“What exactly did Giorgio say?”
“He was talking business with one of the Sandoval brothers.”
I hold her gaze for a moment.
Of all the people in the house, Nona is the only one I can tell when she picks up on something.
She’s the housekeeper, the omnipresent person in the house, and she has known me since I was a baby.
She’d need to know almost everything about me by now, and she does.
She respects my boundaries, and I treat her nicely.
But there were things. Things that happened in the house.
From what I could tell, not many people… Let me rephrase it.Most people had no idea what was happening in the house.
I could talk for hours about how oblivious people were to the things that happened right before their eyes.
Even when people see that something’s wrong, they’d rather look the other way than intervene.
They’re having a hard time admitting to themselves that they’re witnessing something that they’d normally despise and resent.
Alexandra, her right hand, is only a few years older than me, so she’s too young for this kind of stuff.
And the much older people in the house?
They mind their own business.
But Nona?
Nona is a single woman with no kids of her own, only a niece she visits from time to time.And maybe, that’s why the color of her clothes has started to dim, too.
Maybe living an ascetic life no longer cuts it.
She’s an industrious, loyal, smart, humble woman. A combination that’s hard to find these days.
She works her butt off and makes good money that she stashes away for the uncertainty of the gray hair days, unreliable knees, poor vision, and self-imposed isolation.
She prays every night and finds solace in that, and I envy her for that more than she knows.
I wish I could have a soul like hers, instead of the filth and darkness in my chest.
“Go on,” I say.
“They were talking about having dinner here. So Callum O’Hara might be here at some point. I couldn’t tell whether they were talking about tonight or tomorrow evening.”
“Of course they didn’t talk about tonight. They need to discuss business. Why would they meet in a house full of guests? Turn, please.”
Without a word, she turns her back to me and tilts her eyes down so that she doesn’t get a glimpse of me in the mirror.
I shed my robe and slide into the bathtub.
“So he’s not coming,” I murmur.
It’s not like I’ve held out hope he’d show up for me.
She spins to me.
