Chapter Text
Any person sentenced to or confined in a city or county jail upon conviction for a misdemeanor, a felony, contempt, or nonpayment of any fine…may be granted the privilege of serving all or part of the sentence under house arrest.
- Summary of US Federal/State Law
If she timed it right, Bradley could duck into the bar three doors down from the grocery store for a quick drink and no one, including the West Virginia Department of Corrections, would be the wiser.
She sat on a rickety stool with a quick nod towards the bartender. “Budweiser and a shot of Jack.”
One of the best parts of living in rural America was that most people didn’t recognize her, or if they did, they rarely mentioned it.
The bartender popped the bottle top, then slid the beer towards her. “You starting a tab?”
“I’ve been coming here a couple times a week for three months, Clyde.” She took a drag from the bottle. “When have I ever started a tab?”
“Just asking.” He poured the shot of Jack Daniels. “I suppose you’re paying with cash this time, too,” he replied in a noticeable Southern accent.
Bradley tossed a $10 bill on the counter, then took another sip. She glanced around the small space that smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke, noticing a couple arguing at a corner table and a man with a long, braided beard at the jukebox. Sunny’s Bar was anything but sunny, but it was precisely what she needed for a blip in time.
The familiar guitar rift of Reba McEntire’s You Lie played through the speakers, and she clamped her jaw at how apropos it was. Bradley didn’t need a reminder she’d hidden the truth from Laura, essentially lying, yet there she sat with the soulful singer’s somber twang ringing in her ears.
She sipped the whiskey, scrunching her face at how astringent it tasted, and remembered the expensive Bourbon she used to drink with Laura who had no problem dropping $200 a bottle for the good stuff. She tossed back the rest of the shot and grimaced as she listened to the lyrics to Reba’s song.
So you lie, buy a little time, and I go along
What else can I do? Maybe it's wrong
But you know how much I love you
So you lie until you can find a way to say goodbye
Bradley chased the shot with a sip of Budweiser and heard a smack from across the room. The woman who’d been sitting across from a man in a cowboy hat had apparently just slapped him, then got up and stormed out.
She let out a little sound of disbelief—that she, Bradley Jackson of The Morning Show and Evening News fame, was drinking away her sorrows with a state-issued monitoring device wrapped around her ankle at a lonely bar in Greenbrier County, West Virginia while the world spun around her.
The crisp, autumn air and changing leaves reminded Bradley of her back-to-school days when she was relieved to no longer have to stay home with her chain-smoking mother or her annoying little brother. She could play hide & seek with friends at recess; learn about thunderstorms, multiplication tables, and how to write poetry; and she could rely on a free, healthy lunch every day. For Bradley, going to school was more than a place to learn—it was an escape from reality.
She’d been the first in her family to go to college and even though she had to take out student loans and work 30 hours a week to contribute to tuition, Bradley knew higher education would be worth it in the long run. She’d discovered the world of broadcast journalism her sophomore year and was immediately drawn to two aspects: research and public speaking. She joined the campus television station first as a writer, then as a producer and by the time her senior year rolled around, Bradley was a co-anchor on the daily news show. That summer, she interned for a local television station, which required her to take an hour-long bus ride to and from the studio where she had to arrive at 4 a.m. for the five o’clock broadcast. Little did she know she’d one day need to wake up at 3:30 in the morning again, but instead of being an intern who didn’t earn a dime, she’d be raking in nearly a million dollars a year.
Reporting had seeped into her bloodstream in college and she never looked back. Bradley was plucked from obscurity and Alex took a massive risk by announcing on the fly that she’d be her co-anchor on The Morning Show and her life changed in the blink of an eye.
The Morning Show was good—it helped her get her feet wet on the national stage, but less than six months into it, Bradley knew she wanted—needed—a bigger platform. She’d do whatever it took to catapult herself to Evening News anchor. And when she succeeded, that was the beginning of her demise.
