“Where Do You Think You’re Going Dressed Like That?” — The Mafia Boss Finally Noticed the Maid No One Ever Saw
PART 1
The piano had not been played in four years.
Nora knew this the way she knew most things about the James residence: quietly, from the specific evidence of sustained absence. The keys were clean because she cleaned them every Tuesday and Thursday with the polishing cloth Mr. James had specified in the household manual. The bench was always in the same position. The sheet music in the cabinet was in chronological order because she had organized it and no one had touched it since.
The piano was a Steinway. It was very beautiful and it was very silent and it sat in the corner of the main living room the way beautiful silent things sat in the residences of powerful people: as evidence of taste rather than use.
She did not know what made her sit down that Thursday evening.
She had finished the apartment at four. She had restocked the refrigerator with the specific items on the approved list. She had ironed the shirts for the weekend. She had arranged the flowers that arrived by delivery on the first Thursday of every month.
She had done everything on the checklist.
Mr. James was at a dinner that would last until nine.
She had until seven-thirty.
She sat at the piano.
She touched the keys without pressing them.
She thought: I have not played in six years.
She thought: I used to play.
She pressed a key.
The note was clear and exact and said what she had been trying not to say for several months, which was: I am very lonely.
She played for twenty minutes.
Nothing memorized, nothing practiced. The specific improvised thing that hands did when they had been away from an instrument long enough to have forgotten what they were afraid of.
She did not hear the apartment door.
She did not hear the footsteps.
She heard, eventually, someone behind her.
She stopped.
She stood so quickly the bench scraped.
Elliot James stood in the doorway.
He was forty-one years old. He wore a dark suit that still looked precise at seven PM. He had dark hair and the specific quality of someone who was paying attention to everything and processing most of it privately.
He looked at her.
She said: I apologize. You weren’t expected until nine.
He said: The dinner ended early.
She said: I’ll finish my checklist.
He said: You were playing.
She said: I was. I shouldn’t have used. I’ll finish my.
He said: Wait.
PART 2
The word was not sharp. It was the way he said most things: with the specific calm of someone who had learned to be still in order to be heard.
She stopped moving.
He said: How long have you been playing.
She said: Since I was eight.
He said: I meant how long this evening.
She said: Twenty minutes.
He said: Play something else.
She said: Mr. James.
He said: Please.
He said it carefully.
She looked at the piano.
She said: I shouldn’t.
He said: You should. It was the best thing that’s happened in this room in four years.
PART 3
She looked at him.
He looked back with the expression of someone who had said something honest and was not going to take it back.
She sat down.
She played for another fifteen minutes.
When she finished, he was still in the doorway.
He said: Thank you.
She said: I should have asked.
He said: No. He came further into the room. I should have asked. Why it’s been silent.
She said: You don’t have to tell me that.
He said: My wife played. She died four years ago.
She said: I know.
He said: You know.
She said: The household manual had a note. That the piano was to be maintained but was not to be played by staff.
He said: I wrote that the first week.
She said: I know.
He said: And you played it tonight.
She said: I shouldn’t have.
He said: I don’t think I should have written it.
She said nothing.
He said: How long have you worked here.
She said: Two years and three months.
He said: I barely know your name.
She said: Nora Park.
He said: I knew it was Nora.
She said: Most people forget the last name.
He said: I don’t forget last names.
She said: You’re very good with details.
He said: And you’re very good at being easy to overlook.
She said: That’s the job.
He said: Is it?
She said: A well-run household is invisible. That means the staff is invisible. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
He said: Is that what you want.
She said: It’s what I’m good at.
He said: That’s not what I asked.
She looked at the piano keys.
She said: No.
She said it very quietly.
He said: No, it’s not what you want.
She said: No.
He said: Then stop.
She said: Mr. James.
He said: Elliot.
She said: I can’t call you.
He said: Why.
She said: Because you pay me.
He said: That’s not a reason.
She said: It’s a very good reason.
He said: I pay James Chang too and I’ve called him James for fifteen years.
She said: James Chang is your COO.
He said: And you run my house.
She said: That’s different.
He said: Tell me how.
She looked at him.
He looked back.
She said: Because James Chang walks into your meetings and tells you when you’re wrong and everyone in the room adjusts. I walk into your kitchen and you don’t look up from your laptop.
