Ghost Flower Read Online Free Page A

conversation got indistinct. Bridgette was clearly in charge. Soon they were strolling up and back in sync, heads close, him nodding at her. I caught something about “makes her dependable,” before they wheeled away again. Watching them was like watching two predatory fish in a tank swimming slowly back and forth. Circling.
    “What if they don’t know they’re in a tank?” I could hear Nina asking in my mind. I pictured her sitting on top of the washing machine, leaning out as far as she could to look through the door of the laundry room across the kitchen to the massive fish tank that separated it from the dining table at the Dockwood place.
    I had been working for a cleaning service. No benefits, no questions asked about my age or ID or why I wasn’t in school. $7.25 an hour plus tips. Although, despite spending my days inside houses with inlaid marble floors and walls of books that had never been read and built-in safes and ornamental bowls casually used to throw all the remote controls into, there were rarely tips.
    Nina was fascinated by the fish, and I felt bad making her stay in the laundry room. But she wasn’t supposed to be there, even though the Dockwoods weren’t home. I knew they had security cameras, and I couldn’t risk her being seen. “You mean, what if we’re the ones in the tank and they’re watching us?” I asked.
    “Yes!” she squealed.
    “How do you know we’re not?” I asked her.
    I knew the question would keep her for awhile. She liked to work things out and come up with concrete answers and often got exasperated by my high tolerance, maybe even preference, for not knowing. I was upstairs polishing the handles on the his and hers vanities—vanity indeed—in the master bedroom when I heard the patter of Nina’s footsteps behind me.
    “I figured it out,” she said, sounding so excited I couldn’t chastise her for coming to find me. “If we were in the tank, we wouldn’t have to worry about what we were going to eat for dinner. We’d never be hungry. So we’re not in the tank.”
    “No,” I agreed, and the polish cloth in my hand started to tremble. I kept my head down, working the cloth in smooth circles and avoiding looking at her so she wouldn’t see my struggle to hold back tears. “We’re not.” I was trying so hard, but it wasn’t enough. I took a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and raised my eyes to hers in the mirror.
    And froze.
    There was a trickle of blood running from her nose down her face. “Sweetheart,” I said, turning to wipe it, but it kept coming. “What happened?”
    “What?” she looked at me blankly. Then she saw the blood. “I don’t know. It just started.”
    “Has this happened before?” I asked.
    She looked away. “No.”
    “How often?”
    She shrugged. “When we were still with Mrs. Cleary, it was maybe once every week or two?”
    “And now?”
    Her eyes met mine and filled with tears. “Mostly maybe every day.” She started to cry. “I’m so scared.”
    I got on my knees and hugged her, and that’s where we were when Mrs. Dockwood came in and saw us and the two spots blooming like bloodred flowers on the edge of her white hand-loomed carpet.
    “Not only does she have a girl with her, she has a
sick
girl,” she screamed into her phone at my boss. “This is completely unacceptable.Bringing something like this into my house. The carpet is ruined.
Ruined
,” Mrs. Dockwood moaned. “We’re going to have to replace the whole thing, and it will cost a fortune. I hope you have good insurance.”
    I stared at the floor, squeezing Nina’s trembling hand to reassure her.
    “I’m very sorry,” she said to Mrs. Dockwood, and to her credit, Mrs. Dockwood smiled at her and said, “It’s not your fault, dear.” Her eyes came to me. “It’s hers. What was she doing here? This isn’t a day care.”
    “I’m sorry,” I told Mrs. Dockwood.
    “I’m sorry,” I told my boss when he fired me.
    “I’m sorry,” I