by Staci Hart
I whispered to her in Dutch and picked her up, not minding my clothes. She was burning up.
I hurried out of her room and called down the stairs for Charlie. He bounded up to meet me two steps at a time, his face tight with concern.
“Will you wake Sammy and get him to school?” I asked. “I think it’s best if he’s there today.”
He brushed Maven’s hair back. “She’s on fire. Here, let me take her.”
I hesitated. “Let me wash her. You can’t get sick. Just take care of Sammy, and I’ll bring her to see you once she’s cleaned up so I can change her bedding.”
He nodded, though his eyes didn’t leave his daughter. “Katie,” he called over his shoulder. Her head appeared around the banister at the foot of the stairs. “Can you help out? Maven’s sick.”
“Of course,” she answered, heading up to us.
I tucked Maven into my chest and rocked her, rubbing her back as she wailed. “Let me go get her bathed.”
“Thank you. I’ll take care of everything else.”
I headed to the bathroom, soothing Maven. She was miserable, couldn’t stop crying, so her bath was short. By the time I made it back to her room, Katie had the big curtains pushed back but the sheers still pulled to keep the room a little dark, and Maven’s sheets were fresh. I left her in a Pull-Up and grabbed a light blanket to wrap her in, taking her temperature last.
When the ear thermometer beeped, I did the math … 101 Fahrenheit was 38 Celsius—a solid fever but not unmanageable. After a dose of ibuprofen, I gathered her up and sat in her rocker, soothing and patting her back until she finally stopped crying.
Charlie came in a few minutes after, his face bent with worry and something else as he looked us over, something I didn’t have the constitution to consider in the moment.
Maven looked over at him and began to cry again, reaching for him.
He stepped over and picked her up, holding her flush against his chest as her little arms stretched to reach around his neck.
I sighed.
“Maybe I should stay home.” He shifted from side to side, rocking her.
“Her fever isn’t so high that it’s dangerous. You should go to work.”
“I don’t want to go,” he said with his hand on her back and his eyes full of worry.
My heart clenched. “Well, you don’t have to, but I think you should. You’ll be behind for a week if you don’t. I’m here. I’ll take care of her, and if she gets worse, I promise I’ll let you know so you can come back straightaway.”
Charlie drew in a breath and let it out, not seeming to like the arrangement but knowing I was right. “All right.”
“We’ll get a little food and water in her, and once her medicine kicks in, she’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
He nodded, his eyes traveling down the front of me. “That makes two shirts my kids have ruined.”
My brows quirked, and I looked down to find a little sick down the front of me. “And many more to come, I’m sure. It’s fine though. Let me go change.”
We traded places, and I paused at the door for a moment at the sight of him sitting in the rocking chair in a suit and tie, rocking his sick daughter with drawn brows and downcast eyes, his cheek pressed against her blonde hair.
And then I sighed again and walked away. Katie, who had occupied Sammy, offered a sympathetic smile as I passed, and I hurried down the stairs to change quickly, hurrying back up to trade places with Charlie once more. When I was seated, he took a long look at Maven, running his hand over her hair.
“Call me if she gets worse, okay?”
“I promise,” I said.
And, with a final weary smile, he left.
That afternoon, that promise was fulfilled.
She’d thrown up three more times, unable to keep down water or medicine, and when she woke from a nap, her fever had climbed until it was out of control at 104.
Katie shook her head at the thermometer as I rocked a lethargic Maven in my arms. “It’s after four — too late to call the pediatrician. You’ve got to take her to the emergency room.”
“I think so too,” I said grimly.
Her face pinched in thought. “The closest is Mount Sinai. You know, Mary works there. But I just don’t know if it’s worth going to another hospital. Maybe she’ll actually be there and find a way to be present for her child, for once,” she added with disdain.
I tried not to consider any of that, my thoughts focused on Maven alone.
“I’ll call Charlie and a cab,” Katie said, “and I’ll get her bag and insurance card together. You go get her into some pajamas.”
I nodded and hurried to get her dressed and grab her freshly washed bunny and blanket, rushing back down. Katie took her—I tried to ignore the chill of my damp sweater where she’d been curled against my chest—and I put on my shoes and coat, grabbing my wallet from my bag and stuffing it into the diaper bag. And with a kiss on the cheek from Katie, we were out the door.
I didn’t check my phone until we were in the cab. A text from Charlie waited, saying he’d meet us there. Katie would get Sammy from school.
Everything would be fine. Maven would be fine.
Kids get fevers all the time, I told myself. But it didn’t stop me from being scared.
The waiting room wasn’t very full, and before long, we were taken back to first get her temperature and weight and then to a small room where we were told to wait again. So I climbed in the big hospital bed with her and held her.
I sang to her in Dutch until her breathing slowed. The occasional twitch of her arms or hands told me she was well asleep, but I kept singing anyway, as if to chase away the ghosts and the fear and the quiet of the cold, sterile room. And I watched the little square window on the door, waiting to see Charlie’s face.
When I did, it was wild with worry, and I made a shh shape with my lips, hoping he would understand. He did, gently opening the door and quietly closing it behind him. She didn’t stir.
