"It was good, good, good," he said, hopping up the stairs with each word.
"Ready for a bath?" I asked Maven, whose nose was still red, her little finger hanging in her pouty, red lips. She nodded, and I kissed her on her cool cheek. "Then let's get cleaned up, shall we?"
I followed the bounding four-year-old up the stairs and into the bathroom.
The routine was automatic, easy, bringing me a little bit of joy with every action: making sure the water was just right, adding the bubbles, singing them silly Beatles songs — "Octopus' Garden" was their favorite, followed by "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." I stripped the sweet babies down and took care of them, washing them tenderly, and as they began to play on their own, my mind wandered.
One whole hour, and she'd blown up my phone to get me home. Not even an hour — she'd barely been home at all when she texted me, put out I supposed because Charlie passed the kids off on her. Heaven forbid she cook or bathe them. I was hurt that she'd given up so easily, knowing I needed some time. And I'd already been late leaving because Charlie hadn't gotten home in time for me to leave with Sophie … I'd barely had any time with Rick tonight at all.
I sighed as I straightened up the bathroom, putting the kids' dirty clothes in the hamper and getting fresh towels out from the linen closet.
She had her reasons for being so unwilling to help. In part, it was bred in her by my father who indulged her at every opportunity — she'd always been this way. Past that, she was so busy at the hospital, and when she came home, she was tired and overwhelmed. Charlie too. He was an attorney and brought his work home with him nearly every night.
I also made a quiet concession that they hadn't planned for this, even for each other. They'd only been dating a few months when she found out she was pregnant, and their solution was to get married. I thought they'd been in love, but the strain of the kids and their jobs was so much, and things had deteriorated over the years. It was another reason I was happy to help, hoping I could take some of the pressure off of them so they could get back to each other.
I'd lived with them for nearly four years, since just after Sammy was born. My father moved to Miami with our younger sister, and Mary asked me to move in to help out. It was a perfect situation — I was in college at the time and needed a place to stay, and they'd just bought their brownstone, which had plenty of room. She offered me the guest room downstairs at the back of the house where I could look out on the patio and write.
I jumped at the chance.
Of course, as the years wore on, they came to depend on me more and more. And when I'd graduated with my literature degree, I didn't know what to do with it. Didn't know what to do with myself.
The boldest thing I'd done since Wade left for the Army was to go to school. But even in doing that, I was still only going through the motions without an end game.
He'd been my end game, and when things ended, the path of my life had been erased, left smudged and blurry. I hadn't found my way since.
So it was easy, convenient, to be a live-in nanny, working my schedule around theirs. The kids were in private preschool three days a week, and I took care of them from the time I picked them up at three until they went to bed, and all day the rest of the time. Charlie and Mary always had places to be, benefit dinners and the opera and other sorts of social things — frankly, I lost track. And I enjoyed the solitude when they were gone.
But before I knew it I was … stuck. I didn't think about it overly much, mostly because I didn't have a plan for the rest of my life and it was easier to just put it off. I felt no urgency — I had my degree but no idea what to do with it. And helping Mary gave me a sense of purpose, gave me a solution to a question I didn't want to answer myself.
I pulled the plug on the old clawfoot tub and helped the kids out, drying off Maven before handing Sammy his hooded towel, knowing he'd want to put it on himself. Then Sammy ran off to his room to get dressed, and I carried Maven to her room.
It was all pink and purple with butterflies and flowers hanging from the ceiling, with a white sleigh bed topped with pillows and her favorite stuffed animals. Her room always reminded me of Peter Pan and what I imagined Wendy Darling's room to look like, classic and Victorian, sweet and pretty, just like Maven.
The toddler hummed tunelessly as I dressed her, and then we climbed in bed with a book while Sammy brushed his teeth. And when we were all finished with Olivia, I tucked her in and turned down the lights, clicking on her nightlight that threw stars all over the ceiling. I sang her a soft song, and she gave me a hug, and when she told me she loved me, my heart ached.
Guilt sprang in my chest — I'd forgotten for a moment what the day had held, the sadness crushing me in a wave. But I caught my breath as I walked into Sammy's room to find him bouncing on his bed with a Pete the Cat book. His room was like Maven's, but all shades of blue and dark wood, with a captain's bed and a nautical theme that had skewed in the pirate direction over the course of the last year. He leaned against me as we read, though he knew all the words and recited them with me. And when all was done, I said goodnight with a wave and a kiss on the cheek before making my way wearily down the stairs.
Mary sat in the living room on her phone, long legs crossed, wine glass in hand. People always said we looked alike, but I didn't see it. Mary was all sharp edges; even her dark eyes, the one part of her I did see myself in, held a hardness to them that I'd never understood.