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Chapter 5

By 6:45, dinner is almost ready. There was some chicken breast in the fridge that was already marinated and somebody had printed instructions on the bag, so I just did what the instructions said and threw it in the oven. They must get their food from some sort of service with directions already on it.

The kitchen smells fantastic when the garage door slams. A minute later, Andrew Winchester is strolling into the room, his thumb in the knot of his tie to loosen it. I’m stirring some sauce on the stove top, and I do a bit of a double-take when I see him, having forgotten quite how handsome he is.

He grins at me – he’s even more handsome when he smiles. “Millie, right?”

“That’s right.”

He inhales deeply. “Wow. That smells incredible.”

My cheeks flush. “Thank you.”

He looks around the kitchen in approval. “You got everything clean.”

“That’s my job.”

He chuckles. “I suppose it is. Did you have a good first day?”

“I did.” I’m not going to tell him about the peanut butter debacle. He doesn’t need to know, although I suspect Nina will clue him in. I’m sure he won’t appreciate me almost killing his daughter. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Well, I have Nina to thank for that. She runs the household.”

As if on cue, Nina arrives in the kitchen, wearing another of her white outfits – a different one than only a few hours ago. Once again, she looks impeccable. But while I was cleaning earlier, I took a few minutes to look at the photographs on their mantle. There’s one of Nina and Andrew together from many years ago, and she looked so different then. Her hair wasn’t as blond and she had on less makeup and more casual clothing – and she was at least fifty pounds thinner. I almost didn’t recognize her – but Andrew looked exactly the same.

“Nina.” Andrew’s eyes light up at the sight of his wife. “You look beautiful – as usual.”

He pulls her to him and kisses her deeply on the lips. She melts against him, grabbing his shoulders possessively. When they separate, she gazes up at him. “I missed you today.”

“I missed you more.”

“I missed you more.”

Oh my God, how long are they going to debate who misses who more? I turn away, busying myself in the kitchen. It’s awkward to be so close to this display of affection.

“So.” Nina is the first to pull away. “Are you two getting to know each other?”

“Uh-huh,” Andrew says. “And whatever Millie is making smells incredible, doesn’t it?”

I glance behind me. Nina is watching me at the stove with that dark expression in her blue eyes. She doesn’t like her husband complimenting me. I don’t know what the problem is though – he’s obviously nuts about her²³.

“It does,” she agrees.

“Nina is hopeless in the kitchen,” Andrew laughs, throwing an arm around her waist. “We would starve to death if it were all on her shoulders. My mother used to drop by with meals that she or her personal chef made. But since she and my father retired to Florida, we’ve been subsisting mostly on takeout. So you’re a savior, Millie.”

Nina gives a tight smile. He’s just teasing her, but no woman wants to be compared unfavorably to another. He’s an idiot if he doesn’t know that. Then again, plenty of men are idiots.

“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes,” I say. “Why don’t you go relax in the living room and I’ll call you when it’s ready?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you want to join us for dinner, Millie?”

The sound of Nina inhaling sharply fills the kitchen. Before she can say anything, I shake my head vigorously. “No, I’m just going to go up to my room and relax. Thank you for the invitation though.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

Nina swats her husband in the arm. “Andy, she’s been working all day. She doesn’t want to have dinner with her employers. She just wants to go upstairs and text message her friends. Right, Millie?”

“Right,” I say, even though I don’t have any friends. At least, not on the outside.

Andrew doesn’t seem concerned either way. He was just being polite, oblivious to the fact that Nina didn’t want me at the dinner table. And that’s just fine. I don’t want to do anything to make her feel threatened. I just want to keep my head down and do my job.

Chapter 6

I forgot how amazing it is to sleep with my legs straight.

Okay, this cot is nothing special. It’s lumpy and the springs on the bed frame groan every time I move so much as a millimeter. But it is so much better than my car. And even more amazingly, if I need to use the bathroom during the night, it’s right next to me! I don’t have to drive around to find a rest stop and clutch my can of mace in my hand while emptying my bladder. I don’t even need mace anymore.

It feels so good to sleep in a normal bed that within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, I pass out.

