Nanny Returns (33 page)

He grabs her hand. “I’ll get a job. You’ll get a job. We’ll find a place, the three of us.”

She yanks it back. “I don’t want that.”

A breeze lifts the branches outside the window, one of them scraping the glass, and somewhere in the vast house a remaining clock ticks steadily. “I’ve suffered enough.
None
of this is my fault, Grayer. It’s not my fault.”

“It’s not,” he finally speaks and, despite the tears breaking, his voice is flat, emptied. “And when that’s you”—he points a finger at the bed—“it won’t be mine.”

She goes white.

“Nan?”

“Yes,” I answer him.

“Can I get a lift to the train?” he manages.

“Of course,” Ryan answers for us both.

Tucking his head, Grayer darts past us into the hall and down the stairs, Ryan and I only a few steps behind. He stops at the round table, planting steadying palms in the dust, his shoulders rising with each audible breath. I suck in my lips and walk tentatively over.

“Wait!” Ryan and I lift our heads to see Mrs. X on the landing balcony. “You can’t just
leave
me.”

The words hang in the air.

“Fuck. You.”

Ryan and I exchange glances.

Blanching, she touches her sternum. “Grayer, there’s no need to—”

“Fuck.” He draws out the syllable. “You.” He lifts his gaze up from the table. “I have spent my
life
getting left by you.” His rage echoes off the bare walls, sending her head flinching back.

She swallows, squinting in the light streaming through the glass transom above the front door onto her quivering frame. “Grayer”—she attempts to strike humility—“I’m sorry you think that. I mean, perhaps, it’s possible, in the last year, with the challenges in my marriage, my focus may not have—”

“Stop! Just fucking stop. Stop talking.” He lifts both hands into his hair and, with a quick huff of air, drops them. Squaring his frame, he raises his gaze to her once more. “When Dad goes down—and he will, Mom, whether I’m the one to tell or not. Because look around—he hocked everything in this house except his own mother.” He twists his lips. “And when he does, I’ll still have my trust from Dad’s family. So will Stilton.”

“Yes,” she acknowledges, her voice caught.

“So, I’m out of here in a year. But Stilton . . .” Grayer turns it over in his mind. “Stilton needs things.”

“Of course.” She knows things—acquiring is her forte.

“No fuck, Mom. He loves cooking. Hang out in the kitchen with him. Eat a meal with him. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, I can—”

“Find out what sport he plays and then go to every game.
Every
one. So he never has to look into the bleachers and see that you were too busy shopping to show up.” He gathers momentum. “And Christmas.”

“I do Christmas.”

“Fuck you.”

She takes a small step back.

“Not Rosa making eggnog. Family fucking activities: bake something, sing something—Christmas is not your nanny taking you back to her house in Bed-Stuy because she feels sorry for you.”

“Who did that?” she asks, alarmed.

He ignores her, and I watch as he runs their life behind his eyes, narrowing in on his demands. “When he starts boarding school—and we can wait a year, now that you’re sober—send him daily e-mails. Take him out every weekend for family visits. Mother him. It may not be what you
want
. It may be more suffering than you
deserve
. But as long as he’s happy—”

“Yes?”

“You’ll get an allowance until Stilton turns eighteen.” He studies her reaction.

“An allowance?” She perks up, walking down a few steps closer.

He tilts his head out the open door to where his brother sleeps in the driveway. “And if Stilton hears so much as a word, gets one fucking look from you explaining your transformation, the money stops.”

She shakes her head.

“What?” Grayer throws his hands out.

“Yes. Yes, Grayer, I agree. Thank you for—wanting to take care of me.”

He takes her summary in, probably the only version she can hold in her mind—not that she’s being blackmailed into being a mother, but that her older son has promised her a soft landing. And I sense from the almost imperceptible lightening of her features that this revision somehow makes her feel, perhaps for the first time in his lifetime, safe.

He nods, every ounce of animation draining, and he seems more weary than even the ninety-year-old prone a floor above. “Fine. Okay. See you at 721, Mom.” He follows Ryan outside.

