After a day or two, I began to suspect that Nat was killing the ladybugs. There were fewer and fewer of them around. Once I found twenty dead bodies on a windowsill. I sniffed, but I couldn’t smell chemicals. Why were they dying? “It’s the end of their season,” said Nat. But still I suspected her. So many ladybugs ought to have brought something hugely lucky to our lives. Killing them could bring calamity. I started to fret, and whenever I hadn’t felt the baby move for more than an hour, I poked it till it squirmed.

Nat cooked, too. The fare was plain and fairly tasteless, but the kids loved it: lasagna, spaghetti with meatballs, fried fish, baked beans. After she was done with the cleaning on that first day, at around one, I expected her to leave, but all she did was put on an apron and start chopping. When the kids were home, she had them doing chores. Tyler walked around with a cleaning rag hanging from his belt, a sponge in one hand. Both boys loved working for Nat. She combed their tousled hair, tamed the curls I loved and slicked them back with water. She started talking about buzz cuts. With the house cleaned, the kids occupied, and dinner in the oven, all I had to do was read and wait for Craig to come home. I spent more and more time in my room. Nat fussed over me. In bed for ten minutes, I’d hear a knock on the door, see her giant silhouette framed by the doorway. “You hungry?” I ate three meals a day, plus egg sandwiches at eleven, a bowl of beans at four. I gained fifteen pounds in a month. My doctor was astounded and relieved that I was up to a normal weight. I didn’t tell him that I barely ever walked, ate all day, rarely saw my children. Nat was turning me into an invalid. And I was beginning to realize that Carroll thought I’d been one all along. Hiding in the hall one night, I heard her talking to Craig in her rough whisper. “I tell you, Nat has saved you. Saved you all.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Ma,” said Craig in a cracked voice—always conciliatory, always making less of things, always talking women down.

“Wasn’t that bad? You’re like one of those frogs. If you put a frog in cold water and heat it slowly it won’t notice, and before you know it—”

“You have a boiled frog. I get it.”

“Admit the house is running better.”

“Absolutely. And I thank you.”

“She needed this, Craig.”

“I know.”

“She’s fragile.”

“She’s been under stress, she’s fine.”

They moved away at that point and I couldn’t hear, but two days later, Craig started talking about therapy. God, forgive the mother of my husband.