Chapter 3 - The Night the Maid Wouldn’t Look Away
Brianna waited until Thomas left for an overnight meeting in Boston.
Then the house changed.
At six, she ordered Lily to scrub the mudroom floor because a delivery driver had tracked in snow.
At seven, she made the girl carry laundry upstairs.
At eight, Lily dropped a basket.
A ceramic Christmas village house shattered.
Brianna came running.
“You stupid little brat.”
“I’m sorry!”
“You ruin everything.”
“It slipped.”
Brianna seized Lily by the arm and jerked her upright.
Margaret entered.
“Let her go.”
Brianna turned.
“You again.”
“She apologized.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Lily tried to pull away.
Brianna shoved her toward the wall.
Margaret stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Brianna slapped Margaret.
The crack echoed through the hallway.
June gasped from the kitchen.
Margaret’s cheek burned.
Brianna stared at her, perhaps shocked by her own action.
Then anger won.
“You think because you’re old I won’t touch you?”
Margaret said nothing.
Brianna grabbed a wooden fireplace poker handle from beside the hearth—not the metal end, but the heavy carved shaft—and swung it into Margaret’s upper arm.
Margaret stumbled into a side table.
Lily screamed.
“Stop!”
Brianna struck Margaret again across the shoulder.
Pain exploded down her back.
June ran forward.
Brianna shouted, “Stay out of this!”
Margaret straightened.
“June. Take Lily upstairs.”
“No!” Lily cried. “She’ll hurt you!”
Margaret looked at her granddaughter.
“Go.”
Something in her voice made Lily obey.
June pulled the child away.
Brianna breathed hard.
“You should have stayed in your place.”
Margaret’s shoulder throbbed.
“You mean beneath you?”
“Yes.”
Brianna shoved her.
Margaret fell to one knee among pieces of the broken Christmas village.
Brianna threw a cleaning cloth beside her.
“Clean it.”
Margaret looked up.
“You’re going to regret this.”
Brianna laughed.
“Who exactly is going to make me regret it? Your union?”
She kicked the cloth closer.
“Clean.”
Margaret did not move.
Brianna seized a fistful of her gray wig.
The wig shifted.
For one second, Margaret feared Brianna would expose the disguise.
Then the front door opened.
Thomas.
“Brianna?”
She released Margaret instantly.
Thomas entered the hall.
His face changed.
“What happened?”
Brianna began crying.
“She attacked me.”
Margaret stared.
Thomas looked at the broken village.
At Margaret kneeling.
At Brianna’s trembling hands.
“She grabbed me,” Brianna said. “She scared Lily.”
Lily came running downstairs.
“That’s a lie!”
Thomas turned.
“Lily.”
“She hit Maggie!”
Brianna snapped, “Stop lying!”
“She hit her with that!”
Lily pointed at the wooden handle.
Thomas looked at Margaret.
“Is that true?”
Margaret slowly stood.
“Yes.”
Brianna laughed hysterically.
“You’re believing the maid over your wife?”
Thomas’s eyes went to Margaret’s swelling cheek.
“I believe my eyes.”
Brianna grabbed her coat.
“I cannot live in a house where servants and children gang up on me.”
She stormed upstairs.
Thomas called a doctor.
Margaret refused an ambulance but allowed Dr. Bennett, the family physician, to examine her.
Severe bruising.
No fracture.
“You should report this,” he said.
“I will.”
Thomas sat outside the room with Lily.
“I’m sorry,” he told Margaret afterward.
“For?”
“For bringing you into this.”
“You didn’t.”
“I hired—”
“No. Mrs. Caldwell’s office arranged my placement.”
That was technically true.
Thomas looked ashamed.
“Brianna has a temper.”
“A temper is shouting because the turkey burned.”
He looked down.
“This was different.”
“Yes.”
Lily took Margaret’s hand.
“Can you sleep in my room?”
Thomas frowned.
“Why?”
“So Brianna can’t hurt her.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
That was the moment Margaret saw him finally understand.
His daughter had not become frightened tonight.
She had been frightened for a long time.
Brianna returned downstairs at midnight.
Her anger had transformed into sweetness.
“I overreacted.”
Thomas stared at her.
“You beat an elderly woman.”
“I panicked.”
“You struck her twice.”
“She grabbed me first.”
“To stop you from hurting Lily.”
Brianna’s face hardened.
“You’re choosing them?”
“I’m choosing reality.”
Margaret watched silently.
Brianna looked at her.
For the first time, there was fear behind the contempt.
The following morning, Samuel sent Margaret a message.
The hallway security camera had captured everything.
Margaret read the words twice.
Then another message arrived.
We found something worse. Brianna has been paying a private investigator to follow Lily.
Margaret’s blood went cold.
Why?
Samuel answered:
Because someone has been asking whether Lily can be removed from the Caldwell trust before her thirteenth birthday.
May you like
Lily turned thirteen on Christmas Day.
Four days away.
