He looks down at his watch. “It’s eight in the morning. He’s always here. There are a dozen other families he works for—why is he always here?”
I shrug, but truthfully, he has a point. It does seem like Enzo is in our yard a lot. A disproportionate amount of time, even considering how much larger our yard is than many of the others.
Andrew seems to make his mind up about something and he puts his coffee cup down on the windowsill. I reach for it, knowing Nina will have an absolute fit if she sees a ring of coffee on the windowsill, but then I stop myself. Nina isn’t going to give me a hard time anymore. I don’t ever have to see her again. I can leave coffee cups wherever I want from now on.
Andrew strides into the front lawn, a determined expression on his face, and I follow him out of curiosity. Obviously, he’s planning to say something to Enzo.
He clears his throat two times, but it’s not enough to get Enzo’s attention. Finally, he snaps, “Enzo!”
Enzo very slowly lifts his head and turns around. “Yes?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Enzo lets out a long sigh and gets back on his feet. He ambles over to us, going as slow as humanly possible. “Eh? What you want?”
“Listen.” Andrew is tall, but Enzo is taller, and he has to lift his head to look at him. “Thank you for all your help here, but we don’t need you anymore. So please just get your things and go to your next job.”
“Che cosa?” Enzo says.
Andrew’s lips set into a straight line. “I said, we don’t need you. Done. Finished. You can leave.”
Enzo’s head tilts to the side. “Fired?”
Andrew sucks in a breath. “Yes. Fired.”
Enzo contemplates this for a moment. I take a step back, aware that as strong and muscular as Andrew is, Enzo has him beat by a mile. If the two of them were in a fight, I don’t even think it would be a close call. But then he just shrugs.
“Okay,” Enzo says. “I go.”
He seems to care so little about the whole thing that I wonder if Andrew feels silly for having made a big deal out of him working here so often. But Andrew nods, relieved, “Grazie. I appreciate your help the last few years.”
Enzo just stares at him blankly.
Andrew mutters something under his breath and turns around to goes back into the house. I start to follow him, but just as Andrew disappears through the front door, something restrains me. It takes me a second to realize that Enzo has grabbed my arm.
I turn around to look at him. His expression has completely changed since Andrew went back into the house. His dark eyes are wide as they stare into mine. “Millie,” he breathes, “you must get out of here. You are in terrible danger.”
My mouth falls open. Not only because of what he said, but how he said it. Since I’ve been working here, he hasn’t managed to string together more than a couple of English words. And now he said two entire sentences. And not just that, but the Italian accent that is usually so thick that I can barely understand him, is far more subtle. It’s the accent of a man who is very comfortable with the English language.
“I’m okay,” I say. “Nina is gone.”
“No.” He shakes his head firmly, his fingers still wrapped around my arm. “You are wrong. She is not—”
Before he can get any other words out, the front door to the house swings open again. Enzo quickly releases my arm and backs away.
“Millie?” Andrew pokes his head out the front door. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I manage.
“You coming back inside?”
I want to stay out here and ask Enzo what exactly he meant by his ominous warning and what he was trying to tell me, but I have to go back inside the house. I don’t have a choice.
As I follow Andrew through the front door, I look back at Enzo, who has made himself busy gathering his equipment. He doesn’t even look up at me. It’s almost like I imagined the entire thing. Except when I look down at my arm, I can see the angry red marks his fingers left behind.
THIRTY-FIVE
Andrew told me that I shouldn’t be doing any work for the house, but Monday I usually go grocery shopping, and we’re low on a lot of supplies. And after I flip through a few books I pulled out of the bookcase and watch a little TV, I’m itching for something else to do with myself. Unlike Nina, I like keeping busy.
I have been meticulously avoiding the grocery store where that security guard tried to apprehend me. Instead, I go to a different grocery store in another part of town. They’re all the same anyway.