Chapter 5: The Nursery

The Hartwell house sat at the end of a driveway so long that we took four winding turns before I saw it.

It was grey stone with a slate roof, tall windows and a fountain that nobody was looking at.

"It has fourteen bathrooms," Levi said from the driver's seat. They were the first words he had said since the diner.

"Why are you telling me that?"

"You were staring at the windows. I thought you'd want to know."

"I wasn't counting."

"You moved your lips."

I looked out my side window so he wouldn't see my mouth.

Margaret rode in the back with her hands folded in her lap.

She had barely spoken either, but she kept glancing at me in the mirror.

A woman in a white apron waited at the front door. She took one look at me and put both hands over her face.

"You have her chin," she said, through her fingers. "Oh, Mrs. H. She has Mr. Hartwell's chin."

"I know," Margaret said. "Don't make me cry in front of the car."

Inside, the entrance hall was bigger than the whole first floor of the Moynihan house.

There was a staircase, a stone floor and a brass chandelier.

I looked up at the chandelier for a moment longer than I meant to.

It was only a chandelier.

Margaret led me upstairs to a room at the end of a corridor.

It was the size of my old apartment, with a bed, a writing desk and a window full of trees.

"This is the guest room," she said. "You can have any room you want. There's another door next to this one, and you don't have to open it."

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