12. Nichole
— ? —
Nichole
Adelaide starts arriving unannounced.
Tuesday, she appears in the front hall while I’m helping Olivia with her letters. She doesn’t announce herself, doesn’t knock. Just walks through the door like she still owns it, her heels clicking across the marble with the rhythm of a metronome.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” she says, settling into a chair where she can see everything. “I’m just visiting my granddaughter.”
She stays for three hours. She asks Olivia questions about her lessons, her meals, her bedtime. She watches everything I do with the fixed attention of a scientist observing an experiment.
When she leaves, my hands are shaking.
Thursday, she arrives during lunch. She tours the kitchen, speaking to the cook in low tones. She examines the meal plan posted on the refrigerator, the snack schedule, the list of Olivia’s food preferences that I typed up myself.
“Very thorough,” she says, her voice perfectly pleasant. “One would almost think you’d done this professionally.”
“I had good teachers.”
“Oh? And who taught you, exactly?”
“Life, Mrs. Lippitt. Life taught me.”
She leaves without saying goodbye.
Sunday morning, she’s in the garden before we wake up. I find her talking to the groundskeeper, asking about household routines, staff hours, who comes and goes and when.
“I don’t understand why this concerns you,” I say.
“I don’t understand why you think it doesn’t.” She smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “This is my son’s house. My granddaughter’s home. I have every right to ensure things are being run properly.”
“Things are being run fine.”
“That remains to be seen.”
She starts checking the bedrooms.
I don’t realize it at first. The doors are closed when I pass; she’s quick and careful and always has an excuse ready. Looking for a book. Checking on the linens. Making sure Olivia’s room is properly aired.
But she’s looking for something. Counting toothbrushes. Checking the arrangement of clothes in closets. Looking for evidence of whatever she thinks she’s going to find.
The worst one comes on a quiet afternoon, when the house is still and I think I’m alone.
I come around a corner and find Adelaide crouched in front of Olivia.
Her hand is on the child’s arm. Not tightly, nothing that would leave a mark. But firmly. Holding her in place.
“And where does Nichole sleep, sweetheart?” Adelaide’s voice is sweet. Coaxing. The voice you use to get information from someone who doesn’t know they’re being interrogated.
Olivia is staring at the floor. Her rabbit is clutched against her chest, its one ear crushed under her chin.
“Olivia.” A little sharper. “Where does she sleep?”
“Adelaide.”
My voice is quiet. I didn’t plan it that way. I didn’t plan anything. I just walked around a corner and found a woman using a five-year-old as a weapon, and something in me went very still and very cold.
Adelaide looks up.
“Take your hand off her.”
The silence is absolute.
For a moment, nothing moves. Adelaide’s hand stays where it is. Olivia’s eyes stay on the floor. The whole house seems to be holding its breath.
Then Adelaide releases her.
Olivia bolts. She crosses the distance between us in half a second and buries her face in my stomach, her small hands fisting in my shirt. I can feel her shaking.
“You’re very protective,” Adelaide says, rising, smoothing her skirt like nothing happened. “For an employee.”
“I’m her stepmother.”
“You’re a line item.” Adelaide picks up her purse from the hall table. “And I’m going to find the invoice.”
She leaves.
Olivia doesn’t let go of me for an hour.
That night, after Olivia is finally asleep, I start moving my things.
Not much - I don’t have much. My book from the nightstand. My hairbrush from the bathroom. The worn cardigan I’ve had since college, the one that still smells faintly of the apartment I grew up in.
I’m carrying them down the hall when Callum appears in his doorway.
“What are you doing?”
“Losing.” I don’t stop moving. “She checked the bedrooms. Counted the toothbrushes. Asked Olivia where I sleep.”
His face goes hard. “She asked-”
“Your five-year-old daughter, Callum. She cornered a child to try to prove I’m not really your wife.” I push past him into his room - our room, now - and start putting my things in place. Hairbrush on the nightstand. Cardigan in the closet. Toothbrush in the holder next to his.
“So from now on, we live in this room,” I say. “Your clothes, my clothes, one bed, one bathroom, one everything. She can search this house on her hands and knees and she’ll find a marriage.”
He stands very still in the doorway, watching me move through his space, watching me claim it.
“Nichole-”
“I’m not offering you anything.” I won’t look at him. I can’t look at him. If I look at him, I’ll lose my nerve. “I’m protecting your daughter. She used a five-year-old as a witness. She’s not getting a second one.”
Silence.
I wait for him to argue. To tell me this is too far, too complicated, too much. To remind me that the contract specifies separate bedrooms, that this isn’t what we agreed to, that there are lines we’re not supposed to cross.
Instead, he looks at my hairbrush on his nightstand for a long moment.
“There’s one bed,” he says.
“I noticed.”
“I can sleep on the-”
“There’s one bed because there’s supposed to be one bed. That’s the whole point. That’s what married people do.”
“Married people who are actually married.”
“Married people who need Adelaide Lippitt to believe they’re actually married.” I finally look at him. “Can you do this or not?”
He meets my eyes. I don’t know what he sees there. I don’t know what I’m showing him.
“I can do it,” he says.
“Good.”
“Good.”
Neither of us moves.
“I should-” I gesture vaguely toward the bathroom. “Get ready for bed.”
“Right.” He steps back, clearing the doorway. “Right. I’ll just-”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I flee to the bathroom like it’s a shelter.
In the mirror, a woman stares back at me who I barely recognize. Wild eyes. Flushed cheeks. Heart going like she’s just run a marathon.
I splash cold water on my face.
I tell myself this is strategy. This is protection. This is keeping a promise to a little girl who deserves better than to be used as a pawn in her grandmother’s war.
I tell myself it’s not about him.
I tell myself a lot of things.
When I finally emerge, the lights are off. Callum is already in bed - on the far side, as far from the center as the mattress allows. His back is to me.
I climb in on the other side.
The bed is enormous. There’s enough space between us for a third person. Possibly a fourth. We could sleep here for a year and never touch.
“Nichole.”
His voice is quiet. I can’t see his face.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For protecting her.” A pause. “I should have seen it. I should have known my mother would-”
“You can’t see everything.”
“I should have seen this.”
I stare at the ceiling. The darkness is absolute. If I reached out, I could touch him - but I don’t. I keep my hands at my sides, my body still, my breathing careful and controlled.
“Just sleep,” I say. “We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
Silence.
Then: “Goodnight, Nichole.”
“Goodnight.”
The dark settles around us.
I don’t sleep for hours.