A Little Too Late

by Staci Hart

  Sammy bolted into the bathroom and started tugging his shirt off.

  Hannah chuckled, watching after him. “Should I go get their clothes or start the bath?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Maybe you should …” I stammered, unable to answer even such a simple question. It was rare that I did this, and when I did, it was typically chaos.

  But the expression on her face made me feel like it was all okay. “How about I start the bath and you can get their clothes? I’m not sure where their things are.”

  “Good idea,” I said as I set Maven down, thankful for the instruction and an out.

  I headed to Maven’s room, feeling like a fool. Come on, Charlie. You’re a smart guy, so stop being such an idiot.

  The scolding bolstered me—until I opened her drawer. Her little clothes were all neatly folded inside, and I dug through them, holding them up to each other to try to find a matching shirt and bottoms, but I couldn’t seem to figure out a pair.

  Was it the pink top with the orange polka dots and the orange bottoms or the pink ones?

  I found a nightgown and almost crowed in relief.

  Sammy’s was easier — everything was either blue or green.

  A few minutes later, I headed back to the bathroom, prepared to show Hannah where the towels and washcloths were. But when I reached the threshold, I found she didn’t need me to show her anything at all.

  Hannah was leaning over the claw-foot tub’s rim with her sleeves pushed up, towels stacked on the counter next to the sink and washcloths in the tub. She was singing sweetly in Dutch, I presumed, making a rubber duck dance in the water. Sammy giggled, Maven clapped, and my chest ached.

  It seemed so natural for her, and I wished as I had a thousand times that I could be like that. I wished I could take care of them this way, wished I could navigate the day-to-day of parenthood without feeling inept and overwhelmed instead of second-guessing myself like it was my job.

  I stepped into the room and flipped the toilet lid down to take a seat, watching, smiling again, that strange expression that had eluded me for so long.

  “Find everything okay?” I asked when she stopped singing.

  She glanced over at me with a reassuring smile, lips closed sweetly. “Yes, thank you. What’s their normal bedtime routine?”

  I scratched the back of my neck. “I, um … I don’t really know. They bathe around seven thirty, I think, and are in bed around eight.” I paused. “I’m sorry. I’m not much help, am I?”

  But she just kept on smiling. I wondered absently if she ever stopped.

  “It’s all right. I don’t think there’s really a wrong way, is there?”

  “No, I suppose there isn’t.”

  She poured baby shampoo into her hand and massaged it into Maven’s hair until it was thick with suds. “How about we brush our teeth and read a story?”

  Sammy lit up and bounced, sloshing the water around. “Let’s read Pete the Cat! That’s my faaavorite!”

  She laughed. “Yes, of course.”

  Satisfied, he picked up a toy boat and motored it in circles, making engine noises with his mouth as Hannah watched him, and I watched her.

  I wanted to speak, wanted to make small talk, but I realized I didn’t quite know how to anymore. I’d sequestered myself after my wife left, throwing myself into work. Because of the split, I’d lost my friends, lost the life I’d known, and I’d dived into work to try to escape the fact.

  “How long have you been in America?” I asked, the most banal of conversational tools in my arsenal.

  “Only a few months.”

  Hannah reached for a plastic cup on the ledge under the frosted window and dipped it in the water, tipping Maven’s chin to rinse her hair without getting soap in her eyes. I made note of the trick.

  “And you came here to nanny?”

  She nodded and shifted to wash Sammy’s hair. “I’ve always loved children, and my best friend has been here as an au pair for two years now. She’s been begging me to come here since she stepped off the plane.”

  “Why’d you leave your last job?” I asked, surprised when she stiffened, her hand pausing for only a split second. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she reassured, her discomfort gone as quickly as it had appeared. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question for my employer to ask. It wasn’t quite a good fit. My interview was done over video chat—we secure our employment before we move—so it wasn’t as easy to determine how it would be every day, living with a family.”

  It was a very professional answer, but I couldn’t shake the sense that there was more to it. “And you feel like this is a good fit for you?”

  “I do,” she answered without hesitation as she kneaded Sammy’s hair with her long fingers buried in the suds. “I believe you can tell by feeling, an intuition.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  She continued, “Interviewing for au pair positions usually takes months, so it was really quite lucky that you needed help so quickly. I’m surprised you went with an au pair agency rather than finding a nanny for that reason.”

  “I’d actually put in requests with just about every agency in Manhattan—au pair and nanny alike. I liked the idea of the kids learning another culture, and I missed having someone who lived here. Most nannies aren’t willing to make that commitment. My hours are long and late, and it brings me peace of mind, knowing someone isn’t waiting for me to get home so they can leave.”

  “So you did have someone living here? Before your last nanny?” she asked as she rinsed Sammy’s hair.

  “My ex's sister, Elliot. She lived in your old room for years, ever since Sammy was born.”

  She didn’t speak, the questions hanging in the air, unspoken.

  “She left just after Mary, moved on with her life. I almost had to force her to go,” I added with a chuckle. “She didn’t want to leave me and the kids, but she’d done too much for us already. I hired Jenny, the last nanny, just after Elliot left.”

