“I haven’t the faintest clue,” she replies. “It’s a fine house from the outside. Well built. Good roof.”

Well, that’s a relief.

“It must be something on the inside,” she adds.

Something on the inside? What’s inside my house that scared off the dozens of other couples who must have visited the house?

I can’t help but think of that horrible scraping noise that kept me awake at night. I was so happy when we got the call that the house was ours. But there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since we moved in when I haven’t wondered if I’ve made a horrible mistake…

“So,” Janice says, crisply changing the subject, “how was dinner with Suzette and Jonathan the other night?”

I jerk my head up, feeling a flash of irritation. Okay, now it makes sense why she wanted me to stay. She wants to pump me for gossip about the neighbors. That’s why I’m here—not to sample her juice concoction.

“It was good,” I say. The last thing I want is to trash-talk Suzette and let it get back to her.

“Good? That’s hard to believe.”

“They seem nice.”

She purses her lips. “They’re not nice people. Trust me. I’ve lived next door to them for the last five years.”

I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling her about how Suzette said the exact same thing about her. Clearly, there’s a lot of bad blood between these two. And anyway, the truth is Suzette doesn’t seem like a terribly nice person. As much as I tried to get to know her at the dinner, I disliked her even more by the end of the evening. “Jonathan seems nice at least.”

“She’s horrible to him,” Janice says.

She didn’t seem like the most attentive wife on the planet, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say Suzette was horrible to him. “Really?”

“Any time he tries to touch her, she pulls away from him,” she says. “She puts him down whenever she can. I can only imagine what their sex life is like.”

I’m trying not to imagine that, actually.

Janice’s gaze locks with the kitchen window, which has a perfect view of the front door of 12 Locust Street. She can see anyone entering or leaving the house from her kitchen. “Suzette Lowell is the worst person I’ve ever met.”

Wow. I didn’t like Suzette either, but that’s quite an extreme statement.

“She seems…” I swish the green liquid around in my glass in lieu of drinking it. “She’s friendly at least.”

“Do you know that your husband is at her house right now?”

I did not know that. And Janice can tell from my face that I didn’t know it, which seems to give her immense pleasure.

“She opened her door to him about an hour ago,” she tells me. It makes sense she would know that, giving the stunning view she has of the front of Suzette’s house. “He is still there.”

“That’s fine.” I force a smile because I don’t want to give Janice the satisfaction of knowing that this information upsets me. “He told me he’d be working on her yard in the near future, so I guess he decided to do it today.”

“On a Sunday? That doesn’t sound like a working day.”

“Enzo works all the time. He’s very busy.”

Janice takes a drink from her glass and then licks away the green mustache it leaves behind. “Okay. Well, as long as you trust him.”

“I trust him.”

She smirks at me. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

Janice is trying to stir up trouble, but I try to ignore her. I do trust Enzo. I mean, yes, for whatever reason, it didn’t cross his mind to tell me that he was heading over to work in the backyard of our attractive neighbor. But I’m not going to let myself be bothered by that. Maybe there are things I don’t know about my husband, but I know for sure that he is a good man. He has proven that to me time and time again. And even if he weren’t, I still don’t think he would cheat on me.

He wouldn’t dare.

I am scared of you, Millie Accardi.

And he should be.

TWELVE

“Were you at Suzette’s house today?”

I ask Enzo the question as casually as possible while he’s brushing his teeth. If I’m trying not to seem like a jealous wife, during the toothbrushing process seems like a good time to bring it up. It doesn’t get more casual than that, right?

He glances at me, pausing mid-brush. He waits a beat, then he starts scrubbing his teeth again. “Yes. I was helping in her yard. Showing her gardening tips. Like I said I would.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going over there.”

“Is it important I always tell you where I go?”

He spits toothpaste into the sink. I think of all the times he has watched me spit toothpaste into the sink—too many to count. And then I think of all the times he has watched Suzette spit toothpaste into the sink—never.

“It would be nice,” I say, “if you tell me where you go on the weekend. Isn’t that supposed to be family time? Isn’t that what you always say?”

He gives me an exasperated look. “Millie, this is a job. We need money—badly. What do you want?”

“Is she paying you?”

He doesn’t answer. Which means the answer is no.

“So you went over there on a Sunday. And she didn’t pay you. How is that a job?”

Enzo rinses his mouth out, then spits in the sink again, more aggressively this time. When he looks up, he does not seem pleased. “Millie, she already got me two new jobs. She is helping me. She is helping us.” He waves his arms around. “How do you think we are supposed to pay for this house?”

It’s an extremely fair point. Building a business is all about word of mouth. And Suzette can help with word of mouth.

His shoulders sag. “Look, I am sorry I did not tell you where I went. But you were doing the play-dating with Nico. And Ada always just wants to read. So I thought this is a good time to go over there because nobody needs me.”

Again, he’s right. Everything Enzo is saying is a hundred percent right. And as hard as he works, Enzo has always been around for our family. He used to participate in tea parties with Ada and her stuffed animals when she was little. Even I couldn’t bear those boring teddy bear tea parties, but he sat through a million of them. He used to do different silly voices for the bears, although all the voices had an Italian accent.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know you’re just trying to build your business. I didn’t mean to give you a hard time.”

He smiles at me. “It is a little cute when you are jealous. You are never jealous.”