Maddie stabbed some of her salad. She pulled it off her fork with her teeth and chewed. “I know all that, too.”

 “Oh, really? And who explained all that?”

 “Well, Uncle Adam wanted to give me a heads-up—he has a girlfriend and he hasn’t brought her around yet because you’re Emma’s boss and she has history with the family, not all of it good. I figured out she’s the one who used to be your friend and Daddy’s girlfriend. And Adam suspects you might still be enemies.”

 “Huh,” Riley said. “Is there any reason for me to be here right now? Anything I can tell you that you don’t already know?”

 Maddie took another bite of salad, chewed and swallowed. “I seriously doubt it,” she said.

 Riley put down her spoon in exasperation. “What did Grandma tell you?”

 “Hmm.” She stalled. “Well. She said after all these many years you and Adam were starting to get your stuff together. She didn’t say stuff, but you know Grandma can swear sometimes. And so do you, and yet I will be punished if I— Okay, so she said after all these years it appeared Adam might have a serious love interest and she caught you finally on an actual date. With a decent-looking guy who was nice and polite and kind of interesting...”

 “She doesn’t know anything about him!”

 “You sure about that?” Maddie asked. “Who knows what she knows? This is really good soup.” She slurped a little more. “I like these talks, Mom. When am I going to meet your friend Emma?”

 “Aren’t you more interested in the guy?” Riley asked.

 “I want to know about you and Emma, like when you were kids. And when you were teenagers,” Maddie said.

 “What do you want to know?” Riley asked.

 “Everything,” she said. “Uncle Adam said if I wanted to know all that I had to ask you. I asked him was there secret stuff? Was that why I had to get it from you? And he said it wasn’t because it was secret. It was because it was special. Really special.”

 Riley thought for a moment. “It was,” she said. “She was the first friend I had here. We were nine...”

 Riley told her daughter all the details, from nine to nineteen, and Maddie understood it all because she had best friends—the laughter, the fights, the trouble, the way they’d always helped each other through dark times. Although it was frightening, Riley also told about the end. She didn’t quote Emma or herself, but she admitted there were hateful things said.

 “Mom,” Maddie said. “Mom, you’re crying...”

 Riley wiped at her cheeks. “I didn’t realize,” she said. “I didn’t think it was still so real. It was such a hard thing... And then there was you, and you made it all worth it. Because I had you, my regrets were gone. I was sorry I hurt her, though. And I said so, I really did.”

 “Is she still mad?” Maddie asked.

 Riley shrugged. “I don’t think so. We haven’t had that talk. We nibbled around the edges of it. She said she got over it a long time ago and I said that I’d begged her to forgive me and she never did. But then we left it without a real talk.”

 “Are you going to?”

 “I’m her boss now so I don’t know,” Riley said.

 “You better,” Maddie said. “Know why? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before.”

 “Oh, Maddie, I’ve cried so much!”

 “Not around me,” she said. “And you know what? You’re more real when you cry.”

    Chapter Twelve

 Emma had to concentrate very hard just to keep up with the rest of her team so for the first two weeks in her new job she saw very little besides the dust and dirt she was waging war on. It wasn’t just important that she be flawlessly thorough, but also fast. Clients had an expectation of not only a perfect job, but an on-time job, too. In most of the houses no one was home and it was usually planned that way; people didn’t like being underfoot while the house was being cleaned.

 Nick came by a couple of times as she was working to check on her. He was a happy and energetic guy in his early thirties, and two things were immediately clear—all the women liked him and he had eyes only for Makenna. He joked with her, complimented her, asked her a lot of questions, but she kept moving and gave him mostly short answers. Emma was amused by the way she tried to ignore him. Makenna was much friendlier with the women, though she was their superior. If Emma knew her better she might tease her, but she really didn’t dare.

 In fact, there wasn’t much she dared. She very much wanted to prove she could clean as well as she could supervise a household staff. That first week, she didn’t notice much, but there was one thing that drew her attention. The trash in the wastebasket of a fifteen-year-old girl. It appeared she’d thrown away some clothing. Emma didn’t mean to inspect her trash, but she couldn’t help but notice the price tags still on the clothes. She pulled them out—two pair of pants, three tops, a scarf, a blazer—all stuffed into the trash can. A wad of gum was stuck to a brand-new Free People long-sleeved knit top that sold for eighty-five dollars. There were designer labels on the other items. Prada. BCBG. Christian Lacroix.

 She smoothed the clothes out on the girl’s bed.

 “What are you doing?” Makenna asked.

 “She must have made a mistake,” Emma said. “She threw away brand-new, very expensive clothing—these still have the tags on.”

 “It’s not a mistake,” Makenna said. “They’re in the trash.”

 “But...”