The words came out more directly than she had intended.
He was quiet for a moment.
He said: You’re right.
She said: I’m sorry.
He said: Don’t apologize for being right.
He said it with the specific quality of someone who had made this argument to other people and was now receiving it from an unexpected direction.
She said: I should go.
He said: You’re not due until seven-thirty.
She said: I was going to leave early.
He said: Why.
She said: Because this conversation is unusual and I don’t know what to do with unusual.
He said: Stay. I’ll make tea.
She said: I can make the.
He said: I know how to make tea.
She said: I know you know. But I.
He said: Nora.
She stopped.
He said: Let me make tea.
She sat.
He made tea.
He made it competently. He sat across from her at the kitchen counter.
He said: Tell me about you.
She said: I’m your housekeeper.
He said: Before that.
She said: Before that I was a housekeeper for someone else.
He said: Before housekeeping.
She said: I worked at a hotel. Before that I was in school. Before that I was in Ohio in a situation I left as soon as I could.
He said: What kind of situation.
She said: Foster care.
He said: How long.
She said: Fourteen to eighteen.
He said: And then you came to New York.
She said: And then I came to New York with not much and built from not much.
He said: The piano. Who taught you.
She said: One of my foster mothers. She had a piano and she was the kind of person who thought giving people skills was the same as giving them things to stand on.
He said: Was she right.
She said: I’m still standing.
He looked at her.
She said: Mr. James.
He said: Elliot.
She said: I’m going to keep calling you Mr. James.
He said: All right.
He said: But I’m going to keep telling you that’s not necessary.
She said: That’s your prerogative.
He said: Is it my prerogative to ask you about the red scarf you wear on Sundays.
She blinked.
He said: You’ve worn it every Sunday I’ve seen you here for two years. Same scarf.
She said: You notice things you pretend not to notice.
He said: I notice everything. I’ve been pretending not to for two years.
She said: Why.
He said: Because you were making yourself very small and I didn’t want to make it worse.
She said: That’s thoughtful.
He said: It was a mistake.
She said: It wasn’t.
He said: It left you invisible.
She said: I chose invisible.
He said: Why.
She said: Because invisible is easy. If no one sees you, no one decides you’re too much.
He said: Who decided you were too much.
She said: A lot of people.
He said: This is a lot of disclosure for a work relationship.
She said: I know.
He said: I’m not stopping.
She said: Why.
He said: Because you played my wife’s piano and it was the best sound this apartment has had in four years, and I think that means something.
She looked at her tea.
She said: I’m sorry about your wife.
He said: I know.
She said: I read about her. When I started working here. To understand the household.
He said: What did you read.
She said: That she was a landscape architect. That she designed the roof garden on the Thompson building. That she was forty-three.
He said: She designed that garden so people in the building would always have somewhere green to go.
She said: That’s kind.
He said: Yes.
He said: She would have asked you about the piano the first week.
She said: I know.
He said: How do you know.
She said: Because someone put the sheet music in order. It wasn’t in order when I came. Someone alphabetized it and I redid it chronologically and someone came along after me and put it back alphabetically. She paused. That happened four times before I understood it had been her, before she was sick. That she organized by name. That she had a system.
He was very quiet.
She said: I left it alphabetical after that.
He said: I didn’t know you’d changed it.
She said: I didn’t want to.
He said: Thank you.
She said: It was nothing.
He said: It wasn’t.
She stayed until seven-thirty.
They talked about things that were not household management: the landscape architecture of the roof garden, which she had photographed once because the light was right; the foster mother’s piano, which had three broken keys but was still better than silence.
She went home.
She thought: that was the first conversation I have had in this apartment.
She thought: two years and three months of conversations about grocery orders and maintenance schedules and one actual conversation.
She thought: that is a long time to be quiet.
She thought: it was also my choice.
She came back on Monday.
He said good morning. Not the preoccupied acknowledgment of someone already thinking about the next meeting. The way someone said it when they had thought about it on Sunday.
She said good morning.
He came to the kitchen at nine for his coffee.
She had it ready.
He said: Thank you.
She said: Of course.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: I want to ask you something and you can say no.
She said: Ask.
He said: The piano. I don’t want the rule to stand.
She said: You don’t have to.
He said: I want you to play it. When you want. I want the apartment to sound like something.