She blew the last puff of smoke high into the air over her shoulder, then stomped out the cigarette with her pointy-toed cowboy boots, waiting for her niece to finish watching Bluey on the iPad. When she heard the end credits roll, Bradley opened the back door, unhooking the harness seatbelt, then pulled Taylor from the confines of her car seat, raising her high in the air.
“You ready to do a little grocery shopping?”
Taylor nodded. “Uh huh.”
“What if we got you a little treat today?” She placed the toddler on her hip as she walked towards Red’s Market, eying Sunny’s Bar three doors down. “Maybe an ice cream sandwich or a candy bar.”
“Ice cream!” The two and a half-year-old clapped. “Can we play grocery Bingo?”
“Yep.” Bradley stuck her in the front seat of the cart, then pulled out the grocery list along with a homemade Bingo card she’d created the week before and had modified for this week’s trip to the market. “Here you go.” She handed Taylor the card and a red crayon, then strolled the cart into the produce section.
“Pineapple!” Taylor pointed to the prickly fruit, then crossed it off the list followed by grapes, broccoli and a potato.
“You’re getting too good at this.” Bradley grinned. “Next time I’m going to include a rutabaga.”
Taylor got a kick out of that. “What’s a wootabaga?”
“Let’s see if we can find one…”
Being her niece’s live-in nanny while Cheryl worked full-time and Hal was serving a four-year prison sentence had its perks, but it was not at all where Bradley thought she’d be a year ago. She’d been on the fast track to news anchor stardom, and if she’d played her cards right, she could’ve eventually earned her own show much like Laura had when she anchored UBA 365.
Twenty minutes later, Taylor had found every item on the Bingo list and it was time to check out. As Bradley pushed the cart with its squeaky wheel to the check-out stand, the magazine display caught her eye. She squinted at the small picture in the upper right corner of US Weekly, then grabbed it to get a closer look. Sure enough, it was Laura…and she wasn’t alone. In the tiny picture, a woman sat across from her at a restaurant, and they were holding hands across a white tablecloth.
“Fuck,” Bradley whispered, heart sinking.
She hadn’t reached out to Laura nor had Laura tried contacting her since their relationship-ending, disastrous fight. Bradley had spent weeks in a deep depression and, to be fair, she didn’t quite know if she was fully out of it. Her therapist was helping, but she still thought about Laura at every turn. If she heard a song they’d danced to at the ranch, tears welled in her eyes. If she saw a dark-haired woman wearing a suit around town, she did a double take. If anyone mentioned Las Vegas or she saw an ad on television, her heart skipped a beat. After three months of being away from Manhattan—away from Laura, she was still hung up on the one person she’d ever truly loved.
Bradley flipped the magazine pages until coming face to face with a larger version of the picture of Laura and a mysterious woman with long, blonde hair. There was a second photo with a similar looking woman, but instead of being at a restaurant, they were holding hands on a sidewalk. The caption read: Laura Peterson seems to be enjoying her newly single status after ex-girlfriend, Bradley Jackson, was convicted of a felony. We were big fans of Peterson & Jackson, but we’re rooting for Peterson to find love again!
She stared at the page with a heavy, jealous heart, thinking she should be mine.
“Miss? Can you step forward?” the cashier called.
Bradley realized she’d had her eyes closed and the magazine clutched to her chest while waiting in line. She quickly deposited it back on the rack, and then proceeded to checkout.
Just as she swiped her credit card, the small, black monitor vibrated against her ankle, indicating she had 15 minutes to report back home.
Taylor loved helping put away groceries on the lower shelves, and Bradley found it adorable that her niece enjoyed doing household chores. The toddler was useless at sweeping or dusting, but her efforts made Bradley smile. Part of her role in living rent-free at Hal and Cheryl’s house was to take care of her niece, do the grocery shopping, and clean. She’d taken out enough money to pay for things like her monthly cell phone bill, alcohol, cigarettes and half the household expenses, but Bradley would’ve drained much of her savings if she’d continued living in Manhattan while not earning a paycheck. Her rent alone in the swanky two-bedroom SoHo loft had been nearly $8,000 a month. She had more than enough money to make ends meet even after the conviction, but after consulting with her financial planner, Bradley decided to just take out $10,000 from one of her savings accounts to live on and paid the penalty on the withdrawal.
