231|Meal Ticket

They spent a blissful few hours at the beach, soaking up the sun while Orlando collected sea shells and built sandcastles.

For Marybeth, those few hours were as perfect as life would ever get, and everything was as it should be.

She didn't have to think about her father's illness, her ex fighting for his life in some undisclosed hospital somewhere in the Bay, or Iris being an informant and very likely getting killed for it.

She didn't have to worry about the upcoming ball and possibly having an unwanted family reunion with a mother she hadn't seen in twenty years.

With the sun rays dancing on her skin, the gleeful sounds of children splashing in the water, and the smell of hotdogs wafting in the air, it was so easy for Marybeth to fall under the idyllic spell of the breathtaking sea and forget the dark, ugly world of the Hawthornes.

But, like all good things, their time at the beach had to come to an end, and they soon found themselves heading back home, where she and Austin spent the