CHAPTER ONE
Andie Tilly peered at the walls of her cubicle through a gathering mist of tears. The colorful patchwork of photos, mementos, and cards from the families of the children on her case list rippled and blurred. I won’t cry. For more than two years, the bustling offices of Metrowest Early Intervention had been more home to her than her small, silent apartment. She never thought it would come to this—her job snatched unceremoniously from beneath her feet.
Budget cuts, her boss explained after he dropped the bombshell. A couple of big grants had fallen through, and as their most junior occupational therapist, she was the one they would have to let go.
Now she had just a few more hours to pack the most rewarding years of her life into a file box. She took down the giant inflatable baseball bat that hung over her desk: a gift from Ramón, a preschooler with autism who, with her help, was finally able to tolerate crowds well enough to have recently attended his first Red Sox game. She’d leave the bat for another client, Jade, who always giggled when she saw it.
“Ms. Tilly?”
Andie turned, brow furrowed and bat in hand, as a stranger filled the entrance to her cubicle. He was a stocky, pleasant-looking man, with a thatch of red-gold hair and lively blue eyes that were an uncanny match for his chambray button-down.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “My name is Tom Reardon. I work for Rhys Griffiths, Will’s father.”
Will. Andie let the bat drift down to the floor. Of all the children she’d evaluated recently, Will had grabbed her heart like no other. He was a gorgeous toddler with soulful blue-gray eyes who had been referred for an autism screening by his preschool director in the upscale town of Concord, Massachusetts. As if fulfilling a prophecy set in motion by his name, he was a force of pure will—affectionate and often hyperfocused but capable of being tipped into inconsolable meltdowns. He’d never spoken and could spend vast stretches of time spinning the wheels of the blocky little wooden trains he carried around like personal totems.
“Of course I know Will. Is he—is everything okay?”
“Yes—I mean, no.” Tom smiled apologetically. “That is, the answer to that question depends on you.”
“On me?”
“Yes, Ms. Tilly—”
“Andie, please.”
“Andie.” He offered another nervous smile. “When Rhys was told Will would be seeing a new therapist due to layoffs, he chased me out of my office with orders not to come back until I’d talked you onto his payroll.”
“Mr. Griffiths wants to offer me a job?” Andie frowned in confusion.
Tom nodded, glancing at his watch. “That was almost two hours ago. I’m expecting him to call any minute and check up on whether I’ve accomplished the task.”
“He’s serious, then.” Andie raised her eyebrows. “You’d better come in.”
She couldn’t help but soften toward the man when he tripped over the baseball bat on his way to the guest chair sandwiched beside her desk.
“You do realize Mr. Griffiths was resistant to Will’s evaluation from the beginning?” she asked once he was safely seated. “He dodged my phone calls. He stalled on the consent forms. For weeks he made it practically impossible for me to do my job. Now he’s hell-bent on saving me from the unemployment line?”
Even when Will’s appointments were finally scheduled, his father never once deigned to enter the Metrowest facility. There was no Mrs. Griffiths in the picture, so a buttoned-up British nanny accompanied Will to the center for the evaluations in his stead.
“Are you certain Mr. Griffiths is feeling okay? No recent bumps to the head?”
Tom’s mouth twitched at the left corner. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of denial?”
Andie nodded. Sometimes her enthusiasm ran away with her. Even if it was anticipated, an official autism diagnosis was news every family needed to process in its own way.
“It may have taken Rhys some time to come to terms with the situation,” Tom said, “but now that he’s on board, there is nothing he will not do to tackle this.”
“I suppose it’s safe to assume Mr. Griffiths is used to getting what he wants.” Andie was reminded of the Internet search she’d done on Will’s father while waiting on the consent forms.
Rhys Griffiths was a thirty-four-year-old engineering wunderkind whose company, Zephyrus Energy, had blazed onto the scene with an initial public offering that shattered market expectations. The media seemed to view him with a kind of puzzled awe, buzzing with stories about the quirky genius who insisted on taking most of his meetings barefoot. It was a detail that made Andie wonder whether Griffiths himself had sensory issues, just like his toddler son. She remembered a Forbes photo spread showing a lethally handsome man with eyes the color of blue smoke, flanked by his innovative wind-turbine prototypes.