I lay the car keys on the table and find my voice. “Stilton is asleep in our rental car with the boys’ things. Why don’t you drive him back and we’ll pick it up when we get back to the city?”

She nods and, passing the table, grabs the keys to follow me outside, where Grayer is helping a groggy Stilton out of the car. He speaks to him in a low voice and points up at the veranda. Stilton follows his brother’s finger, his face breaking into a smile as he spots his mother behind me. He races up the stone steps to throw himself around her waist. She flinches, but stays in his grasp.

“Mommymommymommy!” His enthusiasm is manic. “You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!”

“Yes,” she answers stiffly, her arms raised as if being mugged.

“At Carter’s my friend had a newt—then I burnt my hand and we were at a hotel. Nan’s dog was barking every single time the elevator came, it was a racket!” He rocks from foot to foot, jostling her. “Then this guy with a mustache said we had to leave and we went to this house on the beach that belongs to Citrine and Clark. Citrine gave me chocolate cake—she’s Nan’s friend—and I watched all three
Pirates of the Caribbean
movies in a row and …and . . .” His frantic locution loses steam as he checks her withdrawing gaze. Uncomfortable on both their behalves, I walk down to join Ryan and Grayer on the gravel.

“Now you’re here,” she fills in ambivalently.

He nods, releasing her, rushing to calibrate. “Yeah, yup,” he says casually. “Now we’re here. Where are we?”

“We’re at Grandma’s.” She allows a hand to find his hair as we all watch her think. “Daddy’s going to be selling this place, so we wanted to come say good-bye.”

“Should I go say hello? I can if you want me to.” He turns toward the front door, prepared to run into the house.

“No.” She puts a pausing hand on his shoulder. “She’s on vacation. And I’m going to drive you home. Although my license is in my purse, back at the hotel.” She looks to Grayer. But he just tucks his head and pointedly gets into the passenger seat of the Jag. “So …then …um . . .” She recovers her enthusiasm. “After we get unpacked, maybe we can see the Indiana Jones movie? Kathy Lee said it was good for boys your age.” The things we learn trapped in an HI. “And I can …make dinner.” She squints as her mind picks up speed. “Sloppy Joes.”

“Sure. What’s a Sloppy Joe?” he asks, finding his cue.

“It’s a sandwich. Like a hamburger. I’d make them for my dad when he got home from work.”

“Are Nan and Ryan coming?” he asks hesitantly.

She looks past me as she steers him down the steps and toward the rental car. “Stilton, Nan has to go.”

“You’ll have fun with your mom,” I hear myself say, feel myself willing it to be so.

He steps from her grasp and wraps me tightly in turn. “Please tell Citrine I said thank you for teaching me about hydrangeas’ care and presentation.”

“I will. I’m sure she’ll miss you.” I smile over the tingle forming in my throat.

Stilton and Ryan exchange good-bye waves and Ryan gets into the backseat of the Jag. “Stay cool, Stil!”

His mother holds open the back door for him and I realize I am frantically trying to memorize his face, his sweet scent, his slip-sliding. “Oh, and Nan?” he says as he climbs in.

“Yes?”

“My birthday is next month. June fourteenth. It’s a Saturday. Will you and Ryan come as my personal guests?”

My breath catches. “We’d be delighted.”

“I have your address,” Mrs. X says as she shuts him in and opens the driver’s door for herself.

I lean down to the window so Stilton and I are at eye level. “And you have my e-mail.” He nods intently. “So let me know how you did on your Neil Armstrong presentation.” I touch my hand to the glass and he matches his palm to mine.

“Nan?”

I turn and she looks up from the driver’s seat, eyes fully on me; they flash for a moment and I don’t want to know what she’s thinking, but all she manages is, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I twist off the engine of Clark’s Jaguar and turn to Grayer, quiet in the passenger seat beside me. He stares out his window, squinting up through the sun to the Metro-North tracks empty of their usual Monday seersucker and khaki-clad commuters.

“Grayer, we can seriously drive you back in.” I look to Ryan in the rearview, who nods in agreement.

“Thanks, but I want to take the train. I just need to zone, make some plans, figure things out.”

“But you don’t even have keys—”

“I do, actually.”

