Off-Script

Evelyn’s POV

The first scene we shot was one of the heavyweights. Abby’s quiet, trembling confession of her feelings for Carol, and Carol’s kiss in response. The set was a perfect replica of a cramped Brooklyn apartment, circa 1945. Everything was deliberate: the chipped paint on the window frames, the mismatched chairs around a wobbly dining table, even the faint smell of mothballs in the curtains. They weren’t kidding when they said HBO was going “all-in.” That one set made all of La Vida Rosa look like a bad joke.

Celia wore a white sweater paired with a linen skirt that fell just past her knees. Her hair was swept back in a low ponytail. She looked soft, feminine without being womanly. I, on the other hand, was a study in contrast. Carol’s signature red dress clung to me like cellophane. I don’t think it was supposed to, but it certainly did. The wardrobe ladies had to let out the bustline twice. Evidently, they weren’t used to dressing women with real tits.

I stood on one side of the room. Across from me, Celia hovered near the window, her silhouette framed by the muted gray light filtering through faux-1940s curtains. The director’s voice rang out—“Action!”

I stepped forward. “Abby, talk to me. If this is about Harge, then—”

“Of course it’s about Harge!” Celia snapped, spinning toward me with a force that startled me, even though I knew the line was coming. “He’s a mistake. And you know it.”

“He’s kind to me,” I said, barely above a whisper. “And he could give me a good life. And he could give me…”

“Don’t,” Celia cut in, her voice tightening as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t say it.”

I exhaled. “I want a baby, Abby. Is that really such a wrong thing for a woman to want?”

Celia stepped toward me, closing the gap between us in a single, deliberate motion. Suddenly, she was close enough for me to see the freckles scattered across her nose, close enough for me to catch the faintest tremor in her breath. “No,” she said softly, her voice a fragile thread. “It isn’t. But if you don’t love him—”

“Maybe I do love him.”

Celia laughed, bitter and brittle, shaking her head. “You don’t. I know you, Carol. I’ve known you my whole life. And I know for a fact you don’t love him.”

“Abby…”

“I love you, Carol,” she said quietly. She took my hand in hers. “I have loved you for so many years, I’ve lost count.”

“Abby, I —”

“Cut!” Patrice’s voice cracked through the air like a snapped branch. I dropped my hands and turned toward her. She leaned forward in her chair, elbows digging into her knees.

“Evelyn,” she said. Her tone was low and even, the way a parent might correct a child who should know better. “You’re playing her too surprised. Carol isn’t shocked by Abby’s feelings. She’s known all along. That tension’s been there. What changes here is that Abby finally gives it voice. It’s not shock; it’s inevitability finally catching up to her. Do you understand?”

I nodded, though my throat felt dry. Patrice leaned back, satisfied.

“Okay,” she said. “Take it from the top.”

We reset. Celia was across from me. Her face already shaped into something tender but defiant. She didn’t fumble. She never fumbled.

The scene unfolded again. When we reached her confession, the line hit me differently this time—not as a declaration but as a truth she had carried for years.

“I love you,” I murmured, stepping into the space between us. This time, my voice was quieter. I pressed my palms to Celia’s face, feeling the warmth of her skin under my fingers.

She had on lavender perfume. As I leaned in, I could see every fine line in her lips. I’d kissed a hundred men on set, but this was different. There was no script that could prepare me for how disarming it felt to step into Carol’s skin, to say those words to a woman as if they belonged to me. 

When her lips met mine, they were so soft and yielding. Her fingers slid into my hair and I rested my hands on her waist, mimicking the way Don always held me when he kissed me. It felt automatic, rehearsed. And then I did something disastrously stupid.

I slid my tongue into her mouth.

Now, let me explain. Every on-camera kiss I’d ever done involved tongue. The first man I kissed on screen was Rafael, and he kissed me like he was mapping the back of my throat. After that, I noticed a pattern—men in this business liked a kiss that looked intense, full of heat, something to sell the chemistry on camera. So I adapted. I kissed them the way they seemed to expect, and I never thought twice about it. It wasn’t personal; it was just acting.

Apparently, Celia St. James, Disney princess that she was, didn’t see it that way.

She jerked back, her hands flying to her mouth, her expression somewhere between shock and outrage. “Dear Lord!” she exclaimed, her voice loud enough to turn every head on set.

