I could see my father in his robe sipping a beer in the backyard at night while the rain petered out. His lawn chair—a rainbow-printed number from the seventies—squeaked as he turned toward the dark field past our backyard, the darker trees beyond the field, and said, “Why would anyone ever want to leave this place?” I knew I wasn’t supposed to answer and I also knew that the question was meant for me.

I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF HER—OF EITHER OF THEM, really. I felt a certain amount of resentment—for their wealth, their beauty, their confidence. It wasn’t envy exactly. I didn’t want their life, but I resented them for being able to live the way they did at all.

I had never worked for a boss my own age. The husband, James, was also young, in his mid-thirties. He was fit and tan with only a little gray mixed into his thick, honey-blond hair. I assumed, despite our closeness in age, that because of their obvious wealth, they would end up treating me like a servant instead of someone helping raise their child.

At the end of the interview, Lonnie (purse back in hand) told William to say goodbye to me. He tiptoed over and wrapped his little arms around my legs.

“I think that settles it,” she said. “When can you start?”

Of course, it strikes me now, how trusting she was. What did she see in me? A girl in a thin ten-dollar dress, raised in a truck-stop town in rural Oregon, who’d never finished college? Maybe it didn’t matter who I was.

I SPENT A LONG TIME, THAT FIRST DAY, DECIDING WHICH DOOR to come through. I had keys to both, but going up the stoop and through the arched double doors of the main entrance seemed presumptuous, and entering through the ground level, servile. I’d never been faced with a decision like this before. In my three years of living in the city I had not once entered a single-family house.

I ended up flicking the latch on the iron gate and going through the ground-floor entrance, under the stoop. The door opened into a small mudroom. Weak morning light seeped in from the next room, illuminating an antique mirrored hall tree directly opposite the door, where a cream trench coat hung crookedly by its sleeve. I peeled off my canvas backpack and jean jacket and placed them next to the trench coat on a filigreed hook. The presence of the coat comforted me. The ground-floor entrance was used by the family, not just the help.