Chapter 2 — I Wouldn’t Leave Him There

His eyes were closed.

That was the first thing I noticed, and for one foolish second, I thought he looked asleep.

Then I touched his cheek.

I drew my hand back.

The room was so cold that my breath caught when I inhaled. Gabriel’s skin had the stillness of stone left outdoors in winter.

“Mr. Falcone?”

I said it quietly, the way I did when he worked late and I needed to ask whether I could clear his untouched dinner.

There was no answer.

Bandages covered his abdomen and the lower edge of his chest. A dark stain had spread beneath one strip of gauze, then stopped. Someone had removed his shirt, his watch, and the gold chain I sometimes saw at his collar.

They had left him with nothing but dress trousers and a sheet.

I pulled the cloth over his foot.

“You hate the cold,” I whispered.

I knew that because he never complained about anything else in the house.

If a meal was bad, he left it. If a guest bored him, he ended the conversation. But when the terrace doors were open in winter, he shut them himself.

Last February, I had found him in the library with a blanket over his knees, speaking into a phone in a voice that made me grateful I couldn’t hear the other person.

He’d looked up when I entered.

“Please tell me there’s a reason every window in this house is open.”

“Mrs. Bell says it clears the air.”

“Mrs. Bell can clear it in July.”

I had laughed before remembering who he was.

He hadn’t seemed to mind.

Now I searched the room for a thermostat.

There was a panel beside the door. I pressed the upward arrow until the numbers changed.

The vent kept blowing.

A small line appeared beneath the temperature setting.

CENTRAL OVERRIDE.

I pressed again.

Nothing happened.

I went into the adjoining supply room and found two cotton blankets on an open shelf. I carried them back and spread them over him, careful not to disturb the bandages.

A steel tray beside the bed held scissors, bloody gauze, and a pair of gloves turned inside out.

His things sat in a clear bag.

I recognized the watch immediately.

I picked up the bag, then put it down. It felt wrong to move anything.

Voices sounded outside.

I froze with one hand still resting on the tray.

“Thought you were watching the wing.”

“Rossi wants us in the dining room.”

“What about Falcone?”

“What about him?”

The men laughed.

Their footsteps receded.

I crossed the room and turned the thumb lock.

The click seemed terribly loud.

I stood there with my hand on it, waiting for someone to come back.

Nobody did.

On the counter, a phone sat in its cradle. I lifted the receiver.

No dial tone.

I pressed a button, then another. A red light blinked, but the screen remained blank.

Perhaps the system had been switched off during the lockdown. Perhaps there was a way to use it that I didn’t understand.

I replaced the receiver.

I had no phone of my own in my pocket. Staff devices stayed in our lockers during evening service. That rule had never mattered before.

Now everything I needed seemed to be on the wrong side of a door.

I returned to Gabriel.

One blanket had slipped where his shoulder met the pillow. I tucked it closer.

At the edge of the mattress, I found a lever and lowered the bed enough to sit beside him. The cushion gave beneath my weight.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

I almost smiled at the absurdity of it. Even now, I was apologizing for taking up space.

My whole life, somebody had been asking me to move.

Move so the picture looked better.

Move so a thinner girl could stand in front.

Move because the bench might break, because the aisle was narrow, because I was embarrassing someone who wanted to pretend we weren’t related.

I had become very good at folding myself inward.

Gabriel had never asked me to.

Once, in the kitchen, he had found me eating lunch alone beside the back door.

I started to stand.

“Sit,” he said.

“I’m nearly finished.”

“I came for coffee, Matilda. You don’t have to abandon your food.”

I remembered being surprised that he knew my name.

Later, I realized he knew the gardener’s name, too, and the night driver’s. He noticed more than people believed.

I looked at his hand lying beside the blanket.

There was dried blood beneath one fingernail.

I dampened a cloth with warm water from the supply room sink. It took a long time for the tap to heat. I held my own freezing fingers under it while I waited.

Then I cleaned his hand.

I worked slowly, lifting each finger, wiping away the blood without moving his arm more than necessary.

There was a faint scar across his knuckles.

Another near his wrist.

He had done terrible things with those hands. I knew that. I had heard enough conversations stop when I entered a room.

But I had also seen him hold a door for Mrs. Bell when her ankle was injured.

I had watched him tell a drunk guest to lower his voice because the kitchen staff weren’t there for entertainment.

I didn’t need him to be innocent to grieve him.

I only needed him to be gone.

A sob escaped before I could swallow it.

I pressed the cloth over my mouth.

Outside, the house continued without him.

The coffee would be cooling. Someone would complain about it. Someone would pour another whiskey and discuss what he could take.

I leaned down and rested my forehead against the edge of his shoulder.

“I don’t know what to do.”

The blankets weren’t enough. Cold air kept reaching the gaps beneath them. I could feel it against my own arms.

I took off my shoes.

For a moment, I hesitated beside the bed.

He had never invited me this close. If he could see me, he might be furious.

But he couldn’t see anything anymore.

That thought hurt worse than the cold.

I climbed onto the bed, keeping clear of his injured side, and lay beside him. There was barely room. My hip hung near the edge, and I had to brace one foot against the frame.

I pulled the blankets around both of us.

I did not put my weight across his wounds. I held his uninjured arm against me and brought my cheek close to his temple.

His hair smelled faintly of smoke and the soap from his bathroom.

“I’m here,” I said.

I kept saying it because I couldn’t bear the silence.

After a while, my breathing steadied.

My arm cramped. I shifted carefully, afraid even now of hurting him. The room’s clock made a small mechanical sound each minute.

At two-fifteen, I checked the door.

At two-thirty, I rose to wet another cloth and warm my hands.

At three, I lay beside him again.

I knew I would be dismissed if anyone found us.

I knew what they would say.

The thought came, sharp and humiliating, and for once I let it pass.

He had endured enough abandonment for one night.

I rested my palm above the edge of his bandages.

His skin seemed less cold.

I told myself that it was only the warmth from my hand. That I was desperate enough to believe anything.

Then something moved beneath my palm.