She said: I’ll think about it.
He said: That’s fair.
He took his coffee and went to his office.
She stood in the kitchen.
She thought: that was an unusual employer.
She played the piano on Wednesday.
He was in his office and could hear it through the door.
He did not come out.
That was the right thing.
She played for forty minutes.
February was when the company trouble started.
She knew about it from peripheral information. She saw the meetings change: more attorneys, longer blocks, names she didn’t recognize on the afternoon schedule. She saw Elliot’s coffee consumption increase.
She saw him in the kitchen at eleven PM three nights in a row.
On the third night, she was there too.
She said: I wasn’t scheduled.
He said: I know. I got your note that you were coming for the early cleaning.
She said: You’re up very late.
He said: Yes.
She said: Is it the company.
He looked at her.
She said: I hear things. I’m not listening. But I hear things.
He said: What have you heard.
She said: That Marcus Webb has been running a parallel capital raise.
He said: Where did you hear that.
She said: Your CFO’s assistant called the apartment line by mistake last week trying to reach his voicemail. She left a message. I didn’t listen to all of it but I heard that much.
He was very still.
She said: I deleted it. I didn’t know what else to do.
He said: You should have told me.
She said: I know. I was afraid you’d think I was.
He said: I need to hear it.
She said: Your CFO is raising capital from investors you don’t know about, apparently to position for a proxy fight.
He said: To take the company.
She said: That’s what it sounded like.
He said: How long ago.
She said: Eleven days.
He said: Eleven days.
She said: I’m sorry. I should have.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: You gave me eleven days’ notice before a proxy fight. That’s not a problem.
He said: That’s a gift.
He called his attorney at eleven-fifteen PM.
She made more coffee.
She left it on his desk without interrupting the call.
She went home at midnight.
He texted her at twelve-thirty: Thank you. For the coffee and the eleven days.
She wrote back: You’re welcome. Win correctly.
He wrote: Define correctly.
She wrote: Without making it worse than it has to be.
He wrote: Working on it.
She went on a date in March.
Her friend Patricia had arranged it.
The man’s name was James Holloway. He was an architect. He was, by every visible indicator, a perfectly acceptable person.
They met at a wine bar in the West Village.
He said: What do you do?
She said: I manage a private residence.
He said: Like housekeeping?
She said: Yes.
He said: Oh. That’s honest work.
There it was.
Honest work. The phrase people used when they meant: I had higher expectations.
She said: Tell me about architecture.
He talked about architecture for forty minutes.
She found it interesting. She asked real questions.
Then he said: Do you have aspirations? I mean beyond the household management.
She said: I aspire to do my work well.
He said: Right, but like bigger.
She said: I think big work can be small work done carefully.
He tilted his head. That’s philosophical.
She said: I was a philosophy minor.
He said: You went to college.
She said: Yes.
He said: And you’re working as a housekeeper.
She said: Yes.
He said: That’s a shame.
She put down her wine glass.
She said: Why.
He said: You’re clearly intelligent.
She said: Intelligent people can do all kinds of work.
He said: I know. I just you could do something more.
She said: I do something thoroughly.
He said: I don’t mean it as an insult.
She said: I know.
She said: I’m going to get the check.
She paid her half. She left.
She walked home through March rain and thought: he wasn’t cruel. He just couldn’t see me.
She thought: most people can’t.
She thought: except.
She thought: Elliot can see me.
She thought: I don’t know what to do with that.
She came in the next morning.
He was at his coffee.
He said: How was your evening.
She said: Fine.
He said: I don’t believe you.
She said: It was adequate.
He said: Date?
She said: How did you.
He said: You called in for the early Thursday which you only do when you have somewhere to be Wednesday evening.
She said: You pay attention to my schedule.
He said: I pay attention to everything.
She said: It was a date. It was fine. He was fine.
He said: Fine is not good.
She said: No.
She said: He said that housekeeping was a shame given that I’m clearly intelligent.
Elliot looked at her.
She said: I know. It’s not worth analyzing.
He said: It is worth it.
She said: It isn’t.
He said: Nora. Do you know what I’d pay to reproduce what you’ve built in this household?
She said: That’s different.
He said: Why.
She said: Because renovation is visible.
He said: What you do is visible to anyone paying attention.
She said: Most people aren’t.
