What Vivienne Suspected

The week before the gala, I overheard my mother ask my father a question in the hallway outside his study, her voice pitched low in the specific way adults use when they think a closed door is thicker than it is.

"Why does that woman still work in this house, Richard?"

"She's good at her job."

"That's not what I asked you."

There was a silence long enough that I almost walked away before my father answered. "It's complicated, Viv. Leave it."

"Everything in this house is complicated," my mother said, and there was something in her voice I'd never heard directed at my father before — not quite an accusation, not quite a question, something in between, like a woman circling a piece of furniture in the dark, certain something was wrong with the room but not yet willing to turn on the light.