The room went still. I froze, my hands still hovering midair where her waist had been, my mind scrambling for a way to backpedal.

“I—” I started, but Celia cut me off with a glare so sharp it could have sliced through glass.

“Are you kidding me?” she hissed, though her voice had dropped to a whisper now, her professionalism clawing its way back to the surface. “What the hell was that?”

I swallowed hard, heat rising to my face. “I thought… I mean, it’s how I usually do on-screen kisses.”

“Well, don’t,” she snapped, her tone clipped, before storming off toward the makeup station.

I stood there, feeling like an idiot. I could still taste her strawberry lip balm on my lips. If this was going to be the tone for the rest of the shoot, it was going to be a long production.

•••

Midway through the first week of shooting, Don left for a film in Italy. We barely spoke about it. By then, our conversations had shriveled into the bare minimum. Our relationship was mechanical, a habit we couldn’t seem to break.

I think he stayed because he didn’t want to let go of the woman the tabloids had crowned “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.” And I stayed because I couldn’t quite give up on the man I’d once convinced myself was part of the life I was meant to have.

On set, the days dragged like a stubborn tide, each one inching forward with painstaking slowness. Filming moved at a crawl, scenes dissected into a hundred tiny pieces that never quite fit together. I found myself struggling with Carol. She was layered, full of contradictions—desperate yet guarded, self-assured but aching for something she couldn’t name. I wasn’t used to roles like that. I’d built my budding career playing women who wore their desires on their sleeves, who moved boldly through the world without the burden of nuance. Carol was different. She required more of me, and I wasn’t sure I could give it.

The retakes piled up. Lines slipped through my fingers, moments that should have been instinctive instead felt forced, clumsy. I could always feel Celia watching me from across the room. She never said anything directly—Celia was too disciplined for that—but the way she reset herself for every take, the slight hardening of her jaw, told me enough. She was Abby, through and through, while I was still fumbling to be Carol. It stung, that awareness, and it made every misstep heavier.

But God, did I try. I gave it everything. When I wasn’t filming, I locked myself in my trailer, pacing and muttering lines until my throat felt raw. I poured over the script at night, circling words, scribbling notes, trying to find something in Carol that I hadn’t yet uncovered. I studied the old footage they sent me, watched interviews with people who had lived through that era, soaked up every scrap of detail like it might save me.

One night, while the grips rearranged their mess for another round of reshoots, I found Celia behind her trailer, taking a drag off a vape. I was looking for one of the ADs and stumbled across her instead. She looked like a teenager caught smoking behind the gym—eyes too wide, hand faltering mid-drag.

“Didn’t peg you for the type,” I said, nodding toward the vape.

She held it up like it was evidence in a crime. “It’s a bad habit,” she said, tucking it into the front pocket of her high-waisted jeans. “Came from my ex.”

I leaned against the trailer steps. “Yeah. I’ve got a few of those, too.”

I didn’t mean to hang around, but the greenroom felt like a morgue, and the trailer lot had its charms—cool night air, the buzz of neon bleeding off a nearby billboard, the metallic jangle of some poor grip dragging a C-stand across concrete. Besides, she looked... off-brand. Her hair frizzed at the roots, her foundation blotchy in a way the makeup team would’ve screamed over. She wasn’t the spotless Celia St. James who grinned on talk shows and posted vacation shots from Amalfi. For once, she looked like the rest of us—like she’d been dragged through L.A. traffic in a car with no A/C.

“What flavor?” I asked, nodding toward the vape. “Let me guess—strawberry vanilla.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s mint. Boring, I know.”

“Disappointing, more like.”

She smirked but didn’t answer. For a minute, we just stood there. The air was sharp with the scent of ozone, leftover rain still clinging to the pavement. Somewhere down the block, someone peeled out, tires squealing.

“You know,” she said after a while, voice softer now, like she was trying the words on for size, “you’re starting to impress me. A little.”

I looked at her sideways. “Are you being a bitch right now?”

She laughed—short and real. “No, I mean it.”

I crossed my arms, leaning into the edge of the trailer. “I’ve fucked up half the scenes.”

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging. “But you’re putting in the work. Which is more than I can say about most people I’ve worked with. You’re not phoning it in.”

That caught me off guard. Compliments weren’t part of Celia’s wheelhouse, as far as I could tell.

“You sure you’re talking about me?” I said.

She glanced at me. “Yeah. I am.”

