Chapter 5 Chapter 5: Whispers in the Shadow

Another day in this mansion and I still can't adjust. I miss the noise of my neighborhood in the mornings, running after the bus, the bustle of the ER; here the silence is scary. I went down to Ethan's suite with a coffee and an old novel under my arm, checked him over carefully — his vitals were stable.

I changed his IV, took his pressure, wrote down the evolution. I opened the curtain. I pulled the armchair up to the bed.

"Good morning, Ethan. Today it's novel time. One my mom gave me. If you don't like it, that's too bad for you, because I'm going to read it to you anyway." I smiled, hoping he'd laugh at my bad joke too.

I read him two chapters out loud. When I was getting to the third, there were two knocks at the door.

"Come in."

Derek walked in with that sour face of his. He's a young man, but he's colder than my now-husband, and he's in a coma.

"Mrs. Cavalier. How is the boss this morning?"

"Stable."

"Is he going to wake up?"

"Derek, I'm not a doctor."

"I'm asking you as a nurse."

"He has everything he needs to wake up. If he hasn't, it's because he doesn't want to yet."

He nodded.

"We need him awake, ma'am."

"I know."

He left the way he came, no extra words, the way I wished something in this house was less boring than reading a mystery novel. I sighed and went back to the book.

I didn't get to open it because the door flew open and a woman came in like a hurricane. Blonde, at least thirty, tight dress — too much for my taste — and heavy makeup.

"Ethan."

She went up to the bed without looking at me and sat on the edge, as if she were his mother and not a stranger. She leaned over and kissed his forehead.

"Love. My love. I'm here."

She started running her fingers slowly through his hair. I stood up from the armchair.

"Ma'am. Who let you in?"

She looked at me for the first time. Up and down. Without getting up.

"And who are you?"

"The nurse. I'm going to ask you to leave. Mr. Cavalier is recovering."

"I know he's recovering. I've been going to see him at the hospital for months."

She turned back to Ethan. She took his face with both hands.

"Love, what did they do to you."

She spoke to Ethan as if I didn't exist, as if I were a curtain.

"Love, when you wake up we'll fix everything. I'm waiting for you, do you hear me?"

The monitor started beeping faster. Eighty. Ninety. Ninety-five.

"Ma'am. The patient's pulse is rising. Please leave."

"Don't give me that story, girl."

"Ma'am. Now."

I walked up and put my hand on her shoulder to pull her away from the bed.

She stood up abruptly and faced me.

"Don't touch me."

"Get out of the room."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll throw you out."

"I dare you."

She slapped me without warning.

It cracked.

My right cheek burned, the heat rose to my ears, and something inside me let go. I looked at her. She was looking at me with that crooked smile of women who enjoy what they've just done.

I gave her back the slap with my whole arm.

It cracked louder.

She took two steps back with her hand on her cheek.

"You bitch..."

She lunged at me. I grabbed her by the wrists. We struggled against the foot of the bed. The monitor beeping over both of us.

The door opened.

Marcela walked in with Gloria behind her.

"Vanessa, let her go, you've lost your mind."

Vanessa stopped cold and let go of my wrists. She fixed her hair with her fingers without looking at Marcela.

"Marcela. This woman hit me."

"I saw you hit her first. Don't lie to my face."

Marcela took her by the arm and pulled her out into the hallway without further ceremony. Gloria followed. The door closed.

I stayed in the middle of the room breathing hard. The monitor slowly came back down from ninety-five to eighty-two.

I put my hand on Ethan's forehead.

"It's over, Ethan. She's gone."

I sat in the armchair and swore when I heard another knock at the door. I swear I'll kill that woman if she comes in here again.

"Come in."

A maid walked in with a tray in her hands.

"Ma'am, I brought you a tea. Gloria says it's for your nerves."

"Leave it on the table."

She came forward.

When she got to the armchair, with the tray in both hands, she gave her wrist a short twist and the cup tipped over.

The tea hit me so fast I didn't have time to move away.

It burned my shoulder and my chest through the uniform.

"Fucking hell!"

I jumped up and yanked the uniform away from my chest to pull it off my skin. The maid took two steps back with the tray still in her hands and a perfect look of shock on her face.

"Ma'am, it slipped, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"It slipped?"

"Ma'am, please, don't fire me!"

I looked at her.

A cup doesn't slip sideways.

"What's your name?"

"Beatriz, ma'am."

"Beatriz. Look me in the eye."

She looked at me with her eyes wide open.

"You poured that tea on me on purpose."

"Ma'am, how could you say such a thing!"

"Beatriz, don't take me for a fool. I've been ten years in the ER, I know how a liquid falls by accident and I know how it falls when someone throws it."

"Ma'am, I would never..."

"Besides, who would believe you, right? I'm only the nurse."

Her face went blank. For a second. Only a second. But I saw it.

"I didn't say that, ma'am."

"You didn't have to. Go."

"Ma'am..."

"Get out of this room, Beatriz. And tell whoever sent you to do this that next time they should send someone who knows how to hide it better."

She left nearly running and without picking up the broken cup. Good maids pick up what they drop. I closed the door and went into the suite's bathroom, turned on the cold water and put my shoulder under the stream, the red skin was already blistering in a patch the size of my palm.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was burning from the slap and my shoulder was burning from the tea. All on the same side — I must have killed a priest in a past life, God, what a bad streak.

I came back to the room ready to kill someone, took off the wet uniform and put on another one in front of my sleeping husband — he'd have to forgive me, but I didn't feel like going to my room.

I looked at Ethan.

"Ethan. Listen carefully. A girl named Beatriz just walked out of here, a maid with a dumb face who isn't dumb. She poured the tea on me on purpose. This whole house is shit, Ethan. Your family, your lovers, your staff. Shit."

I paused.

"If you woke up right now, I'd slap you."

Silence.

I put my hand on his wrist for a long time. The monitor read eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-two. Nothing.

I opened the novel. I read him another chapter in a low voice.

---

Voices in the garden woke me up. I'd fallen asleep with the book in my lap, I looked at the clock and it was four in the morning, I had a blanket on me that Gloria must have put there. I'd slept through the afternoon, the evening, and the entire early morning in the armchair. My neck ached, my shoulder burned, my mouth was dry.

The voices were men's. Short orders. And a woman screaming without words.

I got up. I looked at Ethan: stable. I went out to the hallway, went down barefoot.

Gloria intercepted me in the kitchen.

"Ma'am. Go back up."

"Gloria, what's going on?"

"Go up, please."

"Gloria."

She breathed in.

"A maid was found in the pool."

I stood still.

"Dead?"

"Dead."

I went out to the terrace without asking more. Two floodlights on, and in the water, a body floating face down. Black uniform, long hair spread around the head. Two guards trying to pull her out with a hook.

At the edge of the pool, Derek. Arms crossed. He saw me. He crossed the terrace toward me.

"Ma'am. Go back to your room."

"Derek. What happened?"

"We don't know yet."

"Did she fall?"

He looked at me.

"Go back to your room, ma'am. Please."

I looked at the body again and it was the maid who threw the tea at me that afternoon, Beatriz.

The last person in this house who had argued with Beatriz was me, and out loud.

I went up.

I walked into my husband's suite; he was the same as when I'd left him. Monitor at eighty-two, eyes closed. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his face for a long time.

"Ethan."

Nothing.

"Ethan, what the hell did I get myself into by agreeing to be your wife."

Nothing.

I put my hand on his forehead.

"I don't know if this mansion is a house or a house of horrors anymore."

I want to be close to my mother's heart, but I don't want to end up the same way as Beatriz.