The Tattered Thread

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  Elaine thought back to the day when her friend Chloe Brice told her about the Kastenmeiers, and the fact that they needed another full-time housekeeper to help care for their mansion. News like that was a godsend at the time. Elaine had been working her tail off at a diner in a small farming community in central Michigan. Not drawing enough of a salary to rent her own apartment, she’d been forced to live at home with her parents. Word of what the Kastenmeiers were looking for sent flashes of independence she thought she’d never know.

  Once Lois decided to give Elaine a try, Chloe drove them to the estate on the first Sunday of her summer break from college. As they traveled along, Chloe said, “I think Mr. Kastenmeier controls everything, even the money. And he seems to have a particular interest in the thread industry.” She laughed, but Elaine didn’t get the joke.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a man who loves to give orders. Whenever his orders aren’t performed to his satisfaction, he makes people wear a piece of thread tied around their finger to remind them that they’ve done something wrong. Have you ever heard of anything so silly?”

  “Has he ever made you wear thread on your finger?” Elaine asked, and Chloe’s grin soon collapsed into a scowl.

  “Yes, he has.”

  “What for?”

  Not answering right away, Chloe clutched the steering wheel tighter and stared straight ahead. “Oh,” she finally said, “to remind me how he likes his shoes shined, or how he likes the garbage sorted before it’s disposed of.” She shrugged. “Stuff like that.”

  “This thread thing sounds humiliating.”

  Chloe, still facing forward, stared at the road in front of her. “It is,” she said quietly.

  Chloe slowed the Chevy down to a crawl the moment she touched Kastenmeier property. When it came into view, the house seemed to stretch from one end of the horizon to the other. Set on a hillside, it loomed at least one story higher than the clouds. It seemed to stand there like a beautiful fortress warding off everything gone wrong in the world. Or maybe it was there to hold it all inside.

  Driving up to the wrought iron gates, Chloe waited to be recognized through a small video camera. Soon the electronic doors opened and they were able to drive on. Elaine marveled at the nicely pruned trees and the flawlessly kept lawns. There wasn’t a dandelion or a clump of crab grass in sight.

  Red and yellow tulips lined the walkways. Several rows of impressive, off-white tulips splashed with deep pink and dotted with dew glimmered in the early morning light. Surrounding various water fountains were violets and violas, daffodils and grape hyacinths. Purplish pink lilacs draped the archway over the front walk.

  Creeping phlox, bleeding hearts, and baskets of gold alyssums encircled the house as far as the eye could see, and wondrous pink, yellow, and red rose buds dotted each corner. A shining white gazebo off to the right of the house had rose vines sprouting all over it. The grounds were breathtaking, and the flowers perfumed the air with aromas that acted as reminders of how glorious the air in heaven must’ve been.

  To the left of the mansion was a huge six-car garage with living space built above it. Chloe drove past an ornate bust of Queen Victoria and pulled her car under a carport; she parked in the space marked number nine. They both got out at the same time. Elaine stared at the house and shook her head.

  “I’ve got to clean all that?” she said, still not believing the size of it.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks. Sure it’s about forty-five thousand square feet, but only a quarter of it is used on a regular basis.”

  “Oh, so I only have eleven hundred square feet to clean. Now that takes a real load off.”

  As Chloe opened the hatchback while laughing, they both took their suitcases out and then lined them up on the sidewalk beside the red brick driveway.