Chapter 23: What Vivian Owes

At nine o'clock on Tuesday morning Vivian Gaines rang the bell of my father's house.

She had come in a taxi, not the white Lincoln.

She stood on the porch in her camel coat with a single suitcase, and she had done her own hair.

I opened the door myself.

"You said bring an apology," Vivian said.

"I did."

"I've brought it."

"Then come in."

The housekeeper was in the kitchen with a pot of oatmeal and her sleeves rolled.

She did not stop stirring when we came through the door.

I had asked her last night whether she wanted to be there.

She had looked at me over her glasses and said, "Miss, I wouldn't miss it for a pension."

Winslow stood by the window with his coffee.

He had said he would leave if Vivian wanted him gone.

Vivian had not asked.

She put down the suitcase and drew a breath, in the middle of the black-and-white tile where her casserole had burst.

"I'm sorry," she said, "that you were hurt by the way things unfolded."

The spoon stopped.

The housekeeper turned around slowly, with the oatmeal pot in both hands.

"Is that what you'd say to a child, Mrs. Gaines?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"If a child broke a window. 'I'm sorry you were hurt by the way things unfolded.'"

The housekeeper set the pot on the back burner.

"I raised four. I'd have taken a wooden spoon to that."

Vivian's face went red from the collar up.

"I came here with good intentions."

"You came here for a roof," the housekeeper said. "Nobody's ashamed of that."

She folded her arms.

"But you don't get it with a sentence you wrote in the taxi."

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