“Yeah. Take the day and rest,” I said, adjusting my tie—a nervous habit I despised. “Is there anything you need? I can have Brock drop supplies at your place.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
That word. Fine. Women used it like armor when they were anything but.
I exhaled, forcing patience into my voice. “Look, Jessa. You’re the first nanny Theo’s actually liked in over a year. I need you healthy. We still haven’t had that talk, but work’s been?—”
“You don’t have to explain.” Her voice cracked. “I should go rest. Thanks for understanding.”
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone, irritation prickling under my skin. She’d been with us less than a week and had already disrupted carefully laid plans. No daily check-in texts, like I’d asked. No updates. Just radio silence until she was too sick to show up.
I pulled up a delivery app and started adding items to the cart—cold medicine, throat lozenges, chicken noodle soup, a plush blanket. Flowers. Did sick people want flowers? I added a bouquet of sunflowers, anyway. Make that three. Why stop at one vase when three can really brighten a room?
I punched in the Queens address from her nanny application.
“Theo!” I called down the hall. “Let’s go. Brock’s waiting.”
My son appeared in the doorway, hockey bag slung over one shoulder, frowning. “Where’s Jessa?”
“She caught a cold. Nothing serious.”
“So she’s going to miss my game tonight?” His face fell, and guilt twisted in my chest like a knife.
“Uncle Atlas will be there.”
“What about you, Dad?”
I crouched to his level, meeting those gray-blue eyes—the same ones I saw in the mirror every morning. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I know I’ve been swamped lately. But it’s almost over. When this deal closes, we’ll take a vacation. Just the two of us. You pick the place.”
He crossed his arms, glaring at me—the kind that felt louder than shouting. The dad-guilt kicked in.
We rode the elevator down in tense silence. Brock waited at the curb, engine idling. Theo climbed into the backseat without a word. I followed, checking my phone for the hundredth time that morning.
“School first, then straight to the office,” I told Brock.
“Yes, sir.” I could always count on him to do what needed done with little chatter about it. Not that I needed “yes, sir” people all around me. But it certainly helped not to have someone challenge me.
We pulled into traffic, the city waking up in bursts of honking horns. I opened my email, scanning the latest updates from Sam—another revision to the IPO timeline, another request for a “family interview” by the New Yorker show.
Then Theo sat up straighter, craning his neck out the window. “Hey. I thought you said Jessa was sick?”
“She is.”
“Then why did we just pass her getting into that old car?”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“It looked like her, sir,” Brock confirmed, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Stop the car.”
He pulled over immediately, double-parking as horns blared behind us. I was out the door before I could think. I jogged back down the block, scanning every parked vehicle.
Her ancient sedan with peeling paint and a cracked taillight stopped me cold. Inside, bundled under a blanket and what looked like three jackets and other various items of clothing, sat Jessa. Her hands clutched a to-go coffee cup as if it were the only thing keeping her upright.
I knocked on the window.