  “Well, I’m thankful things worked out and that you offered me the position. Your family is charming, and after staying with a friend for the last few weeks, I’m happy to feel useful again.”

  “We’re happy to have you,” I said uselessly.

  The conversation lulled, but Hannah didn’t seem to mind. She just began humming as she lathered up soap on a washcloth, handing it to Sammy to wash himself, which he did with the gusto only a five-year-old could muster. Then, she lathered up the second cloth, standing Maven up to wash her.

  As I watched, I couldn’t deny that it felt like a good fit. Even with the chaos that had been in play when she arrived, she had a certain rightness about her—in the way she’d stepped in and found her place, like the clicking together of puzzle pieces that set my home in order after a week of upheaval. She had restored a sense of order just in a few hours, which brought me relief and peace that I hadn’t felt in a good while, even with our previous nanny.

  A few minutes of companionable quiet later, they were rinsed off, and the tub was gurgling as it drained. I stood and unfolded the towels, passing one to Hannah and using the other to dry Sammy off, spending a little too long and a little too much energy on ruffling his hair to make him giggle.

  We dressed them and shepherded them into brushing their teeth, and a short while after, Hannah was in Sammy’s room, reading him Pete the Cat, and I sat in the rocking chair with Maven, reading her a pop-up book about jungle animals, feeling the weight of her in my lap, wondering why I didn’t do this more often.

  I knew the answer, of course. I’d failed this routine too many times to count, but Hannah had guided me through it just as easily as she had the children. I found myself feeling like maybe I could learn a thing or two. That much, I did feel ready for.

  I tucked Maven and her stuffed bunny into her white sleigh bed, pulling her pink covers up as she stared at the butterflies and flowers hanging from the high ceiling. I kissed her cheek and told her
I loved her, meaning the words from the very depths of my heart.

  I closed her door gently and walked down the hall to Sammy’s room, leaning on the doorframe to listen as Hannah finished the book. They sat in his captain bed, his room all dark wood and shades of blue with a little bit of a pirate flair—his obsession for a few years now—but the lights were dimmed and dreamy, and the sight hit me in the rib cage.

  I owed my children so much more than they’d received, and I vowed as I had so many times that I would find a way to make it up to them.

  I only had to figure out how.

  An hour later, I’d shown Hannah out, and with her exit, my brain began to whir, recounting the afternoon that had gone so unexpectedly. To say that I was surprised would be the understatement of the century.

  That morning, I’d felt nothing but defeat, and as I walked through my foyer and toward the kitchen, I realized that feeling had almost completely passed, leaving me with a calm breath of hope.

  I’d opened the door and seen her there, standing on my stoop with the sunlight shining through her long blonde hair framing her face—a small and sweet curve of high cheekbones peppered with freckles, anchored by a narrow chin. Her eyes were blue and big and wide, her lips rosy, smiling, always smiling. And her height had caught me off guard; she was only five or six inches shorter than me—most women maxed out about a foot below my airspace—but she still seemed fragile, delicate, her arms long and slender and waist small.

  In the span of a few heartbeats, she’d knocked the rust off me, my gears creaking and groaning to life at the mere sight of her.

  I chalked it up to my isolation, to the acknowledgment that I was still a man, a man who had been alone for a long time.

  I’d been alone far longer than I’d been single.

  I pushed the thought away, considering my children, how I’d been about as helpful as a pair of busted training wheels, wondering what the future held for us. Wondering if I could find a way to what I wanted, wondering if I could even truly define what I wanted. Because my life had been turned upside down and shaken out, leaving a mess I didn’t know how to clean up.

  I turned the corner into the kitchen where Katie was waiting with a smile.

  “Oh, Charlie. She’s lovely.”

  “She really is, isn’t she?” I opened the fridge for a beer.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “That’s because I am.” The door closed with a thunk.

  “The kids seem to love her. Hard not to, if you ask me,” she baited, watching me with eyes I’d call shrewd if they didn’t have the best intentions behind them.

  I gave her a knowing look and twisted off the cap.

  “Oh, don’t gimme that face. I’m just saying, she’s awfully young and pretty—on top of being a downright Mary Poppins with the kids.”

  I took a swig, ignoring the pretty part. “I know she’s twenty-two but, God, if she doesn’t look younger. Or maybe I’m just getting old.”

  “Never tell an old lady you’re old. It smacks of green misunderstanding.”

  I chuckled, but a sigh slipped out of me at the end. “I didn’t quite expect her,” I admitted.

  “Yes, well, that’s how it often goes, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose.”

  “What exactly didn’t you expect?”

  I thought on it for a second. “I don’t know. It was just so easy. When Jenny started, it took us weeks to find a rhythm, and even then … well, it just felt like her job, but with Hannah, it feels like her calling. Does that make sense?”

  “It does.”

  “I almost felt like a voyeur, watching her with the kids. It was a lesson in everything I’m doing wrong and a reminder of how much more I could be doing.”

  “Charlie, no one would ever accuse you of being neglectful. Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Katie said with chiding softness. “You’re doing right by them.”

  “That’s debatable, but thank you all the same.” I took another pull of my beer.

  “What else?”