“Taylor? Bradley?” Cheryl called. “I’m home.”
Taylor ran from the kitchen to the living room, throwing her little body against her mom’s legs. “You smell like pancakes.”
“That’s what working at a diner does,” Cheryl replied. “How was your day?”
“I won grocery Bingo.” She took her mom’s hand, leading her towards the kitchen. “Aunt Bradley showed me a wootabega.”
“Congratulations! Want to show me your Bingo card?” Cheryl asked.
Taylor ran into the other room.
“Hey.” Bradley chopped two carrots. “I was just about to give her a snack.”
“I brought home some leftover meatloaf.” Cheryl stuck the Styrofoam container in the refrigerator. “I figured we could have that for dinner tonight with mashed potatoes if you bought them at the store.”
“Sure did.” Bradley grabbed the ranch dressing, dotting it onto a plastic plate. “I’ll make sure she eats these while you change.”
“Look, mommy!” Taylor ran in to show her mom the Bingo card. “I even found hashbwons!”
“You’re very good at this game.” She ruffled Taylor’s hair. “I’m going to change out of these stinky clothes; Aunt Bradley has a snack for you.”
“Want to go outside?” Bradley asked.
“Can we swing?”
“After you eat at least half the carrots.” She proceeded towards the back door. “Then I’ll see how high I can push you.”
That night like most nights, Bradley helped prepare dinner, read a bedtime story to her niece, and then quietly slinked to the basement where she kept a bottle of liquor on the top shelf of Hal’s metal tool cabinet. She hadn’t been able to hide her drinking and smoking from Cheryl, but thankfully Taylor was too young to understand why her aunt buried her misery with booze.
Sometimes she’d listen to old albums on her family’s 1970s record player; other times she read a book until the words became blurry and she fell asleep in an uncomfortable plastic chair.
That night, Bradley decided to look up old videos and photos of the happy times she’d shared with Laura. They immediately brought a smile to her face, particularly the ones early in their relationship like in Las Vegas or hanging out on Laura’s patio. Bradley also smiled at pictures taken when she’d first arrived in Montana. They’d spent countless hours talking, laughing, drinking and making love. Those were the most blissful times in her life, and she deeply regretted not coming clean to Laura about deleting the January 6 footage right after it happened. Thinking about how much things could’ve changed left her reaching for the bottle to top off her glass.
This patterned continued for weeks, and the nights she didn’t booze at home, she’d escaped the monotony of her life by going to Sunny’s Bar. Bradley knew the ankle monitor only allowed her to be away from the house for 30 minutes at a time, so she’d make the best of being at a place where nobody knew her name. No one cared she was once The Bradley Jackson. The kind of people who went to Sunny’s at six o’clock on a random Tuesday evening were probably not consumers of liberal news or any news really unless it was Fox, which was often playing on the television mounted in the far corner of the bar.
One night Bradley went on a bender in the basement. She’d already run through what was left of the bottle of Jim Beam and had started drinking straight vodka—no ice or lime to cut it. She played sad songs on her phone and swayed to the music with the neck of the bottle balanced between two fingers and tears in her eyes, thinking about all she’d lost. Laura was always at the top of that list. Countless times, she pulled up her contact card and stared at it, willing herself to text something as simple as Hope you’re doing well, but she never hit send.
Sometimes the past two years had felt fake—there was no way the enigmatic Laura Peterson had loved her. She was too powerful and gorgeous and sophisticated to love white trash Bradley Jackson. It had to have been a dream. Then she glanced at pictures of them together like she did nearly every night, proving that by some miracle it had been real.
The next morning, Bradley’s hangover was worse than ever before, and she had a list of things to do not the least of which was taking care of Taylor.
“Bradley, you need to get up.” Cheryl shook her.
