Ana told herself it would end before anyone learned a schedule. She told herself Diego’s late shifts were a loneliness she had a right to spend. She told herself rights. Rights spend fast in a house with a window a child can kneel at.
Eric said he would not make trouble. People who park in driveways that are not theirs have already made trouble. Ana knew that in the part of her that did the books. She did not know it in the part that liked being looked at as if she were not only a ponytail and a spreadsheet.
Lila, at the window, reported the world.
Dog. Truck. Mrs. Chen’s son. Rain. Black car.
Ana, from the kitchen, said neighbor.
Lila said the neighbor waved.
Ana said don’t wave at cars.
Lila waved anyway.
Diego never heard the reports. He was pushing a cart through a wing that had flooded or a wing that needed tiles. He believed the driveway held a Honda and sometimes a Toyota and sometimes Mrs. Chen’s grandson’s pickup. He did not inspect concrete for tire marks. A man who trusts a townhouse does not inspect concrete.
There had been a Tuesday when a pipe burst at St. Mary’s and they sent the maintenance crew home early. Diego pulled onto their street at four-twenty. Ana’s Toyota was at the curb. The driveway was empty. Ana was in the kitchen with hair that looked freshly wet. She said good, you’re home. Lila was still upstairs with Mrs. Chen. Diego climbed the stairs to get her. That Tuesday sat in him after the rainy night like a bruise he had not known to press. At the time it was only an early Tuesday.
On Lila’s fifth birthday they had a sheet cake at the table you could see from the sofa. Diego took the afternoon off. Eric did not come that week. Ana was careful that week. Careful is not the same as finished. After the cake Lila wore a paper crown and fell asleep in Diego’s lap with frosting on her cheek. Ana took a picture. The picture went into a school-photo frame on the wall, near the picture of Lila at three and Lila at four. No black car in those frames. No cap.
Diego’s mother came for a weekend in March. She slept on the sofa because they had no guest room. She said the townhouse was nice. She said Lila had Diego’s mouth. She said Ana looked tired. Ana said work. Diego’s mother looked at Ana a moment longer than a compliment requires. She did not say what she saw. She went back to her sister’s house and sent a card. The card said take care of each other. Cards are easy. Driveways are not.
Ana almost ended it in April. She told Eric in the garage under her building that she could not keep the afternoons. He said he understood. He said he would not text. He texted four days later. She answered because Lila was with Mrs. Chen and the house was quiet and quiet had become a room she did not know how to sit in without a second voice. They sat in the black car in a lot behind a grocery store and did not go anywhere. That was supposed to be smaller than the driveway. It was not smaller. It was only paved differently.
May was the month of the cap. Rain. Eric at the door because Ana had said Lila was asleep and Diego’s shift ran until eight. Lila was not fully asleep. Lila was in that five-year-old state of being in her room and also in the hall. She saw a man. She saw a hat. The man laughed and set the hat on her head backward and said she looked like a pro. Ana said go back to bed. Lila went back to bed with the hat because taking the hat would have made a scene a sleeping child should not hear. Eric left. The cap stayed. The fob, that night, went with him. Another night the fob did not.
The rainy evening of the toy truck was a Thursday. Diego was home. Day shift. Screwdriver. Ana at the rack because the umbrellas had dripped a map on the hardwood and she could not stand a map she had not meant to draw. Lila had been in her room with the basket of toys and then she had gone to the front because the front was where forgotten things lived beside the bins.
She came down the hall wearing the cap.
She came with the fob.
She wanted her father to see because fathers are the audience for treasure.
Diego was the wrong audience.
He recognized the plastic the way he recognized a broken latch: at once, without needing a speech.