Being in a room with Darcy is a surreal experience on its own for Clare. It's like seeing an old camp counselor working at Target years later. Introducing yourself as a random kid who slept in the muskrat cabin in 2002 is borderline insane, but the ninth circle of hell is real and exists in the form of them asking, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" while the pinpad flashes that it can't read your card chip and your mind goes blank on their name while they bag your ghost-shaped pillow and blackhead strips.
This is somehow worse for Clare, watching her childhood idol cry in the room they use to share before New York, before Africa, before cancer and motherhood, when either of them could still remember what it felt like to be sisters.
"Why is Joel still here?" Clare wants to know.
Darcy takes a moment to respond and Clare isn't sure what to expect.
"I can't just send him away."
Clare begs to differ. "You absolutely can."
"It would destroy the girls, the congregation. I can't let this get out."
The Kents are forever overburdened by their faux celebrity. Their congregation holds a great deal of power and influence over their lives, because they generously fund it, though not in the way Joel and Darcy would have everyone believe. At least not yet. And not ever should news of Joel's infidelity get out.
"Well, how long has this been going on? Is it serious?" Clare asks.
Darcy lets out a long low howl. Her voice crackles and breaks and the whole thing is a horror to behold.
Helen interrupts gently, "There's a mistress. And a baby."
When Clare looks back at her sister, Darcy is bent completely over, kneeling on her face, her mouth open as wide as it will go bellowing into the mattress beneath her.
"Oh, he is out of here!" Clare insists as she throws the door open and emerges back into the hall. Somehow Darcy is back on her feet, and she tackles Clare so hard that the two of them nearly topple over Jake, who was standing outside the door to his old room.
"I was just checking to see if there's anything left in my stash," he says.
"Why aren't you watching my girls?!" Darcy shouts.
"Why aren't you watching Silas?" Clare screams at the same time.
Jake cowers. Clare moves to push past him and Darcy grabs hold of her elbow.
"Let go of me!"
"Stay out of this!"
"Hey guys, can we-?"
The upstairs landing wasn't built for this and the tangled trio struggles to disengage one another. The resulting scuffle sends the three of them tumbling down the stairs. The crashing and banging build to a terrible crescendo wherein Jake smacks his head into the heavy oak door, Clare hits her elbow so hard that she feels it reverberate in her teeth, and several strands of Darcy's weave fall gracefully to the floor like feathers.
"Darcy, get up." Clare moans from the bottom of the pile.
Eli and Joel are frozen in the kitchen doorway.
"Kaboom!" Silas exclaims.
"Oof, I think I got hit in the nose." Darcy touches it gently as she gets to her feet. It's hard to tell if there's any discoloration because her whole face is discolored from the smeared makeup and the tears.
Glen pulls open the door and the girls peek around him from where they were playing outside.
"Are you trying to tear down the house?" he says as he helps Jake to his feet.
Clare pulls herself up with help from the banister as Helen makes her way downstairs.
"Downright disgraceful," Joel says and everyone's eyes go straight to him.
"That's no way to behave in front of the kids."
Clare looks absolutely murderous as Darcy crumbles. The family holds a collective breath and stares wide-eyed at one another.
Eli, while not privy to the conversation upstairs, feels that he can sus out where this is going. He takes his son and retreats into the kitchen. Clare will need him to post bail later.
The soft tap tap tap of ballet flats on the hardwood floor breaks the silence. A loud crack and a thud send Joel stumbling against the kitchen archway. He puts a hand to the red mark spreading across his face and when he looks up and gets a better look at his attacker, it isn't Clare. It's Helen.
"I think it's time for you to leave," she says.