His tie was loose and shirt rumpled, his coat and jacket and bag abandoned in the stiff chair next to the bed, but his eyes never left Maven as he sat on the edge, his body brushing my legs, his hand reaching for her back. I shifted, leaning forward to hand her off, but he shook his head and smiled. It was a tired smile, a sad smile.
I hadn’t stopped singing.
It was ten or fifteen minutes before a doctor came in, making no effort to be quiet, not that Maven would have been able to sleep anyway once the poking and prodding began. She woke up crying, and after a bit of inspection and some questions, it was decided that they’d administer an IV, give her some antinausea medicine, and monitor her for a few hours.
The doctor blew out, and in blew a nurse with supplies.
The IV was the worst part of the whole ordeal.
I tried to pass her off to Charlie again, but she clung to me and screamed, “Nana”—her version of my name—so I held her still, singing to her with my voice trembling.
Charlie held her face to stay her eyes as the nurse pricked her arm.
Her cry broke my heart.
The nurse smiled apologetically and when it was done, she gathered her things, handing off a popsicle that would hopefully stop Maven’s stomach from emptying again. And then she dimmed the lights and passed us the television remote.
Charlie found some cartoons, and Maven sat cradled in my lap, slowly eating the popsicle but eating it all the same. That at least was a comfort. Charlie stayed on the edge of the bed, and though I kept trying to pass her over, he just refused, seeming content just to watch us.
Watch her, I reminded myself.
But his eyes would find mine over and over again, his hand and body close enough to my thigh that we touched, the warmth of him radiating into me in the chill of the room.
When Maven’s popsicle was gone and she fell asleep again, he stood and leaned over, pressing his lips to my ear. “I’m gonna get coffee. Want one?”
His whispering breath sent a shud
der down my spine.
I nodded.
His hand covered mine that covered Maven’s, and when he stood, he smiled at me with gratitude. And then he left the room, taking my resolve with him.
It was impossible. Being around him, working for him, pretending I didn’t want him, pretending like I didn’t notice that he wanted me too—all of it.
Being professional was a pipe dream. My heart had already moved over the line, and there would be no going back.
I found myself truly wondering what was stopping us, what stood in between us. There was nothing in my contract with Charlie or the agency that forbade it, not aloud, only an unspoken expectation. But most of the men au pairs worked for were married, and Charlie wasn’t, not in the way that mattered. He was older, yes, but not so much that I noticed the fact.
Of course, if things didn’t work out—and the truth was that they probably wouldn’t, a truth that was only a whisper I did little to acknowledge—my job would be affected. I would probably have to leave, not only Charlie and the children, but America. Because I very much doubted the agency would place me a third time.
But going home wouldn’t hurt so badly if I lost what I’d found. In fact, if I lost the life I’d built here, home was the only place I’d want to be.
The truth in my heart was that I wanted Charlie, and if he wanted me too, it was worth the risk. If he would only say yes, we could both have what we wanted.
I only had to find the courage to ask.
Charlie
I headed out into the hospital hallway with a shortness of breath and a muddled brain, making my way toward the coffee vending machines I’d seen back in the waiting area.
Regret pressed on me for going to work. I would rather have been behind than not have been there for my baby. I’d worried over her all day, and when I’d looked in the window of the hospital room, the guilt had been more than I could bear.
The sight of Maven so sick made me ache all over.
The sight of Hannah holding Maven when she was so sick made me ache just in the rib cage.
She’d been singing softly in Dutch when I walked in, holding my daughter with tenderness and care I’d never seen from Maven’s own mother. The thought had cut me, cut me so deeply I didn’t know if the wound would ever heal.
The war of what I’d known with Mary versus what I’d seen in Hannah pulled and tugged at my thoughts. How had I not seen how bad it was all those years? How had I not realized? How hadn’t I known what the kids were missing, what I was missing?
But then I admitted to myself that I had known. I’d known all along, forever. And I’d done nothing about it.
And that was the worst part of all.
I stepped up to the coffee machine and fed it my money, watching it pour sludge into the cup that we would hold to warm our hands and little more. I wished I had something more to give her than the burned goo, like a cup of tea on fine china or an espresso or something good. She deserved something good.
She deserved so much.
And I had nothing to offer.
She deserved someone without baggage, without history she’d have to take on for her own. She deserved someone as fresh and pure and beautiful as her.
I was none of those things.
And still, I wanted her, and she wanted me too. I could see it plainly in her face, in the blue of her irises, at the edge of her lips, in the corners of her eyes. There was a light in her that flared a little brighter when I came near.
I could see it. And I shouldn’t have wanted to do anything about it, but I did.
As the sludge steamed and poured, I wished I’d met her somewhere, anywhere else. If only things were simpler … even a little simpler would have been enough.
I shook my head as I took the cup once the machine stopped sputtering and started it again.
Get it together, Charlie.
She felt right, so right, but somehow wrong too. No, not wrong … not in the sense of her and me, but like I was supposed to think it was wrong. Because of some outside force, from the expectation hanging over us. Over me. But the truth of the matter was that Hannah felt right in all the ways that counted, and fighting that feeling was exhausting.
