The Housemaid(20)

That may have been Spanish again.

Enzo looks up from the hole he was digging. There’s an amused expression on his lips. “Ciao,” he says.

“Ciao,” I correct myself, vowing to get it right next time.

He has a vee of sweat on his T-shirt, which is sticking to his skin and emphasizing every single muscle. And they’re not bodybuilder's muscles—they are the firm muscles of a man who does manual labor for a living.

So I’m staring. So sue me.

I clear my throat again. “I brought you… um, water. How do you say…?”

“Acqua,” he says.

I nod vigorously. “Yes. That.”

See? We’re doing it. We’re communicating. This is going great.

Enzo strides over to me and gratefully takes the water glass. He drains half of it in what looks like a single gulp. He lets out a sigh and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “Grazie.”

“You’re welcome.” I smile up at him. “So, um, have you worked for the Winchesters for a long time?” He looks at me blankly. “I mean, have you… Do you work here… many years?”

He takes another swig from the water glass. He’s emptied nearly three-quarters of it. When it’s gone, he’s going to go back to work—I don’t have much time. “Tre anni,” he says finally. Then adds in his heavily accented English, “Three year.”

“And, uh…” I squeeze my hands together. “Nina Winchester… Do you…”

He frowns at me. But it’s not a blank look, like he doesn’t understand me. He looks like he’s waiting to hear what I’m going to say. Maybe he understands English better than he can speak it.

“Do you…” I start again. “Do you think that Nina is… I mean, do you like her?”

Enzo narrows his eyes at me. He takes another long drink from the water glass, then shoves it back into my hand. Without another word, he goes back to the hole he was digging, picks up his shovel, and gets back to work.

I open my mouth to try again, but then I shut it. When I first came here, Enzo was trying to warn me about something, but Nina opened the door before he could say anything. And obviously, he’s changed his mind. Whatever Enzo knows or thinks, he isn’t going to tell me. At least not now.





FOURTEEN





I’ve been living with the Winchesters for about three weeks when I have my first parole officer meeting. I waited to schedule it for my day off. I don’t want them to know where I’m going.

I’m down to monthly meetings with my officer, Pam, a stocky middle-aged woman with a strong jaw. Right after I got out, I was living in housing subsidized by the prison, but after Pam helped me get that waitressing job, I moved out and got my own place. Then after I lost the waitressing job, I never exactly told Pam about it. Also, I never told her about my eviction. At our last meeting a little over a month ago, I lied through my teeth.

Lying to a parole officer is a violation of parole. Not having a residence and living out of your car is also a violation of parole. I don’t like to lie, but I didn’t want to have my parole revoked and go right back to prison to serve the last five years of my sentence. I couldn’t let that happen.

But things have turned around. I can be honest with Pam today. Well, almost.

Even though it’s a breezy spring day, Pam’s small office is like a hundred degrees. Half the year, her office is a sauna, and the other half of the year it’s freezing. There’s no in-between. She’s got the small window wrenched open, and there’s a fan blowing the dozens of papers around her desk. She has to keep her hands on them to keep them from blowing away.

“Millie.” She smiles at me when I come in. She’s a nice person and genuinely seems like she wants to help me, which made me feel all the worse about how I lied to her. “Good to see you! How is it going?”

I settle down into one of the wooden chairs in front of her desk. “Great!” That’s a bit of a lie. But it’s going fine. Good enough. “Nothing to report.”

Pam rifles through the papers on her desk. “I got your message about the address change. You’re working for a family in Long Island as a housekeeper?”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t like the job at Charlie’s?”

I chew on my lip. “Not really.”

This is one of the things I lied to her about. Telling her that I quit the job at Charlie’s. When the reality is that they fired me. But it was completely unfair.

At least I was lucky enough that they quietly fired me and didn’t get the police involved. That was part of the deal—I go quietly and they don’t involve the cops. I didn’t have much of a choice. If they had gone to the police about what happened, I would’ve been right back in prison.

So I didn’t tell Pam I got fired, because if I did, she would have called them to find out why. And then when I lost my apartment, I couldn’t tell her about that either.

But it’s fine now. I have a new job and a place to live. I’m not in danger of being locked up again. At my last appointment with Pam, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, but I feel okay this time.

“I’m proud of you, Millie,” Pam says. “Sometimes it’s hard for people to adjust when they have been incarcerated since they were teenagers, but you’ve done great.”