GETTING CLOSER
Eleanor didn't ask about the episode.
That was the first thing that struck me as wrong.
She called, I answered, and she asked about his appetite and his sleep and whether the evening tea had been prepared and she didn't ask — not once, not in any of her measured questions — whether he'd had an episode that morning. Whether anything had happened. Whether the lamp in the main room was intact.
Harmon had told her.
She already knew.
And she'd called not to check on him but to check on me — to hear my voice, to assess from the specific quality of my answers whether anything had shifted in the east wing that she needed to address.
I gave her nothing.
I answered in the same professional tone I'd used with Harmon and I said yes to the appetite and yes to the sleep and I said
