Page 109 of The Housemaid Is Watching

After dinner, I pop some popcorn in the microwave. Miraculously, I manage not to burn it like last time, and I get the kids set up on the sofa watching cartoons and eating microwaved popcorn. Right after I turn on a movie, my phone rings.

The number comes from the local police station.

I jump off the couch and jam my thumb into the green button to take the call. I make it into the kitchen when that familiar Italian accent comes on the other line: “Millie?”

I almost burst into tears. “Enzo! Oh my God… I can’t believe they let you call…”

“I have five minutes. That is all.”

Five minutes isn’t nearly long enough to say everything I have to say, but it’s a start. “You idiot. Why did you confess?”

“For Ada,” he says in a quiet voice, like he’s worried they might be listening. “I would do anything for her and Nico. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” I admit. “I would.”

“For you too, Millie.”

That’s all it takes. My eyes are welling up. “We need you back here though. Please. She’s not going to get in trouble for this. She’s only eleven.”

“Millie, she slit his throat with a pocketknife. This is trouble for her.”

That’s the part of it that tugs at me. Jonathan Lowell had two stab wounds. Ada stabbed him in the belly to get him out of the way, but there’s no way she is tall enough to effectively cut a grown man’s throat while he was standing in front of her. She didn’t tell me every detail—only that she stabbed him to get himout of the way—and I didn’t want to push her because she was already so upset.

So I can only imagine what must have really happened. I found Jonathan in the living room rather than in the hidden room, so the knife in his belly must not have immediately taken him down. He must have tried to follow her, then collapsed soon after. And then she turned around and sliced his throat while he was lying on the floor. Just to make absolutely sure he was dead.

That’s cold. Even for me. Yet if she truly believed he hurt Nico, and he was coming after her, she did what she had to do.

It’s still hard to argue something like that could be self-defense.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Enzo, we need you home. We’re lost without you. Please, tell the truth, and let Cecelia handle it.”

“I will not turn my daughter in. No. Never.”

I hate how stubborn he is. But given the opportunity, I would do the same.

“Did you confess to the police?” I ask him.

“Not yet,” he says. “Cecelia would not allow me. But tomorrow…”

“Please don’t do this,” I beg him. “I know you think you’re helping Ada, but she’s not going to be better off with her father in prison. That will wreck her life. Don’t you realize that? You need to come home, and then we will figure out a way to deal with this.”

A voice is shouting at him in the background. He has used up his five minutes.

“Millie,” he says urgently. “Please tell the kids that I love them. No matter what happens.”

“We love you too,” I start to say, but I’m pretty sure I get cut off after the first word. The line is dead.

Tonight, Enzo will spend the night in a cold, uncomfortable holding cell. Actually, it’s the summer, so it will be a hot,uncomfortable holding cell. Maybe after a night of that, he’ll realize he does not want to do this for the rest of his life.

At least that’s what I have to hope for.

SEVENTY-SIX

I barely sleep that night.

Enzo might be the one spending the night in a cell, but I’m the one tossing and turning. I keep thinking back to when I was in prison. I was surrounded by people, but I felt so lonely all the time. I always felt like I didn’t belong there. I don’t think anybody feels they belong there.

I wish Enzo understood how awful it is. He might not be so quick to give up his life.