperate for when I met Paul, before I got blinded by all the glittery stuff.

I look around now, at the thick rugs, the expensive furniture, the sad man standing before me, and I feel nothing but pity.

He wipes his eyes with a sleeve, steps back to let me in. “Make yourself at home. I just have to run upstairs and grab the papers.”

The papers I’m to deliver to his attorney because he can’t, the ones granting me a divorce. Paul signed them without protest.

He takes the steps by twos and threes, his legs still strong thanks to the treadmill shoved against the window where the dining table once stood. Best view in the house, Paul always said, and now all he can do is look.

House arrest. People went nuts when they heard, but somehow that fancy lawyer of his managed to finagle a plea that included twenty-eight months in this glass palace plus a hefty fine to offset the costs of the monitor strapped to his ankle. Agreeing to testify against his mother helped some, but still. Money can’t buy happiness or bravery. It can’t save a marriage or bring a drug dealer back from the dead. But in these United States of America, especially here in the South, it can keep a white man out of prison.