Chapter 1
The pool water pulled at my dress as I tried to lift myself onto the terrace.
My fingers slipped on the marble.
I caught the edge again, coughing so hard I could barely breathe. Across the water, I could see the kitchen windows of the Sterling mansion. Someone might have been standing behind them, but the afternoon sun turned the glass into a mirror.
“Please,” I said. “Help me out.”
Bianca Sterling looked down at me without moving.
She wore a white pleated dress and gold earrings. Her blonde hair was pinned into the same smooth bun she wore to charity lunches. From a distance, she would have looked like a woman enjoying a warm afternoon beside her pool.
From where I hung, I could see the smile at the corner of her mouth.
“You still think you can give orders in this house,” she said.
“I only asked you to help me.”
“You told the children they could have water.”
I stared at her.
Ella and Oliver had come in from the garden flushed and thirsty. There had been a jug on the kitchen counter, and I had poured them each a glass.
“They were thirsty, Bianca.”
“I told them to wait until lunch.”
“Oliver said he felt dizzy.”
“That boy repeats whatever you put in his head.”
My arms shook. I was seventy-four, and my pale purple dress had soaked up so much water that it dragged at me each time I tried to climb out.
“Please call someone,” I said.
Bianca crouched, close enough that I thought she might finally take my hand.
Instead, she looked toward the upper windows.
“The children are in their rooms. Daniel won’t be back until tonight.”
I felt the first real surge of fear.
Bianca was my employer, at least on paper. She had married Daniel Sterling three years earlier and taken charge of the house soon after. I had worked there since Ella was born, long before Bianca knew where Westchester was.
More than that, Ella and Oliver were my grandchildren.
Their mother, my daughter Lily, had died when Oliver was two. I stayed because the children needed me. I accepted wages because Bianca insisted every adult under her roof should have a place on the payroll or leave.
Daniel had let her decide.
I tightened my grip on the pool edge.
“Where are the children?” I asked.
“I just told you.”
“I heard Ella calling before you brought me out here.”
“She’s upset because you encouraged her to disobey me.”
I remembered Ella’s face in the kitchen. She had held her glass with both hands and drunk too fast. Oliver had asked for more, then stopped when Bianca appeared in the doorway.
I had said, “They need a little water.”
Bianca had told me to come outside with her.
At the pool, she had turned suddenly. Her hands struck my shoulders, and I went backward into the water.
I had surfaced to the sound of her saying I should learn to mind her.
Now the house stood quiet behind her.
“You pushed me,” I said.
Bianca’s expression hardened.
“You lost your balance.”
“You put both hands on me.”
“Who’s going to agree with you?”
I looked again toward the kitchen. The window was empty, or seemed to be.
I thought of Daniel. He had loved Lily fiercely once. After she died, he could hardly look at the children without crying. Bianca had entered his life when he was exhausted and lonely, and she had made herself useful in every part of it.
She spoke for him at school meetings. She answered his calls. She told him I confused the children by talking too much about Lily.
Lately, Ella had started asking permission before she hugged me.
“I want to speak to Daniel,” I said.
“You can speak to him after you apologize.”
“For giving them water?”
“For teaching them that my word means nothing.”
My right hand slipped.
For a moment, I went under. I swallowed water and kicked until I found the ledge again. My chest burned when I came up.
Bianca took one step back to keep her shoes dry.
I had spent years keeping those children safe. I knew which nights Oliver woke from bad dreams. I knew Ella hid broken things because she was afraid of being scolded. That morning, Oliver had whispered that Bianca had locked the playroom while they were inside.
I had asked him when.
He had glanced toward the hallway and stopped talking.
I could not let myself sink while they were still in that house.
I hooked an elbow onto the marble and pulled. Pain shot through my shoulder. Bianca watched until I almost had my chest above the edge, then pressed the toe of her shoe against my sleeve.
My elbow slid away.
“Stop,” I gasped.
“Then listen.”
The breeze moved across my wet hair. I was cold despite the sun.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “you’ll tell Daniel you’re leaving because the work is too much for you. You’ll say the children are happy here.”
I shook my head.
“You have a sister in Connecticut. You can go to her.”
“My sister died last winter. You know that.”
Bianca’s eyes flickered, then settled.
“Then find somewhere else.”
I thought of the spare bedroom upstairs, with its narrow bed and the drawings Oliver had slipped beneath my door. Leaving it would hurt. Leaving the children with her frightened me more.
“I’m not saying they’re happy when they’re scared,” I said.
Bianca straightened.
For the first time, I saw anger break through her careful face.
“You’ve been filling their heads with stories about Lily.”
“I answer when they ask about their mother.”
“Ella told Daniel she wants to live in her mother’s house.”
“She already does.”
Bianca turned her head toward the mansion, checking the windows again. Then she looked back at me.
“What did you tell her about the house?”
Only then did I understand why she had been listening so closely when Ella spoke at breakfast.
Lily’s father-in-law, the elder Mr. Sterling, had left the estate in a trust for the children. Daniel managed it until they came of age. Bianca lived there, but the house was Ella’s and Oliver’s future.
I had told Ella the truth when she asked whether Bianca could send me away and sell everything Lily loved.
“Enough to help her feel secure,” I said.
Bianca’s face went still.
My legs were tiring. I pulled myself toward the shallow end, where a step ran beneath the water. She followed me along the edge.
“I was going to let you leave quietly,” she said.
I reached the step and found my footing. Before I could stand, Bianca stepped in front of the handrail.
“Tell me exactly what else you said.”
“Move, Bianca.”
She did not.
Through the kitchen window, I caught a small movement. A face, perhaps. Then it vanished.
I hoped it was Ella. I hoped just as fiercely that it wasn’t.
Bianca noticed where I was looking. She gave me a cold smile and walked toward a bucket beside the terrace chairs.
She had brought it from the garage when she called me outside. I had barely seen it before she pushed me in.
May you like
Now she bent over it and drew out a rag black with industrial grease from one of the lawnmowers.
Dark oil dripped from the rag onto the white marble.
