CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5 — ELEANOR CAME HOME EARLY
The front door opened before Victoria could say another word.
Both of us turned.
Eleanor Harrington stood in the hallway, one hand gripping her handbag, the other pressed against the doorframe.
She wore a red and white patterned dress, the one she saved for charity luncheons and doctor appointments. Her short gray hair was windblown. Her face was pale.
But her eyes were not weak.
They moved from Victoria’s satin robe to the broken mess on the floor, then to me on my knees.
Something in Eleanor’s face changed.
It was not surprise.
It was recognition.
Like she had walked into a memory she had hoped was dead.
“What did you just do to her?” Eleanor asked.
Victoria straightened.
For the first time that morning, she looked afraid.
Only a little.
Only for a second.
Then she recovered.
“Eleanor,” Victoria said, forcing a laugh. “You startled us.”
“Answer me.”
Victoria folded her arms. “Rosa dropped something. I told her to clean it.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
That was what humiliation did.
It did not just make you hurt.
It made you doubt whether your hurt was worth saying out loud.
Eleanor took one step into the living room.
The sunlight caught the marble floor. The spilled food looked uglier in the brightness.
Victoria glanced down at me.
A warning.
Stay quiet.
Eleanor saw that too.
Her handbag slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a soft thud.
“Get away from her,” Eleanor said.
Victoria’s expression hardened. “Excuse me?”
“I said get away from her.”
Victoria gave a cold smile.
“She works for this family.”
The room went silent.
I had heard that sentence many times in many forms.
But Eleanor looked at Victoria as if she had just made the worst mistake of her life.
“No,” Eleanor said, her voice low and sharp.
May you like
Then she stepped between us.
“She protected this family.”
