I woke up to a buzzing sound. In my dream I thought it was an alarm and I kept trying to turn it off. When I opened my eyes, I realized it wasn’t a buzzer but a lawn mower and not just one but numerous lawn mowers. They moved in unison across the yard. I looked out the window and saw at least four mowers and an additional five men raking leaves and pruning trees. They all wore a uniform shirt from the same company.
I changed into sweats and walked outside onto the small terrace. The rain had stopped but the ground was still wet. Not an ideal kind of day for grounds keeping but it had to be done. I walked out into the clearing and watched them work. Cora was so efficient; it made sense to have droves of people come in at once. It would take them a matter of hours to finish their work.
I walked down the steps still favoring my right ankle and out into the clearing. No one even noticed me. I followed the perimeter of the house heading around to the front. I made it to the side of the house when I spotted a heavy-set man in his early fifties watching the workers in their progress. He wore the same gray uniform shirt as the others and had a Phillies baseball cap on his head. His belly hung out over his pants and the buttons of his shirt strained in places. He was sweaty and his hands were covered with dirt. He glanced at me but said nothing
“You work for Cora?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Does she own this place?” he asked in response. He squinted in the sun, and the lines around his eyes looked very familiar with the expression.
I nodded.
“Then that’s who I work for.”
“It’s a big job,” I said.
The man had his hands on his hips. He stared into the distance at the other workers. “Yeah, not too bad, though. Had this contract for ten years now.”
“Ten years? Who did it before that?”
The man shrugged. “Private gardener, I think. He disappeared on her; so I hear. Then she hired us because it was easier. We come in and out of here in no time. That’s how we got the contract, I guess.”
“How’s that?”
“We could bring a lotta men in and get it done quick. That’s what she wanted. That and to rotate the crew.” He stopped talking to me and started yelling to one of the other men in the distance.
“Why would she want them rotated?’ I asked.
He glanced sideways at me. “Who knows? So maybe they can’t case the place. If your going to be out here stay out of the way. We got work to do.” With that he marched out into the clearing barking orders at someone across the lawn.
I took as long a walk as I could stand with a sore ankle. The damp air felt good on my skin. I was exhausted when I got back to the room. I kicked off my muddy sneakers and left them on the steps before I opened the door.
I saw the woman before she saw me. She was young, maybe early twenties with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had on jeans and a white shirt and a smock with a logo over top. She was leaning over my bed and all I could think about was the box I had hidden beneath it.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled, probably a little too loudly.
She turned; startled. “I’m with the cleaning service.” She gathered the front of her smock in her fist. “I was just changing your sheets. Mrs. Whitfield told me she had a guest.”
“Cleaning service? I’m sorry. I didn’t know. How many of you are there?”
“About thirteen, I think. We come once a week. Didn’t she tell you?”
I shook my head. I leaned against the door jam and folded my arms. “Thirteen? That’s a lot of people. How long does it take you?”
She continued to make the bed and I glanced nervously at the box, afraid she might spot it.
“About six hours,” she responded.
“And you do the whole house?” I was curious if Cora unlocked all those doors for the cleaning crew. And what about Nick’s room?
“Most of it. Some rooms are kept locked and we just skip those.”
She moved away from the bed and went into the bathroom. I breathed a little easier. I followed her to the door.
“Do you do the tunnels too? I mean sweep them or anything?” I continued my questioning.
She was on her knees cleaning the tub. She looked up at me with a distasteful look on her face and shook her head. “I’ve only been down there once. Never again. Too creepy. This is only the third time I’ve done this room. I walk around the house now so I don’t have to use them.”
“So, how long have you been coming here?”
She looked up from the tub. “I guess about a year, on and off. They don’t always give the same people this job but I wish they did. It’s plum.” She went back to scrubbing.
“Why’s that?’ I moved over and sat on the toilet seat. She looked slightly annoyed but I didn’t care.
“Because it pays really well and it’s not bad. Mostly just dusting, Mrs. Whitfield is one of the cleanest people I’ve ever seen. You should see some of the houses I do.” She turned on her knees and faced me. “In some places I’ve spent hours just pulling hair out of the drain.” She shuddered and turned her back to me.
“So tell me, what’s the upstairs of this place like?” I asked conspiratorially. “I’ve only been here a few days and this house is so huge.”
She looked at me as if she were betraying some confidence by talking to me at all. Then she moved in towards me slightly. “Well, there’s a couple of wings up there. One is just guestrooms, can you imagine? Then there’s a library. I guess that’s what you’d call it. It’s full of books, oh and there’s this one,” she reached out and touched my hand, “that Mrs. Whitfield calls her sun room.” She moved her hand to her chest. “It’s so beautiful. The walls…”
“Anything else, I mean, interesting or peculiar?” I interrupted her.
She stopped and looked at me not sure how to answer. “I got lost one time and ended up in her private wing. I didn’t know, how could I?” She looked as if she needed some reassurance.
“This house is so big it’d be easy to get lost,” I said to comfort her.
“And I walked in on her totally by accident.”
“Walked in on her, where?”
“It was a bedroom or something. All old fashioned looking. And…”
“Go on.” I leaned forward slightly.
“She was in there talking to the man. The two of them…” The girl sat back a bit on her haunches. “Mrs. Whitfield was saying something was risky but it was the only way to get Nick back.” The girl looked up at me. “I don’t know what she was talking about….” She waved her hand around. “Alls I know is that the man wasn’t happy about any of it. He wanted no parts of it.” Her eyes got big. “He said someone could die. But the more he talked the more worked up she got. She said, you are going to do this. Real mad. Like she was ordering him.”
“When? When was this?”
She stared at me. Her eyes had hardened a bit. “It was, I guess about a month ago?”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. She said that Nick was just scared when he left but he didn’t need to be scared anymore.”
“About what?“
“I don’t have a clue about the rest of it and I don’t want to know. I snuck out of there so fast. I wasn’t getting caught. But I think she musta known somehow. What a friggin nightmare”
“Why? What makes you think she knew you were listening?”
“Cause she was looking at me all crazy when she saw me again and they didn’t give me this assignment again until now.” She had been scrubbing and rinsing the tub as she talked. She then stood. “Sorry, I don’t even know your name, but I have to do the toilet now, so you gotta get up.”
I took a seat in the other room and waited for her to finish what she was doing. The box was still under the bed and I wasn’t comfortable leaving with her still here. I gazed out into the distance and watched the gardeners work. I missed my life. I had taken a leave of absence from work after Nick died. Of course, I didn’t know that I would be traveling to Philadelphia. I thought I’d be back to work in a month or so once the worst of the mourning was over and I could go a few hours at time without crying. Now I wasn’t sure if I’d ever go back.
The truth was that working gave my life a structure, a place to be, a place I belonged. Craziness could reign all around me but I knew that Monday through Friday I would be at the clinic and I knew exactly what I’d be doing. My co-workers and I had an exclusive club. Only we knew exactly what we went through, what it was like to be in those trenches day after day. We clung together through it all, when the frustration was overwhelming, when the expectations of us were unreasonable, when the job was particularly thankless. I hated it at times and I resented it at times, but I always knew that it was where I belonged. I missed that.
The maid had gone and I was restless. I wanted to get out of this house. I showered and changed and headed towards town. The front gate was open, probably because the hired help were coming and going. I couldn’t help wondering, as I made my way through the graveled road to the imposing front gate, what Nick was thinking when he went down this road for the last time fourteen years ago. And why he might have been scared.