When I open my eyes again, it’s still dark. I sit up in a panic, trying to remember where I am. All I know is I’m not in my car. It takes several seconds for the events of the last several days to come back to me. Nina offering me the job here. Moving out of my car. Falling asleep in an honest to goodness bed²⁴.

Gradually, my breathing slows.

I fumble on the dresser by my bed for the phone Nina bought me. The time is 3:46 in the morning. Not quite time to get up for the day. I shove the itchy covers off my legs and roll off the cot as my eyes adjust to the light from the moon filtering in through the tiny window. I’ll hit the bathroom, then I’ll try to fall back to sleep.

My feet creak against the bare floorboards of my tiny bedroom. I yawn, taking a second to stretch until my fingertips almost reach the lightbulbs on the ceiling. This room makes me feel like a giant.

I get to the door of my room and I grab the knob and… It doesn’t turn.

The panic that had drained from my body when I realized where I was now escalates once again. The door is locked. The Winchesters locked me in this room. Nina locked me in this room. But why? Is this all some kind of sick game? Were they looking for some ex-con²⁵ to trap in here – someone nobody would miss? My fingers brush against the scratch marks on the door, wondering who the last poor woman trapped in here has been.

I knew this had to be too good to be true. Even with the spectacularly dirty kitchen, this seemed like a dream job. I knew Nina had to have done a background check. She probably locked me in here, thinking nobody would ever miss me.

I flashback to ten years ago, the first night when the door to my cell slammed shut, and I knew this would be my home for a long time to come. I swore to myself that if I ever got out, I would never let myself be trapped in any situation ever again. Yet it’s less than a year after I got out, and here I am.

But I’ve got my phone. I can call 911.

I snatch up my phone from the dresser where I left it. I had a signal earlier today, but now there’s nothing. No bars. No signal.

I’m stuck here. With only one tiny window that doesn’t open, overlooking the backyard.

What am I going to do?

I reach for the doorknob one more time, wondering if I could somehow knock the door down. But this time, when I turn the knob sharply, it twists in my hand.

And the door pops open.

I stumble out into the hallway, breathing quickly. I stand there for a moment, as my heart rate slows to normal. I was never locked in the room after all. Nina didn’t have some crazy plot to trap me in there. The door was just stuck.

But I can’t seem to shake that uneasy feeling. That I should get out of here while I still can.

Chapter 7

When I get downstairs in the morning, Nina is systematically destroying the kitchen.

She has pulled every pot and pan from the cabinet below the counter. She’s ripped half the dishes from above the sink and several of them are lying broken on the kitchen floor. And now she is going through the refrigerator, haphazardly tossing food onto the floor. I watch in amazement as she takes an entire container of milk out of the refrigerator and hurls it onto the floor. Milk immediately started gushing out, forming a white river around the pots and pans and broken dishes.

“Nina?” I say tentatively.

Nina freezes, her hands curled around a bagel. She whips her head around to look at me. “Where is it?”

“Where… where is what?”

“My notes!” She lets out an anguished cry. “I left all my notes for the PTA meeting tonight on the kitchen counter! And now they’re gone! What did you do with them?”

First of all, why would she think her notes were in the refrigerator? Second, I am certain I didn’t throw out her notes. I mean, I’m ninety-nine percent certain. Is there some tiny chance that there was a little crumpled-up piece of paper on the counter that I assumed was garbage and threw away? Yes. I can’t rule out the possibility²⁶. But I was pretty careful about not throwing away anything that wasn’t garbage. To be fair, almost everything was garbage.

“I didn’t do anything with them,” I say.

Nina plants her fists on her hips. “So you’re saying my notes just walked away?”

“No, I’m not saying that.” I take a careful step toward her and my sneaker crunches on a broken plate. I make a note to myself to never come into the kitchen barefoot. “But maybe you left them somewhere else?”

“I did not!” she snaps at me. “I left them right here.” She slams her palm on the kitchen counter loud enough that I jump. “Right on this counter. And now – gone! Vanished!”

All the commotion has gotten the attention of Andrew Winchester. He wanders into the kitchen, wearing a dark suit that makes him look even more handsome than he looked yesterday, if that was possible. He is clearly in the process of tying his tie, but his fingers freeze mid-knot when he sees the mess on the floor.

