“She adores you,” Mrs. Haltom said. “She told me you’ve come along so quickly. Isn’t that right, Jim?”

Mr. Haltom lifted his head. “Yes,” he said. “Very quickly.”

Vanessa touched my arm. “Will you help me clear the plates?”

I all but leapt from my chair.

In the kitchen, we found Shirley putting away the last of the pots and pans, two hours after the end of her normal shift. When she saw us come in with the plates, she sighed and reached for her apron.

“Please don’t, Shirley,” Vanessa said. “We’ll take care of it.”

Shirley ignored her, strapping on her apron and stepping up to the sink with a curt efficiency.

“I’m so sorry, Shirley,” Vanessa said, her voice weary with shame. “Can I give you a ride to the bus stop?”

“No, thank you, honey,” Shirley said. “Y’all just get back in there. Don’t leave that poor girl alone for too long.”

By the time we got back to the dining room, however, they were already up from the table—all but Jamie, who sat waiting for us, looking both bemused and annoyed.

“Where’d they go?” Vanessa asked.

“They’re giving Charlie’s mom a tour of the carriage house,” he said. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Let’s go find them,” Vanessa said.

In the carriage house, Mrs. Haltom was explaining all of the work that had gone into the recent remodel. She described each phase of the project as if she’d done the job herself.

“The original floors weren’t at all what I asked for,” she said. “So I had them ripped up and replaced.”

“I’m sure these are much nicer,” my mother said.

“For twenty-six thousand dollars, they ought to be,” Mrs. Haltom replied. “Right, Jim?”

“Mm-hmm,” Mr. Haltom said.

“There are two bedrooms in the back,” Mrs. Haltom said. “Would you like to see?”

We followed her down the hallway. The master bedroom had a queen bed and a wall full of windows facing out on to the rose garden and a big private bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a shower. The second bedroom was smaller, with a double bed and a single window facing the boxwood grove in the backyard, but it had its own half bath and a desk and an empty bookshelf and a chest of drawers.

Mrs. Haltom turned toward me.

“How would you like to live in a place like this?”

“It’d be great, I guess,” I said.

“Quite an upgrade from where you are now, right, Bonnie?”

“Nancy,” Mr. Haltom said, “please.”

“I don’t understand,” my mother said. She gave Mr. Haltom a winsome glance, which seemed to plead for some gesture of mannerly intervention.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Haltom said. “Did you think I meant to insult you? On the contrary. We have a proposition for you. For you both, as a matter of fact.”