“Well,” I said. “For the record, you’re better than I thought you would be.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “I used to think you were just another Disney-bred robot. Smile plastered on, talent manufactured by a marketing team.”

She laughed but there wasn’t any humor in it. “That’s what the whole world thought. The past three and a half years have been about trying to prove them wrong.”

“It’s not easy, changing your image once it’s out there,” I said.

“Nope,” she said, popping the word like a bubble. “People still see me as their squeaky-clean babysitter. I could win an Oscar, and some producer would still want me to play the older sister in a rom-com.”

I nodded, scraping the toe of my shoe against a crack in the asphalt. “And here I am, trying to convince people I’ve got more to offer than...” I gestured vaguely at my chest.

Her lips quirked, a half-smile she didn’t seem to notice. “It’s funny, isn’t it? You spend so much time trying to get people to notice you, and then you spend even more time trying to make them see you differently.”

“Funny’s one word for it,” I said.

She looked past me, her gaze drifting toward the glowing edge of the studio lot, where a billboard for a new superhero movie loomed, all sharp jaws and glossy hair. Celia’s mouth opened, like she had something else to add, but then her phone buzzed from her back pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the name.

“It’s Joan,” she said. 

Anytime Joan called, the whole set had to pause. Joan Marker—the fiancée with the golden voice and the five-minute check-ins between concerts.

More than Don gives me, I suppose.

Celia turned her back, voice softening as she answered. “Hi, babe.” The conversation wasn’t for me, and I knew better than to linger. I walked off in search of luke warm coffee.

•••

“This is bad.”

“It’s not that bad,” Harry said.

I leaned against the edge of his desk, arms crossed so tight they dug into my ribs. “Harry. You’ve read the headlines. It’s worse than bad. The whole world is calling me a bitch.”

Harry sighed as he rubbed his temples. His laptop was open, playing that damn TMZ clip on a loop. My father, deadbeat of the century, sobbing for the camera like he’d missed his calling as a soap star.

“She abandoned us,” he sniffled, voice cracking just so. “Her mother and me... we sacrificed everything for her, and now? She’s too good for us.”

The reporter’s microphone bobbed in front of him like a lure, and he bit hard, spinning tales of unpaid hospital bills and eviction notices. All lies. But lies in Hollywood spread faster than wildfire.

“It’s melodrama,” Harry said, closing the laptop with a sharp click. “People will forget it in a week.”

“Will they?” I shot back. “Because right now, everyone thinks I’m Cruella De Vil in a push-up bra.”

Harry rolled his chair back and looked up at me, his expression caught somewhere between pity and exhaustion. “It’s a hit piece, Evelyn. And it’s cheap. Anyone with half a brain can see right through it.”

“But people don’t use half a brain,” I snapped. “They eat this stuff up. ‘Famous starlet disowns her poor parents.’ It’s practically a tabloid’s wet dream. And look—people on TikTok are already making up stories about me and Celia. About how mean I am to her. About how we hate each other.”

I held up my phone to show Harry a particularly scathing review from a sixteen year old from Minnesota. He looked less than bemused. 

“You do hate eachother, Ev. The girl is right.”

“I don’t want everyone to know that!” I threw my hands in the air. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to fix this? This is image murder, Harry. Image. Murder.”

He sighed, long and low, like he’d been holding it in all morning. Outside, the hum of L.A. traffic filtered through the window, the distant buzz of a helicopter circling over Sunset. Somewhere, a set was on fire—metaphorically or literally, didn’t matter. In this town, it was always one or the other.

“You need a plan,” Harry said finally. “And it needs to happen fast.”

•••

By midnight, the plan was drafted. Half a bottle of red wine and two hours of arguing later, I had a strategy Harry begrudgingly called “solid.”

The first part was easy enough to swallow, if not exactly ideal. I would invite my mother to come live with me in L.A. She could swap her Bronx apartment with the leaky ceiling for a guest house in the hills. She’d hate it at first, sure, but the tabloids would eat up the whole dutiful daughter redeems herself narrative like it was dessert at a Netflix Emmy party.

I knew she’d struggle to leave my father. The man had a grip like a rusted chain. But I believed she could break it. I had to. The cracks were already there; I could hear them in her voice every time we talked. She never said it outright, but there were pauses, hesitations. Like she was tiptoeing around her own truth.

