Summary

While he is home, Darren helps Dick at the Commercial, where he observes the regulars and speculates on addiction. While his own problems with drugs are isolating and secretive, addiction to alcohol and ritual is normalized in a bar. The same men occupy the same stools night after night, and they do so side by side, out in the open. Darren serves these men while he is working, debating whether his role is as an enabler, and then he closes the bar with Gia each night. Together they grab stray beer mugs and wine glasses off the tables, wipe down counters, reposition chairs, and talk about the summer they worked together at the old folk’s home. Darren notices that Gia is just as attractive to him now as she was when he was 18.

At the Devlin farm, Shelby notices that their water...