Bonnie was working a double today, six hours instead of her usual three. Val had arranged it last week, explaining she was throwing a surprise forty-first birthday bash for Rick. Bonnie, taking her call from the home of married neurosurgeons she'd just started working for, had wondered how they were going to keep it a surprise. She cleaned a double before all Glasser parties, every few weeks. Wouldn't he be suspicious?

"Just tell him I needed a spruce-up," Val had said. "I'll presell it. No sweat."

Whatever story she'd given him, it seemed to have worked. "Spruce away!" Rick had said, writing the check for twice the usual amount.

Bonnie figured he was too busy between Tramp Bar and herding kids to question.

The discovery of Wyatt's letter had come in Bonnie's third hour of cleaning, what would've been the tail end of her shift but today was the middle. She nudged the drawer again with her shoe—leaving it open the same sliver—and headed downstairs to dust the study.

Half an hour later, the doorbell rang.

Bonnie watched Rick answer through the study's glass double-doors.

"Chad Jortlesburg, candidate for sixth district city council!" said a man with pamphlets. "Fighting to take back Franklin."

Rick, who'd come from browning onions, shifted a wooden spoon behind his back to shake hands.

"Back from who?" he said.

The politician laughed insincerely, then looked past Rick toward the great room. "Got the day off, huh? Hitting the links this afternoon?"

"No—I, uh..." Rick started. "I work from home."

Chad Jortlesburg rubbed his jaw, blue from a fresh shave. "Good for you. We need more fathers involved in the family—that's part of the problem."

Rick leaned aside to drop the spoon, surreptitiously, on the mahogany foyer bench. Bonnie made a mental note to wipe up the grease before it set.

"Actually, I'm opening a new business in October. It's a spin on the whole brewery thing, called Tramp Bar."

"No kidding. Here in Franklin?"

"Yep. Right on the banks of the Shawnee."

"Heights side?"

"Technically, I'm in Franklin Falls."

"Uh-oh, watch out for those storms!" The politician puffed his cheeks. "Tell you what, though—if I'm elected, I'll push to get those river walls built..."

And went right into his spiel. Bonnie stopped paying attention when he started in about the Feds' proposed downtown stadium, an issue that'd been hashed and rehashed by local news. Nowadays all Bonnie watched was sports and weather.

After dusting, she needed to move the sheets to the dryer, which took her through the foyer.

"Hello there," Bonnie said, ducking by.

Chad Jortlesburg looked from her to Rick, then back.

Rick jumped in, "Bonnie, this is Chad...Chad...what was it, Jorgenson?"

The man corrected him.

"Right, right—Jortlesburg. Chad, this is my friend, Bonnie Pearson."

Bonnie slipped off a latex glove to shake hands. The man had surely pieced together the roles here—nobody who lived in this neighborhood would drive Bonnie's rusted pickup—but she appreciated Rick's wording.

Bonnie didn't linger with clients' visitors as a rule and now excused herself to the laundry. She pulled damp sheets from the washer, extracting any pillowcases that'd gotten balled up inside. As she worked, she considered whether to tell Rick about the letter.

He should know. He needed to know—if his aspirations for the rest of the year and beyond were to be realized.

If she told, Bonnie would have some explaining to do. How had she happened to see this letter? Why had she even known to look for one?

This part Bonnie didn't mind so much. She and Rick talked about all manner of topics. She would be scrubbing burnt-in rice from their gorgeous copper pots and he'd confide the pressures he felt from his father, or she'd go into the lawsuit her disabled husband—but not Bonnie—wanted to file against Franklin Consolidated Health for the botched diagnosis.

If it came to it, she would explain the tickle at the nape of her neck.

No, what bothered Bonnie was the prospect of interfering in the natural course of things. Her credo was this: arrive, clean, leave. Lighten a family's load. Don't meddle.

When Bonnie had first started cleaning thirteen years ago to supplement Frank's factory pay, she'd let slip to a client that a neighbor had always admired their house and even joked about buying it out from under them. As fate would have it, the client—a housewife—had been itching for a bigger home, perhaps across the river in Franklin Heights, and used Bonnie's disclosure as ammunition during arguments. Her husband finally gave in and sold to the neighbor—but lost his job six months later. They were divorced now, the kids in joint custody.

Never again, Bonnie had vowed.

Sheets in the dryer, she kicked off the jumbo cycle—whump, whump—then passed through the foyer again. Chad Jortlesburg had just left.

Rick picked his onion-specked spoon off the bench with a frown.

"I'll get a rag," Bonnie said.

"Nope," he said, rolling up his jeans' cuff. "My mess, my cleanup."

He pulled one sock away from his ankle and used it to wipe the bench. "And we're good."

He brushed his hands lightly off one another. They both chuckled at the odd—borderline disgusting—maneuver, then glanced outside with a shared sigh.

Bonnie felt obligated to comment on the door-to-door candidate, but couldn't come up with anything.

Other thoughts kept pushing in front. Thoughts of the letter and how directly it bore on Rick's perception of himself. How badly he yearned for more to say to men like Chad Jortlesburg, who looked at him and saw a house-husband spending his wife's paycheck on some vain hobby.

"Well," Bonnie said, "he had lots of ideas."

"He did indeed." Rick turned the spoon around to point outside with the clean end. "Tell you what, though. If he thinks they're getting that downtown stadium built with public funds? He's nuts."