“Nina?”

Nina turns to look at her husband, her eyes brimming with tears. “Millie threw out my notes for the meeting tonight!”

I open my mouth to protest, but it’s pointless. Nina is certain I threw out her notes, and it’s entirely possible I did. I mean, if they were so important, why would she just leave them lying on the kitchen counter? The way the kitchen looked yesterday, it could have been condemned.

“That’s terrible.” Andrew opens his arms and she flies into them. “But don’t you have some of your notes saved on the computer?”

Nina sniffles into his expensive suit. She’s probably getting snot all over it, but Andrew doesn’t seem to mind.

“Some of them. But I’ll have to redo a lot of it.” And then she turns to look at me accusingly.

I’m done trying to assert my innocence. If she is sure that I threw out her notes, the best thing to do is just apologize. “I’m so sorry, Nina,” I say. “If there’s anything I can do…”

Nina’s eyes lower onto the disaster on the kitchen floor. “You can clean up this disgusting mess you left in my kitchen while I fix this problem.”

With those words, she stomps out of the kitchen. Her footsteps disappear up the stairs as I contemplate how I’m going to clean up all these broken dishes, now intermingled with spilled milk and about twenty grapes rolling around the floor. I stepped on one of them, and it’s all over the bottom of my sneaker.

Andrew lingers behind in the kitchen, shaking his head.

Now that Nina has left, I feel like I should say something. “Listen,” I say, “I wasn’t the one who—”

“I know,” he says before I can get out my protest of innocence. “Nina is… high strung²⁷. But she has a good heart.”

“Yeah…”

He pulls off his dark jacket and starts rolling up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt. “Let me help you get this cleaned up.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’ll be faster if we work together.”

He goes into the closet by the kitchen and pulls out the mop – I’m shocked he knew exactly where it was. Actually, he knows his way around the closet of cleaning supplies very well. And now I get it. Nina has done things like this before. He’s gotten used to cleaning up her messes.

But still, I work here now. This isn’t his job.

“I’ll clean it up.” I put my hand on the mop he’s holding and tug it away from him. “You’re all dressed up, and this is what I’m here for.”

For a moment, he holds onto the mop. Then he allows me to take it from him. “Okay, thanks, Millie. I appreciate your hard work.”

At least somebody does.

As I get to work cleaning the kitchen, I think back to the photograph on the mantle of Andrew and Nina when they were first together, before they were married, before they had Cecelia. They look so young and happy together. It’s obvious Andrew is still crazy about Nina, but something has changed. I can sense it. Nina isn’t the person she used to be.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business.

Chapter 8

Nina must have thrown half the contents of the refrigerator on the kitchen floor, so I have to make a run to the grocery store today. Since apparently, I’m also going to be cooking for them, I select some raw meat and seasoning that I can use to throw together a few meals. Nina loaded her credit card onto my phone. Everything I buy will be automatically charged to their account.

In prison, the food options were not too exciting. The menu rotated between chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, lasagna, burritos, and a mysterious fish patty that always made me gag. There would be vegetables on the side that would be cooked to the point of disintegration. I used to fantasize about what I would eat when I got out, but on my budget, the options weren’t much better. I could only buy what was on sale, and once I was living in my car, I was even more restricted.

It’s different shopping for the Winchesters. I go straight for the finest cuts of steak – I’ll look up on YouTube how to cook them. I sometimes used to cook steak for my father, but that was a long time ago. If I buy expensive ingredients, they’ll come out good no matter what I do.

When I get back to the Winchester house, I’ve got four overflowing bags of groceries in the trunk of my car. Nina and Andrew’s cars take up the two spots in the garage, and she instructed me not to park in the driveway, so I have to leave my car on the street. As I’m fumbling to get the bags out of the trunk, the landscaper Enzo emerges from the house next to ours with some sort of scary gardening device in his right hand.

Enzo notices me struggling, and after a moment of hesitation, he jogs over to my car. He frowns at me. “I do it,” he says in his heavily accented English.