He said: I am.
She looked at him.
He looked back with the specific quality of someone who had decided to say something directly and was following through.
He said: I see you, Nora. I have for a long time. I was waiting for you to be ready to be seen.
She said: That’s not how it works.
He said: Tell me how it works.
She said: I don’t know.
He said: Neither do I.
He said: But I’m asking.
She said: You’re my employer.
He said: I know.
She said: That’s a real problem.
He said: Yes.
She said: I need this job.
He said: I know that too.
He said: I’m not asking you to choose.
She said: Then what are you asking.
He said: I’m asking you to play the piano.
She stared at him.
He said: And to stop walking through my apartment like you’re afraid to leave footprints.
She said: That’s not a declaration.
He said: No.
He said: It’s an observation.
He said: The declaration can wait until you’re ready for it.
She said: You’re going to wait.
He said: I am very patient.
She said: How patient.
He said: I ran a proxy fight for six weeks through proper legal channels without flinching.
She said: That’s not the same.
He said: Same skill set.
She almost laughed.
She caught it.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: Stop catching it.
She let the laugh out.
He smiled.
It was the first time she had seen it fully.
She thought: that is a very specific problem.
The proxy fight resolved in April.
Marcus Webb’s parallel capital raise had been stopped through legal challenge. The institutional investors who had committed to his group had withdrawn after the company’s transparency filing made the situation visible. Marcus resigned before the full audit was complete.
She knew the outcome because Elliot told her.
He came into the kitchen on a Thursday evening and said: It’s over.
She said: Good.
He said: I wanted to do something else.
She said: I know.
He said: How.
She said: Because you came home looking like someone who had held themselves back.
He said: I wanted to make it cost him more.
She said: I know.
He said: Why did you tell me to win correctly.
She said: Because making it cost him more would have cost you more.
He said: Explain.
She said: If you had gone at him personally, publicly, in a way that was about punishment rather than correction, you would have become the story. You would have become a man who uses power to damage people.
He said: He was trying to take my company.
She said: Yes. And you stopped him through the process that exists for stopping him. That’s different from making him an example.
He said: You think there’s a line.
She said: I think you know there’s a line. I think you chose to stay on the right side of it and I think it cost you something.
He said: Yes.
She said: That’s not nothing.
He said: No.
He said: My father would have done it differently.
She said: I know.
He said: You know about my father.
She said: I know he built the company and that you’ve been running it differently than he would have. I know that from the way you talk about the early years.
He said: How do I talk about them.
She said: Like someone describing a storm they survived.
He was quiet.
He said: He was effective.
She said: Effectiveness isn’t the only measure.
He said: No.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: Can I ask you something directly.
She said: You’ve been asking things directly for three months.
He said: This one is more direct.
She said: Ask.
He said: Do you want to have dinner with me.
She said: I’m having dinner with you right now.
He said: I’m working and you’re about to leave.
She said: That’s fair.
He said: Not tonight. This weekend.
She said: As.
He said: As two people who have been having conversations in this kitchen for three months and would like to have one in a restaurant.
She said: You’re not going to pretend this is about something else.
He said: No.
She said: You’re not going to say it’s professional.
He said: It isn’t.
She said: I’m your housekeeper.
He said: Yes.
She said: That’s complicated.
He said: I know.
He said: I’m asking anyway.
She said: Is that how you close deals?
He said: Usually.
She said: It works?
He said: Reasonably often.
She said: Elliot.
He said: Yes.
She said: I need to tell you something.
He said: Tell me.
She said: I have been in a lot of situations where a powerful person offered me something that looked generous and turned out to be a management strategy.
He said: Yes.
She said: I’m not saying that’s this.
He said: I know.
She said: But I need to say it.
He said: Of course.
She said: And I need to know that if I say no, I still have my job.
He said: Nora.
She said: I need to hear you say it.
He said: If you say no, nothing changes professionally. I will keep paying you the same salary, expecting the same quality of work, and enjoying the same conversations we’ve been having in this kitchen for three months. The door stays exactly where it is.
She said: And if I say yes.
He said: Then we figure out what comes next from an honest position.
She said: That’s not a guarantee.
He said: No.
He said: I’m not offering a guarantee. I’m offering a dinner.
She said: A dinner.
He said: Yes.
