I tried Marietta next. The housekeeper came in three times a week, preparing meals and cleaning up and doing laundry. I already did most of this, of course, but she never acknowledged that. An older woman from El Salvador, she slapped about the house in flat sandals and wore pedal pushers and loose tops, like mothers did. She looked about Jenna’s age, but the two were poles apart. Marietta always had the TV on while she worked, watching something, and later that day I went into the kitchen to find her very slowly shelling peas, eyes glued to some kind of courtroom TV show, real people bringing complaints against each other in front of a real judge.

‘Hey.’

She jumped slightly, realised it was only me, then slid her eyes back to the TV.

‘Good afternoon.’

‘Marietta, I want to ask you something. It’s a bit delicate. I mean, um . . . it’s a tricky subject.’ I wasn’t sure how good her English was. Would she know the word tricky? She said nothing. ‘Madison has some bruises on her arms and I’m worried about her. I just wondered if maybe you’d noticed anything. If you knew how she could have got them. You have kids, right?’ Perhaps that was the right note to strike. I was just an ignorant teenager, but she was a mother. Finally, she looked at me.

‘You have seen these bruises?’

‘Yes, they’re definitely there. On the inside of her arms.’

Marietta sighed. ‘Children are always getting bruises.’

‘But her legs – she has this red rash, all over.’ I gestured vaguely.

‘From the pipi.’

‘Maybe. But that’s weird too, right? She shouldn’t be wetting the bed at her age?’

Marietta thought about it for a long time, her fingers working away to pop out the peas, which burst forth like little green bullets. ‘You should talk to Mrs Safran, not to me,’ she said finally.

‘I know, but . . . I’m afraid.’ I lowered my voice. ‘What if Mrs Safran is the one doing it?’

Marietta’s eyes flicked to mine. She must have known it was possible, seeing how Abby behaved towards Madison. She sighed. ‘I will talk to her. Say there are bruises and maybe some child is hurting Madison at school, OK? We will see.’

‘Oh, thank you!’

The huge rush of relief showed me I had been more worried about this than I knew. But I was nineteen, a guest in America. I didn’t want to rock the boat. And so I passed it on to Marietta to deal with, never thinking how this might affect her or what the consequences might be.

Rachel

Rachel