When Annie ran away from all the drama at the Castellanos estate and wound up in the crypt, we knew it wasn’t going to be good. And when the camera cut to Theo, in candlelight, and caught in prayer— well, I think we watched through our fingers mostly, half-buried in the plush of the couch.

We used to watch AOT like that everyday together, me and Sissy. The episode always came on at three o’clock in the afternoon, right after Guiding Light— but Momma wouldn’t get off her shift til 2:30, and so she’d be rushing home to try and catch it.

It was after the third commercial break that night— Annie was pressed up against the dark marble walls, with Theo’s big manly fingers caught in her flaming red hair. There was a glassy look in her eyes. It was like we knew something was going to happen, and we knew it'd be bad, but we wanted it anyways— and then we heard the front door slam. We didn't get to finish the episode.

It was three more years before Momma started to spend story hours in the church basement— folding chairs and coffee urns and laminated promises on the walls. But me and Sissy kept watching; we were loyal to All Our Tomorrows. I think we were hoping for some kind of resolution— Sandra back on her pills, or in this case, off them.

Sissy drove the two of us to one ACOA meeting once, and I remember the lady talking about resentments— resentments and amendments. We were trying to guess when the day would come, when things would be said aloud. But then Momma didn’t feel the need to attend weekly anymore, and the day still hadn’t come. Well, she was nicer sometimes, but it felt like aspartame, and not the real thing.

I don’t have to guess at it anymore, though.

It was my sweeps week, during the Murphy fires, and I was driving boxes-full of shit from the family house to the storage unit in Elko.

When I was working my way through the old shelves in the family den, I found one of those faux books— the ones that are actually boxes; hollow on the inside. There was a weight to it, and even there with the state of Nevada on fire, I couldn’t resist.

It ended up being her copy of The Big Book. I’d never seen it in person before, only in the brochures. And it was doomsday, but you know, I can't really remember all the blazing, or the barking, or the build-up on the I-90. Just the brazen ribbon slip bookmark, 8/12ths of the way through the bulk of those pages.

I’m sorry, I think I was supposed to tell you about Annie, and her ex-fiancée Jonah, and her father-in-law, Theo.

Well, you probably won’t like how it ends— because it never really does.

Annie was pregnant after the cryptcest, but TPTB never went anywhere with it. They had a whole who’s the daddy bit tee’d up, so classic and soapy; is-it-my-son-or-my-grandson type drama. Sort of high Shakespearean.

But they couldn't bring it home, all because CBS didn’t renew their contract for All Our Tomorrows in ‘09, and then the show was taken off their programming. After 45 long years on air, every single weekday, it ended gracelessly— limply, without so much as a death rattle.

Worst of all of it, though, was Annie and Jonah’s wedding— it was towards the end, when they were trying so hard to wrap everything up nice with a bow. They even put Theo there, clapping in the front row— and Annie with that crown of braids, in that beachy chiffon. Whitewashed— so pretty it's ugly. So sweet it just sits sick.

I think maybe the real Annie is still there, coming apart in the crypt, with her feathered hair and modest slip. I think that maybe I like her better like that, too.

It was years later, when Sissy didn’t really keep up with any daytime anymore, and we were eating overpriced Grubhub on the floor of my Junior year dorm at UIUC. As we were scrounging around on Youtube, an advertisement played on her smudged computer screen for one of those docuseries on unsolved crimes— sort of low brow, if you ask me. And the girl in the promo had the second brightest red hair I’d ever seen.

“I still can’t believe she never said anything.”

I said it out loud, to no one in particular— like we used to do on the forum back in the day, airing our grievances out into the cosmos. But Sissy laughed, her mouth still full, and then she turned to me, and she nodded, like she knew exactly who I meant.