Broken Bayou

Although it is only noon, Willa pours herself a glass of wine. The VCR has arrived, and she is anxious to finally watch the security tapes she found among her mother’s things. The first tape that she pops into the VCR Is just an old soap opera. She removes it, selecting another, but her phone rings. It is Rita Meade. Combatively, Willa asks Rita how and why she obtained her number, but Rita brushes the question off and responds with one of her own: Is it true that Willa spent childhood summers in Broken Bayou, that she and Travis Arceneaux had “a thing,” and that her mother once drove a red convertible? Willa issues a curt “no comment,” hangs up, and blocks the number. After passing out and waking up again at four in the morning, Willa finally finds the right tape. It is a grainy black-and-white video. The first image is of a woman and a man in a black cowboy hat sitting in a red convertible in a parking lot. The woman, her mother, and the man, her boss, exit the vehicle and leave the frame. Moments later they return. Her mother is disheveled.