The last thing Elena wanted to do was return to work, and yet she knew the time had come. If she'd not had Tomás to look after, she'd never return to cleaning houses; she'd have been content never to eat or drink or do anything, ever again, just allow herself to sink into her bed. Losing Eddie had opened a cave within her core. She felt every day as if it expanded, as if her organs had disintegrated and left in their absence only deeper grief. The thought of walking back into Molly Maid, having to communicate with the other women there, donning her uniform and interacting with other humans (ones who surely had heard of her plight) physically nauseated her, and yet Tomás himself had pushed her to try to find some sense of normalcy, again.

"We have to keep living, Mamá," he'd insisted. "You have to get out of this house. Especially now that Jonathan's gone. I'm worried about you being alone all day."

She'd known what he meant, that he was worried how he'd come back and find her if he left her alone. Her brain knew she had to resume some kind of normal; if only her heart could understand as well. Moving forward felt like an absolute betrayal of the child she'd lost. The notion that Eddie could still be alive, suffering, while she went about scrubbing toilets and wiping windows—it shamed her. Why hadn't the entire world stopped when Eduardo had disappeared? Why had everything kept going on as if nothing had happened when her reason for existing had blown away like a bit of milkweed? The sheer cosmic indifference broke her more than did the actual loss of her child, and now, nearly three weeks since her boy's disappearance, even the local police seemed to have lost hope. Elena had begun considering calling in a private detective, paying someone to relentlessly press for answers, and yet her finances weren't particularly prepared to fund such an endeavor. That was what convinced her to return to work, in the end—the self-promise to put her income toward hiring help.

When Jonathan had arrived, Elena had hoped (even as much as she'd ignored the man over the years) that Eddie's father might somehow solve the mystery of their child's disappearance; instead, the man had apparently up and disappeared himself! Elena was baffled by Jonathan's failure to return to her house. He'd left a note for her and gone out a few days ago, but he'd not come back. She'd have thought he'd run out on her (which wouldn't have been a surprise) except for the fact that he'd left his belongings behind—his clothing, toiletries, and even his laptop. What man would do that? Not Jonathan. She knew him well enough to remember the man's meticulous organization, his obsession with taking care of every little item that belonged to him. He'd been that way with her, wanting to micromanage her decisions. He'd been furious when she'd gotten pregnant. He'd not wanted Eddie, so Elena hadn't wanted him.

Yet in spite of her hatred, hadn't some part of her thrilled when Jonathan had arrived so unexpectedly on her doorstep? Such a twister of emotions she'd experienced the past several days—the obvious grief and anger and despair then coupled with unfounded hope; there'd even been an uncomfortable stirring of old desire which, given the circumstances, mired her in guilt. But then the cause of half of those conflicting feelings had gone as inconveniently as he'd arrived, and just when she'd begun to consider trusting him once again!

None of it made sense. Nothing made sense! And that was all the more reason to find someone who could make sense of things for her, someone she could hire to do all the thinking.

The welcome at Molly Maid was grim. Rather than offer condolences, the few employees Elena ran into seemed wary, avoidant, unsure what to do. One turned right back into the bathroom he'd just exited, and another pretended to be too absorbed in her phone to take notice. When she'd reached her boss's office and asked whether there were any jobs to which she could be assigned, Elena was given the unnerving news that yes, there indeed was a job awaiting her, one that had insisted on her alone, whenever she eventually returned to work. The house requiring her? The St. Jameses' place.

When Elena heard the name, she balked; her first instinct was to decline the job, but then she recalled the circumstances of the last time she'd been there, the strange comment from that man and the discomfort she'd experienced. Perhaps . . . perhaps some meaningful clue might arise from a second visit. And besides, getting back into her car was far preferable to sitting around and waiting for another job to turn up. Elena had no desire to speak to any co-workers and endure the weight of their onerous pity and awkwardness.

The drive was quick, and this time, Elena knew to take a left down Marbury Court and approach by way of the access road. She pulled into the drive and parked, sat in her car looking up at the help door. Her boss had called ahead to notify the owner she was coming, and yet the house sat looming and forbidding, as if occupied only by ghosts.

