Then the phone rang. A private legal office needed a live-in nurse for a thirty-four-year-old man recovering from a spinal injury. When the man named the salary, Adeline asked him to repeat it. When he mentioned immediate dependent medical coverage, she stopped breathing for a second. Then she asked the question experience had taught her always mattered: “Why is the job open?”
“The household has had difficulty retaining nurses.” “How many?” “Three since June.” “And the patient?” “Mr. Alfieri.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone. The Alfieri name was not famous in the ordinary sense. It was known. In certain Chicago neighborhoods, people pronounced it more quietly than other names — shipping companies, cold-storage warehouses, construction firms on the letterhead, and rumors about the other half of the family history.
She looked at Wes’s medical card, at the second date crossed out in blue ink. “When do I start?”
The Alfieri estate stood near the lake behind iron gates. Edna Hollis, the sixty-three-year-old housekeeper, met Adeline at the service entrance. “You’ll learn the rules.” “Written down somewhere?” Edna gave her a tired look. “No.” That should have been warning enough.