“Oh, no. I’m almost as new as you are. Mr. Flood hired me and Fernanda a couple of weeks before you and your mom and your sister moved in. We reopened the house for him. Got things ready.”

“Oh,” said Alice, disappointed.

“Will you hand me that spatula, sweetheart? This oatmeal seems to want to stick to the bowl.” As Alice obliged, Luz said, “You know, that’s not completely true.”

“What’s not?”

“That I’m as new to the house as you are. I’d been here a few times before. Back when the first Mrs. Flood was here.” Luz looked up at Alice, flushing slightly, as though fearing she was being tactless or insensitive. “But only two or three times. She used to throw parties. Big ones. They needed extra staff.”

“So you knew the family?”

Luz raised her right hand, held the tips of her thumb and index finger very close together to indicate just how small her knowledge was.

“What was Camilla like? Was she beautiful?” There. Alice had said the name out loud. Camilla. It was a huge relief, like some giant pressure inside her had been eased.

“Yes,” Luz said, then glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure no one else was listening. “A very beautiful girl. So full of life. Oh, and that smile of hers. As soon as you saw it, you just had to smile back, no matter what kind of mood you were in.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“And good at so many things. She got a perfect score on her SATs. I know because she tutored a niece of mine. She used to volunteer at the YMCA. At Meals on Wheels, too. Oh, my niece loved her, just worshipped the ground she walked on. Thought she was the smartest, prettiest, nicest girl. It was all she would talk about when she got home.”

Alice took in what Luz was saying hungrily, greedily, like an eavesdropper crouched outside a cracked window. It didn’t matter that what she was hearing was painful, was making Tommy seem further and further out of reach. She had to listen, couldn’t get enough.

Luz continued: “And I’d see Camilla’s name in the paper all the time. She seemed to win every tennis match she played. Could sail as good as your stepdad could, too. Boy, was he crazy about her. Thought the sun rose and set with her. Like I said, I only knew the family a little bit, but I felt so bad for him, didn’t know how he was going to make it after, well”—her voice dropping to a whisper—“what happened.”

“Yeah,” Alice said quietly.