“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I said.
“I’ll bring some fresh lemonade when I return,” she said, and left.
I sat staring out at the beautiful grounds. There was so much to see. It was still hard to believe that one family owned all of this. Just a short while ago, the only space Mama and I had had to ourselves was bordered by the cardboard walls of some box. It almost felt as though I had been taken to another planet.
The Marches’ estate wasn’t just big; it was busy. Judging by the short time I had been there, it seemed there was never a time of day when someone wasn’t working on something. Right then, two men were repairing a pole lamp on the driveway to my right, and two others were working around the cabana. One was touching it up with some paint, and the other was adjusting a door.
Wheeling myself out a little farther, I could look to my left and see part of the long driveway that curved around the side of the grand house to where Mrs. March had said the garages were. When I heard the sound of a vehicle, I leaned as far as I could to see if it was the limousine that had brought me. If so, it was probably Mrs. March returning. Instead, I saw what I knew to be a gold-colored Rolls-Royce. I had seen a few of them in Santa Monica, and Daddy used to vow that he was going to have one. Mama always mocked that and made him angry.
“You’re lucky you can afford the old truck you drive,” she had told him. “If you’re going to have a dream, at least have the sense to dream about something relatively possible.”
As the Rolls approached, I could make out a good-looking, light-haired man driving. He didn’t look my way and followed the driveway around the house. Was that Mr. March? I was sure Mrs. March had said he would be gone longer. I watched and listened but heard and saw no one. When Mrs. Caro returned with my lemonade, I asked her if Mr. March had returned.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is Mrs. March here?”
“She is. I told her you had been out here about twenty minutes, and she told me to take you up in a little while so you could rest, maybe take a nap before dinner. I’ll have to get started in the kitchen soon myself.”
I drank the lemonade and nodded. I couldn’t make myself ask about Kiera, and Mrs. Caro said nothing about her. She offered to wheel me around to see the garden before we went up to my suite. Gardening had been and still was a passion for her. She bragged about the way flowers grew in Ireland, and she said, “My duties here make it difficult to get my hands into Mother Earth.” The garden was so big. It looked like something in a park. Mrs. Caro knew the names of every flower, when they bloomed, when they should be planted, even how they should be nurtured.
“Here I am going off at the mouth when I have to get you upstairs,” she said, realizing the time. She pushed me back into the house.
When we entered, I anticipated either seeing or hearing Mr. March, but there was no one around. We went directly to the elevator. I expected that I might meet him when we reached the bedroom floor, but again, the hallway was quiet and empty. I was a little tired and let Mrs. Caro help me into bed. She wasn’t gone two minutes before I did fall asleep. I didn’t wake up again until I heard the cart in the hallway. When Mrs. Duval entered, pushing it with my dinner tray, I sat up quickly. Why wasn’t I going down to the dining room?
“Let me help you get up and to the table,” she said.
“How come I’m not going downstairs for dinner?”
“Dinner’s being served later,” she said. “The Marches don’t normally have dinner until eight-thirty, and Mrs. March said that would be too late for you.” She saw the look on my face and added, “That’s what she told me.” She said it the way someone who didn’t believe it might say it.
I got into my wheelchair, and she pushed me to the table, where she had set out the dishes.
“This is Mrs. Caro’s special chicken dish, and she prepared a pudding for you, too. Just leave everything when you’re done. Rosie will come to clean up,” she said. “I’ve got to get down to prepare for the Marches’ dinner.”
Mrs. Caro’s food was delicious, but I didn’t have as big an appetite as I had expected. I listened for sounds of footsteps in the hallway but heard none. I had no idea where the Marches’ bedrooms were but imagined they couldn’t be too far away. This had been Alena’s bedroom. I was sure Mrs. March would have wanted to be close. Finally, I did hear a door open and close and some footsteps, but they weren’t heading in my direction. Moments later, there were more footsteps, but again, they didn’t bring anyone my way.
After I finished eating what I could, I watched television but kept listening for someone coming. Finally, someone did, but it was only Rosie to clear away my dinner dishes.
“You left a lot,” she remarked. “Mrs. Caro will be upset.” To my surprise, she began to eat some of my leftovers. “This is much better than what we get,” she told me. “Didn’t you like this pudding?”
“I ate what I could.”
“Can’t let it go to waste,” she told me, and finished it.
“There,” she said. “Now Mrs. Caro won’t be upset. Just don’t tell anyone I finished your dinner.”
She started to push the cart out and stopped.
“So, how did you get hit by a car?” she asked. “What, were you running where you shouldn’t?”
“No. I didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did my mother.”
“Your mother? What happened to her?”
“She was killed,” I said.
“Where’s your daddy?”