I start to take one of the bags, but then he scoops all four of them up in his massive arms, and he carries them to the front door. He nods at the door, waiting patiently for me to unlock it. I do it as quickly as possible, given that he’s carrying about eighty pounds’ worth of groceries in his arms. He stomps his boots on the welcome mat, then carries the groceries the rest of the way into the kitchen and deposits them on the kitchen counter.

“Gracias,” I say.

His lips twitch. “No. Grazie²⁸.”

“Grazie,” I repeat.

He lingers in the kitchen for a moment, his brows knitted together. I notice again that Enzo is handsome, in a dark and terrifying sort of way. He’s got tattoos on his upper arms, Part ially obscured by his T-shirt – I can make out the name “Antonia” inscribed in a heart on his right biceps. Those muscular arms could kill me without him even breaking a sweat if he got it in his head to do so. But I don’t get a sense that this man wants to hurt me at all. If anything, he seems concerned about me.

I remember what he mumbled to me before Nina interrupted us the other day. Pericolo. Danger. What was he trying to tell me? Does he think I’m in danger here?

Maybe I should download a translator app on my phone. He could type in what he wants to tell me and—

A noise from upstairs interrupts my thoughts. Enzo sucks in a breath. “I go,” he says, turning on his heel and striding back toward the door.

“But…” I hurry after him, but he’s much faster than me. He’s out the front door before I’ve even cleared the kitchen.

I stand in the living room for a moment, torn between putting away the groceries and going after him. But then the decision is made for me when Nina comes down the stairs to the living room, wearing a white pants suit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear anything besides white – it does complement her hair, but the effort of keeping it clean would drive me crazy. Of course, I’m going to be the one taking care of the laundry from now on. I make a note to myself to buy more bleach next time I’m at the grocery store.

Nina sees me standing there and her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Millie?”

I force a smile. “Yes?”

“I heard voices down here. Were you having company?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“You may not invite strangers into our home.” She frowns at me. “If you want to have any guests over, I expect you to ask permission and give us at least two days’ notice. And I would ask you to keep them in your room.”

“It was just that landscaper guy,” I explain. “He was helping me carry groceries into the house. That’s all.”

I had expected the explanation would satisfy Nina, but instead, her eyes darken. A muscle twitches under her right eye. “The landscaper? Enzo? He was here?”

“Um.” I rub the back of my neck. “Is that his name? I don’t know. He just carried the groceries in.”

Nina studies my face as if trying to detect a lie. “I don’t want him inside this house again. He’s filthy from working outside. I work so hard to keep this house clean.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Enzo wiped his boots off when he came into the house and he didn’t track in any dirt. And nothing is comparable to the mess I saw when I first walked into this house yesterday.

“Do you understand me, Millie?” she presses me.

“Yes,” I say quickly. “I understand.”

Her eyes flick over me in a way that makes me very uncomfortable. I shift between my feet. “By the way, how come you never wear your glasses?”

My fingers fly to my face. Why did I wear those stupid glasses the first day? I should never have worn them, and when she asked me about them yesterday, I shouldn’t have lied. “Um…”

She arches an eyebrow. “I was up in the bathroom in the attic and I didn’t see any contact lens solution. I didn’t mean to snoop, but if you’re going to be driving around with my child at some point, I expect you to have good vision.”

“Right…” I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans. I should just come clean. “The thing is, I don’t really…” I clear my throat. “I don’t actually need glasses. The ones I was wearing at my interview were more… sort of, decorative. You know?”

She licks her lips. “I see. So you lied to me.”

“I wasn’t lying. It was a fashion statement.”

“Yes.” Her blue eyes are like ice. “But then later I asked you about it and you said you had on contacts. Didn’t you?”

“Oh.” I wring my hands together. “Well, I guess… Yes, I was lying that time. I guess I felt embarrassed about the glasses… I’m really sorry.”

The corners of her lips tug down. “Please don’t lie to me ever again.”

“I won’t. I’m so sorry.”

She stares at me for a moment, her eyes unreadable. Then she glances around the living room, her eyes sweeping over every surface. “And please clean up this room. I’m not paying you to flirt with the landscaper.”

