Chapter Forty
CHARLIE
The pencil scratched across the page in uneven lines, the graphite smudging under my palm.
I blinked at what I’d created—if you could call it that.
A few misshapen circles. A half-hearted horizon line.
The beginnings of an installation I’d been dreaming of, misplaced, discarded items brought together to create something meaningful. But it wasn’t anything.
I crumpled the page and tossed it to the corner, where a mountain of other false starts had already claimed squatters’ rights—another failure, right on schedule.
The studio felt less like home these days and more like a prison.
Maybe that was because I had nowhere to go.
The bar was gone. Magnolia barely spoke.
And Dane—Jesus. Hours before the fire, she’d walked in on him tangled up with Kasey, one of Magnolia’s bartenders, in the O’Malley’s office.
The one person she trusted to help her keep the place running had been screwing the man who was supposed to love her.
She ended it right there, ring off, voice shaking, Kasey slinking out like the world’s worst scarlet letter. And then the fire started. Hours later, O’Malley’s was nothing but smoke and ash.
Nobody’d caught Dane yet. He and Kasey were on the run—some pathetic knockoff of Bonnie and Clyde, if Bonnie had a fake tan and Clyde wore boat shoes.
I didn’t even have the energy to be surprised. Of course, Dane would leave wreckage in his wake and walk away clean. That was his talent—the mess burned, and he kept moving.
I stood, stretching my back, and walked the few steps into the small bedroom tucked off to the side. It wasn’t anything fancy—just a full-sized bed, an overloaded bookshelf, and a lamp that flickered like it was in mourning too. But on the far wall, I’d hung the unfinished sketch.
Her.
The Waving Girl statue in the distance. The curve of the river. And her—silhouetted against it all, her hand resting gently on her bump, eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the frame. A replica of the one I’d given to Tally, or it was supposed to be.
It should’ve been beautiful. It was beautiful. But I couldn’t finish it.
Not because I didn’t know how. But because we didn’t.
We didn’t finish.
I ran a hand over my jaw, letting my eyes trace the outline I’d drawn so many times I could still see it when I closed them. She was right there and completely out of reach, like every goddamn thing in my life.
The only person who ever made me feel like a part of something real left without a word in the middle of the night. And I couldn’t even blame her.
I didn’t bother brushing the charcoal off my hands. I changed my shirt, shoved on a clean pair of jeans, and grabbed my keys off the hook by the door—anything to get out of that damn studio.
Jones Street was quiet in that old-money way—dignified, expensive, and a little smug about it.
I used to hate walking past those houses as a kid, with their gas lanterns flickering and their manicured window boxes that never seemed to wilt.
The Wilder place sat halfway down the block—a wide wraparound porch, two perfect rocking chairs, and a front door painted a red that was definitely chosen by someone with generational wealth and a flair for design.
It was the kind of house that said we’ve been here for a long time, and we’ll be here long after you’re gone.
Back then, it made me feel like I didn’t belong.
Now… it felt like another kind of home. Not because I’d earned it, exactly, but because Eunice Wilder never once made me feel like I had to.
I was halfway up the steps when the door swung open.
“Well, Lord, have mercy. Charlie Pruitt, you look like you’ve been through hell.”
I almost smiled. Eunice stood in the doorway in a soft cardigan and jeans, her bare feet tucked into slippers, and a glass of iced tea in her hand, like she wasn’t expecting company but not surprised to see me.
That was the thing about Eunice—she always made you feel like you were exactly who she was hoping to see.
“Don’t think hell has me on their guest list just yet,” I said, scrubbing a hand over my face.
She stepped aside and drew me into the kitchen. “Come on in, my dear. Have one of Sutton’s scones, a glass of my sun tea, and tell me what’s working that restless mind of yours.”
Before we reached the breakfast nook, she pulled me into a long hug—warm and steady, the way she used to do when Magnolia and I camped out there as kids.
Back then, Eunice Wilder never treated us like the rag-tag orphans trailing after her son; she treated us like family.
No matter what had happened that past week—or who might have struck the match—I knew that part of her hadn’t changed.
We settled at the nook beneath the window, and I stared out over the sprawling yard.
The azaleas weren’t in bloom yet, but they would be soon.
