Chương 3
“She works for us.”
“No, Ethan. She works for you. I live around her.”
“That doesn't justify this.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She swallowed.
“That something has been wrong for a long time.”
He leaned against the back of a chair.
The anger had not left him. It had become heavier.
“And your solution was to make our son accuse her of abuse.”
“I wanted you to take the problem seriously.”
“So you created a worse one.”
“Yes.”
The word surprised him.
Vanessa seemed surprised too.
Then her face closed again.
“But not for the reason you think.”
“What reason do I think?”
“That I'm some jealous lunatic afraid the nanny is stealing my child.”
“Aren't you?”
Her eyes flashed.
“Ask Maya why she was planning to leave.”
Ethan stared at her.
“What?”
“She didn't tell you that either?”
He pushed away from the chair.
“Leave for where?”
Vanessa said nothing.
“Where?”
“A family in Boston.”
The staff corridor door opened.
Both of them turned.
Maya stood there alone.
She had changed out of her apron but still wore the pale-blue dress beneath it.
“Noah wants his father,” she said.
Ethan's attention shifted immediately.
“Is he okay?”
“He's upset.”
Vanessa moved toward the hall.
Maya's hand lifted.
Not aggressively.
Just enough to stop her.
“He asked for Ethan.”
Vanessa stared at the hand.
Maya lowered it.
Something ugly passed across Vanessa's face.
“You see what I mean?”
Maya looked exhausted.
“No,” she said. “I see a scared child asking for the parent he feels safest with right now.”
Vanessa flinched.
Ethan walked past them both.
Noah was sitting on Maya's bed with his knees pulled to his chest.
The room was smaller than Ethan remembered. He had probably been inside it three times in four years. White walls. A cheap standing lamp Maya had bought herself after complaining that the overhead fixture made everything look like a dentist's office. Two framed photographs on the dresser, neither of the Cole family. One showed Maya with an older woman outside a house with blue siding. The other showed three women in winter coats laughing somewhere windy.
Noah had taken off his shoes.
He was staring at his socks.
Ethan sat on the floor rather than the bed.
For a while, he said nothing.
Noah finally looked at him.
“Are you mad at Maya?”
“I don't know enough to be mad at anybody about everything.”
The boy frowned.
It was an adult sentence. Ethan tried again.
“I'm mad about the recording.”
“At Mom?”
“Yes.”
Noah rubbed one ankle with the opposite foot.
“Maya did lose me.”
Ethan felt the words settle.
“She told me.”
Noah looked up quickly.
“Is she fired?”
“No.”
“Mom said if you knew, Maya would go to jail.”
Maya made a quiet sound behind him.
Ethan turned.
She stood in the doorway.
“Did she tell you that?”
Noah nodded.
“When?”
“After the park.”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“No.”
“Did Maya find you?”
“Mom did.”
“How long were you alone?”
Noah considered it.
“I wasn't alone.”
Ethan waited.
“There was a hot dog man.”
Maya covered her mouth briefly.
It was the first almost-normal thing anyone had said.
Noah continued, “He had yellow mustard on his shirt.”
Ethan glanced at Noah's own yellow shirt.
“Occupational hazard.”
Noah gave him the smallest possible smile.
It disappeared quickly.
“Mom said Maya doesn't pay attention because Maya doesn't really love me.”
Maya looked away.
Ethan kept his voice even.
“And what did you think?”
Noah shrugged.
“I know she does.”
There was no hesitation.
Ethan wished, selfishly and immediately, that the boy had spoken about him with the same certainty.
He did not deserve to wish that.
“What did Mom ask you to record today?”
Noah looked toward Maya.
She said, “You don't have to answer.”
Ethan nodded.
“She's right.”
Noah's shoulders loosened a fraction.
Then he said, “She said we were practicing.”
“Practicing what?”
“What to say when you got home.”
Maya closed her eyes.
Ethan kept his breathing slow.
“What did she tell you to say?”
“That Maya pushed me on the stairs. And she said not to tell you.”
“Did Maya push you?”
“No.”
“Were you on the stairs?”
“No.”
Ethan stopped.
The questions were becoming an interrogation.
He knew it because Noah had started watching his face again.
“That is enough,” he said. “You don't have to tell me anything else.”
“But I didn't stop the recording.”
“You did the right thing bringing it out.”
“I gave it to Maya.”
Maya nodded.
“He came into the laundry room about four minutes before you arrived. He was crying. I put the phone in my apron pocket because Vanessa was coming after him.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I was going to.”
“Going to when?”
The sharpness returned.
Maya's posture changed.
Noah noticed.
Ethan hated himself for that.
“Dad.”
He exhaled.
“Sorry.”
Maya said nothing.
Vanessa appeared behind her in the hallway.
Noah's fingers curled into the blanket.
Ethan stood.
“Vanessa, please don't come in.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“He needs a break.”
“He needs his mother.”
“He asked you not to come in.”
“He is seven. He does not get to decide whether I'm his mother.”
“No one said that.”
“This is exactly how she does it.”
Maya turned.
“Stop blaming me for what he feels.”
Vanessa's face tightened.
“You have been encouraging this for months.”
“I have spent months telling him not to talk badly about you when he's angry.”
“Do you expect a medal?”
“No. I expected to be able to do my job without being threatened.”
Ethan looked at Maya.
“What threats?”
Maya's jaw worked once.
Vanessa said, “Here we go.”
“What threats?”
Maya answered Ethan, not Vanessa.
“After Central Park, she told me that if I ever told you what happened, she'd make sure no agency in New York hired me again.”
Vanessa laughed.
“That is not what I said.”
May you like
“You said you knew people on the placement board.”
“I said people talk.”