With those words, Nina strides out the front door, slamming it behind her.

Chapter 9

Nina is at her PTA meeting tonight – the one Iruined by throwing out her notes. She is grabbing a bite to eat with some of the other parents, so I’ve been tasked with making dinner for Andrew and Cecelia.

The house is so much quieter when Nina isn’t here. I’m not sure why, but she just has an energy that fills the entire space. Right now I’m alone in the kitchen, searing a filet mignon²⁹ in the frying pan before sticking it in the oven, and it’s heavenly silent in the Winchester household. It’s nice. This job would be so great if not for my boss.

Andrew has incredible timing – he comes home just as I’m taking the steaks out of the oven and letting them rest on the kitchen counter. He peeks into the kitchen. “Smells great – again.”

“Thanks.” I add a little bit more salt to the mashed potatoes, which are already drenched in butter and cream. “Can you tell Cecelia to come down? I called her twice but…” Actually, I called up to her three times. She has not yet answered me.

Andrew nods. “Gotcha.³⁰”

Shortly after Andrew disappears into the dining room and calls her name, I hear her quick footsteps on the staircase. So that’s how it’s going to be.

I put together two plates containing the steak, mashed potatoes, and a side of broccoli. The portions are smaller on Cecelia’s plate, and I am not going to enforce whether she eats the broccoli or not. If her father wants her to eat it, he can make her do it. But I would be remiss if I didn’t provide vegetables. When I was growing up, my mother always made sure to have a serving of vegetables on a dinner plate.

I’m sure she’s still wondering where she went wrong with raising me.

Cecelia is wearing another of her overly fancy dresses in an impractical pale color. I’ve never seen her wear normal kid clothing, and it just seems wrong. You can’t play in the dresses Cecelia wears – they’re too uncomfortable and they show every speck of dirt. She sits down at one of the chairs at the dining table, takes the napkin I laid out, and places it down on her lap daintily. For a moment, I’m a bit charmed. Then she opens her mouth.

“Why did you give me water?” She crinkles her nose at the glass of filtered water I put at her place setting. “I hate water. Get me apple juice.”

If I had spoken to somebody like that when I was a child, my mother would have smacked my hand and told me to say “please.” But Cecelia isn’t my child, and I haven’t managed to endear myself to her yet in the time I’ve been here. So I smile politely, take the water away, and bring her a glass of apple juice.

When I place the new glass in front of her, she carefully examines it. She holds it up to the light, narrowing her eyes. “This glass is dirty. Get me another one.”

“It’s not dirty,” I protest. “It just came out of the dishwasher.”

“It’s smudged.” She makes a face. “I don’t want it. Give me another one.”

I take a deep, calming breath. I’m not going to fight with this little girl. If she wants a new glass for her apple juice, I’ll get her a new glass.

As I’m fetching Cecelia her new glass, Andrew comes out to the dining table. He’s removed his tie and unbuttoned the top button on his white dress shirt. Just the tiniest hint of chest hair peeks out. And I have to look away.

Men are something I am still learning how to navigate in my post-incarceration life³¹. And by “learning,” I of course mean that I am completely avoiding it. At my last job waitressing at that bar – my only job since I got out— customers would inevitably ask me out. I always said no. There just isn’t room in my messed-up life right now for something like that. And of course, the men who asked me were men I wouldn’t have ever wanted to go out with.

I went to prison when I was seventeen. I wasn’t a virgin, but my only experiences included clumsy high school sex. Over my time in jail, I would sometimes feel the tug around attractive male guards. Sometimes the tug was almost painful. And one of the things I looked forward to when I got out was the possibility of having a relationship with a man. Or even just feeling a man’s lips against mine. I want it. Of course I do. But not now. Someday.

Still, when I look at a man like Andrew Winchester, I think about the fact that I haven’t even touched a man in over a decade – not like that, anyway. He’s not anything like those creeps at the seedy bar where I used to wait tables. When I do eventually put myself back out there, he’s the sort of man I’m looking for. Except obviously not married.

