TUESDAY, JUNE 29. Sookie and Jason maintain a truce during Adele’s funeral, the largest ever held in the parish.
FRIDAY, JULY 2. While packing up her grandmother’s things, Sookie decides it would be better to move into Adele’s bedroom than lie across the hall knowing why it is empty. After that job is done, an exhausted Sookie showers and is combing out the tangles in her hair when Bill knocks on the door. Sookie allows him to comb her hair. As they talk and he soothes her with his touch, the mood between them changes, and Bill begins to make love to her. He is surprised to discover her virginity. The two begin a passionate affair.
SATURDAY, JULY 3. Jason comes into Merlotte’s for lunch and tells Sookie that the police have questioned him again about the murders. When her co-workers learn of her intensifying relationship with Bill, they all warn her away. But Sookie is happy to see Bill come into the bar. Malcolm and Diane arrive, and their behavior shocks and angers all the human patrons. The other vampires mock Bill for his devotion to Sookie as they leave for their home in Monroe. Bill waits outside for Sookie to make certain his former friends have left. Sookie follows him to his home, where they enjoy his hot tub together.
SUNDAY, JULY 4. Bill takes Sookie to the movies and out to eat—he abstains. As they lie in bed later, Bill makes a casual remark about his childhood that causes Sookie to tell him that her great-uncle sexually molested her as a child.
MONDAY, JULY 5. As she leaves Bill’s house in the morning, she is surprised to find Jason waiting for her with the news of her great-uncle Bartlett’s death during a robbery the night before. Jason’s shocked Sookie doesn’t mourn. Sookie tells her initially disbelieving brother what her uncle did to her and their aunt Linda, and how Adele protected her after she found out, kicking her brother out of their lives. It isn’t until Sookie arrives at work that day that she realizes Bill had him killed. She confronts Bill, who doesn’t deny it. Although they exchange “I love you”s for the first time, she tells him she can’t see him until she decides whether their love is worth the misery she might face by caring for him.
Sookie works hard to create a life without her grandmother and Bill. Adele’s lawyer works to wrap up her estate, and Sookie is surprised to receive twenty thousand dollars from Uncle Bartlett’s estate. She donates it to a local mental health center.
THURSDAY, JULY 8. During her separation from Bill, Sookie begins to realize the amount of resentment that the human bar patrons are feeling for the Monroe vampires, who have apparently been traveling around the surrounding area and behaving very badly. She catches thoughts of a plan to burn down their house with them in it.
TUESDAY, JULY 13. Bill comes into Merlotte’s with visiting vampire Harlen Ives, who was turned when he was a teenager. When Bill and Harlen announce that they are going to Monroe to visit Malcolm, Sookie gives Bill a vague warning, uncertain of what to do and how much to say. The level of anger and frenzy grows in the bar after they leave, and she calls Bill when she gets home to let him know.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14. Jason wakes Sookie with the news that the Monroe vampires’ house has been burned. She rushes to Monroe and sees four damaged coffins and one body bag with human remains. Unable to ascertain whether Bill was at the house, she realizes that Sam has arrived and allows him to take her home. Sam gets her to clean house the whole day to help her pass the time until the sun sets and she can find out if Bill was home and not in Monroe.
Sookie waits until dark and then heads out to the cemetery between their houses in the rain, calling Bill’s name. When Bill rises from the earth, she is overcome and falls to her knees. Sookie tells him of the death of the Monroe vampires, and he is lost for a moment in his anger and rage. Sookie deliberately changes his focus to sex, and they make love in the mud. When he comes to himself, Bill carries her to his home to bathe in his hot tub.
THURSDAY, JULY 15–SATURDAY, JULY 24. Sookie and Bill resume their relationship. They spend nighttime hours together, watching TV, going to movies, playing Scrabble, and making love. Sookie works while Bill sleeps; Bill reads, roams the woods, and does yard work at night while Sookie sleeps. They are uneasy because of the Monroe fire and the still-unsolved deaths of Maudette, Dawn, and Sookie’s grandmother.
Jason begins to come into the bar nearly every day to talk to Sookie. He tells his sister that the police have questioned him two more times and that he has spoken to a lawyer. Sookie asks why the police keep questioning him, and Jason confesses that he makes videos of his sexual encounters with women, including the two deceased, and that the police found copies. Jason asks Sookie to “listen” to see if she can find out if anyone who comes into the bar is the murderer.
Arlene asks Sookie if she can babysit for her the next night but angers Sookie when she decides that she cannot leave her children in the company of a vampire. To release her frustration, Sookie digs a hole in her backyard, telling a watchful Bill that she will plant a tree. After she calms down and they make love, he informs her that Eric has ordered him to bring her to Fangtasia. Sookie doesn’t want to go but realizes that she must obey for both her sake and Bill’s. Bill has her take his blood to strengthen her for the encounter.
SUNDAY, JULY 25. When Bill and Sookie arrive at Fangtasia, Eric reveals that someone has embezzled from the bar. He wants Sookie to use her gift to identify the thief. She promises to willingly help him now and in the future if he promises to go to the proper authorities rather than taking justice into his own hands. He agrees, and she interviews the human employees, discovering through one of them that the embezzler is the bartender, Long Shadow. Before she can inform Eric, Long Shadow attacks to keep her from speaking and is staked by Eric. As Long Shadow dies, his blood gushes out all over Sookie. Bloodlust begins to infect the vampires, so Sookie grabs Bill and flees for home. She has Bill drop her off at her house to spend the rest of the night alone.
MONDAY, JULY 26. Deciding to stay away from vampires for a while to remind herself that she is human, Sookie cannot help but notice that having Bill’s blood again has changed her, enhanced her. Her hair, eyes, and complexion are brighter; she is stronger and faster. When she gets to work, her fellow employees notice the difference in her as well. As the lunch crowd rolls in, she does as Jason asked and listens to the thoughts floating in the bar. She doesn’t pick up anything about the murders of Dawn and Maudette but does hear a group of men thinking about their involvement in the Monroe fire. Thinking that she might pick up more from the night crowd, she heads back to Merlotte’s in her casual clothes and sits at the bar next to an unusually alone Jason.
Bill enters Merlotte’s with a young woman in tow and informs Sookie that Eric sent her over as a reward and that Bill needs to send her back. Jason volunteers to drive her back to Monroe so that Sookie and Bill can talk, and Sookie takes Bill to the pond on Jason’s property, not wanting to go to either of their houses. She confesses her fear of Eric and the other vampires who could use her love for him and her family to control them. Bill ponders their situation and tells her that he may have a way to get around Eric’s dominion.
Bill goes to his own home to make phone calls, and a nervous Sookie cautiously scans her yard before hurrying into her house. Suddenly something hits her front door, and she immediately calls Bill, who rushes over to find Sookie’s cat Tina dead, strangled, on the front porch. Sookie bursts into tears but finally calms enough to bury her pet in the hole she previously dug in the backyard. Bill spends the night with a mourning Sookie.