Chapter 4
The kitchen lights came on at six forty. I watched them from the sidewalk on the other side of the stone wall, my hands empty, my coat still damp from the night before.
Through the gap in the gate I could see him moving fast inside. He didn't turn on the nursery light first. He went to the kitchen. I saw him open the cabinet under the sink, then the trash. He pulled out the light-colored bowl I'd passed through the bars. He stared at it, turned it over in his hands, checked the dent on the rim with his thumb like he was deciding if someone else would notice it.
He didn't throw it away. He rinsed it, dried it with a dish towel, and slid it onto a high shelf behind the mixing bowls where no one would reach without a stool. Then he went to the nursery.
I counted his steps. The warm tungsten glow from last night was gone, replaced by flat morning light through the same barred window. He picked up the pink rabbit from the windowsill, brushed off the dust, and set it straight against the pillow between Rosaline and Camille. He smoothed the blanket. He rehearsed normal.
My name is Hulda. That morning I was not the woman at the window anymore. I was the woman at the gate trying to do it the right way.
At seven fifteen I pressed the call button on the iron gate. The intercom crackled.
I said, "It's Hulda. I was here last night. I wanted to check on Rosaline and Camille."
There was a pause. His voice came back tight and even. "You need to leave."
"I brought oatmeal. It's just plain, with a little brown sugar. I didn't want to—"
"We had breakfast," he said. "They're fine."
I could hear one of the girls in the background. A small voice, then another. He turned away from the intercom, and the audio went muffled. I heard him say, "Girls, eat your toast," too bright, too loud.
Rosaline's voice carried. "Where's the lady?"
He answered without missing a beat. "No lady today, sweetheart. Just us. Eat."
Camille made a sound, that soft whine kids make when they don't understand why a thing has stopped. "Want bowl," she said. It wasn't clear if she meant the bowl itself or the food that had been in it.
I pressed the button again. "I can leave it at the gate. You don't have to let me in."
The intercom clicked. "Don't come back to the window. Don't come to the gate. If you keep coming, I'll have to tell people you're trespassing. Do you understand?"
I understood what he was doing. He was building a story where last night had been an intrusion, not a response. The bowl hidden on the high shelf was part of it. The rabbit placed just so was part of it.
"I'm not trying to cause trouble," I said. My voice shook and I hated it. "They were hungry. They reached for it."
"They reach for everything," he said. "You don't know them."
Inside, I heard Rosaline again, louder this time. "Hulda gave rabbit food. Where Hulda?"
My chest pulled tight. I hadn't told them my name, or I didn't remember telling them, but Rosaline had remembered it from the night before when he had said it through the camera. The camera's caught you, Hulda. She'd held onto it.
The daytime housekeeper's car pulled into the drive then, a blue Honda that crunched over the gravel. A woman in her fifties got out with a tote bag and a travel mug. She nodded at me, curious, not unfriendly.
He opened the gate for her from inside, just enough for her to slip through, and he kept his body in the gap so I couldn't step forward.
"Morning, Mr. Whitaker," she said.
"Morning, Lena," he said. He smiled. It looked practiced. "Girls are in the nursery. They had a late night, left a little mess by the window. I cleaned it up."
Lena glanced at me. "Do you need—"
"She was just leaving," he said.
Lena looked between us and went inside. The gate clicked shut.
He looked at me one last time. His dark wavy hair was combed, his shirt was black and buttoned, his suit jacket was gone. In daylight he didn't look shocked anymore, just tired and locked down.
"Please," I said, quieter now. "Just tell me they ate."
"They ate," he said.
He walked back toward the house without waiting to see if I believed him. The kitchen lights stayed on.
I didn't leave right away. I sat on the low wall across the street and took my phone out. I opened the notes app and typed the time, 7:22 a.m., gate intercom, denied entry. I typed that Lena had arrived, that Rosaline had asked for me by name, that Camille had asked for the bowl. I took a photo of the gate from the sidewalk, the estate number clear, the bars on the nursery window just visible behind the hedge. I wasn't hiding anything. I was making a record of what had happened in daylight, when everything was supposed to look normal.
May you like
From the nursery window, I thought I saw a small pink shape in the glass. Rosaline's rabbit, back on the sill. He'd moved it again, or she had. Either way, it was still there.
I put my phone away, stood up, and walked home. I didn't go back to the bars. Not that day.
