by Tiana Cole
“David, I do want to be here. I didn’t mean to say that I don’t.”
“Then move in with me.”
I felt like all of the air had been knocked out of my body. A guy had never asked me that before. I hadn’t even thought about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a question like that, especially not by a man like David. I wasn’t even sure how it would work if I said yes. Wouldn’t it make the parameters of my job just a little bit confusing? Or maybe I just wasn’t understanding what he wanted.
“Move in with you? What do you mean? I already live here.”
“No, Kayla. I don’t want you to just live here. I want you to move in with me. Not as the nanny, but as my girlfriend. I want this to be real. I’m ready for it to really mean something. I want to take an honest shot at this. I think we could really be happy together, for a long, long time.”
So I hadn’t misunderstood him, not about any of it. There were no ulterior motives or unknown caveats. He wanted me to move out of the garage apartment and into his bed, to be a real, legitimate couple. I only had to think about it for a split second before I knew exactly what my answer would be.
“So I guess I’m out of a job, then, huh? I can’t be your live-in girlfriend and your live-in nanny.”
“Is that a yes? Kayla, please tell me you’re saying yes.”
“I am. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Then his strong, capable hands were cradling my face and drawing me in for a long, slow kiss. I kissed him back with a lust I had never known before. Now that I knew how much he wanted me and I felt like I could really trust that, I couldn’t get enough of him.
I could have spent the rest of the day entwined in his arms. I would have, too, if I had gotten my way. But much too quickly he pulled away from me, leaving both of us breathless and aching for more. I could see that he had something to say so I resisted the urge to just jump into his lap and see where that led us. It was much harder to resists than I could have imagined.
“Kayla, I have one other question to ask you. If that’s okay, that is.”
“Oh god, I don’t know if I can handle any more of your questions. You’re going to give me a heart attack!”
“It’s a good question, I promise. If I can find someone else to watch Sophie for a couple of hours, would you be up to running by the hospital with me? I thought maybe we could get the paperwork rolling today.”
“Paperwork?”
“For your school in the hospital, of course. Did you think I forgot? Unless you’ve changed your mind, that is. You certainly don’t have to open it.”
“No!” I squealed with a little bit more intensity than I meant to use. “I haven’t changed my mind. I just didn’t think it would get rolling this quickly.”
David smiled at me and kissed me again, faster this time so as not to distract us from the task at hand. He had the most mischievous look on his face and I couldn’t help giggling. It was so endearing for such a talented, serious man to be able to show that side of himself. It was an unbelievable feeling to be one of the few people he chose to let in that way.
“Believe me, Kayla. When I want something to happen I get it taken care of quickly. I’m funny that way. I just have to be properly motivated. Now. Let’s settle on a babysitter so we can get going.”
***
“Oh my god, I can’t believe this is really happening. Is this real?”
I whispered into David’s ear, not wanting any of the hospital staff to hear me. I felt beyond silly asking it in the first place, but I just couldn’t help it. It seemed like I was living in a dream. There was still a nagging little voice in the back of my head telling me that the dream could still be sabotaged, but the voice was getting further and further away. I was finally starting to feel safe.
“Just wait here for one minute. I’m going to go get some paperwork out of my office and then we’ll be ready to roll.”
I nodded, watching him go with a mixture of love and fear. I didn’t really fancy the idea of being left alone at the nurses’ station, even for a small amount of time. All I could do was stand there, trying to be as invisible as possible and counting down the seconds until David was back by my side.
“Hey, I know you.”
My heart stopped. I swear it stopped beating in my chest. I turned slowly to face my accuser, hoping desperately that the person would be someone I had never seen before and was only mistaking me for someone else. No such luck.
I recognized the nurse immediately. She had been around a lot while my sister had been dying. We hadn’t really exchanged many words, but I had seen her practically every day. Still, she must have seen so many people since then. Maybe I could convince her that she was mistaken.
“I don’t think so, I’m sorry. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me with somebody else.”
“No,” she said with a determined, scrutinizing look, “I never forget a face.”
“Well I’ve been the nanny for Dr. Wyatt for the past several months and I helped put his daughter’s birthday party together, the one we had here just yesterday. That’s probably it.”
“No. That’s not it either. It’s your sister.”
“My sister?”
“Yes, your sister was here, as a patient. I remember her. The two of you were really sweet together. I was sorry to see that she had passed. Nikki. Nikki Evans. That was her name. And you’re Kayla Evans. You look like you’re doing much better. I’m glad to see that.”
