Helen
The Present…
I STEP THROUGH THE FRONT door and tense, immediately alarmed, when a loud sob rings out through a closed door down the hallway. Miss Emily hardly ever cries. In fact, the only time I’ve seen her shed tears is when her horse Buckingham threw her off when she was thirteen. And that instance was more because her feelings were hurt that her horse would eject her, rather than her bruised tailbone.
Bruised hearts are far more painful.
When I reach her door, I twist the knob and enter.
Ah, sweet Emily. The apple of my eye, just like her mother.
I’ve never seen her look so sad in all my life. The crocodile tears spilling down her bright red cheeks could rival her grandmother’s any day.
“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” I coo as I approach her bed.
She tosses her cell phone on the pink comforter and swipes away her tears with her palms. “Everything,” she says dramatically.
I sit on the edge of the bed and take her hands into mine. It’s something I used to do when she was upset as a toddler. “Tell me everything.”
A hiccup escapes and then another sob rings from her. “It’s a boy, Nanny.”
I smile at the pet name she gave to me when she was just three. “Boys are rotten,” I tell her, rubbing my thumbs along the backs of her hands.
She giggles through her tears and in this moment, I know everything will be okay. Emily is a product of two good people. That makes her better than good.
“It’s Porter,” she grumbles.
“The boy from your school?” I ask, a frown tugging at the corners of my mouth. “I thought Finn down the road was your boyfriend. He’s nice.”
Her lip curls up. “Finn and I are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ve always been just friends. He just thinks he has a say in my life.” The haughty tone reminds me so much of her grandmother that I want to shake the teenage girl—shake the awful woman right out of her.
“And you have so much more in common with Porter?”
She starts crying again and for a moment, I’m at a loss.
“I just really like him and want more than to make out with him at the movies or in his backseat. All the girls at school want him and I know I’m not the only one he spends his time with. I want him to choose only me.”
“You’re eighteen, Miss Emily.”
“So?”
“Porter is a teenage boy. He’s a nice-looking young man playing the field. You both are too young to settle on one person.”
She blinks at me, waiting for the punchline. Dear Lord, she is growing up way too fast and here all this time I thought she had her daddy in her. It looks like her grandmother’s blood runs strong. “I’m eighteen. We’re not too young.”
“You just turned eighteen. He’s pushing you away because he’s not ready to be serious and settle down with one girl,” I say with a sigh. “Because you are too young. You’re supposed to go off to college in the city and—”
“I want to stay with him!” she cries out, throwing her arms in the air. “I want to marry him and have lots of babies. What’s so wrong with that?”
So many reasons.
It’s like history on repeat, destined to play over and over again.
And I am its victim—the victim history loves to haunt.
“He’s not right for you,” I say finally as if that explains everything.
“Why? Because he doesn’t come from money? I don’t care about money, you know this. I think I’m in love with him.”
So stubborn, this girl.
“It’s not enough. It never is. One day you’ll wish for something more.”
“I’m not that shallow, Nanny.”
I can’t say I believe her. Money talks louder than love sometimes.
“I’m not,” she argues when I don’t say anything. “You know I hate Finn’s obnoxiously expensive car and I make fun of him for it. You’ve heard me. Finn and I are not a good match. I would never date some rich boy. Porter and I belong together. We have a lot more in common. I just have to make him understand.”
“Let me tell you a story, darling. Scoot over,” I tell her.
I kick off my shoes that make my feet ache too much these days and slide into the bed with her. We pull the comforter up to our breasts and I let out a heavy sigh.
“Love is complicated, Emily.”
“No kidding.”
“Love is messy.”
Her phone buzzes and she has a missed text from Porter. Nosily, I read it along with her.
Porter: We can still go to the movies and hang out, but I don’t have time for a relationship.
She huffs and tosses the phone back down. “What’s so wrong with me?”
“It’s not you,” I assure her. “He’s just not the one.”
“I’m not giving up,” she tells me, that haughty tone back in her voice.
“I was afraid you’d say that. Let’s get on with this story. You may change your mind and leave the boy alone.”
She curls against my side like she did when she was a youngster. “I’m pretty stubborn, Nanny. I still want to hear your story, though.”
Our fingers link—her youthful ones threaded with my arthritis-ridden ones.
“This isn’t my story,” I tell her, letting my mind drift to the past. “No, this story is theirs. Heath and Catrina. Like the poor boy and the stubborn princess from your story.”
“Oooh,” she says breathily. “I can’t wait.”
“It’s not pretty,” I admit.
“I bet it ends happily.”
Silly girl…happy endings are for fairy tales, not reality.
I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll let you be the judge…”