I realize then that I haven’t felt alone since I found Anneliese. That this grim desolation comes not as a direct reaction to the bracelet episode, but as a reaction to what it might mean for me. Where it could leave me if I keep letting these doubts tussle with me. Which makes me want to forget all of it, to go back to Anneliese’s tomorrow and act like nothing is gnawing at me. But when I look at the tiny photograph of my mother and me in a small silver frame, shoved behind my unused tissue box, behind knickknacks on my bedside table, I can’t help but let that fear, that uncertainty, mount and give me pause.

I look back at texts I’ve left unanswered the last few weeks. There aren’t many. Beth stopped texting a month ago, and the only one from Gavin is asking me to sign up for an art class he’s taking with the same old teacher in whose class we re-met. I pinch myself for not getting back to him. Where have I been? It’s almost like I’ve been in love, so intoxicated with a person I’ve forgotten anyone else who matters. Who wants to matter.

Without thinking, I click on the link, and it takes me to an all-level oil painting class. There are still two spots left, and I put the deposit down, typing out my credit card info without glancing at the price. It’ll be every Monday and Wednesday, and I can’t wait. I’m sure Gavin and my old teacher will be excited to see me.

I haven’t done any kind of art, except with the kids, in ages, it seems. My sketch of the house has languished untouched at the art studio in Brooklyn.

God, that house. What the hell was happening there that Anneliese would have taken the bracelet? And was my mother so blinded by her own fury that it didn’t even cross her mind that a nanny she’d known for three seconds could have been the culprit and not her own sister’s daughter? My dad had essentially said that, in not so many words. That she wouldn’t even entertain the idea that she’d misplaced the jewelry, or that anyone entering or leaving the house could have snatched it. She zeroed in on Georgia, on her sister, and never looked back, the same way she’d latch on to a conviction that her color scheme for a project was right, the client be damned.