The Housekeeper He Married

Birdie Lambert has cleaned Auguste Leclerc's house for three years. He has said perhaps two hundred words to her. None of them were "good morning." Then the trust requires him to live in the family house for a year, and the insurance requires a resident manager of record, and the simplest solution is the one he proposes while holding a sponge. She laughs for ten seconds. Then she says yes, because her mother's nursing home is raising its rates. Now the town knows. His family knows. His ex-fiancée has arrived for the summer and is not being difficult about it, which is somehow worse. Birdie is still cleaning the house. Auguste would like her to stop. He will say so in about four minutes.