Chapter 13
The water from the pitcher sat on the marble for a long time. No one with a mop came. The caterers were outside on the lawn, the string quartet was warming up, and inside the main hall was quiet except for the soft hum of the air conditioning.
Matteo didn't tell me to clean it. He told Bianca to walk with him to the office. I stayed in the hall with Mia, our shoes just outside the edge of the puddle. Mia held my hand tightly.
"You can go to the kitchen if you want," Matteo said to me before he left. "We'll be a few minutes."
I nodded. I took Mia down the back hallway. In the kitchen, one of the catering servers was icing pastries. She glanced at my wet knees but didn't say anything. I helped Mia sit at the small table where we usually ate and got her a dry pair of socks from the laundry basket.
Through the wall, I could hear voices in Matteo's office. Not shouting. Just steady and low.
When he called me in, about fifteen minutes later, Bianca was standing by the window with her arms crossed. She wasn't holding the clipboard anymore. Matteo sat on the edge of his desk. He had locked the hallway camera footage on his laptop before the gala. Now the screen was open again, paused on a still image of the entry hall.
"Elena," he said, "tell Bianca what you told me last week. About the pitcher."
I felt my throat get dry. I kept my voice even. "On Tuesday, you told Mia to carry the pitcher to the sink because you said she made a mess. There was no mess. You made her hold it with both hands and said she'd drop it because she's clumsy like me. She was scared after."
Bianca looked at me then. Her smile was gone. "That's not what happened. I was trying to teach her to help. She's six. She spills things."
Matteo didn't interrupt her. He clicked his laptop and turned it so we could both see. He pressed play.
The footage was from Tuesday afternoon, time stamped in the corner. The hall was empty. Mia walked through with a book. Bianca came in with the pitcher, set it on the floor, and said something I couldn't hear. Mia knelt to pick it up. Her hands shook. Bianca stood over her.
Matteo clicked to another clip. Day 0, the day he came home early. Me on my hands and knees. No spill on the floor at all until after Bianca lifted the pitcher.
"I watched both," he said. "There was never a spill before you said there was."
Bianca stared at the screen. Her jaw tightened. For a second her composure held, then it cracked. "Do you know what it's like to plan a life here and have to work around a live-in housekeeper and her kid in every room?" she said. Her voice was low and fast. "You hired her before we were engaged. I moved in and I was supposed to be the woman of the house and instead I'm supposed to pretend I don't mind toys in the hallway and laundry in my laundry room and everyone looking at me like I'm cruel when I ask for basic standards."
"It wasn't about standards," Matteo said quietly.
"It was," Bianca said. "It was about you never asking me what I wanted this house to be. I didn't want to be the bad guy. I wanted her to understand she works here. She doesn't live here like we do."
I stood very still. Mia wasn't in the room, but I could feel how that sentence would have sounded to her.
Matteo closed the laptop. "You told guests tonight she was just like her mother after she got scared. That wasn't standards. That was you telling a child who she is."
May you like
Bianca didn't answer right away. Her eyes filled, but she blinked it away. "I resent them," she said finally. It was barely above a whisper. "I did. I resented that I had to compete for space in my own home."
The admission hung there. Matteo looked at her for a long moment, then at me, as if to make sure I'd heard it clearly. The hallway outside was still quiet. The party was continuing without us on the lawn, glasses clinking faintly through the French doors.
