30. Lucy
LUCY
Any other morning, she'd have been down the path and back in the cottage by twenty to six.
Lucy woke at ten past six with both lamps still on.
The other side of the bed was cold and the covers on it were pulled straight.
She hadn’t heard Carrington get up. She lay there a minute with her hand on the warm side of the bed.
What she wanted was the whole day in front of her with none of it needing to be handled. Then she got up.
Lucy dressed in yesterday's clothes and grabbed her coat off the chair.
The stuffed rabbit's ears were still sticking out of the pocket.
At the top of the stairs, she remembered that she had no reason to be quiet, not anymore.
But she still walked downstairs on the outside edges of the stairs on her tiptoes of her socked feet anyway. At this point, it was muscle memory.
The kitchen light was lit down at the far end of the room. Bettina had come in and not yet taken her coat off. She was setting the oven. She looked up when Lucy came through the door, then went back to the dial.
"Morning," Bettina said.
"Morning."
"There's fresh coffee made."
Lucy took a cup out of the cupboard, the same mug she'd been using since February. Then she held on to it a second longer. Those were the cups the staff used. She put it back and took one off the shelf above.
"Is Grace taking her lunch today or buying?" Bettina said.
"Buying. On Fridays, she buys." Lucy poured the coffee. "Bettina."
"I know."
"Then don't ask me that."
"I asked because you're the one who knows the answer." Bettina shut the oven door with her knee. "Somebody in this house has to know it. It isn't going to be me."
Lucy poured the coffee and walked over to the island.
She'd stood at that island every morning since she started working here, a mental list running through her mind.
This morning, she had the mug of coffee but no list. She had no idea what to do with her hands, so she put the cup down and picked it up again.
"You were out in that driveway waiting a while last night," she said.
"I was."
"Say what's on your mind then."
"I've been in this house a long time." Bettina took the milk out of the fridge and set it down next to Lucy, even though Lucy didn't ask for it.
"Ms. Cole walked outside to the car to talk to me, the help.
I've been trying since eleven o'clock to think of one other time she'd have done it, and I can't think of one. "
"Is that all of it?"
"No," Bettina said. "It's not. But it's all you're getting out of me before I've taken my coat off."
At twenty past seven, Carrington came into the room, already in a suit with her hair up. She stopped four feet short of the island and stayed there, with Bettina standing over at the stove. Lucy had been grateful for that distance for months. This morning, she wanted it gone.
"Bettina," Carrington said. "Grace is up. She's getting dressed."
"She's early."
"She's been awake since about five. She came down and got the pad off the counter and took it back up." Carrington put both hands flat on the counter. "Would you give us fifteen minutes with her before you take her to school?"
"I'll get the car ready," Bettina said. She took her keys off the peg and went out across the courtyard, pulling the door shut behind her instead of letting it swing.
Grace came downstairs at half past with her shoes on and her bag over one shoulder. She stopped on the bottom stair.
"There she is," Lucy said.
Grace crossed the kitchen and put both arms around Lucy's middle, face turned sideways into the coat, and didn't say a word.
Lucy put a hand on the back of her head.
The bag slid off Grace's shoulder, down her arm, and onto the tile.
Lucy left it there. Her eyes stung with bitter tears that threatened to fall.
"You're going to be late," Lucy said.
Grace let go, picked her bag up, and got onto the stool with the pad. She set the pad down in front of her and put both hands in her lap, then looked at her aunt. Carrington came around the island.
"I said I'd tell you in the morning either way," Carrington said.
Grace waited.
"Lucy was here all night and she isn't going back into town today." Carrington’s voice sounded slightly raw. "I can’t promise you anything beyond that, and I won’t lie to you.”
Grace picked the pen up. She wrote and turned the pad around without looking up.
How long is she staying?
"I don't know."
You said that yesterday.
"I did. It was true then, and it's true now."
Lucy put her hand on the counter about a foot from Grace's arm and left it there. Grace hooked two fingers over her thumb and held on. She kept her eyes on Carrington.
"There's one more thing, and I said I'd do it with you here." Carrington took her hands off the marble and pushed them into her pockets. "I love her. I said it to her last night, and I'm saying it in front of you."
