Chapter 1
The bowl was light-colored and dented on one side and it fit barely between the twisted iron bars where the paint had chipped to rust. I held it with both hands and the heat bled through my palms while the two little girls reached for it from the warm side of the glass. Behind them, the nursery glowed dim and amber, and outside where I stood the air was deep winter blue and it made my breath show. That was the contradiction I couldn't get past. Inside, that house had everything. Outside, I was the one feeding them.
He stood behind them in his dark gray suit and black shirt, and even from the other side of the bars I could see he was at his peak, the man of the estate, composed and untouched. His mouth was open.
My name is Hulda.
It was just after nine that night. The estate was quiet except for the low hum of the heat inside and the nursery nightlight humming against the white French doors. I had come around the north side the way I always did, staying off the driveway where the motion lights would catch my olive coat, and crouched by the nursery window where the bars twisted close together. Rosaline was already at the sill in her pink pajamas, her pink bow slipped a little to the side, her pink stuffed rabbit tucked against the interior ledge where she'd left it. Camille came up beside her in her light blue pajamas, her ponytail bobbing, both of them on their toes reaching up. I tipped the bowl forward and slid it between the bars, just enough that Rosaline's small hands could steady the rim.
I didn't hear him at first. I was watching their fingers.
Then I heard him. "Rosaline. Camille, who is that?" he said. His voice was low and shocked, not loud, and it cut through the glass. I didn't move. The girls didn't either. Rosaline looked back toward him, then back at me, her hands still on the bowl.
I kept my eyes on them. "Eat slowly, sweethearts," I said, soft, because I knew if they rushed they'd spill it down their fronts and he'd see more than he already did. Camille took the small spoon I'd tucked in the bowl and brought it to her mouth with both hands. The rabbit on the sill tipped a little when she bumped it.
He stepped closer. I could see his reflection now in the glass over theirs, dark wavy hair, jaw tight, breathing shallow like he was trying not to react too fast. The warm tungsten light made the side of his face amber and left the rest in shadow.
"Why are you feeding my children?" he said.
I felt the cold bite through my coat at the knees where I was crouched in the mulch. I had told myself I wouldn't answer that way, that I'd keep it plain and not accuse. But the bowl was already through the bars and the girls were already eating and there was no lie that would explain it without making me the problem. I looked up at him through the twisted bars and said it. "Because someone inside isn't."
He didn't answer right away. His eyes moved from the bowl to my hands to his daughters and back to me, and something shifted in his face, the shock hardening into something more controlled. He reached into his suit pocket, not for his phone, just resting his hand there, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter, almost calm, which was worse.
May you like
"The camera's caught you, Hulda," he said.
No one retreated. Rosaline held the bowl steady while Camille took another slow spoonful, and the rabbit stayed on the sill between them and me, pink against the white paint. I stayed crouched outside in the blue night with my hands still on the bowl through the bars, and he stayed inside in the warm light a few feet behind his children, watching. The window was still between us, the bars still between us, and we both understood what had just been named and what had just been recorded, and neither of us moved to end it.