“Rhys is . . . driven,” Tom conceded. “But there never was a more devoted father. He’s determined to beat this thing, even if it means having a therapist on call around the clock.”
“On call?”
“Yes, you will be expected to live at the Griffiths home for the duration of the engagement,” Tom confirmed. “Your own report identified sensory challenges that are interfering with Will’s feeding and sleep. Rhys will need you to be on hand to provide whatever therapies you see fit, day or night.”
Andie’s scalp prickled. Rhys Griffiths wants me to stay in his house? “Now I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said. “I’m a clinician, not an au pair.” Did he not realize that professional OT appointments were measured out in forty-five-minute increments? She’d never heard of anyone having their own occupational therapist in residence.
“You will, of course, be more than fairly compensated for your inconvenience.”
She gulped in astonishment at the sum Tom named as her proposed base salary—more than four times her pay at Metrowest, and free from the administrative hassle of having to collect from health-insurance companies like most solo practitioners did. She’d be able to hold on to her apartment and even pay off a significant chunk of her student debt. Best of all, she’d be working with Will.
But none of that mattered. Because the idea of living in the family’s home like some glorified nanny or nursemaid constricted her chest like an iron band. It wasn’t just professional pride that made her resistant to the proposition. It was that Andie simply didn’t do family.
She turned away, trying to block out the memory of screeching tires on a long-distant night, and a small navy rain boot with red trim flung to the gutter. No. The casual interdependence, the implicit trust, and the intimacy of domestic life were off-limits to her now. She couldn’t insinuate herself into the heart of a family. She couldn’t risk it, even as an employee.
“They need you, Andie.” Tom chipped away at her fraught silence. “I’m not just making this offer as Rhys’s lawyer but as his friend. He needs you. And Will—my godson—does, too.”
Her breath escaped in painful splinters. She loved working with children. She had thrived at Metrowest, supported by the clinic’s routines and protocols, and the camaraderie of her more experienced colleagues. But caring for a child in a private home? It was a responsibility she could never take on.
“I have to be honest with you, Mr. Reardon . . . Tom. Living at their house, being on call . . . I’m really not comfortable.”
“Rhys understands the request is unusual,” Tom said. “But he can’t wait for you to find a job with another practice and then try to get on your case list. He needs your help now.”
Andie’s nails carved painful crescents in her palms. You’re allowed to say no. For Will’s sake, you must say no.
“I’m sorry. I love Will and I appreciate his father’s urgency, but I’m afraid I can’t take the job.” Just uttering the words eased the hot pinpricks that tingled at the nape of her neck.
Tom sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to have to throw myself on your mercy, Andie. I don’t want to think about the grief I’ll suffer if I go back to Rhys without yes for an answer.”
“But there are plenty of other therapists out there. I’m sure Mr. Griffiths could afford a battalion of experts. I don’t see why it has to be me.”
Tom paused, looking abashed. “There’s something else. Three days ago, Will spoke his first word. It was quite clear, and he’s said it a number of times since.”
“That’s great!” Andie cried, her heart leaping at the enormity of the breakthrough. “But what does it have to do with—”
“It was your name, Andie.” Tom raised a beseeching gaze to her face. “The only word Will has ever said in his life is your name.”
Andie stood in her tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, assessing her interview outfit. Jeans and practical tops were her usual uniform when working with her young clients, and she saw no reason to present herself in any other way.
Tom was due in five minutes. Determined to ensure that she accepted the job, he’d offered to drive her to the Griffiths house and back.
Her stomach fluttered. She’d surprised herself by saying yes. Not to the job, as yet, but to a meeting with Rhys Griffiths. How could she not, when her pulse raced with elation at the news of Will’s first word?
He said my name. The thrill of it galvanized her. Maybe this was it—her chance at absolution. She could make a difference in the life of this child. Prove that she was worthy. That she was wanted. That, after all these years, there might be a way to wipe the slate clean.
Her cell phone trilled, and she rushed into the living room to find it, only to see an ID on the screen that turned her excitement to ashes. Her mother. On the rare occasion that Susan Tilly called, it usually heralded nothing good. In the years since Andie’s father’s decline and eventual death, her mother’s physical bruises had healed. Where her youngest daughter was concerned, however, Susan’s outlook remained perpetually bruised and pessimistic.