“What time is it?” She rolled over, grimacing at the splitting headache that started in her temples and shot down to her jaw.
“Almost seven.” Cheryl pulled the sheets back. “I’m going to be late for my shift.”
Bradley rubbed her face. “I can’t.”
“You have to.” She stuck her hands on her hips. “Taylor is awake. She’s watching Bluey in the living room.”
“Then she’s fine for now,” she grumbled.
“Do I need to call in sick because you can’t get your drunk ass out of bed?” Cheryl shouted—something Bradley had never been on the other end of. “Do I?”
“I’m not drunk; just hungover.” She sat up and frowned. “And please don’t yell.”
“You’re pathetic.” Cheryl shook her head before glancing at the alarm clock and walking out. “I have to go, Bradley. Get up.”
Minutes later, she heard the front door shut, and she knew Cheryl had left for work. Bradley laid back down and fell fast asleep.
“Aunt Bradley?”
She felt tiny hands on her arm. “Mmm?”
Taylor set something on the bed. “Can I have some of this?”
Bradley’s eyes fluttered open to see her niece holding a half-empty bottle of vodka. She shot up and gasped. “No, honey. That’s mine.”
“What is it?”
“Uh…” She glanced at the clock on the bedside table, noticing it was almost 8 a.m. She’d left Taylor alone for an hour. “It’s my medicine. You don’t need medicine.” She stared at her niece. “You didn’t drink any of it, did you?”
Taylor shook her head. “Are you sick?”
“No…I don’t know.” Bradley got out of bed, taking the vodka with her, disgusted with herself. “Kind of.”
Her niece followed. “Maybe you should take some medicine.”
She stared at the bottle, tempted to do just that, but she’d never drank in front of Taylor nor was she ever inebriated when her niece was awake. Tears filled Bradley’s eyes as she thought about the consequences of what could’ve happened. “I’m ok, sweetie. What have you been doing while I was asleep?”
“Watching Bluey.”
Bradley set the vodka on the kitchen counter, then turned to her. “Why did you go to the basement?”
“To look for my favorite stuffy,” Taylor replied. “Sometimes he gets a bath in the washing machine.”
She picked Taylor up, hugging her. “Did you find him?”
She nodded. “Can we play outside?”
Bradley set her niece down. “I’m going to make breakfast, and if you eat all of it, we can swing.”
As she made oatmeal, Bradley thought about her actions. She must’ve been too drunk the night before to put away the alcohol. This was the first time that had happened—usually she was good about placing the bottles on the top shelf of the tall cabinet. What she did was dangerous, and she knew she needed to be better.
That night after Taylor went to sleep, Bradley went down to the basement and stared at the bottle of vodka her niece had discovered, chastising herself for having left it out. It was reckless and if Cheryl found out about it, surely she would’ve had words with Bradley. At first, she kept the cap on the bottle of Svedka, tapping her fingers on the side table and refusing to pour a glass.
She pulled up a video of Laura preparing Thanksgiving dinner when they were on the ranch, then a video of them sitting by the firepit on the patio. Her lips ticked up upon seeing how happy they were, but seconds later, Bradley frowned remembering she’d lost it all.
After 10 minutes, the bottle of vodka won the staring contest; she poured a glass and took a sip of the astringent liquor, blanching. She couldn’t use the excuse I drink because it tastes good—this did not taste good; Bradley drank to dull the pain.
She twisted her neck upon hearing the floorboards creak and noticed her sister-in-law walking downstairs.
“What are you doing down here?” Cheryl enquired.
“The same thing I do most every night.” She lit a cigarette, then moved to the door, cracking it a tiny bit. “Everything ok up there?”
“I’m worried about you,” she began without pretense. “You’re drinking every night; smoking a pack of cigarettes every couple of days. This isn’t like you.”
“It isn’t like me?” Bradley raised her eyebrows. “What do you fucking know about me, Cheryl?”
“I don’t mean to be confrontational, but…” she started. “I watched your brother go through this for years before he got help.”
