Hours later, after they’d deflated the bouncy house, unstrung the lights, folded the folding tables, and washed all the dishes, Kiersten climbed the stairs to bed.
Garrett was already there, reading theFarm Journal.
She squeezed his hand. “Ten more minutes?”
He peered at her over his reading glasses. “Just enough time for me to finish this riveting article on the latest innovations in pasture management.”
She had only a few pages left in Dottie’s first diary. She turned on the bedside lamp and began to read.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Dottie
September 6, 1965
I met the live-in help this morning. The doorbell rang and I found Peggy, the incompetent girl from the office, standing on the porch in scuffed shoes and a big overcoat, even though it was hotter than blazes by 9 a.m., holding a suitcase. She’s different than I remember. Still very pretty, but pale, quieter.
I put her in the second-floor guest bedroom and showed her where everything is inside the kitchen, and she got right to work.
Then I went back to bed. But as I drifted off to sleep, I caught the scent of baking bread.
I hope it’s edible. Because if she’s as bad at cooking as she is at running the Selectric we’re all going to starve.
September 13, 1965
It’s been a week since Peggy arrived. She never seems to leave the house, but maybe she doesn’t have time, with all the cooking and baking and gardening she does. I can’t figure out if she got fired from the dealership, or if Dickie poached her from the office to be our domestic help.
I feel a little sorry for her. She wears scuffed shoes and these worn, shapeless dresses that hang on her petite frame. She seems troubled. Scared. But she makes me delicious meals. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, a small casserole with fresh fruit for lunch, and a lovely dinner that I eat on my own in the kitchen before Dickie comes home. Then I go out in the garage and work on the ’57 Chevy until long after dusk. I come inside around 8 p.m. and fall into a deep sleep. I’d forgotten grief is like this. I felt this way after my mother died. Tired. Right down to my bones.
September 14, 1965
I learned a little bit more about Peggy today while eating my lunch. She grew up in a small town in Missouri, near Fort Leonard Wood, with six siblings. Put herself through secretarial school while working as a cook at a restaurant and a maid at a hotel. She’s awfully pretty, and a much better housekeeper than I’ll ever be.
She cuts flowers from the garden and makes the most beautiful arrangements. Hydrangeas and foxglove and some of those roses still blooming on theeast side of the house. I have to admit, she’s got a knack for making the house look pretty.
I shared my recipes with her to make her life easier and she’s been making them. She adds too much salt, though.
September 15, 1965
I came in from the garage last night to find Dickie and Peggy eating together in the dining room. It made my stomach heave, almost like having morning sickness again, as I watched them laughing and talking together as they ate.
She’s always so careful never to sit with me when I eat, to maintain this idea that she’s the staff and I’m the mistress, even though it’s just the two of us here all day together and we’re basically the same age.
She looked beautiful. And even though I don’t love Dickie anymore, something inside me twisted like a shard of glass.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Kiersten
The next day dawned harsh and cold. The Instagram-perfect fall weather from the day before had vanished, replaced by a gloomy fog. A gray curtain hung over the cul-de-sac, muting the crimson of the sugar maples planted at regular intervals along both sides of the street.
Kiersten slipped out of her quiet house and met Piper at the mailbox.
After church and pancakes at IHOP, Garrett had taken the boys to the big Air and Space Museum out by Dulles airport, giving her all of Sunday afternoon to exercise with Reggie, and then have coffee with Richard and Margaret Davis in their house at the end of the cul-de-sac.
A misting rain dribbled down from the sky. Kiersten pulled up the hood on her Minnesota Vikings sweatshirt in a vain attempt to protect her hair and stashed Dottie’s first diary in the front pocket of her sweatshirt to keep it dry.
“Thanks for coming with me,” she said as she balanced a plate of freshly made brownies in her other hand.
