Chapter 6 - Forty-Eight HoursMy contract ended at four o’clock Wednesday afternoon.
At 3:57, I packed my suitcase.
At 3:58, Caleb discovered it.
At 3:59, all three boys were sitting on top of it.
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“No what?”
“You can’t leave.”
Benjamin nodded solemnly.
“It’s illegal.”
“I’m fairly certain it isn’t.”
Adrian crossed his arms.
“We voted.”
“Congratulations.”
“You lost.”
“Democracy is complicated.”
Caleb hugged the suitcase.
“You said adults don't leave because we’re bad.”
The humor disappeared.
I crouched.
“I said you can't make good people stop caring about you by testing them.”
“Then stay.”
My throat tightened.
The job had been supposed to last forty-eight hours.
Twenty thousand dollars.
Enough to pay my overdue rent, Lily’s dental procedure, and put money aside.
I had never planned to become important to three grieving boys.
Or their impossible father.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
He had heard everything.
“Boys, downstairs.”
They refused.
He raised an eyebrow.
Eventually they left.
Caleb looked back three times.
Dominic stepped inside.
“You don't have to leave.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because my daughter’s school was threatened.”
“We have security.”
“That sentence is exactly why normal people don’t live like this.”
His mouth tightened.
“Twenty-four-hour protection.”
“Dominic.”
“Different school.”
“Stop.”
“Apartment in a secured building.”
“Stop trying to purchase solutions.”
His face hardened.
“I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I know.”
The gentleness of my answer surprised him.
I sat on the bed.
“You’ve lived your entire adult life believing money can build walls high enough to keep disaster outside.”
He said nothing.
“It can’t.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
He glanced toward the photograph of Elena he had placed on the dresser that morning.
He had reopened her bedroom.
The boys had spent an hour inside looking through her things.
It was messy.
Painful.
Healthy.
“I’m learning,” he said.
Those two words changed something in me.
I looked at my suitcase.
“I need normal.”
“I don’t know how to offer normal.”
“I know.”
“I can offer safe.”
“You just discovered your uncle may have killed your wife.”
“Safer.”
I almost laughed.
A knock interrupted us.
Marco entered.
“We found Nicholas.”
Dominic stood.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Philadelphia.”
The address belonged to a homeless shelter.
Nicholas had been living under another name for years.
Dominic left immediately.
I intended to go home.
Instead, Caleb developed a fever.
Thirty-nine degrees Celsius.
Then Benjamin started vomiting.
The pediatrician came.
Stomach virus.
Nothing dangerous.
But leaving three sick children felt impossible.
So I unpacked.
“Just tonight,” I told myself.
At midnight, Caleb woke crying for his mother.
I sat beside him.
“She used to sing.”
“What song?”
“I don't remember.”
I brushed his hair back.
“Then we make a new one.”
“I don't know songs.”
“Neither do I.”
So I invented the worst lullaby in recorded history.
It involved a purple dinosaur, a spaceship, and pancakes.
Caleb laughed so hard he coughed.
By the third verse, he was asleep.
I turned.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
He had returned from Philadelphia.
His suit was wrinkled.
His face exhausted.
“Did you find Nicholas?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He’s coming tomorrow.”
I tucked the blanket around Caleb.
Dominic watched.
“Why are you still here?”
“He got sick.”
“You stayed because Caleb had a fever?”
“That’s generally something nannies handle.”
“Your contract ended eight hours ago.”
I looked at the sleeping boy.
“Don’t tell him.”
Dominic stared at me for a long time.
Then whispered, “Thank you.”
We walked downstairs.
For once the mansion was quiet.
No security alarms.
No screaming.
No threats.
Just rain against the windows.
Dominic poured coffee.
“You drink coffee at midnight?”
“I have triplets.”
“Fair.”
He handed me a cup.
“Why twenty thousand?”
“What?”
“The job. Why offer that much?”
“No one would come.”
“That desperate?”
“Yes.”
“To attend a business trip?”
His eyes dropped.
“The trip wasn’t real.”
I stared.
“What?”
“I wanted forty-eight hours alone.”
The admission hurt more than I expected.
“You hired me because you wanted to escape your children?”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I was exhausted.”
“So was I after Michael died.”
He looked at me.
“But Lily still needed breakfast.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know.”
“I’m not judging grief.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m judging what you did with it.”
He set down his coffee.
“You think I don’t know I failed them?”
“No.”
I softened.
“I think you believe failing once means you’re permanently disqualified.”
He looked toward the stairs.
“What if they’re better without me?”
“Then Adrian wouldn't have asked you to be king of the blanket fort.”
A sad smile touched his face.
We sat in silence.
Then Dominic asked, “What was Michael like?”
Nobody had asked me that in months.
Most people asked how he died.
Not how he lived.
“Funny.”
I smiled.
“Annoyingly optimistic. Terrible cook. He once set spaghetti on fire.”
“How?”
“To this day, nobody knows.”
Dominic laughed.
I told him about Michael teaching Lily to ride a bicycle.
About dancing badly in grocery aisles.
About our cheap honeymoon cabin where the roof leaked.
Dominic listened.
Then he told me about Elena.
How she hated fancy restaurants.
How she stole hotel shampoo despite being able to buy the hotel.
How she named all three sons before telling him because she knew he would hate her choices.
“Did you?”
“Completely.”
“And yet?”
“Within twenty minutes I couldn't imagine them with other names.”
We talked until almost two.
For the first time, grief did not feel like a locked room.
It felt like a bridge.
Then my phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Dominic saw it.
We stared at each other.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A distorted voice spoke.
“You were told to leave.”
Dominic gestured for me to keep talking while he activated tracing software.
“Who are you?”
“You’re making things worse.”
“For whom?”
Silence.
Then:
“Ask Dominic what happened the night Nicholas disappeared.”
The call ended.
Dominic’s face went white.
“What happened that night?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dominic?”
May you like
His hands slowly lowered.
“I was there.”
Related Stories
