Chapter 3 - Waiting for the Knock
The soup was getting cold against my skin. That was the worst of it, worse than the smell or the stain spreading across my coverlet. It clung to the satin of my nightgown and turned damp and heavy, and I could feel it drying tight around my collarbone where my pearl necklace sat.
Vanessa still held the white bowls. One in each hand, like she didn't intend to set them down. Brown liquid sloshed at the bottom of one when she shifted her weight.
Daniel stood by the tall windows with his black phone still in his hand. His suitcase was on the floor beside the drapes where he'd dropped it. He hadn't moved since he'd ended the call.
My name is Margaret. That morning I had asked for breakfast in bed.
The housekeeper — Rosa — slipped toward the bathroom door. I heard the linen closet open, the soft pull of folded towels. She came back with a thick white towel pressed to her chest and started toward my bed.
"Let me just —" she whispered, her eyes on my nightgown. "Mrs. Hale, you'll catch cold."
She got within two steps before Vanessa spoke.
"Stop." Vanessa didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to. "Don't touch anything. You'll make it look like we — like something happened that didn't."
Rosa stopped. The towel hung in her hands. She looked at Daniel, then at me, then back at the floor.
"She's shaking," Rosa said, very low. "It's wet through."
"And it will still be wet when they get here," Daniel said. He pushed off from the window frame and came to stand at the foot of my bed. "Put the towel down, Rosa. Not on her. On the chair. Please."
He was polite about it, but his jaw was set. I knew that look. He used it in business when he wasn't going to move.
Vanessa let out a short breath. "This is insane. You're going to leave your own mother sitting in —" She glanced at my lap. "You want them to walk in and see this."
"I want them to see exactly what they see," Daniel said.
I tried to pull the coverlet up over myself. My hands were shaking and the patterned fabric was stiff where the soup had soaked in. The stain had darkened from brown to something almost rust-colored at the edges. My nightgown stuck to my thighs. I hated that Daniel could see it. I hated that anyone would see it.
"I'm fine," I said. It came out thinner than I meant. "Really. I can change. It's just soup."
Daniel looked at me then, and his face softened in a way that made my eyes burn.
"Mom," he said. "Don't. Okay? Just don't right now."
He turned to Vanessa. "Set the bowls down."
"Why? So you can photograph them like I'm some criminal?" She lifted one a little higher. "I brought her breakfast. She knocked one over because she didn't like that I said no more meals in bed."
"You poured it on her," Daniel said. Flat. Not loud.
Rosa made a small sound and pressed her hand to her apron.
Vanessa stared at him. "You keep saying that. You walked in for ten seconds and suddenly you're sure."
"I saw enough," he said.
For a moment nobody moved. The chandelier ticked faintly above us. Daylight came hard through the tall windows behind Daniel and made the dust show in the air. The lamp on my nightstand was still on from the morning, useless in all that light.
Vanessa walked to the dresser like she was going to set the bowls there. Daniel stepped sideways, blocking the path to the hall.
"Leave them on the nightstand," he said. "Don't wash them. Don't wipe them."
"You cannot be serious."
"I'm serious."
She set them down hard on my nightstand. One clattered against the lamp base. Soup smeared on the white wood. She didn't wipe that either. She folded her arms, gold earrings catching the light when she turned her head.
"Fine. Preserve your evidence." Her voice shook just once. "Rosa, pick up that towel. You don't need to stand there gawking."
Rosa bent and retrieved the towel she'd laid on the chair. She held it tight against her maroon top, her knuckles white around the lace edge of her apron.
"Rosa stays," Daniel said. "She's a witness. She doesn't leave this room until they talk to her."
"She works for us," Vanessa said. "You don't get to —"
"She stays."
I felt a drip slide down my neck and catch on a pearl. I wanted to take the necklace off but my fingers wouldn't work right. It had been my husband's last gift to me. I kept thinking, stupidly, about the clasp tarnishing. About the smell getting into the satin lace at my collar.
Daniel came around to my side of the bed. He didn't sit — there was nowhere clean to sit — but he crouched so his eyes were level with mine. His white shirt was wrinkled from travel. His suitcase still had a baggage tag on the handle.
"You cold?" he asked quietly.
I nodded before I could stop myself.
He glanced at the chair, at the towel in Rosa's hands, then back at my stained coverlet. I could see him calculating it. What touching would ruin.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I know. Just until they knock. I need them to walk in and understand without anyone explaining it away."
May you like
Behind him, Vanessa moved to the far window and turned her back to us. Rosa edged closer to my bed, not touching, just close enough I could hear her breathing.
I pulled my hands into my lap and felt the cold soup on my palms. I didn't wipe them on anything. I just held still and listened for a car on the county road, for tires on gravel, for any knock at all.