Things had gotten worse since I left. She tried to hide it, but she wasn’t very good at lying. She needed to get out, and if I had to bribe her with sunshine and poolside rosé, then fine. She’d called me delusional when I left, but now with my father on TV sobbing into a TMZ microphone, dragging my name through the gutters of the internet, she needed an exit plan more than ever.

I picked up the phone and dialed. She answered on the third ring.

“Evelyn…mija. I’m so sorry.”

That I wasn’t expecting. My mother had always been my father’s greatest defender, the referee who somehow always gave him the win. I had braced myself for the usual excuses, but she surprised me.

“That interview...” She sighed heavily, switching to Spanish, her words tumbling over one another. “Dios mío, what was he thinking? He’s lost his mind. I mean it, Evelyn. Lost. His. Mind.”

“Mom, Mom, slow down,” I said, though I couldn’t help the small flicker of relief curling in my chest. For once, she wasn’t pretending things were fine. “Look, I think it’s time you left. Pack up and come out here. I’ve got plenty of space. You can live in the guest house—me and Don’s.”

“Your house?” she said, her voice careful now, cautious like she was testing the edges of something fragile.

“Yeah,” I said, shifting the phone to my other ear. “It’s quiet, big windows, even has a little garden in the back. You’d like it.”

She didn’t respond right away, and I could hear the faint hum of her ceiling fan on the other end of the line. That fan had been older than me, creaking away in the kitchen of the Bronx apartment where I grew up. The apartment where she’d built her life around my father’s moods and mistakes.

“Evelyn…” she started, her tone already edging toward protest.

“Mom,” I interrupted, my voice steady but firm. “He’s dragging you down with him. And you know it.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said, the words coming out too quick, like she needed them out before they caught in her throat.

“It’s exactly that simple,” I said. “Come here. Take a break. If you hate it, you can go back, but you’ve got to at least give yourself the chance.”

There was a long silence, and for a second, I thought she’d hung up. But then I heard her exhale, slow and shaky.

“Let me think about it,” she said finally.

“Okay,” I said. “But don’t take too long.”

I hung up before she could argue. The guest house would need cleaning, maybe some new furniture. She deserved that much, at least. A little space to breathe.

She called me back half an hour later. I had Harry’s assistant send her a one-way plane ticket to LAX. My mother was coming to live with me.

•••

The second part was of the plan was harder: Celia.

“Absolutely not,” she said when I called her the next morning. It was our one day off that week and I knew she’d flown to New York to see Joan perform. 

“Celia, it’s not a big deal. We just need to be seen together a few times. Just a brunch or two. A shopping trip. It’ll be fine.”

“Are you kidding me?” she hissed. I could hear someone talking in the background—probably Joan—but Celia shushed them. “I’m not bullshitting for the cameras just because—”

“Celia,” I cut her off. “Do you think I want to do this? Because trust me, I don’t. But the internet thinks I’m a villian, and you’re some tragic underdog I’ve been kicking around for fun. I need to look like I can share the sandbox, and you could use the PR too.”

“I don’t need—”

“You do,” I said firmly. “Your last movie barely broke even, and Joan’s the only reason anyone’s writing about you right now. You can’t live off Disney nostalgia forever.”

That shut her up, at least for a second.

“Fine,” she said, her voice cold. “But I have conditions.”

“Of course you do.”

“First: no touching. I don’t want anyone thinking we’re that close. Second: no comments about Joan. Ever. Third: I get to pick the restaurant.”

“Fine. That’s fine,” I said. 

Celia seemed a little surprised. “Okay then. I’ll have my assistant set it up.”

“Great,” I said. “Let’s do it sooner rather than later. I want to make sure my father doesn’t get another fifteen minutes of fame off my name.”

“Fine by me,” she said, her voice clipped. Then, after a pause, she added, “And Evelyn? Don’t make me regret this.”

“Oh, please,” I shot back. “You’d regret it more if I didn’t.”

She hung up without a goodbye.

•••

The next week moved faster than I expected. My mom called on Tuesday to say she was packing up her things and getting ready to leave. She didn’t mention my father, and I didn’t ask. By Thursday, I had Celia and her assistant texting me about reservations at The Tower Bar. It was a West Hollywood staple where celebrities went to see and be seen.

By Friday, we were seated at a prime table on the terrace. Celia had Dior sunglasses on, oversized and black, and a pink dress with a low, halter neckline. 

