He hires a maid without knowing she is the daughter he abandoned 30 years ago!

Rebecca listened, looked, and said nothing, taking it all in.

The dining room. “He eats breakfast alone. He eats dinner alone. He never eats with the television on. If he is on a phone call while eating, do not disturb him. He will wave when he is ready for the next course.”

The study. Grace stood at the doorway and did not go in. “This room you clean only when he is out of the house. Never while he is inside. Move nothing on the desk. Wipe around it. The shelves you can dust, but put everything back in the same position.”

She pointed at the desk across the room, where Mr. Caleb was already sitting again, reading, his glasses on, completely still. “He works in there most of the morning.”

Rebecca looked at the study. On the wall beside the bookshelf, she noticed a few framed photographs. One of them showed a younger Mr. Caleb, perhaps in his 40s, standing in front of a building with his arms crossed, looking into the camera with serious eyes. He looked the same as he did now, only younger and less silver.

There was something about the photograph. She was not sure what it was. It was just a photograph of her employer as a younger man. There was nothing strange about it.

And yet her eyes stayed on it a second longer than they needed to.

“Rebecca.” Grace touched her arm.

She looked away. “Sorry. What was next?”

They finished the tour: the sitting room, the laundry room, the guest bedrooms upstairs that were never used, the linen cupboard organized so precisely it looked like it had been done by a machine.

By the time they came back downstairs, it was almost noon. They sat together at the small kitchen table, and Grace poured 2 cups of tea. Outside the kitchen window, the garden sat in the bright midday sun, very green and very still.

“He is a good man,” Grace said, wrapping both hands around her cup. “I want you to know that before I leave. He can seem cold at first, all that quiet, all that control, but he is fair. He has never raised his voice at me. Not once in 5 years.” She looked at Rebecca. “Some people you work for and they make you feel small. He does not make you feel small.”

Rebecca nodded slowly. “What does he do in the evenings?” she asked.