Page 15 of One Last Breath

“Yes. Did you enjoy having her?”

She shrugs. I can’t tell if she’s entirely disinterested or just careful about how she responds. “She wasn’t a bad person at all, but she wasn’t really…” She considers a moment, then says, “She was just boring.”

I smile wryly. “I’m sure she didn’t intend to be. Schoolwork is hardly the most exciting pastime for a child.”

She scoffs. "Believe me, I'm an expert in boring. Boring is what my mom wants me to be, what she wants Charlie to be. She wants us to be vacant and vacuous, boring rich kids."

I’ve heard this complaint before as well. The school district where I teach for twenty-five years is very affluent, and many of my students chafe at the expectations that come with wealth. My teacher and governess side takes over and I give the response I always give in such cases. “Mothers want what’s best for their children, but they don’t always express it well.”

Annabelle chuckles bitterly. “Well, I didn’t say she doesn’t think it’s best for us but it’s still boring. Dad wants us to be boring, too. He just doesn’t want us vacant, vacuous, and rich. He wants us vacant, vacuous, rich, and salt of the Earth.”

I wrestle a moment with how to proceed. I want to know more about her parents, but I don’t want to let it be known yet that I’m snooping into Elizabeth’s behavior. I decide to focus on Lila. Annabelle might have useful information that will help me know where to go from here. “And how was Lila boring?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said she was boring. What kind of boring was she?”

Annabelle smiles. “The same kind of boring as you.” Not a particularly kind sentiment, but it seems more playful than biting. “To be fair, I haven’t decided if you’re boring yet. But she was… proper like you. Always concerned with being polite and sensible and correct.”

I smile at that. “I see. I suppose it’s the old Englishwoman in me that causes me to behave that way.”

“Well, she wasn’t English, so she doesn’t have an excuse.”

I laugh. “I guess you didn’t keep in touch, then.”

Annabelle’s face snaps toward mine. “Keep in touch? I have no idea where she ran off to. Nobody does.”

The irritation surprises me, but not as much as the way she phrases her defensive reply. “Ran off?”

“You didn’t know? She just left one day. I mean, nobody knows why or where she went.”

“Really? She didn’t leave after you completed high school?”

"No. She left before my final semester. It was quite a shock. One day, she's here, and the next day, she's gone. Like a ghost."

My blood grows cold when she says that. “And no one thought to check on her?”

"Why would we check on her? She was a servant. If she wasn't satisfied with her employment, then it's really not up to us to hunt her down and beg her to return."

My shock must show in my face, because she catches herself and looks down. “I’m sorry. You must think me a horrible person.”

“Of course not,” I reply. The lie comes easily enough. “You’re not obligated to be friends with your staff.”

That part is not a lie, but still, for someone to disappear and for no one to wonder where she went. It's almost unbelievable.

In fact, it’s completely unbelievable.

“Well, I should turn in,” Annabelle says. “It’s been a long day, and I think it’s clear I’m not up to conversation right now.” She gives me a smile, and this time, there’s no doubt the irritation behind it is directed at me. “Good night, Mary. And don’t worry. Something tells me you’re not nearly as boring as Lila was.”

She leaves me to wonder if that’s a good thing or if I’ve only placed myself in danger by choosing to be exciting. Maybe Lila wasn’t so boring as Annabelle claims. Maybe that was what got her “disappeared.”

I stay on the balcony long enough not to raise suspicion, but the calm I hoped to find is gone.

CHAPTER NINE

Today marks two weeks that I have been in the Greenwoods’ employ. That milestone means nothing, but I take note of it anyway. It’s long enough that my first impressions can coalesce into more thorough impressions of the family. Perhaps not quite understandings yet but more than suspicions.

I take inventory of those impressions as I clean the family’s bedrooms. That is normally Leah’s responsibility, but she has taken the week off to visit her family in Maine, so I am handling more of the housekeeping duties in the meantime.

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