“You’re late,” she said, not bothering to look up from the menu.

“You’re predictable,” I shot back, sliding into the chair across from her. “Let me guess—you’re getting the steak?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling ever so slightly. “Why mess with perfection?”

In the short time I’d known her, I’d learned one thing for sure: Celia St. James was a woman of appetite. She drank like the world was ending, smoked like it already had, and ordered her food with the confidence of someone who had never counted calories a day in her life. She treated life like a five-star buffet—indulgent, unapologetic, and carefully curated for her own pleasure.

She always ordered red meat. Lunch at eleven? Steak. Upscale vegan place? Steak. I wasn’t sure if it was defiance or just stubborn consistency, but I’d never seen her order anything else.

The waiter hovered. “Anything to drink, ladies?”

“Sparkling water,” she said, handing back the menu without a glance. “And I’ll have the filet, medium rare. No sauce.”

“Just water?” I asked, raising a brow.

She flicked her sunglasses onto the table, the lenses catching the light. “For now. You’re enough of a headache.”

I ordered iced tea—no sugar—and watched her settle back in her chair, as relaxed as if she were lounging in her own backyard instead of The Tower Bar, where even the napkins came starched and embroidered.

Around us, the terrace buzzed. A pair of women in yoga pants and diamond bracelets nibbled on overpriced salads. Near the corner, a producer with slicked-back hair was talking too close to an actress half his age, his hand hovering at the small of her back. Outside the wrought-iron gate, a pack of paparazzo lingered. 

I smiled a big, fake smile and acted like Celia had said something funny. Celia just stared at me, one eyebrow raised like I’d lost my mind.

“We’re trying to sell it, remember?” I said through my teeth. “Smile. They’ll take pictures.”

She hesitated, like she was weighing whether this charade was worth the effort, then gave me a wide, artificial grin that could’ve rivaled mine. I heard the faint click of a camera from somewhere beyond the terrace.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked, letting my smile drop just enough to make the point clear.

Celia rolled her eyes. “You really are all about image, aren’t you?”

“And you’re not?” I shot back, folding my arms on the edge of the table. “Please. You’ve got this whole ‘reluctant starlet’ thing down to an art.”

I thought back to that night behind her trailer, the one time I’d caught a glimpse of Celia without all the polish. Something about the dark and the quiet made it easier for both of us to set down the armor we wore everywhere else. I don’t know what cracked the shell that night—maybe the exhaustion, maybe the cheap honesty that only shows up when no one’s watching. Whatever it was, it didn’t follow us to lunch. Or to coffee the next morning.

That day, sitting across from her at The Tower Bar, it felt like rehearsing lines for a script we didn’t believe in. Celia was bitchy and stand-offish. I wasn’t much better.

The next day was more of the same. We met for coffee at Alfred’s. It was the kind of place where influencers balanced oat milk lattes on designer handbags and left with more photos than caffeine. We ordered, sat by the window, and stared at our phones while the barista pretended not to recognize us. Every time I tried to needle through the cracks, Celia sidestepped, and I wasn’t about to chase her. She kept her walls up; I kept mine, too.

Thankfully, our little stunt worked. By the next morning, random people were posting photos of us together, tagging them with captions like “Looks like Evelyn and Celia are working on their friendship!” It didn’t matter that the smiles were fake or that our body language screamed barely tolerating each other—in the court of public opinion, the narrative was set.

TikTok theorists said we were “bridging the gap” after weeks of rumored tension. They stitched our paparazzi shots with clips from interviews where we’d accidentally contradicted each other or offered thinly veiled jabs. One creator posted a full timeline of our supposed feud, complete with overly dramatic voiceovers and grainy red carpet footage. Another theorist claimed we were faking the whole thing for PR, which, ironically, was the only one who got it right.

“‘Rebuilding their sisterhood,’” Harry read aloud from his laptop, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “People eat this shit up.”

“Of course they do,” I said, sipping my coffee and scrolling through the comments on one of the posts. “Celia’s too good for Evelyn anyway,” one read. Another said, “This is just another example of Hollywood’s PR machine. They probably hate each other IRL.”

“Not wrong,” I muttered.

Harry snorted. “It’s working, isn’t it? That’s what matters. They’re moving on from the dad thing and focusing on this instead.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“It is,” he said, closing his laptop with a flourish. “They love drama, but they love resolution more. Give them a redemption arc, a ‘we’re all just human’ moment, and they’ll forgive you for almost anything.”