Spring would come dancing into Savannah like it did, announcing itself with a trumpet of greenery and vines, blooms and bugs, humidity and brine drifting in off the bustling river.
Eunice set out an entire spread—scones, tiny cucumber sandwiches, lemon bars—because a snack in her kitchen always turned into high tea. She sat across from me, hands folded.
“I’d like to ask how Magnolia’s doing,” she said gently, “But I don’t want to pry if she would rather I not know, given the circumstances.”
I filled a plate—there was no refusing food in her house—then rested my elbows on the table. “She’s keeping to herself. Any news on Dane?”
Eunice shook her head. “None, sweetheart. Not a whisper.”
I picked at my plate, a sudden wave of unease washing over me at the thought of him, still out there, still a threat to my sister.
Because, truth be told, if she weren’t with Lee that night, she would be dead.
The memory of the fire, the way the smoke filled my lungs so quickly, and the waves of flames flickered furiously, eating away at the walls of my childhood home, suddenly started playing on a loop in my mind.
I couldn’t stop the images. I couldn’t stop remembering how, for a flicker of a moment, I thought that I wasn’t just an orphan but truly alone, that Magnolia was gone.
“How are you holding up, Charlie?” Eunice said, pulling me from the memory.
“You look tired.” I had to laugh. What a nice, southernly way to say I looked like shit.
I probably did. I rubbed the back of my neck and leaned back on my side of the booth.
“Tired is a good word, I suppose. I haven’t slept since… ”
Since the fire. Since Tally left. Hell, since the day she bulldozed into my life.
Eunice poured more tea. “Before Lee drove back to Nashville, he mentioned you were seeing someone. Was it Tally? You two were getting along quite well every time I bumped into y’all.”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” I said. There weren’t words for what Tally had become to me; she’d felt less like a girlfriend and more like a missing piece I’d never known I’d lost. “It’s over now. She’s gone.”
I stared out the window, searching the brittle lawn for answers.
Eunice’s voice cut through the quiet. “You’ve always flown guard for Magnolia, Charlie, but have you thought that spending all your strength shielding her might keep you from finding your own sky?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’ll carve her path, stubborn or not. You can’t steer it for her, and you can’t stay ground-tethered forever waiting to catch her. You can’t find your own way in this world, Charlie, if you keep focusing on clipping your sister’s wings.”
I traced a circle on my saucer. “She’s all I’ve got.”
“Maybe,” Eunice said, “but she’s not all you are.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s time to let yourself want a life that’s yours.”
Her words sat heavy and painfully true in the hush between us. I didn’t answer; I didn’t have to. She gave my fingers one last press, then released me to my thoughts, the untouched scone sitting on my plate, and the first hint of purpose stirring in my chest.
But what could I do?
She was gone.
“Sutton said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
She nodded, a tip of her lip letting me know she was welcome to changing the subject, only if I was. “I did. I wanted to pick your brain about giving Magnolia what would have been her wedding gift.”
“It better not be a bar,” I deadpanned.
She shook her head. “We wouldn’t, actually, be giving it to her. She would have to pay us back. And it’s not a bar. It’s an empty canvas for whatever she might dream up on her own.”
“On her own,” I parrotted.
Eunice sighed and reached back over the table. “Yes, Charlie. On her own.”
***
Later that night, despite the traitorous way it felt to be sitting on another worn barstool, elbows planted on a different slab of sticky, beer-slicked mahogany, I joined a few of my friends for a drink at The Irish Immigrant Pub.
It was the first time the four of us—Jordan, Doyle, Sutton, and me—had all been together since the fire.
Magnolia, under the guise of reviewing insurance documents, had locked herself in my studio with a stack of paperwork and a white-knuckled grip on control.
None of us had the heart—or maybe the guts—to stop her.
Not yet. Because we all knew she needed to do this now.
She needed to believe there was a plan, a next step.
But soon, I’d have to intervene. Or would I?
Eunice Wilder’s voice kept circling back: You can’t find your own way in this world, Charlie, if you keep focusing on clipping your sister’s wings.
Maybe I didn’t have to fix everything for Magnolia.
Maybe, just maybe, I could trust that she’d find her own way through.
And, especially what Eunice had brought to me earlier in the day, a secret I couldn’t reveal yet, she’d forge her way back to solid ground.
But, she would have to do it on her own.