She first describes her relationship with her employer, which began when Vera and her millionaire husband purchased a summer home on Little Tall Island in 1949 and hired Dolores as a maid. Able to cope with Vera's brutally exacting standards, Dolores rises from maid to housekeeper at the Donovan home. After Vera's husband dies in a car crash in the late '50s, Vera spends increasing time at her island house, eventually moving there permanently. Vera suffers a series of strokes in the 1980s, whereupon Dolores becomes the woman's live-in caretaker and reluctant companion. As the wealthy woman slips into dementia, Dolores comforts her from terrifying hallucinations of a force she calls "the dust bunnies." When Vera is lucid, Dolores combats her increasing mind games and power plays.