I leaned back in my chair, glancing out the window where the L.A. skyline shimmered under a haze of late afternoon smog. Harry wasn’t wrong. The public wanted stories, not people, and if the story was good enough, they didn’t care if it was true.

“Don’t look so miserable,” Harry added, standing up and stretching. “You’re playing the game, and you’re winning.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Winning.”

•••

My mother arrived in Los Angeles with two beat-up suitcases and a hat bag. She wore her good coat, the one she saved for church and court appearances, even though the January sun in L.A. was warm enough to make her sweat. When she stepped off the curb at LAX, she looked around like she’d landed on a foreign planet.

“This is it?” she asked, tilting her chin toward the black SUV I’d borrowed from Don’s garage.

“It’s what we’ve got,” I said, loading her bags into the trunk.

She held my free hand as I drove. Her fingers were cool and fragile, like the stems of wildflowers. She looked small in that oversized car, almost swallowed by the leather seats and tinted windows. And old. Not in the way she used to say, “I’m getting old, mija,” with a laugh and a wave of her hand, but in the quiet, undeniable way that time carves its name into your face.

You don’t notice it happening until you step away. Then, one day, you see them again, and it hits you. The woman sitting next to me wasn’t just my mother anymore—she was someone’s abuela in waiting, her hair thinner, her hands speckled with faint liver spots I didn’t remember.

She turned to look out the window, her profile sharp against the glow of passing billboards advertising collagen clinics and luxury watches. The lights of Sunset flickered across her face—here one moment, gone the next—like the city itself couldn’t decide whether to touch her or leave her be.

The house in the hills felt cavernous as I led her through, pointing out the features as if I were trying to sell her something. “This is the kitchen,” I said, gesturing to the gleaming countertops and the six-burner stove that had probably never seen a pot of arroz con pollo. Don preferred “American good” as he put it. “Living room’s through there. And the guest house is out back.”

She nodded, her hands clasped tightly around the strap of her handbag. I could tell she was nervous. She’d spent her whole life in cramped apartments. Here, the space echoed. Even the silence was different—cleaner, emptier.

The guest house was small but modern. I’d made sure our maid put fresh sheets on the bed and stocked the fridge with the things I knew she liked—sliced mango, guava juice, the kind of queso fresco she always crumbled over everything.

“It’s nice,” she said, running a hand along the counter like she didn’t quite believe it was hers.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said.

She sank down onto the bed. “And your boyfriend? Don?”

“He’s filming a movie in Italy,” I told her. “He’ll be home in a week or two.”

“And what if your father comes?” she asked.

“This place is gated,” I reminded her, crossing my arms. “Plus, I don’t think he could afford a plane ticket.”

That last part came out sharper than I intended, but it was true. The man could barely scrape together enough for a six-pack most days, let alone a cross-country flight. I was sure that he’d already blown the meager check TMZ gave him on booze. She didn’t argue, just stared out the window.

“I just worry,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I know,” I said. “But you don’t have to anymore. Not about him, at least.”

She gave a small nod, though her shoulders stayed hunched. She had carried too much for too long, and I wasn’t naive enough to think one move to Los Angeles would change that overnight. But it was a start.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The house felt too quiet, too big. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, imagining my mother in the guest house. Alone in a bed she wasn’t used to, surrounded by walls that weren’t hers. We hadn’t been close for years thanks to my father. But she was still my mother, and whatever cracks had split open between us, the love I felt for her never quite crumbled.

I wanted to fix it—what he’d broken, what time had stolen. So, I got up, slipping on my robe and stepping out into the dew-damp yard.

The guest house glowed, warm light spilling through the curtains. I let myself in. She was curled on her side in bed, the quilt pulled up to her chin. For a moment, I just stood there, watching her. She looked so small, almost delicate, her hands tucked under her cheek like a child’s.

I slid into the bed beside her, the mattress dipping under my weight. She stirred, her eyes fluttering open for a moment before she smiled sleepily. I was so much bigger than her, taking up more than my share of the space, but she didn’t seem to mind. She pulled me close, her arms wrapping around me.

Her voice was soft in my ear, a whisper of my name. Not Evelyn the starlet or Evelyn the battered-girlfriend, but mija.