23. Carrington
CARRINGTON
Melinda Alvarez took her keys out of her bag before they reached the car.
"Thank you for coming out," Carrington said. "Diane Bell keeps my calendar if your office needs anything further."
"You'll have the summary within ten days." Melinda set the canvas bag on the passenger seat, straightened, and clasped Carrington’s hand.
"Thank you."
Melinda got in and drove off, turning left at the road. Carrington watched her until the gate swung shut against the post. She walked back into the house. She could hear Bettina's radio softly playing at the back of the house.
In the study, she set the folder down on the desk. The courtyard was white through the north window. She turned from it and called Diane.
"She's in a deposition until two," the receptionist said. "I can book you after that. Or I can go in and get her, if it's about the guardianship."
Two o'clock. Alvarez would be at the school by then.
"After two is fine," Carrington said.
"I'll block it."
She put the phone down and made a mental list of what Melinda had walked away with: a signed statement from Deborah Mensah, a household list, and two differing answers to the same question.
She hadn’t seen that coming from the other side of her own kitchen island.
She considered calling the school and got as far as pulling up the number on her phone, then stopped.
Calling in advance wasn’t a good look, and what could she even say anyway?
She considered calling Deborah but dismissed that idea too.
Calling her would only signal to family services that she had something to fix.
She didn’t. Or at least, she didn’t know if it could be fixed.
Her scalp ached. She’d put twice as many pins in it than she needed, a small act of control in an uncontrollable situation.
In the end, it wasn’t her hair that had fallen apart.
She walked to the kitchen and stood in the doorway. "Bettina."
The radio went off.
"Ask Ms. Harper to come to the study."
She walked away and paced in the space behind her desk. Less than two minutes later, Lucy stopped inside the door, holding a dish towel. She was in the same clothes she had worn at breakfast. She had not slept, and it had been obvious across the island all morning.
"Shut the door," Carrington said. "And sit down."
Lucy shut the door but stayed where she was.
"Fine, don’t sit then. We need to talk about what happened. The social worker asked you a question, to which you gave an answer."
"Yes."
"You knew what impact your answer would have before you said it." She didn’t phrase it like a question.
"I did." Lucy folded the towel in half and draped it over her forearm.
"She asked me that question no more than four minutes before she asked you, and yet you still gave a different one. She told us it didn’t change anything today, but today isn’t the problem.
Our differing answers mean two things: One, the file won’t close in January like it’s supposed to, and two, Melinda Alvarez is now going to Grace’s school, presumably to ask her what she knows. "
"I know," Lucy said.
"Then tell me why you did it."
"Because she asked me a direct question." Lucy said it unapologetically. "I'm not going to lie to family services."
"Nobody asked you to lie."
"There's no way to lie about one of us and not the other one, and you've known that longer than I have.
" Lucy still hadn't moved away from the door.
"And it wouldn't have ended this morning either.
What happens in June, when Ashgrove closes for the summer?
Or in September, when school starts up again?
Every single time anybody at that school asks Grace an ordinary question about who lives in her house, you'd want me to say it again. " Her voice never went up at all.
"Then let me tell you exactly what the next eight months will look like.
" Carrington braced both hands on the desk.
"You're off this property by the end of the month and into an apartment in town.
Diane will find it, the trust will pay for it, and the lease will be in your name.
You keep the job, and Grace doesn't lose any time with you.
I'll send Melinda a corrected statement in writing before Friday, with an explanation she can put in the file, and whatever comes back about it, I'll reply by myself. Nothing personal can happen in this house until the case closes in January, and by then, it won’t be anyone’s business what we do. "
"No," Lucy said.
"Which part are you objecting to?"
"All of it."
"Break it down and take me through it sentence by sentence."
"I'm not going to do that." Lucy was still holding the towel. "It's a good plan. It's better than anything I would’ve come up with on my own. That isn't what's wrong with it."
"Then what’s wrong?"
Lucy didn't answer her, just shifted her weight to her other leg.
