Chap­ter 17

Today Andrew and Nina have an appoint­ment with that fer­til­i­ty spe­cial­ist. They’ve both been ner­vous and excit­ed about the appoint­ment all week. I heard snatch­es of their con­ver­sa­tion dur­ing din­ner. Appar­ent­ly, Nina got a bunch of fer­til­i­ty tests and they’re going to be dis­cussing the results today. Nina thinks they’re going to be doing IVF, which is expen­sive, but they’ve got mon­ey to burn.

As much as Nina gets on my nerves some­times, it’s sweet how the two of them are plan­ning for the new baby. Yes­ter­day, they were talk­ing about how they were going to turn the gue­stroom into a nurs­ery. I’m not sure who is more excited—Nina or Andrew. For their sakes, I hope they get preg­nant soon.

While they’re at the appoint­ment, I’m sup­posed to be watch­ing Cecelia. Watch­ing a nine-year-old girl shouldn’t be dif­fi­cult. But Cecelia seems deter­mined to make it so. After a friend’s moth­er dropped her off after God knows what les­son she had today (karate, bal­let, piano, soc­cer, gymnastics—I’ve com­plete­ly lost track), she kicks one of her shoes off in one direc­tion, the sec­ond in anoth­er, and then throws her back­pack in yet a third direc­tion. Luck­i­ly, it’s too warm for a coat, or else she would have to find a fourth place to aban­don her coat.

“Cecelia,” I say patient­ly. “Can you please put your shoes in the shoe rack?”

“Lat­er,” she says absent­ly, as she plops down on the sofa, smooth­ing out the fab­ric of her pale yel­low dress. She grabs the remote and flicks on the tele­vi­sion to an obnox­ious­ly loud car­toon. An orange and a pear appear to be argu­ing on the screen. “I’m hun­gry.”

I take a deep, calm­ing breath. “What would you like to eat?”

I assume she’s going to come up with some­thing ridicu­lous that I need to make her, just to get me to sweat. So I’m sur­prised when she says, “How about a bologna sand­wich?”

I’m so relieved by the fact that we have all the mak­ings of a bologna sand­wich in the house that I don’t even insist that she say please. If Nina wants her daugh­ter to be a brat, that’s her pre­rog­a­tive. It’s not my job to dis­ci­pline her.

I head to the kitchen and grab some bread and a pack of beef bologna from the over­flow­ing fridge. I don’t know whether Cecelia likes may­on­naise on her sand­wich, and fur­ther­more, I’m sure I’ll put too much or too lit­tle on it. So I decide to just give her the bot­tle of may­on­naise and she can por­tion it out her­self to the exact per­fect amount. Ha, I’ve out­smart­ed you, Cecelia!

I return to the liv­ing room and place the sand­wich and may­on­naise on the cof­fee table for Cecelia. She looks down at the sand­wich, crin­kling her brow. She picks it up ten­ta­tive­ly and then her face fills with dis­gust.

“Ew!” she cries. “I don’t want that.”

I swear to God, I’m going to stran­gle this girl with my bare hands. “You said you want­ed a bologna sand­wich. I made you a bologna sand­wich.”

“I didn’t say I want­ed a bologna sand­wich,” she whines. “I said I want­ed an abalone sand­wich!”

I stare at her, open-mouthed. “An abalone sand­wich? What is that?”

Cecelia grunts in frus­tra­tion and throws the sand­wich on the ground. The bread and meat sep­a­rate, land­ing in three sep­a­rate piles on the car­pet. The only pos­i­tive is that I didn’t use any may­on­naise, so at least I don’t have to clean up may­on­naise.

Okay, I’ve had enough of this girl. Maybe it’s not my place, but she’s old enough to know not to throw food on the floor. And espe­cial­ly if there’s going to be a baby in the house some­time soon, she needs to learn to act like a child her age.

“Cecelia,” I say through my teeth.

She lifts her slight­ly point­ed chin. “What?”

I’m not sure what would’ve hap­pened between me and Cecelia, but our show­down gets inter­rupt­ed by the front door unlock­ing. That must be Andrew and Nina, back from their appoint­ment. I turn away from Cecelia and plas­ter a smile on my face. I’m sure Nina will be burst­ing with excite­ment over this vis­it.

Except when they come into the liv­ing room, nei­ther of them are smil­ing.

That’s an under­state­ment. Nina’s blond hair is in dis­ar­ray and her white blouse is wrin­kled. Her eyes are blood­shot and puffy. Andrew doesn’t look so great either. His tie is half undone, like he start­ed to pull it off and then got dis­tract­ed dur­ing the process. And actu­al­ly, his eyes look blood­shot, too.

I squeeze my hands togeth­er. “Every­thing okay?”

I should have just kept my mouth shut. That would have been the smart thing to do. Because now Nina directs her gaze at me and her pale skin turns bright red. “For God’s sake, Mil­lie,” she snaps at me. “Why do you have to be so nosy? This is none of your god­damn busi­ness.”

I swal­low. “I’m so sor­ry, Nina.”

Her eyes drift down to the mess on the floor. Cecelia’s shoes. The bread and baloney near the cof­fee table. And some­time in the last minute, Cecelia has scur­ried out of the liv­ing room and is nowhere to be seen. Nina’s face con­torts. “Is this real­ly what I have to come home to? This mess? What am I pay­ing you for any­way? Maybe you should start look­ing for anoth­er job.”

My throat con­stricts. “I… I was going to clean that up…”

“Don’t do any work on my account.” She shoots Andrew a with­er­ing look. “I’m going to go lie down. I have a pound­ing headache.”

Nina stomps up the stair­case, her heels like bul­lets on each step, punc­tu­at­ed by the door to their bed­room slam­ming shut. Obvi­ous­ly, some­thing did not go well at that appoint­ment. There’s no point in try­ing to talk to her right now.

Andrew sinks onto the leather sofa and drops his head back. “Well, that sucked.”

I bite down on my lip and sit beside him, even though I sense I prob­a­bly shouldn’t. “Are you okay?”

He rubs his eyes with his fin­ger­tips. “Not real­ly.”

“Do… do you want to talk about it?”

“Not real­ly.” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. He lets out a sigh. “It’s not going to hap­pen for us. Nina is not going to get preg­nant.”

My first reac­tion is sur­prise. Not that I know much about it, but I can’t quite believe that Nina and Andrew aren’t able to pay their way out of this…