“You’re a good mom, Jewelann.”

The wine is crisp on my tongue as I take a long swallow. “I try. I don’t know that I’m doing such a great job.”

“Who ever knows?” Lisa says. “But one thing I do know for sure. If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. If starting a resale business would make you happy, Jewelann, you totally should do it.”

“I’m going to. I will. I could open up an online shop. Ken would never know about it.” I cough lightly, shifting on the couch. The wine warms me from the inside out. I can feel it in my chest, my throat, my cheeks.

“And if you had an online shop, you could still be home.”

“And you,” I say, “could share my storage space for your house staging inventory.”

Lisa sighs. “I’m glad you texted me.”

She lifts her glass. I lift mine. We clink them together.

“Cheers,” she says. “Here’s to possibilities.”

We chat for a few minutes, this and that. I watch as she empties the last of the first bottle into her glass. “I thought you might be hanging out with Beth tonight.”

Mid-sip, Lisa frowns and shakes her head. “I haven’t heard from her in a few days. She didn’t answer my last text. I can see if she wants to come over now?”

“You don’t have to,” I say.

She eyes me. Sips her wine. “She’s changed a lot since high school. I know you don’t like her much. She can be hard to deal with, but … we’ve been friends for a long time. I guess I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Beth was in the carriage house with Christian.” The words blurt out of me, and once they’re free of my lips, I wish I could take them back.

Lisa sits back, blinking, and sets down her glass. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s going through stuff at home. But I didn’t think she’d like, actually … well, we don’t know what she was doing. Do we?” Lisa’s sigh rumbles into a groan. “She always had such a thing for C.C., and he just strung her along. You know, flirting, asking her if she had a date for the dances but then never asking her out. Talking to her on the phone but never calling her first. High school stuff. Stupid. She was so jealous of you.”

A burbling chuckle forces itself up my throat. “She had nothing to be jealous about.”

Lisa snorts lightly. “You had more of him than she ever did.”

“Is that what everyone said back then?”

“Beth knew you two hooked up, which meant I did. But did everyone? I don’t know,” she says.

“Did Jen Tillis know?”

After a second, Lisa nods. “I’m sure she did. But I don’t think that was why she … you know. Killed herself.”

“I bet he had something to do with it,” I say.

She looks surprised. “You think he killed her?”

“I’m not saying he did it physically,” I say. “But I think he hurt her enough times that maybe, finally, she just couldn’t get over it.”