She said: Where.
He said: Somewhere you choose.
She said: Why.
He said: Because you’ve been making choices that serve everyone else’s preferences for two years in this apartment. I want to see what you choose when it’s yours.
She was quiet for a moment.
She said: There’s a Lebanese place on Atlantic Avenue I’ve been to twice. It’s small and it has good lamb and it doesn’t try too hard.
He said: Saturday.
She said: Yes.
He said: Thank you.
She said: Don’t thank me yet. I’m a difficult dinner companion.
He said: You can explain the organizational logic of alphabetical versus chronological sheet music.
She said: That’s a niche topic.
He said: I’ve been thinking about it for six months.
She said: Elliot.
He said: Yes.
She said: You’re going to be a problem.
He said: Probably.
She said: I said it as a warning.
He said: I understood it as one.
She said: And you’re still asking.
He said: Yes.
She looked at him.
She thought: he knows about the checklist and the alphabetical order and the Sunday scarf.
She thought: he made tea and asked about Ohio.
She thought: he waited.
She thought: he is asking me to choose where we eat.
She thought: no one has ever asked me to choose where we eat.
She said: Saturday.
He said: Saturday.
Dinner was the kind of dinner that became a different person by the end than it had been at the beginning.
She wore her own clothes. Not the gray cardigan or the plain work dress. Something she had bought three years ago and worn twice because it was the kind of thing that required a place to wear it.
He was there when she arrived.
He stood when he saw her.
She said: You don’t have to stand.
He said: I know.
He said: You look like you.
She said: Is that a good thing.
He said: It’s the best thing.
They sat.
The restaurant was small and warm and had the specific quality of a place that was not trying to be anything except what it was.
She told him about Ohio. Not the abbreviated version she gave employers. The actual version: a foster mother named Ruth who had taught her to play piano and to organize bookshelves and to believe that doing a thing carefully was a form of love.
He told her about his wife.
Not the curated version. The actual version: a woman named Clara who had designed gardens for people who needed to believe things could grow, who had organized the sheet music alphabetically because she learned composers’ names first.
She said: She sounds like someone I would have liked.
He said: She would have liked you.
She said: You can’t know that.
He said: She organized sheet music alphabetically. You organized it chronologically. You sat down and had an argument about it over several months and neither of you won.
She almost laughed.
She let it out this time.
He smiled.
She said: What was the argument.
He said: She believed alphabetical because you learned the name first. You believe chronological because you understand the development.
She said: Both are right.
He said: Yes.
He said: That’s usually how good arguments end.
She looked at the table.
She said: Elliot.
He said: Yes.
She said: I’m not going to be easy.
He said: I haven’t been looking for easy.
She said: I’ve been doing everything for everyone else for a long time. I don’t always know how to let things be for me.
He said: I know.
She said: How do you know.
He said: Because you left the piano instructions as alphabetical and never told me.
She said: That was a small thing.
He said: Small things are how I know big things.
She said: You’re a detail person.
He said: Yes.
She said: So am I.
He said: Yes.
She said: We’re going to disagree.
He said: Frequently.
She said: And you don’t mind.
He said: I mind things that are wrong. Disagreement isn’t wrong.
She said: Most people don’t like being disagreed with.
He said: Most people haven’t had two years of someone improving their house through careful silent disagreement.
She said: I wasn’t disagreeing silently.
He said: Then what were you doing.
She said: Making the best choice I could with what I had.
He said: Yes.
He said: I want you to do that loudly from now on.
She said: I’m not loud.
He said: You don’t have to be loud to be heard.
She said: You heard me.
He said: I have been hearing you for two years.
She said: You were pretending not to.
He said: I was waiting for you to be ready.
She said: I told you that’s not how it works.
He said: And I said tell me how it works.
She said: And I said I didn’t know.
He said: Do you know now.
She said: I think it works like this.
She put her hand on the table.
He looked at it.
She said: I think someone sees you. And you see them back. And you decide whether to say so.
He put his hand next to hers.
He said: I see you.
She said: I know.
She said: I see you too.
The months that followed were not a fairy tale. They were very real, which was better.
She still managed the household. She kept her position because she was good at it and because the work was hers.
She started leaving things where she wanted them. The flowers went on the east table now, where the morning light was better. The kitchen clock was three inches to the left of where it had been.