When the second cup was finished, I picked it up, chancing a sip of mine. I made a face when the brackish muck hit my tongue, certain it would keep me up and partly convinced it was radioactive.
I turned down the hallway, so lost in thought that I didn’t see her until I was almost at the door. I stopped dead, heart included.
Mary stood outside the door, peering into the window at an angle. Dark circles lay nestled under her eyes, her dark hair in a tight ponytail, her dark eyes trained into the room where our feverish daughter lay.
“Who is she?” She didn’t look at me.
“The nanny,” I said stupidly.
“She’s pretty.” There was an edge to her voice, but it was dull.
I watched her for a series of thudding heartbeats before I spoke. “Where the fuck have you been, Mary?”
“Here,” she said hollowly, never moving besides her lips.
“That’s cute. I suppose the divorce papers got lost in the mail and you dropped your cell phone on the subway track. Does that sound about right?”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Charlie—”
“Are you serious? Are you fucking serious right now?” I hissed, trying not to yell, the thick coffee rippling in the cups from my shaking hands. I took a breath. “No. You know what? I’m not having that argument with you. Here’s the truth: All I want from you is one thing.”
She finally turned and met my gaze, hers empty, mine on fire—I could feel it boiling deep down in my guts, steaming up my throat.
“Let us go. Sign a waiver and let us go once and for all.”
She pushed off the wall and turned to leave.
“Goddammit, Mary, don’t you walk away from me. You’ve done that enough.”
“I can’t give you what you want, Charlie. Not now, not ever.”
“What the hell does that even mean? I mean, you’re right about the fact that you can’t give me love or companionship or even a goddamn divorce. I’ve even had to do that alone. But do you intend to keep me firmly placed in hell until you get the fucking notion? Because that’s where you’ve left me.”
She shrugged and tried to turn away again.
My rage almost boiled over, but I swallowed it, pushed it down, sucked in a breath. Because our child was sick, and Mary was here even if only out of obligation. Maven needed her, and that had to be all that mattered.
“Stop. I’ll stop. Just … just come in and see her.”
Mary shook her head and kept turning, her eyes on the ground and the line of her profile in my eyeline. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not fucking sorry,” I shot at her back. “You’re her mother. Her mother. And if you were really sorry, if you gave a fuck about anybody but yourself, you would go in there and be her mother.”
But she said nothing, just kept walking, and I had no desire to stop her. She’d disappointed me for years, and now was no exception, only a reminder.
Somehow, the cups still hung in the circles of my hands, not crushed with its contents spilling over my fingers, not flying through the air in the direction she walked. And I stood there, staring at her back, helpless and hopeless.
Until I walked up to the door and looked through the window at Hannah and Maven, asleep in each other’s arms.
She was everything Mary wasn’t. They were day and night, the angel and the devil. And I knew I would find salvation in Hannah’s arms just as I’d found hell in Mary’s.
In that moment, I’d never been so certain of anything in my life.
12
Say Yes
Hannah
When I woke, Maven was still breathing slowly, her face soft with sleep and cheeks rosy with fever. Charlie sat in the chair against the wall, leg crossed ankle to knee, his eyes on his untouched coffee.
He looked up, and we shared a smile, nothing more. We could blame the silence on Maven, but it was more than that. We were lost in thought, content with not speaking because there seemed to be too much to say and no way to say it.
Maven finally stirred, and we were able to get her to eat a cracker and drink some water. And once it was clear she would keep it down, they let us leave, though not before arming us with more magical popsicles and instructions to bring her back if she got worse or didn’t show signs of improvement.
Charlie was turned inward, his eyes distant as he held Maven in the taxi, his hand on her back, his head bowed and cheek resting against her crown. I watched him without watching, felt him without action or words. The tension was unbearable, our worry over Maven paramount. The stress of hospitals and poking and prodding and concern had left its mark on both of us. We were tired. For so many reasons, we were tired.
It was late by the time we made it home, and we shuffled in to find a very worried Katie. Charlie carried Maven upstairs to put her to bed, and I told Katie what had happened. When Charlie came down, Katie was pulling on her coat, and within a few minutes, she was gone, the door closing behind her, leaving me alone with Charlie and the silence.
With nothing left to be done and no more tasks to occupy my mind, emotions surged, welling in my chest, pricking my eyes and stinging my nose. I dropped onto the bench and folded in on myself, resting my face in my palms to hide my tears.
“Hey,” he said softly, moving to kneel in front of me. He touched the outside of my knee, the weight of his hand a comfort and a curse.
I moved my hands and met his eyes, swiping at my cheeks, laughing around a sob at the absurdity of it all.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying. It was only a fever, and she’s fine, but …” I looked down at my hands, drawing in a breath and letting it go in an effort to stave off more tears. “It was hard to endure all the same. Scary.” I shook my head and said again, “I’m sorry. It’s so silly.”
“No, it’s not,” he said quietly, his face mirroring my heart. “I don’t think it’s silly at all. To not be able to help someone you love when they’re hurting is a desolate, powerless thing.”