NOW AT A vigorous boil, the rabbit stew throws off pungent steam that causes Mary’s eyes to water. The steam condenses on the grease-soiled kitchen tiles that line the walls; she wipes a finger across one tile and rubs her slick fingertips together, meditating over the bubbling pot.
The flies have licked up all the rabbit blood from the butcher block—or maybe the rats ventured out when she left the room.
A different smell reaches her—something burning. But she did not see the pot boil over. She lifts it up but finds no sign of fresh blackness. Goes to the nearest window. From here people once could see the river and clear across the next island to the city, but many trees have grown up to obstruct the view. Nothing burns today on her island; she can tell that much.
She works through a warren of back hallways, once used by orderlies to remove biological waste, and climbs the stairs to her attic room. From this window she can see the river, and she catches sight of smoke rising to the northeast.
That’s what she smelled. Aha. But activity on the opposite shores stopped interesting her ages ago. It is as meaningless to her existence as a dust storm on Mars.
The sight of the river, however, that’s another matter. She stands constantly on guard for changes in its mood. Her jailer and her protector. From up here it appears as a pool of shiny-smooth solder with colored blocks floating upon it. Today as every day, this view once again prompts thoughts of the Warrens to invade her mind—Mr. Warren so eager to sail with his chums that he moved his whole family out of the city for the summer months.
Most mornings, after finishing her prep work for the Warren kitchen, Mary went out to sit off by the side of the house and gaze between bushes at the water of Oyster Bay. Earlier in the summer, there had not been much of a vista there from the working end of the house, but Mary took to emptying the waste from her pots near the base of a tall hibiscus bush. After a few weeks, the bush stopped flowering. Then its leaves yellowed and fell off. When it turned bare, the gardener cut it down, leaving a gap.
It was a pretty view of whitecaps and sailboats, but it could never last. All beauty in Mary’s life proved fleeting.
That morning she felt the change before the news reached her. Cloris, the Warrens’ youngest daughter, failed to rise with the sun as she usually did, one less voice drifting to Mary from the breakfast seating area out on the patio. When the family dispersed, foreboding took hold of the household. Mary ignored the familiar feeling, presuming she still had time. When the kitchen was clean, she emptied the basket of peas into her apron and carried two large ceramic bowls outside, one for the peas and another for the shells. They smelled of fresh-cut grass and mint as she ran a thumbnail through each pod, severing the funiculi. It might have been a moment of divine peace, but the perfection of it unsettled her. She twisted around to look over her shoulder toward the house. No one there but a feeling.
Mary popped a few raw peas into her mouth, snapping them in half with her front teeth before appreciating the sweet milky freshness. Under a hazy sky, the sallow face of the sun had glided to a new position, rays now falling on her back, making her warm. She slipped off her brogues and relished the cool grass under her stockings, then looked again over her shoulder, but still no one had appeared.
When she completed her chore, Mary brushed off her apron with the palm of her hand, placed the bowl of shucked peas atop the bowl of empty pods, and rested both bowls in her lap, looking out once more at the bay. She felt a change in the air and knew for sure. In another moment, when the screen door slammed and Mrs. Farrell came up behind her, Mary barely turned around.
“Arabella is under the weather.” The housekeeper sounded stern, as always, the whole world a problem to her that ever begged for solution.
Mary slipped her shoes back on and stood, nodding to Mrs. Farrell as she proceeded to the kitchen. By the time her fifteen-minute break came, Mrs. Warren was also reported ill. By that evening, an elder daughter, Barbara, and the chauffeur failed to appear to their respective dinners. No one rallied for dessert. Mary watched the peach melba turn to soup in their bowls.
* * *
AT THE OPEN window in the North Brother bedroom, her fingertips linger on the old brass handle, much like that of the single tiny window in her garret room at the Warrens’. She squints at a wasp with dangling legs, moving capriciously, circling as it rides the air currents. She remembers the doctor coming that night, Mary standing in the dining room doorway as he passed through the foyer with long strides, clutching his black bag.
She remembers going to her room via the back stairs and packing her few things into a cloth satchel in order to be ready for the inevitable moment, when it came.
A week later, she served breakfast to three people from a family of eleven. In the kitchen, she fed five workers from a staff of fourteen, including herself. By then Arabella and Mrs. Warren lay gravely ill. Thomas, a middle son, last to acquire the disease, was rapidly slipping away. But, then again, he had always been frail.
On the day Thomas died, Mary wiped down the kitchen with a rag. When the undertaker arrived and the household devolved into hushed commotion, she took her satchel and eased herself out the side door without leaving a note. She walked with long deliberate strides from the house to the train station for the dreary ride into Manhattan.
When she reflects on it now, she resents that she never had the presence of mind to collect her final pay from the Warrens. When Soper came around asking all those questions, he did not once ask how fairly she had been treated.
And to this day they owe her.
Briehof inquired after the money first thing when she found him at the bar. She let him touch her under her skirt that night, which proved small consolation to either of them.
The wasp outside draws wider circles, changing its strategy. It arcs away for a moment but turns for the window again, flying right at Mary. Quick as a cobra, she lunges and pulls the window closed. The wasp, a moment too late, hits the glass with a ticking sound.