Andie stared at the jangling device, her hand retracted in indecision. Should she take the hit now or defer it? Not that Susan was ever forthright in her jabs. She preferred a campaign of attrition—a subtle barb here, a long-suffering sigh there. Sometimes Andie thought it would be easier to assert herself if Susan would just come right out with it and voice her accusation that Gus’s death could be laid at her door. Then at least she’d have something to brace herself against.
“Andrea?” The thin thread of Susan’s voice echoed through the small apartment. Nobody but her mother called her by her proper first name.
“Hi, Mom.”
“You’re not at work.”
“No, I’m actually not with Metrowest anymore. I was laid off.”
Andie could feel her mother’s negativity—her assumptions—gathering like a storm cloud.
“What happened, Andrea?” Susan’s tone was heavy with awful possibility, as if no failure of Andie’s would surprise her.
Oh, you know, I burned down the clinic. Or, I accidentally left three disabled toddlers on a bus with an escaped ax murderer. What did the woman expect?
“There were budget cuts.” Andie forced brightness into her voice. “As a matter of fact, I’m about to go to an interview, for a job that looks like a sure thing.”
She cringed, wishing she’d been able to resist the small flame of self-assertion that always flickered to life in response to her mother’s lack of faith in her. She should have known better than to reveal too much.
“Oh? What’s this new job?” Susan’s cynicism vibrated across the airwaves.
“I’d be working with a nonverbal autistic boy in Concord.”
Susan had one question, guided as if by instinct: “How old is the boy?”
“Almost three.” Andie’s voice faltered. All of a sudden she had to battle a scalding fullness in her throat. Her beloved younger brother had been three on that terrible night of sleet and fog.
She was struck by the memory of police lights strobing through the gloom; the sweet, still curve of Gus’s foot in its white sock; and the stark image of her mother on her knees by the curb, everything familiar about her face swallowed by a rictus of horror and grief so desperate it still clutched Andie’s heart in panic. She squeezed her right hand into a futile fist—the hand that should have held on, kept Gus safe.
Susan made a small, inarticulate sound that combined both pain and censure. Mother and daughter had never been able to share their sorrow. They’d been on lonely parallel tracks since that long-ago night when Andie’s fatal lapse in focus had brought disaster down upon them—never openly clashing but never reaching rapprochement, either.
“Mom . . .” The yearning to connect was always there. She only wished her voice didn’t sound quite so plaintive.
“Yes, Andrea?” Susan sighed. Her tone always managed to imply that it was somehow reckless, or at least unseemly, for Andie to have built her career working with young children after what had happened.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mom?” Andie gathered her composure. “You must have called for a reason.”
“I was going to go over plans for the maple-sugaring party,” Susan said. “But you obviously have other things to worry about.”
“Okay. Well, then . . .”
“Good-bye, Andrea. I hope you’ll take care.”
The curt click in her ear signaled the end of the call, and Andie sagged into the couch cushions, the familiar crevasse of self-doubt widening. It was incredible how one call with her mother could somehow negate years of hard-won maturity, a master’s degree, and countless hours in the trenches working with children who needed her help. One word from Susan and she was transformed back into that hapless girl, a creature too absorbed in make-believe to focus when it counted. And what was the idea of a job with the Griffiths family but another foolish fantasy?
What was I thinking? She flushed with shame, disgusted at the thrill of validation she’d felt at being the subject of Will’s first word. What hubris to think a single word could erase her past. Will deserved better than to be used as a test case for her redemption. What if I screw up again? She had no business installing herself on the front line in the Griffiths household, without the safety net of a large, bustling practice around her.
The penetrating bleat of the buzzer set her teeth on edge. Tom. She should just send him on his way. But she owed Mr. Griffiths the courtesy of a fair hearing. Or at least the appearance of one. She’d go through the motions, hear him out, and then politely decline the offer. It was the only acceptable outcome—for her, for Will, and for his father, although he might not know it. She’d hold firm and face him down. Then she’d go back to her tiny apartment, cut her foolish hopes back down to size, and put the pipe dream of absolution behind her.