An idea occurs to me: if I ever want to release a little tension, Enzo might be a good candidate. No, he doesn’t speak English. But if it’s just one night, it shouldn’t matter. He looks like he would know what to do without having to say much. And unlike Andrew, he doesn’t wear a wedding ring – although I can’t help but wonder about this Antonia person, whose name is tattooed on his arm.

I wrench myself from my fantasies about the sexy landscaper as I return to the kitchen to retrieve the two plates of food. Andrew’s eyes light up when he sees the juicy steak, seared to perfection. I am really proud of how it came out.

“This looks incredible, Millie!” he says.

“Thanks,” I say.

I look over at Cecelia, who has the opposite response. “Yuck! This is steak.” Stating the obvious, I guess.

“Steak is good, Cece,” Andrew tells her. “You should try it.”

Cecelia looks at her father then back down at her plate. She prods her steak gingerly with her fork, as if she’s anxious it might leap off the plate and into her mouth. She has a pained expression on her face.

“Cece…” Andrew says.

I look between Cecelia and Andrew, not sure what to do. It hits me now that I probably shouldn’t have made steak for a nine-year-old girl. I just assumed she had to have highbrow taste, living in a place like this.

“Um,” I say. “Should I…?”

Andrew pushes back his chair and grabs Cecelia’s plate from the table. “Okay, I’ll make you some chicken nuggets.”

I follow Andrew back into the kitchen, apologizing profusely. He just laughs. “Don’t worry about it. Cecelia is obsessed with chicken, and especially chicken nuggets. We could be dining at the fanciest restaurant in Long Island, and she’ll order chicken nuggets.”

My shoulders relax a bit. “You don’t have to do this. I can make her chicken nuggets.”

Andrew lays her plate down on the kitchen counter and wags a finger at me. “Oh, but I do. If you’re going to work here, you need a tutorial.”

“Okay…”

He wrenches the freezer open and pulls out a giant family pack of chicken nuggets. “See, these are the nuggets Cecelia likes. Don’t get any other brands. Anything else is unacceptable.” He fumbles with the Ziploc seal on the bag³² and removes one of the frozen nuggets. “Also, they must be dinosaur-shaped. Dinosaur – got that?”

I can’t suppress a smile. “Got it.”

“Also”—he holds up the chicken nugget—“you have to first examine the nugget for any deformities. Missing head, missing leg, or missing tail. If the dinosaur nugget has any of these critical defects, it will be rejected.” Now he pulls a plate from the cabinet above the microwave. He lays five perfect nuggets on the plate. “She likes to have five nuggets. You put it in the microwave for exactly ninety seconds. Any less, it’s frozen. Any more, it’s overcooked. It’s a very tenuous balance.”

I nod solemnly. “I understand.”

As the chicken nuggets rotate in the microwave, he glances around the kitchen, which is at least twice as large as the aPart ment I was evicted from. “I can’t even tell you how much money we spent renovating this kitchen, and Cecelia won’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of the microwave.”

The words “spoiled brat³³” are at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say them. “She knows what she likes.”

“She sure does.” The microwave beeps and he pulls out the plate of piping hot chicken nuggets. “How about you? Have you eaten yet?”

“I’ll just bring some food up to my room.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t want to join us?”

Part of me would like to join him. There’s something very engaging about Andrew Winchester, and I can’t help but want to get to know him better. But at the same time, it would be a mistake. If Nina walked in and saw the two of us laughing it up at the dining table, she wouldn’t like it. I also have a feeling that Cecelia won’t make the evening pleasant.

“I’d rather just eat in my room,” I say.

He looks like he’s going to protest, but then he thinks better of it. “Sorry,” he says. “We’ve never had live-in help before, so I’m not sure about the etiquette.”

“Me either,” I admit. “But I don’t think Nina would like it if she saw me eating with you.”

I hold my breath, wondering if I’ve overstepped by stating the obvious. But Andrew just nods. “You’re probably right.”

“Anyway.” I lift my chin to look at his eyes. “Thank you for the tutorial on the chicken nuggets.”

He grins at me. “Any time.”

Andrew takes the plate of chicken back into the dining room. When he’s gone, I gobble up the food from Cecelia’s rejected plate while standing over the kitchen sink, then return to my bedroom.