Chapter Three

James

 

I was at the gallery, making some last-minute changes to a show that was coming up next week. I sent Janice an email, asking if there were any messages for me. It bothered me that I had to babysit her like this. Messages were something she should have automatically told me about, but for some reason, she didn’t think it was important enough to tell me when I’d had a phone call.

She had appeared back at the gallery yesterday and pretty much begged for her job back. I felt bad for what had happened. I was in a shitty mood already the other day and felt that may have influenced my decision to let her go, so with some trepidation, I hired her back.

A few minutes later, my computer dinged, indicating a new email. I glanced over to check it and saw that it was Janice telling me that my nanny and Nell were here.

It irritated to me no end that she couldn’t have just called me, but first I wanted to know why they were there. They didn’t normally stop by, so I got up and headed right downstairs.

“Esther, Nell. What are you guys doing here?” I asked. I paused when I noticed Esther’s face. It was red and blotchy, as if she’d been crying a lot. Her eyes were swollen. I quickly looked at Nell to make sure everything was okay with her. She seemed to be just fine and her normal happy self.

Nell came running over to me, and I squatted down to greet her.

“Daddy!” she yelled and threw her little arms around my shoulders.

I squeezed her, reciprocating her enthusiasm.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Winters,” Esther said. That’s when I noticed the tears on her face.

“What’s wrong, Esther?” I asked, growing concerned for my nanny. She never came to my office, so it was weird to see her. I was very worried to see that she had been crying. She had been my nanny for the last two years, and I had never seen her shed a single tear.

She took a deep breath as fresh tears filled her eyes.

“My brother has passed away.” Her body shook as she bent over and began sobbing. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go to Florida right away.”

I stood up and hugged her. I wasn’t one to show much affection to people other than my daughter, but she was so upset I couldn’t just let her stand there without comforting her to some degree.

“It’s okay, Esther. I know what it’s like to lose someone; you know that. I’m here if you need to talk, and I want you to know that your job will still be here when you come home. Go be with your family, and take as much time as you need.”

“But what about Nell?” she asked, through her sobbing.

That was the exact reason I had hired her in the first place. She always made sure she put Nell first. Even then, in the midst of a family crisis, she still wondered what was going to happen to Nell.

“Don’t worry about Nell; it’s okay. I’ve got her, and I’ll figure it out.” I gave her another hug, then grabbed her some tissues from behind Janice, who was still just sitting there. She could have gotten up and offered Esther the tissues a while ago, but she just couldn’t be bothered with doing anything at all.

I was starting to grow more and more tired of her and her bullshit. Bullshit that I didn’t have time for. I was kicking myself for giving her another chance and cursed my soft side. I should never have let her come back. She was nothing but trouble and caused nothing but problems. Everyone always told me she was rude to them on the phone. Who knew how many clients I had lost because of her? And yet here she was with her job back.

“Thank you,” Esther said as she blew her nose into a tissue and grabbed another one to wipe her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. “My family already set up my plane ticket. I have to leave in an hour.”

“Okay, you go ahead and go now then. It’s fine. I’ll figure it all out; don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Winters. You’re so kind,” she said and then rushed out of the gallery. I watched as she got into her car and peeled away. I noticed the booster seat sitting by the front door and was thankful she had remembered to grab it. It made me irritated with Janice all over again, the car seat tangible evidence of Esther’s competence, still taking care of the details even in the face of great personal loss. I hoped everything was going to be okay with her family. I hoped we would see her again, but something told me we might not.

I turned my attention back to Nell.

“I’m so excited about starting school on Monday,” she said, almost yelling. “Kindergarten will be awesome!”

The thought weighed so much on me and I’d still been trying to fight it off, not wanting to focus on it or think about it. Her mom was missing so much of her life, and the start of kindergarten was only making it more real. I wanted time to stop. No, I wanted time to go in reverse. I didn’t want to deal with all the emotions I still had to process.

I picked my little girl up in a big bear hug. “I know you are, sweetie. I’m so glad you are excited and not nervous.” 

Then it hit me that Esther had just left for who knows how long and I had no backup plan for daycare. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with Nell once she started school the following week. I couldn’t just leave to pick her up from school. Having Esther around or the last two years had been so perfect, and would have really helped, especially with Nell starting school.