She smiled at me sweetly, having no idea that I felt like I was dying inside. Then she nodded to someone who had come up behind me and I knew. I just knew it would be David. I turned around slowly, hoping against hope that I would be wrong, but I wasn’t. Everything had finally caught up with me and now my happy ending would come crashing down around me.
“David…”
“No. Don’t. I was right. My mother was right. I can’t believe this, Kayla. How the fuck could you do something like this?”
I searched my brain for an answer but there was nothing. There was nothing I could say to explain this all away.
Chapter Sixteen
David
I should have known. From almost the moment she walked into my house without ever receiving an invitation to enter, I should have known that there was more to it than what she was telling me. I just didn’t have time to sort through the details.
She was clearly so good with Sophie and I needed a nanny. I needed the help that I couldn’t seem to ask for. That was the reason at first. But then I got to know her and I didn’t want to discover any secrets or skeletons in the closet. I wanted her. I wanted her to stay and nothing else mattered.
Except that it did. Standing in that hospital hallway where I spent so much of my time, I looked at Kayla and finally realized where I knew her from. The nurse was right. My mother had been right, one of the hardest things of all for me to admit. She didn’t just have the kind of face that people felt they knew. We had recognized her because she had spent day after day in the hospital with her sister. Her sister who had died under my care.
“Kayla? Do you even hear me?”
She just stood there looking at me like a deer in the headlights with wide, frightened eyes. She was so devastatingly beautiful, everything I had ever wanted. Or I had thought she was everything I wanted. The version of herself she had presented to me was. Now I wasn’t sure who she was. I wasn’t sure of anything.
“Kayla. Say something.”
“I don’t know what to say, David. I never meant for things to go this way. I didn’t expect any of this.”
The way she said it dashed the last bit of hope I had. I knew it was beyond naive, but part of me was still holding onto the crazy idea that maybe it had been one massive coincidence, that she hadn’t remembered me either and she really had just needed a job. It was stupid to even think it and it was clearly false.
I didn’t need her to say anything else to know that. It was written all over her face, the guilt of what she had do
ne. I felt a sick, dull rage bubbling just below the surface of my skin. The rest of me just felt numb. The only thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t look at her anymore.
“I want you to go.”
“Oh, David, please, don’t. Don’t send me away.”
“Don’t? You are not in a position to tell me what to do. You don’t get to do that. I want you to go. I don’t want to look at you right now. I need time to think about what this means, to formulate my thoughts and calm down. I’m not saying that I won’t talk to you about this, but not right now. If I have to keep looking at you right now I don’t know what will happen.”
I knew I sounded threatening and that Kayla was afraid of the way I was speaking to her. She took one small step forward, her eyes entirely glazed over with tears she was fighting not to shed, but stopped when she saw how serious I was. And I was. Usually I was able to keep a pretty firm grip over myself but I didn’t trust myself with this. This was a level of anger I hadn’t felt since Mikey died and my mother swept him under the rug like he had never existed at all. There was no question that I needed her out of here. Immediately.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered in a hoarse voice that almost made me go to her despite what I had just learned. But no. She wasn’t who I thought she was. Not anymore.
“I bet you are.”
I gave her one last look and then turned and left her standing there all alone. I could hear her begin to sob but I couldn’t turn around. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
I slammed into my office and shut the door with a bang that rattled the pictures on my walls, then sat and rested my head in my hands, propping myself up on the ridiculously large desk I hadn’t really wanted in the first place. On top of everything that had just blown up right in my face I knew it was only a matter of time before my mother caught wind of the situation, and there was not a chance in hell that she was going to be sympathetic.
***
“Knock, knock.”
I had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been five minutes or two hours. Either one would have felt the same to me. I kept waiting for what had happened to sink in and feel real, but it just wasn’t happening. It felt like some kind of awful prank and any minute now it would all be taken back and things would go back to being good. Except that I knew that wasn’t possible.
I remembered seeing her here now. Now that I had heard someone else make the connection I couldn’t make myself forget it, no matter how badly I wanted to. And now my mother was standing at my door. Fantastic. Fucking fantastic.
“Yes.”
“David? Are you in there?”
It was a stupid question and I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her so. Was I in there? How in the hell could I be answering her if I wasn’t? I could already tell this conversation was going to go poorly, I just couldn’t see any way to get myself out of it.
“Yes, Mother, I’m in here. What can I do for you?”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure, why not?”
