Part 6
Then Victor guided her from the room.
The house did not become quiet after they left. Doors closed. Staff spoke into radios. Cars rolled over the gravel drive. Somewhere below, dishes crashed into a sink with more force than necessary.
Lydia sat at last.
She looked older by several years.
“Eleanor,” she said, “I am deeply sorry for what happened.”
Eleanor waited.
Lydia’s eyes shifted toward Ruth. “Until we understand everything, it may be best for you to take paid leave.”
Adrian turned. “No.”
Lydia did not look at him. “For Eleanor’s protection.”
“From what?”
“Reporters. Guests. Questions. She should not have to return tomorrow and behave as if nothing happened.”
“I can decide whether I return,” Eleanor said.
Lydia folded her hands. “Of course.”
But the decision had already been made. Eleanor heard it in the polished gentleness of her voice.
Paid leave sounded like kindness.
It felt like removal.
“I would like my handbag,” Eleanor said.
Ruth answered carefully. “We need to retain it for now.”
“My keys are inside.”
“We can return the personal contents after documenting them.”
“My granddaughter’s photograph is in there.”
“I’ll make sure you receive it tonight.”
Eleanor nodded.
Adrian crouched beside her chair. It was an awkward position for a man in wet formal trousers, and under other circumstances she might have told him not to ruin his knees.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said.
“That is unnecessary.”
“I know.”
“I take the bus.”
“Not today.”
She looked toward Lydia.
His mother had begun speaking with Ruth about the board. Eleanor watched her for a moment.
Then she looked back at Adrian.
“Today is the first day I have been told not to come to work in thirty-two years.”
His expression tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
She allowed him to drive her home.
Eleanor lived in a two-bedroom bungalow eleven miles inland, on a street where every third house had once belonged to someone employed by Seacliff or one of the neighboring estates. The yards were small, the mailboxes leaned, and the summer air smelled of cut grass rather than salt.
Adrian’s black sedan looked absurd at the curb.
He carried a paper bag containing Eleanor’s damp uniform and his ruined jacket. Ruth had insisted the jacket remain with Eleanor because it had been around her when she left the pool, though no one could explain what evidentiary value a wet dinner jacket possessed.
Eleanor unlocked the front door with the spare key hidden beneath a ceramic frog.
Adrian looked at it.
“You should find a better place.”
“I have lived here twenty-four years.”
“That doesn’t make the frog secure.”
“It has been secure for twenty-four years.”
“The frog is bright green.”
“So no burglar would believe I was foolish enough to use it.”
He almost smiled.
Inside, the house was warm and dim. Eleanor turned on a lamp beside the sofa. A basket of unfolded laundry sat on the dining table. The refrigerator hummed unevenly in the kitchen.
Adrian remained near the door, suddenly uncertain.
He had visited once before, when Eleanor’s husband died. He had been nineteen and had stood in the same spot holding a casserole his mother’s chef had prepared. He had said he was sorry, then stared at the carpet as if grief might ask him a question.
Now he set down the paper bag.
“Would you like tea?” Eleanor asked.
“You don’t have to make me tea.”
“I am making myself tea.”
“I can do it.”
“You do not know where anything is.”
“I can find a kettle.”
She went into the kitchen.
He followed.
Eleanor filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. Adrian looked around at the yellow cabinets, the grocery coupons held to the refrigerator by magnets, and the chipped ceramic bowl full of unopened mail.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked.
“My pride.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He leaned against the counter. “I should have come down sooner.”
“You came as soon as you saw.”
“I should have known before I saw.”
Eleanor took two cups from the cabinet.
“That is not how knowing works.”
“I should have known Celeste was capable of it.”
“Were you planning to marry her?”
The question surprised both of them.
Adrian looked at the floor. “My mother hoped I would.”
“That was not my question.”
“No.”
Eleanor placed a tea bag in each cup.
“She believed you were.”
“I let her believe a lot of things.”
The kettle began to whisper.
“Why?” Eleanor asked.
“Because her father controls the largest external commitment to the rehabilitation center. Because the board likes alliances it can explain over lunch. Because my mother thinks stability is a person standing beside you in photographs.”
“Those are reasons to attend dinners.”
“I attended many dinners.”
“And she mistook attendance for love?”
“I think we both mistook convenience for something less ugly.”
The kettle whistled.
Eleanor poured the water.
She handed Adrian a cup and nodded toward the small table. He sat in the chair her husband had used for breakfast, knees crowded beneath the edge.
“I saw Celeste leave the library,” Eleanor said.
“You told Ruth.”
“I saw something else.”
Adrian waited.
“When she came out, she was carrying her phone flat against her palm. Not like someone finishing a call. Like someone hiding the screen.”
“Did you see what was on it?”
“No.”
“She may have photographed the envelope.”
“She may have done many things.”
He rubbed one thumb along the cup handle.
“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
“I was serving forty-seven guests.”
“You could have found Mara.”
“I tried. Then Celeste asked for the shawl.”
“And after?”
Eleanor looked at the laundry basket on the table. One of her pillowcases hung over the side.
“After, I was in the pool.”
Adrian lowered his eyes.
A car door slammed outside.
May you like
Eleanor’s granddaughter entered without knocking.
Leah Mercer was twenty-six, tall where Eleanor was petite, with curly brown hair pulled into a knot and a hospital identification badge still clipped to her navy scrubs. She stopped in the kitchen doorway.
