Chapter 6: The Casserole

I opened the door myself, with my hair a mess and my mouth still swollen.

Vivian Gaines looked me up and down.

"Well," she said. "That was fast."

"It's nine-thirty at night, Vivian."

"I meant the man."

Winslow came out of the dark hall behind me, buttoning his cuffs.

He did it slowly.

Vivian's pearls rose and fell once.

"Mrs. Gaines," he said.

"Mr. Strathmore. I didn't realize the help came with the house."

"I don't come with it."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't."

"Come in," I said, "before the neighbors start taking notes."

I led her into the front hall, a high stone room with a black-and-white floor and my grandmother's portrait over the stairs.

The housekeeper stood at the foot of the stairs with a dish towel.

She was a small woman in her sixties who had been feeding me since I was four.

She had heard the bell.

She did not leave.

Vivian saw her and straightened her shoulders.

"I brought you a casserole," she said.

She held it out with both hands.

The foil was crimped neatly around the edges.

"It's chicken and rice. Darrell loves it. I thought, a girl alone in a big house must be starving.

We got off on the wrong foot."

"We didn't get off on a foot, Vivian. You called me the teacher at my own wedding."

"Everyone calls you that."

"Everyone you introduced me to."

"Well."

She set the dish on the hall table, patted the foil flat, and drew the cream-colored envelope out of her coat.

"I'm not here to fight. I'm here as a mother. Read this and think about the people it affects."

I opened it.

Two pages, typed.

It said that every sum, share, guarantee and credit extended by Larkspur Partners to Gaines Hospitality was a gift.

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