The woman must've wasted several moments pondering her situation. The skies were a mass of pale grays and gloom. The first time Elena had been here had been the day her child had vanished; it'd been misty and gray though not particularly foreboding. The white columns at the front and the sweet pink blossoms of the magnolias had even then scintillated against the dark backdrop of the forestry marsh, but now the tones of the building and its landscaping hovered muted in the murk. It was a thing of not apart from the deep aventurine of the forest. Something had changed. Elena felt the very electricity of her body subtly responding to the atmosphere, crackling to the ill energy emanating from the house, and she recalled how she'd suffered a similar anxiety the first time she'd come to this place. It'd been weak enough that she'd worked through it, but now, without her former innocence clouding her sensitivities, with Eddie's absence peeling back her strength and leaving her raw to any present evils, Elena picked up on the truly anomalous aura wrapping its thick fingers about the building before her. Something was absolutely wrong with the place, whether the problem lay in the building itself or with the people in it, and for a fleeting moment, the woman fought her urge to start the car, back away, and never return.

But Eddie. Eddie! Could her sense about this place have anything to do with her son? She couldn't ignore the possibility.

Stepping out of the car, Elena ascended the stairs leading up to the help door and rang the bell. She heard its muffled buzz in the interior of the building, waited patiently though with mounting anxiety, and when the door swung inward, she gave a little cry of relief as the tension broke.

The woman standing before her was the same woman that'd greeted her the first time: Glory St. James. This time, however, Ms. St. James did not present the understated yet chic figure she'd cut before. Her hair hung limp and unbrushed; she wore no makeup. And her clothing consisted of leggings, an oversized t-shirt, and flip flops. She looked all of her sixty-plus years, and the energy she put out was uneven. Without realizing she did it, Elena took a step back. Glory St. James was definitely quite drunk.

Stuttering a greeting, Elena followed it up with, "Should I come back another time?"

But Glory wavered on her feet before taking hold of Elena's wrist and veritably dragging her up into the building, closing the door behind her.

Elena followed the woman through the mudroom and down the short, dark hallway leading into the wide foyer of the house, every bit of her on edge. She was ready to dart back to the help door at the slightest sign of danger. When they reached the open space where the red pendant light hung before the glass front doors, the balcony of the upper rooms looked down upon them, Glory turned blearily toward Elena.

For an older intoxicated woman, Elena thought, Ms. St. James still managed to be imposing.

"I've been waiting for you," Glory drawled, sweeping a silver-streaked chunk of hair off her forehead. Her dark eyes, rimmed with fine spidery lines, might have been affected by alcohol, and yet they saw Elena; they knew who she was. Ms. St. James wasn't so far gone that she'd lost all her senses.

"Y-yes . . ." Elena responded warily. "I'm here to clean. Do you have another party coming? I know the last time you wanted me to—"

"There's no fucking party," Glory interrupted. "There'll be no more parties, here. Never."

Elena nodded, slowly. "All right . . ."

"No more FUCKING parties!" Glory threw her head back as she swore, losing her precarious balance as she did so.

Lurching forward, Elena managed to catch the woman, keep her from hitting the floor, and while Glory began to laugh or cry or spew out some confused mixture of the two, the Molly Maid located the nearest settee (against the wall, before some French windows and beside a grandfather clock) and helped the older lady to it. "Here you are, Ms. St. James. Have a seat. You just rest for a minute."

Glory flung her body lengthwise on the cream-colored sofa, flinging off her flip flops as she did so.

Elena swallowed, darted her eyes about the gloomy foyer. The pendant light was on, though it was dimmed, and its reddish glow doused the cavernous space in an uncanny sanguine. "Is there anyone else here, Ms. St. James?"

Laying her forearm across her eyes, Glory moaned. "I remember it all, you understand me? All of it. I always knew it wasn't done with us."

Water. A glass of water. "Ms. St. James, listen," she tried. "You stay right here. I'm going to get you some water."

"No, no, no . . ."

Elena hastened beneath the balcony into the lower rooms; she recalled the kitchen being nestled back there, its windows looking out over a deck and onto a pristine aqua pool. She could hear Glory continue to protest, her no's interspersed with strange laughter, but she chose to ignore the woman not just for the glass of water but also to separate herself from the situation, to allow her nerves to calm. What was this insane lady thinking, rolling about drunk as anything at ten o'clock in the morning? This wasn't the sort of mess Elena had assumed she'd be taking care of when she'd decided to go back to work.