I turn to him in disbelief and his eyes dart away, cheeks reddening.

Ryan opens the back door. “I’m gonna grab some water. Anyone want anything?”

“No, thanks,” we say together.

“Do you think I’ll have to wait long?” Grayer asks as Ryan walks away.

“Oh, I don’t know. I can go in and check the holiday schedule. Or check on Ryan’s iPh—” I shake my head, still stuck on the keys. “Grayer, I meant it, you know.” He meets my eyes. “That I wanted to take you guys.”

“I know.”

“I guess now that seems kind of . . .”

“Yeah.” He nods down at his lap. “But thanks.” He clears his throat. “I mean, thank you.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure. A descent into alcoholism, a moment of clarity, a few years of therapy, a conversion to Scientology, and I should be fine.”

I laugh. “Listen, what you did back there was crazy brave and whatever rolls out, I’m here for you guys.”

“Here?”

“Yeah, e-mail me. I want to know how it’s going.
I
want to come to the school plays. And if, for some reason, you find yourselves at loose ends for Thanksgiving, we could pull out some extra chairs.”

“At your ‘house’?” he rabbit-ears.

“It’s going to be beautiful.”

“Right. No, I think”—he nods—“it’ll be good—for Stilton. To stay in touch.”

“Cool.” I match his nod.

He turns away from me to look out the side window. “Listen,” he says to the glass, “about what I said back there—you should totally have kids. Jesus, if anyone should, it’s you.”

I glance again into the rearview, where I see Ryan leaning against a low metal barrier, not getting water, just giving us a moment to talk, and a solid, grounded warmth rises from my chest, replacing what heretofore has been effervescent and flitting. “Thanks, Grayer.” And instantly I know it’s the benediction I’ve been waiting for.

“Okay.” He opens the door and steps out.

“Wait!”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to go.” I grab his arm, irrational panic washing over me. “I feel like I should go with you.”

“Nope.”

“How about, um . . .”

“I gotta go.”

And suddenly I know. He climbs out of the car. I grab my bag from the floor of the passenger seat and dig for my keys. I slide off the charm and unlock my seat belt to reach it out to him. He looks down at the little gold cone, so tiny in his grown-up hands.

“Just to remember.” I smile, letting him go through wet eyes. “I never stopped.”

The day has bloomed into full-blown summer by the time we’ve returned the Jag to Clark’s garage, collected the rental car from 721 Park, done a round-trip loop to retrieve the boys’ bags from my parent’s, returned the rental, swung by Sarah’s to collect Grace, and finally made it back in front of our own house. Grace hops onto the pavement and, extending her leash taut, climbs the stoop as Ryan pays the taxi. Achingly tired and emotionally drained, I shield my eyes from the noon sun and stretch my back before digging in my bag for the keys, perceptibly lighter without the charm. I grip the warm metal, hoping this Memorial Day finds Ingrid roasting marshmallows over a bonfire of her now meaningless unrenewed contract. But as I put the key in the lock, I acknowledge the equally likely possibility that she’s cursing me right along with the rest of them—that were she to rant her grievances into a teddy bear, I would warrant a shout-out.

“Nan, is this ours?” His hands full with our luggage, Ryan gestures with his chin to the “Poison” sign that has fluttered from our front door to the sidewalk.

“Yup.” I shrug. He hustles up the steps as I turn the final lock and Grace barrels between our legs. We both stop short as we step into the dim light of the space that is, minus the plastic sheeting, as I left it.

“Wow,” he murmurs, dropping our bags and blowing dust off our answering machine before pressing play.

“Hey, ladybug.” My mother’s voice fills the room. “Sorry we missed you. Your father took me to see
The Children of Huang Shi.
I made him buy me an ice cream cone on the way home to cheer me up. Anyway, I would have loved to share this in person: guess whose apartment is for sale—the Schwartzes’! How crazy is that? They spent over a million on the reno alone. Anyway, we got a letter on Saturday from the co-op’s lawyers saying they want to revisit this in six months. So we’re saved! Hope you’re having a great holiday weekend, even without Ryan—he’ll be home soon. Love you, bye.”