The Good Girl

Mia asks Colin how much he was paid to kidnap her. Colin doesn’t want to answer. Mia talks about the threats her father received as a litigation lawyer because he defended corporations from mesothelioma lawsuits. Mia is trying to figure out why this happened to her—why her and not Grace, why her life was destroyed without warning. Colin reveals that Dalmar was going to pay him $5,000.

Eve grieves her daughter. She thinks about the ways she failed Mia, along with memories of playgrounds and days of afternoon sun. The reporters come around less often. She wonders if she will ever be reunited with her daughter, dead or alive. She gets angry and throws expensive dinnerware, family heirlooms, at the wall: “I scream at the top of my lungs, a barbaric sound that certainly doesn’t belong to me” (172). She remembers the day she failed Mia the most, when James insisted Mia attend law school against her will. Eve didn’t protect her. The robins and geese leave for winter, and Eve cries.

Mia names the cat Canoe and makes a bed for it in the shed. It goes missing. Colin worries about his mother again, wondering if his neighbors are checking in on her, and whether she got the money he sent.