Inside, the house smells of fish sticks and baked potatoes. A dishwasher rumbles in the kitchen. The woman, who introduces herself as Jan, gets her a Diet Coke and pours it in a tall glass for her, and Nino sits at the bar stools at the stone counter. Jan’s husband, a big man with a rosaceous bloom on his cheeks and a dark beard that looks somehow out of place on his face, comes into the kitchen and Nino tells the story all over again. “I was thinking that maybe if he returned everything and apologized, you would tell the police to stop,” she tells Jan.
“Oh my,” Jan says. She looks at her husband.
“What are you looking at me for?” her husband says.
“Come on, sweetie,” Jan says to Nino, after a moment of strained silence. “I think you should call your father and tell him where you are, he’s probably worried.”
Nino doesn’t dare ask if this means they have agreed to her plan. Instead she dials her father. He picks up on the fifth ring. She tells him she’s at the open house. “Where?” her father says. She tells him again. “Oh, Nino,” he says, but then, after making a muffled sound of cupping the phone with his hand, he tells her that he’s on his way.
While they are waiting for Nino’s father to come, Jan cracks and pours herself a can of Diet Coke and starts talking about the house, about the problems with trying to sell it in this market. Their property, Jan tells her, is underwater. For a moment Nino has an image of a wave engulfing the house and them all having to fight against the rush of water to get out, rise up to the surface. But now Jan is telling her all the details of their finances, speaking in a defensive tone that Nino doesn’t understand. Until recently, Jan tells her, Richard — that’s her husband, Richard — was the owner of a small business that designed and manufactured safety equipment for lacrosse players. The business went bust after a high schooler was injured wearing a helmet made by their company and they were sued by a personal-injuries lawyer. Richard has tried to start a new company, one that is now filing for bankruptcy protection, and Jan herself, who has a degree in sociology from Stetson University in Florida but has no professional experience, now has a job as a cashier at the Shaw’s in neighboring Newton, where she’s working for minimum wage under the keen-eyed supervision of her son’s ex-girlfriend from high school, a young woman named Summer.
“I had a friend in first grade named Summer,” Nino says, unsure of what she should say. “She was nice.”
“Not this one,” Jan says. “This one is a real piece of work.”
The doorbell rings. Jan goes to get it. Nino’s father comes into the kitchen. She sees his mournful face, his weary eyes, the shaving cream on his collar, and she feels such an intense surge of love, the feeling pressing against the inside of her chest like a balloon, that she starts shaking all over.
“Nino,” he says. “What are you doing here? I told you to go to your mother’s.”
Nino gestures helplessly at the kitchen, the house. “I came here.”
Her father nods to Richard, who is standing with a drink in his hand against the stove. “Well, now we can go,” he says to Nino. “I’ll walk you back. Thank you for calling,” he says to Jan.
“Wait,” Nino says. They can’t go yet; now that she’s gotten her father together with the owners of the house, they need to discuss what they can do. But first, she knows, her father has to tell them that he did it and ask them for forgiveness. That’s how it works. “Don’t you have something you want to say to them?” she says.
Her father looks at her. His eyes are meshed with capillaries. He is breathing through his nose.
“Yes, I do,” he says. He turns to Richard. “Why do you leave jewelry lying around during an open house?”
Richard sets down his glass.
“Why did you write a fake name with a real address in our book?” he says.
Nino feels the situation slipping out of her grasp. In a moment, any hope of reconciliation will be gone. Richard’s face is already brightening with anger. She knows that she has to act. She has no choice but to rescue this situation in any way that she can.
“I did it,” she says. “I stole your things.”
All three of them now turn to her.
Her father is the first to speak. “You?” he says.
She looks at him in confusion. There’s unfeigned surprise in his voice, as if he actually might believe she’s telling the truth. For a moment no one says anything. The ice in Richard’s glass groans and cracks.
“No, you didn’t,” Jan says.
“Jan,” her husband says.
“What? She didn’t do it, so why is she telling us she did?” Jan says.
Now her father turns his bloodshot gaze to Jan. “How do you know?”
Jan glances away, looking out the window. The streetlights have just flickered on outside.
“I see,” her father says.
“We are good people,” Jan says.
“Maybe you should explain that to the police officers at my home,” her father says, taking Nino’s arm. “Or allow me to explain it to your insurance company. Can a person go to jail for this, writing a false claim?”
“Hold up there,” Richard says. He moves quickly to stand between them and the exit.
Her father and Richard face each other in the narrow doorway of the kitchen. Nino can smell sweat and alcohol on the man’s body. “Hey Jan, you see what you’ve done?” Richard says over their heads. “Any more great ideas?”
Jan uses the side of her finger to wipe mascara from her eyes. “Maybe they’ll take money,” she says, sniffing and then digging in her purse to pull out a checkbook.
“Of course,” Richard says to his wife. “I thought you might say something like that.” He turns to Nino and her father. “So you want a piece of the action?” It’s an absurdly gangsterish thing to say, and he says it with all the awkwardness you might expect of a man in his late forties who has weathered two bankruptcies and fears losing his home.
Her father looks at Richard and says nothing, just holds the man’s gaze for a drawn-out moment, jaw muscle pulsing. And then Richard turns to the side, waves his hand in the air, lets them through. “Go on then, screw it, whatever,” he says. “What makes you think they’ll believe you?”
Father and daughter go out. The neighborhood is quiet. When they reach the sidewalk, her father almost trips on something in the dusky light. A tennis ball. He bends down, picks it up. Then he turns around and hurls it with all his strength at the house, letting out a strangled sound. The tennis ball bounces off the brick facade, then rolls into the ornamental shrubs at the edge of the lawn.
“Come on,” Nino says, and takes his hand, leading him along the sidewalk. They cross the street and continue on to the next intersection, heading for home.
Suddenly her father stops short. “Stupid, stupid,” he says, hitting his head.
He sits down abruptly on the curb. Nino sits down beside him. “I should have taken the money.”
The pavement still retains faint heat from the day’s sun. Overhead, bats fly past, emitting faint cries. Her father hides his head in his hands.
Nino stands up and starts walking back to the house. It feels like a long way — somehow longer returning than going. She rings the doorbell, surprised how suddenly calm she’s feeling, and when Jan opens the door, she tells her that she’s come for the money.
Jan goes to get her checkbook while Nino waits silently in the kitchen. Returning, Jan fumbles the checkbook open, presses it flat against the counter, uncaps a pen; Nino observes that her hands are trembling, and she experiences an odd satisfaction in the woman’s discomposure. “How much?” Jan says.