We missed you at tennis, Dawna, but you’re just glowing.
I know you, she tells them with each backhanded compliment. I know your secrets. I know your fears. I know your pride. It’s like a spider spinning a web, binding them all together. She knows who’s having an affair, she knows who’s seeing which doctor for which tightening up. She knows who’s mistreating their aged parents in which home. She knows that redhead is not Bob’s niece.
The fa?ade holds until she’s in her sedan, hands at ten and two. Her head falls forward as she exhales. It’s exhausting, all this work. But it’s necessary. If you start to let go for one little minute, you end up like Chelsea, adrift at sea with neither captain nor anchor. Patricia’s life is a well-run ship, and even if things get windy, she will not be battered about. Not again. Never again.
It takes her longer than usual to get home, thanks to a messy car accident on a two-lane road. A rough-looking policeman waves her around, and she can’t help staring at the bright-red speckles painting the crushed door of the cheap white Ford, lurid in the patrol car’s high beams. Ambulance people huddle around someone on the ground, their backs turned to the road and their energy tense and frantic, but she rolls past without being able to see too much. At least it’s not near her house.
Homer waves from the neighborhood guardhouse, and Patricia waves back. She always feels better the moment the tall iron gates swing shut behind her. It’s safe here, everything carefully planned and kept up. The nice thing about this neighborhood is that the sidewalks don’t start until you’re inside the gate. There’s no public thoroughfare encouraging just anyone to linger outside, and if anyone tried to walk in, Homer would keep that from happening; they even gave him a gun. Cars can’t piggyback in, like they can in Chelsea’s neighborhood. You’re on Homer’s list or you’re not, and strangers have to show their ID. You quite simply can’t get in unless you’re supposed to get in.
She’s not such a fan of the speed bumps, but she knows they, too, serve their purpose.
Their house is in a cul-de-sac just the right distance from the clubhouse, which is nowhere near as nice as the one at Emerald Cove but still functional enough for throwing a perfectly respectable bridal shower for someone else’s daughter. She smoothly pulls into her side of the garage and stops when the tennis ball touches her windshield. Everything in the garage is exactly where it should be, the shelves and racks Miguel installed perfectly hung and painted just the right shade of white, not too crowded with ugly garage things.
Once inside her echoing home, she steps out of her mules in the mudroom and does a quick walk-through of the downstairs to make sure Rosa is keeping up with her duties. Unlike her daughter, she knows how important appearances are, and for all that Rosa has been decently paid and loyal for years, it’s easy for anyone to get a little lazy when they’re not being watched. She can’t find a speck of dust, a dropped penny, a single petal fallen from the all-white arrangement on the foyer table. It’s almost disappointing, having nothing to complain about.
But then she spots the backyard.
All the lights are on, and it’s an utter wreck, as if a tornado has torn through.
The patio furniture is tossed about, the cushions just lying on the ground in the dirt. Some of the flowering bushes—she doesn’t know what they are, Miguel handles that—are crushed and tumbled over, broken branches and fallen flowers everywhere. There are shattered ceramic pots and dented candles, and—well. Someone is in big trouble.
As if on cue, movement outside catches her eye. It’s Rosa, carefully closing the pool house door behind her and locking it. She’s a tall, thickly built woman in her fifties, and she charges over to the patio furniture and jerks up each chair, setting them upright and dragging them back into place. Patricia watches from behind the curtains, almost fascinated. What on earth has happened here? Was there some sort of break-in? As Rosa fights to get the table upright, Patricia hurries to her bedroom and checks her furs and purses, finding everything exactly where it belongs. There are no broken windows, no stolen televisions, no sign of anything wrong inside the house. When Rosa has all the big furniture back in place, Patricia opens the patio doors and goes outside.
“Oh, Mrs. Lane! I didn’t know you would return so soon,” Rosa says, looking back at the pool house where she and her husband Miguel live. It’s only two bedrooms, but having them available around the clock has been an utter godsend. Rosa does all the housework, laundry, and cooking, while tiny, wiry Miguel handles the yard and fixing things.
“Well, it is my house, so I consider myself free to come and go.” Patricia says this with a little smirk, as if they’re friends sharing a joke. “What happened back here? And why isn’t Miguel helping you?”
“There was…a lot of wind. Very windy night.” Rosa looks down. She’s a terrible liar, which is one of the reasons that she’s a terrific housekeeper. “Miguel hurt his back trying to clean up. I called our son to come help.”
Patricia feels that little rumple form on her forehead. Annoyance.
“You know Mr. Lane doesn’t like it when Oscar parks in the driveway, Rosa.”
Rosa flinches and nervously glances over her shoulder, back at the pool house. “I’ll make sure he parks around back, Mrs. Lane.”
Which, honestly, Randall doesn’t love, either, but at least there aren’t as many windows on that side of the house, where the driveway extends around to the pool house, so no one has to see his beat-up old truck.
“You know, Rosa—”
Before she can finish explaining that this is Not How Things Are Done, the pool house door bursts open, hard enough to make it bounce off the siding. Miguel barrels out, moving faster than a sixty-six-year-old man has any right to move.
“Go inside, Mrs. Lane,” Rosa says, daring to put hands on Patricia’s arm, gently, and push her toward the house. “Please. Lock the doors.”
Before Patricia can offer a sharp rebuke, Rosa spins around and catches Miguel as he charges. She must weigh nearly twice as much as her husband, but he struggles in her arms like a mad cat, a belt wrapped around one wrist. Something about the way he’s behaving hits Patricia like a slap across the face—this is not normal. Miguel is a calm, quiet, competent, dreamy sort of man. He slowly plods through his day, singing old songs under his breath, taking twice as much time as he should on basic tasks. She’s never seen him move faster than a thoughtless amble. He can take an hour to eat an apple. But now he’s writhing, kicking, clawing, and it’s all Rosa can do to keep him contained.