aking up in a canopied bed might have felt dreamlike and surreal, were it not for the hundred-pound Bernese mountain dog sitting on my head.

“Don’t mind her,” a pleasant voice said from somewhere above me. “She just wants a little sugar.”

Still half-asleep, I shoved at William Faulkner, who obligingly rolled over and presented me with her belly.

“You’re not allergic, are you?” Aunt Olivia asked from the direction of the closet. “Imagine not even knowing if my own niece is allergic to dogs.”

Imagine not knowing that your own daughter’s pastime of choice involves artistically inscribing the secrets of the upper crust on her bikini line.

Imagine having no idea that the person who knocked up your teenage sister was a member of your social circle.

Imagine not even knowing there’s a Debutante bound and gagged in your pool house.

The events of the previous day came flooding back, and I sat up in bed. William Faulkner, tired of waiting for a belly scratch, decided to give me some sugar of her own.

“Well?” Aunt Olivia said. “Are you?”

I swiped slobber off my cheek with the back of my hand and gave the Bernese mountain dog a scratch behind the ears before she could launch another affection attack. “Am I what?”

“Allergic,” Aunt Olivia reiterated. “I swear, you girls have the attention span of gnats. I caught Lily coming out of the bathroom wearing mismatched pajamas this morning.”

If the idea of clashing pj’s was enough to engender a tongue cluck, I did not want to imagine how my aunt would react if she knew more about Lily’s extracurricular activities.

“Not allergic,” I said. I pried myself from the bed and became acutely aware of the sound of hangers skimming over a metal rod. “What are you doing?”

“Hmmmm?” For someone who’d just accused me of having no attention span, my aunt was awfully easily distracted. Before I could repeat the question, she popped out of the closet and held up a white lace sundress for my inspection. “What about this one?”

“What about it?”

“You do sound like your mama sometimes, don’t you? But never mind that, miss—what do you think about this dress for brunch?”

“Brunch,” I repeated.

Aunt Olivia faltered, in the way of someone who fears she has just committed a great faux pas. “Do they have brunch where you grew up?”

You would have thought she was asking me if we’d had running water.

“We have brunch,” I said. I was tempted to add And it’s finger-lickin’ good, just to see the horrified expression on her face, but restrained myself. “I just hadn’t planned on going to brunch today.”

“We always do Sunday brunch at the club,” Aunt Olivia said, like Thou Shalt Brunch on Sunday was the Eleventh Commandment. “Depending on where you fall on the scale of heathen to devout, you’re also welcome to join us for church this morning. No pressure, mind you.”

“No pressure about church,” I clarified. “But brunch…”

“Brunch is a family affair,” a voice said.

Aunt Olivia and I turned toward the doorway. My grandmother was standing there in black pants and a white linen jacket. She wore a rope chain necklace, casual the same way the houses in this neighborhood were modest.

After eyeing my bed-head and the gargantuan dog now tangled in the sheets beside me, Lillian turned her attention to her daughter. “Perhaps not white,” she said, giving the dress in Aunt Olivia’s hand the once-over. “Do we have something in a peach?”

Aunt Olivia went back to the closet and came out again holding the exact same dress in a different color.

“When a style and cut are flattering,” my grandmother lectured genteelly, “you buy in more than one color. One can never have too many basics.” Without pausing a beat, she plucked the dress in question from Aunt Olivia’s hands. “I’ll take it from here, dear.”

I looked for a hint of tension between them, some clue that my aunt didn’t care for being dismissed, but if Olivia resented being ousted from my room, she gave no sign of it. If anything, she seemed comfortable doing what she was told.

Comfortable being the good daughter, I could practically hear my mom saying as Aunt Olivia called for William Faulkner to follow her out the door.

Once we were alone, Lillian laid the dress she’d chosen for me on the foot of the bed. “I could ask you what exactly you and your cousin were doing last night that necessitated sneaking back in at three in the morning, but I would be lying if I implied that I was anything less than pleased to see you and Lily taking to each other so quickly.” She ran a hand over the dress to smooth out the hem. “Girls can be… complicated. Family, more so. If your mother and Olivia had been closer…” Lillian pressed her lips together, then shook her head. “You’ll fare better with Lily on your side than you would alone.”

“Right.” I brushed Lillian’s statement off. I might have come down on Lily’s side the night before, but the idea that she might be on mine was still a little hard to wrap my mind around. I was good at being relied on.

Relying on others was more of a gray area.

“Brunch,” my grandmother declared, ignoring my response to her last statement, “is not optional.”

I could not swear that there was not a brunch clause in my contract, so I didn’t argue.

I negotiated.

“I’ll go,” I said climbing out of bed. “I’ll even wear the dress.” I opened the drawer to my nightstand. “I just need you to do something for me first.”

Late last night, when I’d finally crawled back through my window and detoxed from the debutante drama, I’d taken the photograph I’d stolen out of my pocket. With a thick black marker, I’d drawn four circles—one around each Squire whose face my mother had scratched out in her copy of the photo.

I handed the picture to Lillian. “I’d like the names of those four.”

I could probably have made some other attempt to identify the boys in the photo, but they were men now, and I didn’t believe in taking the scenic route when a blunt question could get you there directly.

Lillian was quiet for a long while as she took in the faces in the photograph. I saw a flurry of indecipherable emotions pass over her face. Anger? Bewilderment? Surprise? Regret?

It went on for long enough that I was starting to think that no answer was forthcoming, but the family matriarch surprised me. “I assume you recognized your uncle.” She pointed to the first of the four. “He’s got that boyish look about him even now.”

He was the only one I had recognized. I hadn’t thought much about what that might mean.

I hadn’t wanted to.

“The one who’s not quite looking at the camera is Charles Waters. I believe you two met last night.” Lillian didn’t so much as pause to give me a moment to process. “The tall, smug-looking one in the back row is the oldest Ames boy. The senator.”

Ames. As in Walker Ames and Lucas Ames and the blackmailer bound and gagged in the pool house.

“The one on the edge,” my grandmother continued, her manner and tone suggesting none of this was of much import, “is the senator’s brother-in-law. He wasn’t much back then, but the Ames family paid his Squire fees. Eventually, he ended up marrying their daughter, Julia.”

“Does this man who married Julia Ames have a name?” I asked.

Without a word, my grandmother replaced the photo in my nightstand drawer. She pressed it shut before answering my question. “His last name is Mason. I believe you met his son, Boone, last night.”

And the small world just keeps getting smaller.…

“First name?” I asked, as much to show her that none of this information had gotten to me as anything else.

Lillian smiled. I wasn’t sure if that was a reflex—or a warning. “Thomas,” she said. “Thomas Mason.”

Suddenly, I felt like I’d been gargling cotton balls. My name was Sawyer Ann. My mom had told me once that even if I’d been a boy, she still would have named me Sawyer.

But in that case, it would have been Sawyer Thomas.