Page 32 of A Thin Line

But I found I had another question. “Why are you still here if Mr. Whittier doesn’t need a nanny any longer?”

Edna joined me back at the table. “When it came time to leave, the elder Mr. Whittier asked me to stay on as a housekeeper. I told him no because I was having problems in my marriage and, of course, my training was as a nanny. I felt I’d stayed on for far too long as it was.”

“But?”

“But I realized my first husband and I weren’t going to stay together. We wanted children but I couldn’t have them—and acting as a mother to Sinny had satisfied many of those urges for me, but not my husband at the time. Mr. Whittier likely saw the cracks in my resolve, because he offered to let me live here while increasing my pay to stay.”

“Wait. Here?”

“Yes. The entire Whittier family lived here at one point.”

“Why did they leave?”

“Well, the older boys, of course, after attending college and moving back received their own homes as partial payment for working for their father. When Sinclair was attending college, Mr. Whittier had a new home built in Cherry Hills Village. It’s smaller than this but far more opulent.”

My mind couldn’t fathom it.

“Mr. Whittier didn’t like living here after Mrs. Whittier died, although he never said it. So it’s possible that I’m wrong but I always had that impression based on things he said—and didn’t say. I worked in his new home for several months before Sinny graduated from Columbia, but when Sinny came home, he at first didn’t want to work for his father. That was rather unpleasant business.”

She was quite the storyteller—and I was rapt. No longer was I concerned with any display of curiosity. I was hooked. “So why did he?”

“I really shouldn’t say.” I wanted to prod her but knew that would get me nowhere. Instead, I took the last bite of toast, hoping my progress would distract her.

And it worked.

She continued. “His father threatened to cut off all support, saying that the Whittier family needed to put up a united front. He’d been struggling with bad publicity ever since he’d closed a mine somewhere south.”

I felt a tingle in my spine as I realized that was what my dad had been involved in—about ten years ago.

“He had what Sinclair often described as a project of obsession and needed Sinclair to step into his proper role so he could focus on it. In exchange, his son would inherit the original mansion, and he took it off the market. Sinny said he would only accept the terms if I came with him to run his household. Both I and his father accepted those terms.

“Oh, but I’ve said too much. Please don’t repeat any of what I’ve told you.”

“I won’t.”

“Look at you. All that cleaning must have made you work up quite an appetite.”

Glancing down at my plate, I could have cursed.

There wasn’t a single crumb left.

My afternoon task was even more demeaning than my earlier one, but I was happy to at least be outside. There was a patio on the east side that matched the one on the west, with one exception: over here there was a brick oven and grill, along with a large oval table with a glass top and white umbrella and six matching chairs.

The oven and grill were pristine…but the brickwork wasn’t, and my task was to scrub it. I didn’t know that I could get the char marks off the red brick, but I would try—and I was suddenly glad I’d eaten all the food on my plate.

It was hot outside, but at least the sun wasn’t beating directly down on me. I used the time to look around at my surroundings. This was a quiet neighborhood full of large homes and occasionally someone would pass on the sidewalk with a dog or be jogging under the shaded trees.

After half an hour of scrubbing, an older man came around the corner of the house, pruning shears in hand. When he spotted me, he said, “Well, hello there.”

“Hi.”

“Are you new around here?”

“Uh, yes. I just started today.”

He chuckled. “They didn’t waste any time giving you the dirty work, did they?”

I liked the kind, friendly vibes I was getting off this man and I flashed the day’s first genuine smile. “No, they didn’t.”

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