PART 4:

And in that grave little face was the first thing that wasn’t grief that anyone had seen there in months. A question. Are you going to leave like the others? And Marin, God help her, found she couldn’t be one more person who walked out that door. One week, she said. A trial for her, not for the money. And if it’s not working, I walk, and nobody draws up a paper about it.

Vivian Hail drew a long breath through her nose like a woman who could see exactly where this road went and could not, for all her pearls, find the words to bar it. “You’ll regret bringing her into that house,” she said. But she was looking at June’s hand on the apron when she said it, and her voice had gone strange and thin. All of you, you have no idea what you’re walking into.

Outside, the summer heat shimmerred off the parking lot, and a child who hadn’t spoken in 2 months held on to a waitress with both hands now, and would not would not let go. The week began on a Sunday, which Gloria said was bad luck for anything but church, and good luck for everything else.

And Marin chose to believe the second half. She packed two duffel bags in the apartment she’d been one late check from losing. And when the black car came for her, it came too quietly, gliding to the curb without the cough and rattle of every car she’d ever owned. And a man in a gray cap took her bags as if they weren’t full of the same socks she’d been darning for years.

You can sit up front if you like, the driver said. Most don’t. I’m Theo Marin. She got in the back anyway because June was in the back, buckled into a seat that probably cost what Marin made in a month, looking out the tinted window at a world gone cool and dim through the glass. Hey, button. June didn’t answer, but she shifted 6 in closer along the leather until her shoulder was almost against Marin’s arm.

And then she went back to watching the summer slide by the cut hayfields gone gold. The heat standing in sheets above the road. The cicadas so loud Marin could hear them even through the sealed quiet of the car. The hail place was 40 minutes out, past a gate that opened on its own, and a drive that curved through trees old enough to have opinions.

The house, when it came, did not so much sit on the land as occupy it. Pale stone, tall windows, a fountain out front that ran clear and steady in the heat as though water were nothing, were free, were the least of anyone’s worries. It’s big, Marin said, because June was watching her face to see what she’d do with it. She made herself shrug.

Bet it echoes something awful. Bet you could yell in there and hear yourself three times. The smallest flicker at the corner of June’s mouth. Not a smile, the rumor of one. Inside the air was so cold it raised the hair on Marin’s arms, and the front hall went up two stories to a ceiling painted with clouds, and somewhere a clock ticked with the deep patience of money.

A woman in a pressed uniform met them, took the bags from Theo, and looked at Marin the way you’d look at weather coming in. Mrs. Hail asked that you be shown to the staff residence, the woman said. I’m Dana, housekeeper. Abe lower, almost kind. She’s the one fed you eggs this morning, Miss June.

Pointed right at the carton, didn’t you? June pressed closer to Marin’s leg. Mr. Hail, Dana went on. Careful, said the East Room. Not the staff residence. There’s a difference, Marin said. It wasn’t a question. There’s a difference, Dana agreed. And the look that passed between the two women said the rest, that somewhere above them, in the cool, tall rooms, a quiet argument had already been had about exactly where the diner girl would sleep, and Julian had won it, and Vivien had not forgotten.

The east room had a window that looked over the back lawns, where sprinklers turned slow rainbows in the late light, and a swimming pool lay flat and turquoise and unused. The bed was bigger than Marin’s old kitchen. There was a private bathroom with a door that locked just as Gloria had demanded, and a small sitting area with a chair the color of cream, and on the desk, someone had left a folded card with her name on it in Julian’s slanted hand.

The number on the contract still stands whenever you want it. J H. She read it once and put it face down in a drawer. June would not be left in her own room. Marin learned this at bedtime when the house had gone dim and the heat outside had finally cracked into the blue of a summer dusk. Crickets starting up beyond the glass.

June’s room was down the hall, a child’s room done by someone with a catalog, all soft grays and a canopy bed and a shelf of toys still in their boxes. And June stood in the doorway of it and would not go in. “This your room?” Maron asked. “Nothing.” The child’s hand found the hem of Marin’s borrowed cardigan.

“Okay,” Maron crouched. Okay, you don’t have to, but somebody’s got to sleep in here or that bed’s going to think nobody loves it. She nodded at the canopy. Beds have feelings. Everybody knows that. You leave one empty too long, it gets dramatic. June looked at the bed. then at Marin. Then she walked in, climbed up, and sat in the very center of the enormous mattress, small as a coin in a collection plate, and patted the space beside her once. So Marin sat.

She didn’t talk much. She told one slow story about a cat that used to come to the diner’s back door and refused on principle to come inside, and how Gloria had named it customer because it only showed up at meal times and never tipped. And somewhere in the middle of it, June’s eyes went heavy and her breathing went long and she tipped sideways until her head was on Marin’s knee. That was when Marin saw it.

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