“You mean before I got him help for the third time?” Bradley blew a puff of smoke out the door. “He’s sober now, so…”
“You’re not.”
She issued a cocky half-smile. “I’m not your wife—you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I haven’t told you what to do since you moved in.” Cheryl twisted her hands in front of her. “I’m worried about you.”
“I heard you the first time.” She took another drag. “Thanks for your concern.”
“I have experience with this,” she tried. “I can help.”
“I don’t want help.” She shook her head. “If I did, I’d ask.”
“You’re not taking care of yourself, Bradley.” She angled her head. “And if you’re not taking care of yourself, I don’t think you can take care of my daughter.”
“I have never drank while I’m with Taylor.” While her statement was true, Bradley kept the vodka incident to herself. “What I do in my own time is my business. Just because I live here doesn’t give you the right to watch my every move.” She pointed to her ankle monitor. “I have enough of that with this fucking thing.”
“It’s getting worse.” Again, Cheryl wrung her hands together. “You’re not eating, you’re drinking too much and you’re hungover almost every morning.”
“Is any of that affecting the way I care for my niece?”
“Not yet, but it will.”
“You don’t know that.” Bradley sucked in another drag of the cigarette. “And I resent that you’re even suggesting it.”
“If you don’t stop drinking like this, I’m going to ask you to leave.” Cheryl took a step forward. “It’s not up for discussion.”
“Since when did you become all high and mighty?” Bradley spit back. “Just because you helped Hal stay sober doesn’t mean you’ll have that effect on me.”
“You’re becoming your mother, Bradley, and it scares me.”
“Fuck you!” She blurted out. “You didn’t even know my mom!”
“We didn’t hang out or anything, but I knew her a little,” Cheryl maintained an even, patient tone. “I know she was an addict.”
“You have no idea what Hal and I went through as kids.” Bradley crushed the cigarette into an ashtray, then glared at her. “I’m nothing like my mom.”
Cheryl lowered her head. “You have two weeks to get clean. If you choose not to, you’ll have to find somewhere else to live.”
Bradley huffed, then exited through the back door. She heard the floorboards creak again, figuring Cheryl had gone back upstairs. She stood on the small cement patio, shoving her hands into her back pockets and sighing. She hadn’t eaten more than a piece of toast all day, so when she shut her eyes, dizziness crept in.
While it was true she’d been drinking excessively, she never shirked her responsibilities with her niece. Even if she was hungover for a few hours in the morning, she put on a happy face for Taylor. She drank two or three cups of black coffee, showered, and then she was fine…until the following morning.
You’re becoming your mother, Bradley, and it scares me.
She reflected on Cheryl’s statement and frowned. In her mind, Bradley was nothing like Sandy Jackson. Her mom was a drug addict and an alcoholic. What Bradley was doing was getting drunk to numb the pain. She’d never raised a hand to Taylor or drank while she was on duty; her mother had done both.
She took a few steps into the backyard, pulling in a breath of chilly, Autumnal air. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. She was supposed to do bigger things—tell the truth to the masses. Bradley had it all—her dream career and a beautiful woman who loved her. If she would’ve just come clean sooner, perhaps all that would still be intact. Yet there she stood in rural West Virginia, guzzling booze every chance she got and chain-smoking cigarettes.
She pulled out her phone, opening the photos again and staring at one of her and Laura holding a baby goat on the ranch. Instead of bringing a smile to her face, it choked her up. She remembered the pictures in the magazine she’d seen of Laura and two other women, and she cried. Laura had moved on. That wasn’t surprising—she was a stunningly beautiful, successful news anchor who made sound decisions. Bradley had kept tabs on the UBA/NBN merger and knew Laura was a major player in the business deal. She was in her mid-50s and still making an impact on the news industry. That’s what Bradley had wanted—to make an impact. She’d been on that path, but then she fucked it up to save her baby brother.
She glanced at the picture again, tears falling onto the screen, and decided to do something about it. Bradley scrolled through her contacts until finding the once familiar number. Hey, can you talk?