Harper turned toward her and spoke calmly. “Mamaw, I don’t know my father. Other than the few stories you’ve fed me, and the few choice bits from my mother, he’s a complete stranger to me. From you, I heard he was a writer, a starving artist. A very romantic character. From Mother, I heard he was a raging alcoholic, a no-talent writer with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Even a womanizer.”

“I think your mother got it right.” Carson picked up her champagne glass and raised it in a mock toast ringing with scorn. “To dear old Dad.”

“That’s enough, Carson,” Mamaw said, deeply hurt. She looked at her granddaughter and wondered at the source of her deep resentment.

Carson scowled and downed her glass of champagne.

“You still didn’t answer Harper’s question,” Dora said, returning to the sore point. “How did Daddy earn his living all those years in California?”

Carson slowly turned in her chair to face Mamaw, twiddling the stem of the glass in her fingers, waiting for—challenging—her to answer the question. When Mamaw did not reply, Carson set the glass down on the table and stared at it.

“The good mother sent her little boy a monthly allowance,” Carson told them. “It was always a big deal in our house, you know. Dad waiting for his check.” She looked down at her empty glass and said in a changed voice, “I know you meant to help him.”

“Not only him,” Mamaw interjected. “To help you.”

Carson reached out to grab the bottle and refill her glass. “At the beginning, it wasn’t too bad. We had a nice apartment. Mamaw and Granddaddy gave him a good bit of money to invest in some new venture. I was pretty young, I don’t remember what it was.”

“It was a movie,” Mamaw said.

Carson delivered a long stare. “No, I don’t think that was it.”

“I should know,” Mamaw replied. “I recall it vividly. He wrote the screenplay and had a producer.” She waved her hand in the air. “I . . . I can’t recall the title.”

“I wish we could have seen it,” Dora said. “A movie made of Daddy’s screenplay. That’s something, isn’t it?” She spoke the latter like a cheerleader, encouraging the girls to feel some pride in their father.

Mamaw held her tongue. Edward had always been suspicious of the whole project but she had pushed for the financial support, believing Parker’s claim that if he could get one movie done, then more would follow. It was a substantial investment, and how she’d prayed it would launch his career at last. When the film was finished, she and Edward had flown to Atlanta to see it. She’d worn a new dress for the occasion and had wanted to throw a party, but her son had been strangely against any fanfare and didn’t encourage them to see it. The film was shown in a smarmy theater in a dodgy part of the city, which should have been their first clue. Mamaw was shocked and Edward so outraged by the film that they got up and walked out after the first fifteen minutes. On the way home to Charleston Edward had to explain to Mamaw what soft-core pornography was.

“Where’s the film? I’d like to see it,” said Harper.

“I’ve no idea,” Mamaw said in an absent manner. “It’s probably destroyed. Lost.”

Carson turned and said in an easy manner, “The film wasn’t saved and the bottom line is it was never a success and there were never any more. End of story.”

She turned to look at Mamaw, her eyes pulsing a private message to stop. Mamaw immediately understood that Carson knew the full story but didn’t want to discuss it. She was embarrassed, but she was also protecting her father’s—and perhaps Mamaw’s—reputation.

“From there it went from bad to worse,” Carson continued. “We were evicted from our apartments more often than I can remember, each one always shabbier than the last. Daddy was a master at one thing,” she said with a bitter laugh. “That was staying ahead of the collectors. Wait,” she added, lifting a finger in the air. “He was good at one other thing,” she acknowledged. “The man could tell a good story. It’s just a damn shame he couldn’t get those stories down on paper. His only audience was his bar mates.” She drained the contents of her glass.

“He died alone in a bar. Did you know that?” She glanced from one sister to the other, then finally her gaze rested on Mamaw. “I got a call from the police to identify the body.” She paused and, twiddling the stem of her glass, said morosely, “Not one of my happiest memories.”

Mamaw brought her hand to her throat, feeling it close on her. She’d never known this. By the time Carson had telephoned her, his body had already been sent to the morgue. Edward had flown to L.A. immediately to claim the body and bring it and Carson home to South Carolina. She’d always assumed Edward had identified the body, and he had never enlightened her, no doubt trying to protect her. That would have been so like him.

“I thought . . .” Dora began, then had to stop and take a breath, confused. “Lord, I thought it was all so different,” she said slowly. She glanced up at Carson. “All these years you were out in California, I’d always imagined you living in some luxury apartment overlooking the ocean. Living it up, with movie stars and glamour. I was jealous of you, Carson. I thought that you were the lucky one.”

“Luxury lifestyle?” Carson laughed bitterly. “Not quite.”

“At least you knew he loved you,” Dora said unflinchingly. “I knew he never loved me. My mother told me he didn’t often enough. She said that I was just an annoying burden, someone he had to send a birthday and Christmas gift to, if he remembered. Which wasn’t often.” Dora folded her arms and looked away.

“Oh, Dora,” Mamaw murmured under her breath, ready to strangle Winnie for her callousness. Horrible woman. How could a mother tell a young girl such a thing? Dora turned to look beyond Mamaw at Carson. “You know what the craziest part is? I didn’t hate him. I hated you because you were the one that Daddy loved best. He kept you with him and left Harper and me behind.”

“Loved me? He only dragged me along so I’d take care of him.”

“Carson,” Mamaw said sharply, interrupting her. “That’s not true. He wanted you with him. You didn’t have a mother to keep you, like the others did.”