  “What else what?”

  She smirked. “What else didn’t you expect?”

  “I dunno,” I answered noncommittally with a matching shrug.

  “For her to be so pretty?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a mess, Katie.”

  “True, but you do think she’s pretty, don’t you?”

  “I’m a straight man with eyes. Of course I think she’s pretty.”

  Katie laughed, and I took another drink before inspecting the label like it was fascinating.

  “Do you think it’s bad that I think she’s pretty?”

  She watched me for a second. “Do you think it’s bad that you think she’s pretty?”

  “No, I suppose not. I won’t do anything about it, and that’s all that matters, right?”

  “Sure. But I wouldn’t hesitate to befriend her at least. You need somebody beyond your nosy housekeeper to talk to.”

  I smirked. “I’m that annoying, am I?”

  She waved her hand at me. “Hush, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  My smile faded. “Ever since Mary, it hasn’t been easy to let people in. You know that—maybe better than anybody.”

  “I know,” she said somberly, her eyes sad. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.” She stepped over and rested a hand on my arm. “It’s gonna be all right, Charlie. I promise you that.”

  It was something she’d promised me before, but I didn’t believe it any more now than ever.

  “Thanks,” I said anyway.

  “You’re welcome.” She began untying her apron. “Need anything else from me tonight?”

  I shook my head. “Thanks for staying late.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble. Anything to help the cavalry get settled in and ready to take over the kids. Nothing makes me feel quite as helpless than failing at that particular task.”

  I knew what she meant far too well to admit aloud. I nodded, but I suspected she gathered my feelings all the same.

  Katie left for the night, and I walked through the empty house, pausing at the room that would be occupied by Hannah first thing in the morning. The flooring was dark, the walls too, with a fireplace just opposite her bed. The room felt old, older than the rest of the Victorian house, and I wondered if Hannah would like it, what she would look like there. I imagined her sitting on the bed like a ray of sunshine in the pitch-black of midnight.

  With that thought, I pushed off the doorframe and walked back to my office. It was as classic as the rest of the house—with old woodwork and dark floors, the built-in bookshelves framing a window and my desk in front of it, facing the door.

  And then I got back to work. Because at least that was something I was good at.

  3

  Truth of Circumstance

  Hannah

  “Tell me everything,” Lysanne said in Dutch as she pulled her pillow into her lap, her face sparking with anticipation and cheeks high as she waited for me to join her.

  I laughed and set my bag by the door of her bedroom. “I’ll be out of your hair in the morning. I got the job.”

  She waved her hand at me, and I climbed into her bed and sat across from her.

  “Och. I loathe for you to leave, but I’d rather you not be deported. It took me two years to convince you to come here in the first place.”

  With another laugh, I grabbed a pillow too, mirroring her as we leaned toward each other like little girls.

  “How are the children?”

  “They’re perfectly lovely.”

  “I can tell by the jam on your sweater. Perfectly lovely.”

  I glanced down, having forgotten. “I walked into pandemonium. The cook had been watching them, but she couldn’t give them the attention they needed and do her job too. They only wanted someone’s time, so I gave them mine. It was simple really.”

  Lysanne shook her head, tucking her long, dark hair behind her ear. “You’re the best of us all. I almost killed S
ydney today.”

  I chuckled. “No, you didn’t.”

  She nodded earnestly. “Oh, but I did. She fought me all day about everything—getting dressed, eating lunch, brushing her teeth, taking a bath, going to bed. I practically had to wrestle her into her nightgown as she wailed about not wanting to sleep—they always do that when they’re the most tired—and she wouldn’t stay in her room, not even for a heartbeat. The moment I left, there she would be, pulling the door back open. I swear, I’ve never met a more willful six-year-old in all my days.”

  “All your long, long days in twenty-two years?” I teased.

  She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you likely would have just smiled and sung her a song and not have been bothered at all.”

  “Oh, you know I can be bothered. You test the limits of that daily.”

  She laughed and whacked me with her pillow before tucking it back into her lap. “Tell me about the dad,” she said, her tone sobering and smile flattening. “He must have been all right if you took the job.”

  “Yes, I think he’s all right.” I sighed. “In the moment, it felt right. My instinct said it was safe, that I was safe, that it was a good match. But since the second I left, I’ve been feeling like I made a mistake. I was hasty to agree without thinking about it, but something about them made me want to say yes. They need my help, and based on what I saw when I walked in, they need my help now. The children are sweet, and Charlie is … I don’t know. Lost, I think. Something in his eyes … they’re the deepest brown, bottomless, sad.”

  Her brows rose. “Charlie, huh? With the bottomless eyes? Yeah, that sounds like there’s no danger at all. He’s handsome then?”

  Another sigh slipped out of me. “Yes, he’s handsome. Tall, blond, wealthy, and a single dad.” My stomach sank like a stone. “This really is a terrible idea. Do you think … should I refuse? There’s still time.”

  “Well,” she started thoughtfully, “you really do need the job, and who knows when another one will come available? This one took weeks. Is he better looking than Quinton?”

  At the sound of his name, my heart stopped, starting again with a kick. “I never thought Quinton was handsome.”