For the first time, the word felt different in his mouth. Not Rebecca the maid. Not Rebecca who started last week, Grace recommended her. Just Rebecca.
She walked to the door.
She did not come to work the following Monday or Tuesday.
Mr. Caleb did not call her. He had promised her time, and he intended to keep that promise, even as the house felt the particular emptiness of waiting. He made his own breakfast. He left his own dishes in the sink. He ate lunch standing in the kitchen and dinner alone at the dining table.
On Tuesday evening, he sat in the sitting room with the lamp on and a book he was not reading and thought about how quiet a house could be when you had spent 30 years filling the silence with work and had suddenly run out of ways to do that.
He thought about calling Benjamin. He decided against it. This was not ready to be talked about yet, not in the easy, anecdotal way Benjamin talked about things. This was still too new, too tender.
He went to bed early and lay there looking at the ceiling.
On Wednesday morning, just after 8:00, the gate bell rang.
He went to the window.
Rebecca was standing at the gate.