"What happens to Grace in your version of this?" Carrington said. “She knows something is coming and blames herself. That’s what you said last night, and you were right. I haven’t slept properly since. If you leave or if social services decides to remove her from the house, Grace is going to think she caused it, and nobody will ever be able to tell her otherwise.”
"She's right that something's wrong. That's the part you keep dancing around. Nobody in this house has told that little girl anything at all. She's been working it out by herself for weeks, and because she’s only seven, she’s coming to the wrong conclusions about things."
"And in three hours, that woman sits down with Grace and asks her the same question she asked the two of us. We already gave her two different answers. What do you think Grace will say?"
"You gave her one that wasn't true. I gave her the one that was."
It was ten past twelve.
"Can I ask you something?" Lucy said. "You can tell me no."
Carrington waited and looked at her.
"There was a date on page nine of that contract you tore up. The day we stopped hiding it. You had it worked out down to the week." Lucy didn't sound angry. She didn't sound like much of anything. "What's the date now?"
Carrington set her palm flat on the edge of the desk and left it there. "That depends on the file."
"Okay," Lucy said. And then, after a moment, "What did you want me to say to her?"
"No. I wanted you to say no. To match my answer."
"Then you should have asked me to."
"Asked you?" Carrington came around the corner of the desk. "I didn't ask you because asking you to lie to a caseworker is the one thing in all of this I could never have defended. I wanted, needed, you to understand that without being asked."
"I did understand it."
"Then what the hell happened this morning?"
"I understood it then, too." The towel was folded down to a square now. Lucy stopped folding it and held it against her stomach. "I've done this before. The version where something is true in one instance but untrue in another. I lived like that for four years, and I'm not doing it again.”
"I am not a previous employer, Ms. Harper."
She watched to see what the name did to Lucy's face. Nothing at all; the same as the last time.
"You're going to call Melinda’s office this afternoon, before she gets to that school." Carrington kept her voice level. "You're going to tell her you misunderstood the question and correct it. People amend statements all the time. Diane can be on the phone with you while you do it."
Lucy took her time before she answered. "No."
"It's one phone call and then it's over."
"It won’t be over, though."
"Then do it for Grace if you won't do it for me." Carrington heard her own voice drop while she said it. It always did that when something mattered. It went quiet and reasonable and she could never get it back up where she wanted it.
"Don't." Lucy shook her head once. "Don't put Grace in the middle of this."
Carrington had nothing to say to that.
"The social worker asked me what I am in this house," Lucy said. "There's only one honest answer to that question. I gave it to her, and I'm not calling her up this afternoon to take it back."
"You are Grace's nanny. That’s all."
Lucy didn't flinch. Carrington waited for Lucy to say something, but Lucy just stood there and said nothing at all.
She was frightened. She'd been frightened all morning, and all she'd done about it was talk. Talking had never helped her regain control of anything. She sat down at the desk and opened the second drawer, pulling out her checkbook. She filled it out, making it out to Lucy for three hundred and ninety thousand dollars. She dated and signed it before recapping the pen. She looked at the check. Her handwriting didn’t waver once.
"Two years of salary, paid in full," she said. "You're released from the position as of this afternoon. There's a housing allowance built into it and the retirement piece is funded through both years. If you'd rather have it structured, Diane can put it in a letter this afternoon."
Carrington tore it out along the perforation. It came away without catching anywhere.
"You'll have a glowing reference letter from me as well." Carrington found a white envelope in the drawer and laid the check inside it flat and left the flap standing open. She put the envelope halfway across the desk and took her hand off it.
"That will be all, Ms. Harper."
Lucy looked down at the envelope for long enough that Carrington could have made another speech. Carrington had two or three ideas ready and said none of them. Lucy didn't reach for it.
"I'll get Grace at three," Lucy said, then she walked out and left the door standing open behind her, the envelope with the check still on the desk.
Carrington heard her walk down the hall and then open the courtyard door. It took a second for it to come back against the frame, the way it always did when somebody shut it without letting go of the handle.