Grace looked at Lucy. Then she looked back at her aunt. Her mouth came open and shut again. She took the pen, wrote fast, and turned the pad around.
Does that mean she lives here now?
"It doesn't mean anything other than we love each other," Lucy said.
Grace wrote one more line, low down on the page, pressing hard.
Okay.
"Get your backpack."
Grace slid off the stool, picked up the bag, and got as far as the courtyard door. Then she came back for the pad, put it in with her homework folder, and walked over to where Bettina had the car running.
Lucy watched the tail lights disappear between the hedges. Carrington came and stood at the window with her and didn't say anything. Then Carrington rinsed her cup and turned around against the sink.
"That went as well as it could have," Carrington said.
"It went badly, but she took it well." Lucy came away from the window. "She asked you how long I would be here, and you couldn’t give her a real answer. She'll think about that all day at school."
"Then should I have just guessed and given her a concrete number?"
"No."
"All right."
"I'm not being hard on you."
Carrington folded her arms. "I have an appointment at Ashgrove at nine. There's something I'd like to ask you before I go."
"What is it?"
She didn't move from the sink. "Come back and be Grace’s nanny again. Same terms, better money, and the trust will pay it instead of me. Diane can have the papers ready by Tuesday."
Lucy set her cup down harder than she meant to. "No."
"But why not?"
"Partially, it’s the file. Melinda still has an open casefile and a signed note from you saying you lied about what I am to you.
What happens when I show up back on the payroll three weeks later?
" Lucy shook her head. "But you're right, that's not all of it. I don’t want to take money from you. Or the trust.”
"You took it the whole time you worked here."
"That was before. I took it when I was the nanny. But if I come back, I wouldn’t just be the nanny anymore, and you can’t have me both as a nanny and as a personal relationship.
Last time you tried to have both, we had to dance around the rules and I had to stay hidden.
" Lucy heard her own voice go up and brought it back down.
"I'm not doing that to Grace and I'm not doing it to myself.
I'd rather be broke in a rented room and know what I am in this house. "
Carrington didn't answer. The silence went on long enough that Lucy started counting her heartbeats.
"Then let me call Patricia Voss," Carrington said.
"There it is."
"She's had my name on her paperwork for years and she'd like to keep it there. One call from me and you'd have three families to nanny for by Wednesday."
"And every one of them would take me because Carrington Cole called about me." Lucy pulled the phone out of her coat pocket and put it on the marble between them. "You wrote me a reference letter with the real reason you dismissed me. I'll use that to get another job, not a courtesy call."
"I could make it easier."
"I know you could. That's the trouble with you."
"Where are you sleeping tonight?"
"That isn't yours to figure out or worry about."
"It's a question," Carrington said. "I'm allowed to ask."
"The room in town is paid through the end of the month.
" Lucy picked her cup back up and found the coffee had since gone cold.
"After that, I'll know more than I know now, and you'll hear it from me when I do.
If I'm short on funds, I'll tell you. That's more than I ever told Elena, so don't push me on it this morning. "
Carrington looked at the phone on the marble for a second. Then she picked her bag up off the chair. "It’s nine o'clock," she said. "I'll be back at six."
"Go to work."
Carrington got as far as the hall and turned back with her hand on the frame. "Deborah's coming Sunday. Grace asked her. I didn't."
"Good."
Lucy waited until the gates had swung shut again. Then she called Ashworth Placements and got Patricia Voss's assistant, and then Voss.
"Lucy Harper,” Patricia said. “I heard what happened at the last house."
"Then you know most of it," Lucy said. "I want to come off the live-in list. Day placements only, hourly, and nothing outside Phoenix Ridge."
Voss paused for a second. "You understand what that’ll do to your availability, right?"
"No, what?"
"It cuts your options to about a third of what you had before, and there would be nothing at all until the schools break." Papers rustled. "You were the top of my book, Lucy. I could have you in a live-in position by the end of the month at your old rate."
"Take me off it, Patricia."
Voss sighed deeply, and then Lucy heard her typing. "Day list. Phoenix Ridge only. I'll call you when there's anything. Don’t expect to hear from me until June."
Lucy laid the phone screen down on the counter. Her hands had started shaking somewhere in the middle of that call, and she stood in the empty kitchen and waited until they stopped.