He said, about the clock: You moved it.
She said: Yes.
He said: It’s better.
She said: I know.
He said: You knew and didn’t move it.
She said: I was being careful.
He said: Nora.
She said: I know.
He said: You’re allowed to improve things.
She said: I’m going to move the reading chair too.
He said: Where.
She said: About twelve inches to the left. The afternoon light is wrong where it is.
He said: Move it.
She moved it.
The light was right.
She played the piano on Tuesdays and Thursdays after the cleaning was done.
He often worked in the adjacent room when she did.
He never came out.
That was the right thing.
She appreciated it so much she told him.
She said: You don’t come out.
He said: No.
She said: That’s the right thing.
He said: I know.
She said: How do you know.
He said: Because the playing is yours. I’m allowed to hear it. I’m not allowed to interrupt it.
She said: Yes.
She said: That’s exactly it.
He said: Some things are shared by being present, not by touching.
She said: Yes.
He said: Clara taught me that.
She said nothing.
He said: She used to make things. Arrangements, structures. She never wanted them commented on while she was working. Only after.
She said: That’s how most creative work goes.
He said: Yes.
She said: Elliot.
He said: Yes.
She said: Thank you for understanding.
He said: I’m still learning.
She said: So am I.
He said: That’s the same thing.
In November, one year after the piano, she played a recital at the community center three blocks from her apartment. A real one. Her lease. Her apartment.
She told Elliot.
He said: Will you play.
She said: I’m going to.
He said: Good.
She said: You don’t have to come.
He said: I know.
She said: It’s a community center.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: I want to come.
She said: Okay.
He said: Unless you don’t want me there.
She said: I want you there.
He said: Then I’m coming.
She said: I’m going to be nervous.
He said: That’s allowed.
She said: I haven’t played for an audience in ten years.
He said: Play the thing you played the first night.
She said: I wasn’t playing anything. I was improvising.
He said: Play that.
She said: That’s not a piece.
He said: It was the best thing that happened in my apartment in four years.
She looked at him.
He looked back.
She said: You keep saying that.
He said: Because it keeps being true.
She said: You’re very.
He said: I know.
She said: You’re very.
He said: Nora.
She said: Yes.
He said: I love you.
She was quiet.
He said: I’ve been waiting to say that in the right context.
She said: A recital conversation is the context.
He said: It turned out to be.
She said: You are the most patient person I’ve ever met.
He said: Waiting for something right is easy.
She said: Don’t say that like it’s nothing.
He said: It’s everything.
She said: I love you too.
He said: I know.
She said: How.
He said: You moved the reading chair.
She said: That’s not love, that’s home improvement.
He said: You moved it because you wanted the light to be right when I read.
She said: I wanted the light to be right.
He said: You said twelve inches to the left. The afternoon light is wrong where it is. You know how I read in the afternoon.
She was quiet.
He said: You’ve been building this for two years.
She said: You’ve been living in it.
He said: Yes.
She said: Without knowing.
He said: I knew.
She said: Then why didn’t you say.
He said: Because it was yours.
She said: The chair.
He said: The whole thing. You were building it and it was yours and I wasn’t going to claim it before you were ready to offer it.
She thought: he waited.
She thought: two years and he waited.
She thought: no one has ever waited for me.
She said: Elliot.
He said: Yes.
She said: I know what I have.
He said: Tell me.
She said: This.
She took his hand.
He closed his fingers around hers.
The recital was a Thursday in November.
She played twenty minutes of the kind of music that came out of someone who had been playing in private for a long time and had finally decided it was all right to be heard.
She played the improvised thing. The one she had played the first night in the apartment.
Elliot was in the third row.
He did not applaud dramatically at the end.
He did not make her the center of anything.
He simply looked at her the way she had learned he looked at things he valued: with complete attention, without performing the attention.
She looked back.
She thought: I spent two years making myself invisible.
She thought: I thought that was how you survived.
She thought: but survival is not the same as living.
She thought: Ruth knew that. She gave me the piano so I would know it too.
She thought: and now I do.
She finished the last note.
The room was quiet for a moment.
Then it was not.
She sat at the piano.
She thought: someone sees me.
She thought: and I see them back.
She thought: and we said so.
She thought: that is everything.
She thought: that is the whole thing.
THE END