True to form, she wouldn’t tell me what the visit was about until she was already safely locked inside with me, trapping me like a rat on a long sea voyage. Not that I really needed her to explain anything. Anyone who believes that gossip is a torture reserved for the young is fooling themselves. It never goes away. Any place where the same group of people congregated habitually you will find people talking shit about each other. The hospital was just as bad as any other place, maybe worse, and there was absolutely no doubt that she was coming about Kayla.
How long had the nurses waited before running to her side and whispering my very public discovery in my mother’s ear? Were they trying to impress her or were they just bored? Either way, now she was here and I couldn’t get away from it. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from what I had learned. She strode casually across my office floor and sat in one of the chairs usually reserved for my patients’ families.
She looked so elegant, so poised and indifferent that it made me want to scream. Couldn’t she show a little bit of concern, for Christ’s sake? Couldn’t she at least pretend not to be relishing the idea of saying ‘I told you so’? I closed my eyes briefly, feeling the very beginning of a killer migraine coming on. I just wanted to get this over with so I could go back to being alone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Not just yet.
“So, David, how are you? How have things been going lately? You know, with the patients, the staff, that sort of thing.”
Jesus, was she for real? I wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and throw her right back out again but I knew that wasn’t really an option. She was the head of my department, after all. Not to mention she was my mother. She may not have had a maternal bone in her body but that didn’t change the fact that she was my mom. She was also pretty demanding and I didn’t think that just ignoring her until she gave up and went away was an option.
“Fine, Mother. They’re all fine. Everything seems to be progressing just as it should.”
“Oh?” she asked with raised eyebrows., “Does it? Then perhaps I’ve been misinformed. I suppose it’s always possible, what with the incompetence of the people running around these hallways.”
“They’re employees of the hospital, Mom. They’re just as important as we are to making it run.”
“Mother. Don’t call me mom, you know I detest that. And don’t be ridiculous, they aren’t anywhere near as important as we are. That’s why it’s so unsettling to be given any kind of information from them about my own son.”
My head was pounding like there was a little man running around inside beating the sides of my skull like a gong. This was not happening. If it were at all possible I would will this to stop happening.
“What is it? What are you trying to get at, Mother?”
“Where’s the nanny, David? I heard she was with you today. Or, excuse me, is she your girlfriend now? Is she both?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what? I’m just asking questions. Can’t a mother ask questions about her son?”
She looked so completely smug that it made me want to scream. Yes, it might be perfectly normal for a mom to ask her sons questions about himself, but that would be assuming that the relationship between them was normal. Our was not.
My mother never asked about me, not unless it was because she wanted something or because I had managed to earn her disapproval. I was pretty clear on which one had warranted this particular visit. I could take it, too. What I couldn’t take was this little game she was playing. That was pushing me further than I was willing to go.
“Yes, most normal mothers could. They would probably be doing it out of concern, too. But we both know very well that is not what’s going on here and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you toy with me today. So I’ll ask you again. What is it that you want?”
Her look of surprised indignation was gratifying, as awful as it was to think something like that about one’s mother. It was the only consolation I felt likely to get any time soon and so I took it. It seemed like all I really had going for me and it also helped me to gain a bit more even footing with my mom.
I knew I was going to need it, what with the impossibly large high horse she had rode in here on. She was never shocked for long, however, and now she was good and angry as well as triumphant. She stood quickly, slamming both of her perfectly manicured hands on my desk.
“David! What in the hell were you thinking? How could you let a thing like that happen?”
“Honestly, Mother, I fail to see why that is any of your business. It hasn’t got anything to do with you, after all.”
“Nothing to do with me? Are you serious? Because if you are, you clearly haven’t truly thought about the implications of your actions. You’ve only been thinking about you and what you want.”
“When I should have been thinking about you, is that it? I should have been thinking about how having my heart pissed on might affect you.”
“Dear god, Da
vid, don’t be so dramatic. Your heart? Please.”
Now it was my turn to stand, every bit as angry as she was. Angrier. Angrier than she could even begin to imagine. Why couldn’t she just be a mother? Just for once in her whole proper, cold life, why couldn’t she tell me she loved me and she was sorry that I was hurt?
She hadn’t done that for me once in my whole life, not that I could remember. Not even when Mikey died. The thing was, just because she made the decision to pretend she didn’t have an actual heart beating in her chest didn’t mean I had to do the same. She had no right to mock my heart, whatever its condition was.
“Yes! My heart. My heart. What would you like me to say, Mother? That you were right? That I should have recognized her, or looked into it further when you said she looked familiar? Fine, great. I fucked that all up. Is that what you want to hear? Congratulations, you were right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to think about how I’m going to tell Sophie that the woman we both love might not be coming back.”