The kitchen was dark; its lights were off. A defeated bit of daylight illuminated the surfaces: counters and table, massive refrigerator, appliances and chairs. The sink was across the kitchen, right beneath the windows. Before running the water, she opened the cabinets above and to each side, searching for a glass, and when she'd found one she reached for the faucet and turned on the tap only to lift her eyes to the window and do a doubletake.

Something was in the pool. Something big, and dark . . .

Elena backed away from the sink, leaving it running, and the glass slipped from between her fingers. It fell and shattered on the marble-tiled floor.

"What are you doing in there?" came Glory's slurred interrogation, but Elena couldn't bring herself to answer.

Stupefied, she instead rounded the counters and went to a door that led onto the back deck. She had to know—had to be sure. Twisting the knob, the woman let herself out onto the rain-dampened wood. A dull, pained rumble of thunder echoed far off in the distance, and all at once a very light, almost delicate rain began to fall, its droplets creating concentric ripples along the surface of the swimming pool. Reaching the end of the deck, Elena put her hands on the railing and gazed down into the crystal-clear water.

She neither screamed nor gasped nor ran down the stairs to the patio but instead turned and slowly returned to the house. Through the kitchen, back into the foyer, where she frosted Ms. St. James with a glare. Glory, one arm still over her eyes and the other dangling off the settee, didn't even seem to realize her maid had returned.

A moment passed, silent. Then another. Neither woman moved or spoke, until at last Elena, nostrils flaring, broached the subject: "Who is that in your pool?"

Glory kept still as stone. Elena wondered whether she'd passed out. But at length, she sighed. "Oh, it's just Trent. No need to be concerned."

Trent. Trent? Elena was sure she'd heard the name. Yes! The first time she'd been to this house . . . the man who'd asked her about her boys. Her chin dropped. "Your son? That man face-down in the pool is your son?" At last the proper emotional response set in. "And you—did you call someone? Jesus! He could still be alive!"

Elena would've pulled her phone from her pocket had not Glory reached for her, gripped her plain brown dress with her claw-of-a-hand. "Don't bother. He's definitely dead."

"How? Did you call the police? Nine-one-one?"

"No, no." Glory lifted the arm from her face and sat up in a wobbly sort of way. "Don't waste your time, all right? He's been there all morning. He's not going anywhere."

Elena shook her head back and forth incredulously. "What do you mean he's been there? How did he—what happened?" She didn't parcitularly care about the man, and yet there he was, drowned in the pool, and his own mother appeared utterly indifferent!

A hazy film split like curtains across Glory's retinas, as if she were some reptilian creature deciding at last to waken, and she did, indeed, seem suddenly to sober a bit. She let go of Elena's dress and pressed her hands firmly on the sofa, as much to keep herself steady as anything else. "Of all my sons," Glory grumbled, "I think I liked him least. Always meddling. Trying to find ways to make things easier for himself." She stared distantly at something Elena couldn't make out. "He never quite believed me, as much as I told him. He might not have had the blood, you understand, but I knew he couldn't get away from it. Mae couldn't, and Maggie won't either." Her eyebrows lifted, and a strange little laugh escaped her lips. "None of us can, can we?"

She looked up to Elena, then; the two women met one another's eyes.

"We're just alike, you and I," Glory grinned, a slight gleam at the corners of her mouth. Her reptilian image was furthered by a flicker of tongue through her teeth. "I'm tired."

Unable to make much sense of the woman, Elena retrieved her phone. "I'm calling the police," she told Ms. St. James. "You just stay there." As she swiped the right number, Elena's mind raced. It must've been some kind of accident; the older woman must've found her son, dead. She'd probably gone mental, begun to drink to relieve the shock or deny the tragedy . . . it wasterrible. So sad! The other end of the line rang and rang, but no one picked up. Elena turned and began to pace, her back to Ms. St. James.

Within seconds, though, a hand curled around her shoulder. "I said, don't bother," Glory growled. "They already know."

Elena shook the fingers off of herself, her breath erratic. She lowered her cell. "What do they know?"

Half of Glory's mouth turned upward bitterly, its smile lines deepening. "Don't you get it, you stupid bitch? They've always known about every one of my babies, and they've never cared. But at least I'm almost done. It's your turn, now."