Well, this was a way that could really help Janice redeem herself, and I turned around to face her.

“I’m gonna need you to watch Nell starting at noon every day next week. She starts kindergarten, and I don’t have anyone else to do it. It won’t be that hard, and you can do it here. I’ll be nearby, so it won’t be that big of a deal,” I said.

She scoffed, cutting me off. “That’s not part of my job.”

I set Nell on the ground and turned my attention to Janice. It was unbelievable the nerve she had. I cocked my head to the side. Did she really have the nerve to say something like that to me? I had just given this woman her job back, and she was going to say something like that to me? It was not okay.

“You don’t even do the parts of your job that you should be doing anyway,” I said, thinking that pointing this out to her would make her realize how serious I was.

“Maybe I was wrong to come back here yesterday,” Janice said and stood up.

“Yeah, maybe you were,” I said.

“I’m done. I quit,” she said, as she grabbed her purse and left the gallery in a hurry. I know she only did it because she knew that I was about to fire her and just didn’t want to be fired again. But it’s fine if she were to write my number down as a reference for the future. I would make sure to let her future employer know that I did, in fact, fire her not once, but twice.

I had no idea what I was going to do now that Janice and Esther were gone. Though, when I thought about it, Janice probably wouldn’t be very good at watching Nell anyway, and I don’t think I really wanted her around Nell.

She wasn’t a very good influence and probably wouldn’t have even watched her.

“Daddy?” she asked.

“Yes, sweetie?” I got down on my knee.

“What’s for lunch?” she asked, as she licked her lips. I love that she did that so enthusiastically. It had always made me laugh.

I decided to take the rest of the day off. There was nothing that had to be done around here. Nothing that absolutely required my attention at that moment. Taking the rest of the day off would give me a chance to figure out what I was going to do, as well as spend some time with Nell.

“Let’s go to Sam’s Deli,” I said, and grabbed Nell’s little hand. We walked together out of the gallery and down the street to Sam’s.

“I think I want a grilled cheese this time,” she said when we walked inside.

“Okay, sweetie,” I said, then turned to the guy at the counter and gave him our orders.

Next, we walked over to the soda machine, and both chose strawberry lemonade. Grabbing some napkins, we found a table and sat down.

“So, this kindergarten thing. Are you sure you’re not nervous? Not even a little?” I asked.

Nell gave me a big smile. “No, Daddy, I’m not nervous to start, I’m really excited.” I knew she was telling the truth, but a part of me hoped that she wasn’t so confident, because her being so calm about it showed me she was growing up way too fast.

Our food came out a few minutes later.

“This really is one of the best sandwich places around,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s my favorite,” Nell agreed.

I smiled at my daughter. It was amazing to me how much she looked like her mother. She had the same long dark hair and bright blue eyes. In fact, her eyes were the exact same shade as Whitney’s. Which made considering them a little hard for me. I still missed her mother so badly; there wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t think of her.

We ate our sandwiches while I tried to rack my brain for a plan for Nell for after school next week. I wasn’t going to look beyond that until I had to. What could I do to resolve this? How would I have meetings with clients and operate my business when I was only going to be able to get work done between eight and twelve. Four hours a day was hardly anything, and I wouldn’t get nearly enough done. And there was no way at all I could prepare for a show. I did my best to hide my growing concern from my daughter. I didn’t want her questioning or worrying about what was going to happen. I didn’t want her to question what had just happened with Janice either, and was glad she wasn’t paying attention.

After we ate, I still wanted to close up the gallery early. I just needed to take some time to figure out a short-term plan. We walked back to the shop, and after locking everything up, I grabbed the things I needed, and we headed home. Nell told me about all the things she did that morning with Esther and expressed concern for her, and how much she would miss her. Nell asked if she was going to come back, and I told her I wasn’t sure, but I hoped so. And sooner rather than later, I thought to myself, though I would never have said that to her.

By bedtime that night, I still had no idea what I was going to do. I ran through every option in my head. Whitney’s parents were far away, plus Nell didn’t really know them anyway. I definitely didn’t want to have to resort to asking my own mom. I had run out of options.

As I fell asleep that night, I was hoping my lucky stars would come up with some sort of miracle.