Lonnie threw the door open then, startling both of us. She was wearing her robe, her hair a tangled nest on one side of her head, pillow marks on her cheek.

“Oh God!” she said. “Elle!”

She was the only person I’d ever known to shorten my name—Ella usually being diminutive enough as it is. I liked the way “Elle” sounded in her mouth, though—a sort of sleek exclamation.

“I completely overslept!”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I hope it’s all right I came up here. I heard William crying—”

“Oh God, of course! Thank you,” she said, picking William up.

“Mamamamama,” he droned, leaning into her chest.

DOWNSTAIRS, SHE POURED MILK FROM A GALLON JUG INTO A bottle. “Our last nanny wanted to transition him off the bottle when he turned one,” she said. “But he was still asking for it after she left, so I just gave it back to him.”

She pointed to a fruit bowl on the counter. “You can cut some up, if you like. And make coffee too. Eat any of our food anytime.”

Obediently, I boiled water in the red kettle on the stove and poured grounds into a French press. I also warmed some milk for William’s oatmeal and cut a banana into chunks. As I worked Lonnie said, “We’ve had some problems with nannies in the past actually.” She balanced William, still vacantly sucking his bottle, on her hip. “She was heartless, our last nanny.”

I looked at her, but she didn’t go on. Instead, she moved toward the fresh coffee like a moth toward light. “We can go out to the terrace,” she said. “I hate eating down here in the dark.”

Before following her up the stairs, our food loaded onto a bamboo tray, I turned and grabbed a peach for myself, just the right amount of yielding underneath the skin. I ran the fuzz back and forth under my fingertips while we sat in the sunlight on the terrace. It was my first peach of the season. Lonnie stripped off William’s onesie, set him in his high chair, and handed him a spoon. He set to work trying to eat the cereal. Most of it landed on his naked belly, but he didn’t mind.

The terrace extended past the living room over what I would later learn was the laundry room, guest bedroom, and bath behind the kitchen, taking up the remainder of the lot. Below us, on either side and to the rear, I could see the narrow, well-pruned backyards of neighboring houses.