Page 58 of The Housekeeper

“Oh, sweetie. I didn’t bring my bathing suit.”

“I have an old one I haven’t worn in years,” Elyse offered, approaching with a tray containing a freshly brewed pot of coffee, some mugs, and a selection of homemade muffins. “I’m sure it would fit.”

I was about to refuse when I heard my father mutter, “I doubt it,” his voice just loud enough to be heard.

I reminded myself that last night a man had looked down at my naked body and told me I was beautiful. “Well, okay,” I said. “I guess I can try it on…”

“Please, Mommy. Please.”

“I’ll go lay it on my bed for you,” Elyse said.

“Take the muffins with you,” my father directed. He didn’t have to add the corollaryJodi doesn’t need anyfor me to hear it.

Elyse ignored him and went back into the house.

Would that I could ignore him so easily,I thought as I sank into a nearby chaise, fighting back tears. Daphne promptly jumped into my lap. “What did you do last night, Mommy?” she asked.

A lump lodged in my throat and I had to clear it several times to dislodge it.

“You don’t have a cold, I hope,” my father said before I could speak.

“No, Daddy. I don’t have a cold.”

“The last thing any of us needs is a cold,” he said.

“I don’t have a cold.”

“Did you miss us?” Daphne asked as her brother raced toward the pool.

I pictured Roger and me entwined in each other’s arms. “Isure did,” I said as my son jumped into the deep end, his splash coating the provocative image. It dispersed into hundreds of tiny pixels, then evaporated.

“For God’s sake, Samuel!” my father bellowed, glaring in my direction. “They don’t act like this when you’re not here.”

Somebody, shoot me,I thought, turning away from him at the sound of the patio door opening. Gratefully, I watched Elyse step outside.

“Bathing suit’s on the bed,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Daphne ran for her water wings.

“No running,” I heard my father instruct sternly as I went inside the house, the tears I’d been holding at bay building behind my eyes.

“What did you expect?” I asked myself out loud as I entered Elyse’s room. When had my father been anything but a withholding, controlling son of a bitch? Elyse might have been able to “handle” him, to soften some of his harder edges, but there were limits to what even she could do. “You should be used to it by now,” I said, lifting Elyse’s old navy-and-white bathing suit into my hands.Please let it fit,I prayed.

Miraculously, it did, although I needed to see it in a full-length mirror to be sure. No way was I going to expose myself to my father’s potential ridicule. I marched toward the closet and opened it, staring at my image in the long mirror on the inside of the door, surprised by how well the suit flattered me. There were no unsightly bulges, no crepe-y overhangs of flesh. “You don’t look bad at all,” I told myself.

Which is when I saw it.

An emerald-green silk shirt belonging to my mother.

Of course it was possible that Elyse had one just like it, I told myself, examining the blouse more closely. But after viewing it from all angles, I became convinced it was my mother’s blouse. What was it doing in Elyse’s closet?

Granted, my mother hadn’t worn it in years, and she clearlyhad no use for it now. Still, I doubted my mother would have parted with it. Had my father loaned it to Elyse, just as he’d loaned her my mother’s Cartier watch? Or had he given it to her outright? And if so, wasn’t it a little premature for him to be giving away my mother’s things?

The other possibility was even more unsettling: that Elyse had seen the blouse, liked it, and simply helped herself, assuming no one would be the wiser.

Either way, would I find more of my mother’s belongings in Elyse’s room?