“You know the part of this I still cannot fathom?” Ms. Harriet said. I looked up at her to meet her gaze and realized that her blue eyes were half-insane. “That it was Bunny. I just—you know, I helped raise her. She always seemed like such a good egg to me. Which just goes to show—” She gestured wildly with her arms in the elevator and I had no idea what it went to show.

“It just goes to show,” Ms. Harriet said, as the doors dinged open on the busy scene of the cafeteria, “it’s always the preacher’s son. Doesn’t matter what you teach them, it’s what’s in them at the start.”

I nodded and followed her as we entered the line to order.

“Look, they have chili,” Ms. Harriet said. “I wonder if it’s good.”

While it felt surreal to be expected to genuinely provide insight as to the quality of the hospital chili, Ms. Harriet’s only child was upstairs in a medically induced coma, her brain so swollen they’d drilled a hole in her skull. I myself had seen her nose pushed under her left eye, like a Picasso. Ms. Harriet had carte blanche to say whatever the fuck she wanted.

“What are you getting?” she asked me.

“Probably just this banana,” I said, holding it up.

“Get some real food,” she urged. “Get the tuna melt, and that way if my chili is mediocre, then I can have some of yours. My treat. Oh, but look, they have taco bowls.”

In the end, we wound up ordering all three entrées, as well as a Diet Dr Pepper and a large black coffee. We settled with our food at one of the tables. The cafeteria furnishings were nice, but there were no windows and the light was bad and bright in a way that reminded me of the Rite Aid.

“I just—I kind of wonder if she had some kind of break.”

“Bunny?” I asked.

Ms. Harriet was blowing on her chili, looking expectantly at me. I did not want to give too much away, wasn’t sure if I should play into or deny such a break. There was too much at stake legally.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I don’t know how that stuff works.”

“Her poor father,” Ms. Harriet said.

“Yeah,” I said, though I found this surprising. I would have thought a person like Ray Lampert would be anathema to a practical being like Ms. Harriet.

“I mean, he worked so hard to make her mother happy. You should have seen. Night and day, that man went around, rearranging life itself to make opportunities where there were none. He built this town. He really did. And he worshipped her. Would have done anything for her.” She tsked. “Maybe Bunny was more like her mother than I thought.”

“I never knew Allison,” I said. “I moved here after she died.”

“Oh, well, she wasn’t unlikable or anything. But still. You know. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And don’t think I’m speaking ill of the dead, I’d say the same thing about my own daughter. I’ve always said Ann Marie has too much of her father in her. Got his golden hair and his utter disregard for other people’s feelings. Can’t fake that kind of thing. It’s in you or it’s not.” She stabbed her plastic spoon repeatedly into her chili, as though the beans needed loosening.

“Do you feel Allison had some kind of moral failing?” I asked.

“Listen,” Ms. Harriet said, “I don’t gossip. Okay. I don’t. Your business is your business, and my business is my business. But when you bring your business into my workplace? It becomes my business.”

“Are you talking about Mr. Brandon?” I asked.

“That poor boy,” Ms. Harriet said.

“I never heard that story,” I said. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Ms. Harriet barked, laughing. “I mean, a lot worse could have happened! Those two were carrying on, and at first I thought it was just a flirtation. Everybody has that, a joke or a smile at pickup or drop-off. That kind of thing is harmless for most people, and I assumed that was how it was for them, though to me personally Brandon was a little bit young for a grown woman to be flirting with to make herself feel better, if you know what I mean. But anyway, that’s what I thought it was. And then one day, I find them making out like teenagers in the church basement. Brandon was supposed to be on his lunch break. I was like, all right, all right, not here. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to know about it, as far as I’m concerned this never happened. What I should have done was fire him. Right then and there.” She shook her head, ate several more bites of chili.

“But I didn’t. To be honest, I liked Brandon too. He was such a handsome kid, and sweet in this sleepy way, and so patient with the kids. He was valuable to me. It’s good for kids to be taken care of by men as well as women, helps them be more balanced, and believe me they follow the rules better for men too! I always like to have a man or two around, but it makes parents nervous, so you have to really find the right kind. Anyway, I didn’t fire Brandon, and as far as I knew it had petered out, but then when she killed herself like that.”

“When who killed herself?”

“Allison,” Ms. Harriet said, giving me side-eye like I was slow.

“I thought she was in a car accident,” I said.

“She drove into oncoming traffic stone-cold sober in the middle of a weekday,” Ms. Harriet said.

“But, I mean, did they rule it a suicide?”

“Whatever you want to call it,” Ms. Harriet said, “the fact is that woman was stone-cold sober and drove into oncoming traffic on a Wednesday. Call it what you want.”

“So, wait—I’m just trying to get the timeline straight. Because what reason would Allison even have to go to the preschool, wasn’t Bunny in school by this point?”

“Exactly, though. Exactly my point. She would drop off things for him, bring him cookies she baked, and I’m like, lady, you don’t even have a kid here anymore!”

“And then what happened to Brandon when she died?”

“He was hurting,” Ms. Harriet said, nodding emphatically. “He couldn’t talk about it, but he was hurting. Like the whole world just faded to black and white. All the magic just went out. Wham. And I kept saying, Brandon, the Lord has a plan for you! The Lord always has a plan. But he was too far gone. I couldn’t reach him.”

She shook her head sadly, as though she could have or should have been able to reach anyone, as though she saw herself as that kind of person. For myself, I could not imagine anything worse than being at a low point in my life and then interacting with Ms. Harriet. To discuss one’s innermost feelings with Ms. Harriet would be like allowing one’s eyeballs to be abraded by a scouring pad soaked in bleach.