Daisy's laughter. Bright, unfettered, childlike. A sound I hadn't heard in two years. It was a physical blow, an emotion holding my heart.
I followed it to the sun-drenched living room, my pulse hammering with something between hope and rage. Each step felt like walking toward a cliff edge. That laugh—God, that laugh. I'd forgotten what joy sounded like in this house. I'd forgotten that Daisy even knew how to make that sound anymore.
The last time I'd heard it, Elena had been alive. We'd been at the park, and Elena had been pushing Daisy on the swings, higher and higher, and Daisy had shrieked with delighted terror, and Elena had laughed too, and I'd stood there watching them, thinking: This. This is what happiness looks like.
I stopped at the threshold. The scene before me drove the air from my lungs.
The living room had been transformed. A low table was covered with a pink blanket. On it sat a miniature porcelain tea set, Elena's tea set, the one her grandmother had given her. It was usually displayed and untouched, but now it was surrounded by an assortment of stuffed animals in makeshift chairs. Daisy sat beaming on a cushion, a plastic tiara tilted on her dark hair. Mrs. Rosa was pouring imaginary tea from a tiny pot into a bear's cup.
And Anna was there. Not cleaning. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, a frilly apron tied ridiculously over her simple clothes, holding a stuffed rabbit with utmost seriousness. "More chamomile, Mr. Bounces?" she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
Daisy nodded vigorously, giggling, the sound like bells in the hollow space of my home. The scene was one of pure, unadulterated joy. It was a picture of the childhood Daisy should have had, presided over by her mother. Instead, it was being facilitated by the woman I hated.
The heartbreak was instantaneous, shattering inmy chest. So was the fury. It rose, black and choking, eclipsing everything.
My voice, when it came, was not a shout. It was arctic, cutting through the warmth like a blade.
"What is this?"
The scene froze. Mrs. Rosa's hand jerked, sloshing imaginary tea. Anna's head snapped up, her warm brown eyes wide, the easy smile dying on her lips. Daisy's laughter cut off as if severed.
"Mr. Spencer!" Mrs. Rosa stammered, setting the pot down. "We were just… Daisy wanted a tea party…"
"Ms. Stewart." I ignored Mrs. Rosa entirely, my gaze locked on Anna. I saw the color drain from her face, saw the familiar mask of fearful caution snap back into place. "I'm paying Pristine Services for cleaning. Not for..." I gestured at the tea party with barely contained disgust. "Whatever this is. If I wanted my daughter to bond with the help, I would have specified that in the contract."
Anna moved instantly, untangling herself, removing the apron with clumsy, trembling hands. "Of course. I'm sorry, Mr. Spencer. I'll get back to work." Her voice was small, ashamed.
I turned the glacial focus on Mrs. Rosa. "And you are here as a nanny. To care for my daughter, not to host social events during paid working hours. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir. Very clear." Mrs. Rosa's cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, her lips pressed into a thin line. She gathered Daisy's hand with more forcethan necessary. "Come,mija. Your father doesn't want us to have fun right now."
The passive-aggressive dig landed, but I ignored it. "Take Daisy to her room. Please."
That 'please' was an afterthought, brittle and insincere.
Daisy didn't protest. She didn't cry. The light that had been in her eyes moments before was simply gone, switched off. Her small shoulders curled inward, her head bowed. She looked back once. Not at me, but at Anna. Her gray eyes, so like mine, wondered, unable to understand this situation.
Then she walked away without a backward glance, a little ghost fled from the room.
The silence they left behind was deafening. I stood amidst the absurdity of the tea party, surrounded by silent stuffed witnesses. The devastation of what I had just done crashed over me. I had lost Elena two years ago on a street corner. But I had been losing Daisy slowly, day by day, ever since. In my despair, I retreated into work and left her in this beautiful, empty cage.
And the only person who had recently managed to draw her out, to spark that priceless, lost laughter, was the woman I was plotting to destroy.
The hollowness echoed. It wasn't just Elena's absence. It was my own.
I retreated to my office, the one room where I felt a semblance of control. I closed the door and activated the bank of monitors. On screen two, the kitchen feed, Anna was mechanically wiping down already-cleancounters. She paused, her back to the camera, her head bowed. She swiped a hand hastily under her eyes and resumed cleaning, faster now, as if trying to outrun the humiliation.
I switched to the feed for Daisy's room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her favorite stuffed dog in her lap. She wasn't playing. She was just rocking, slowly, back and forth, her gaze fixed on nothing. The vibrant, laughing child from ten minutes ago was gone, locked back inside the silent fortress.
My hand went to the mouse. I clicked open a folder on the pristine desktop, simply labeled 'A.S.' It contained everything. Bank statements showing $847 in her account. Sometimes less, never more. Lease agreement for a studio apartment in a building with broken security cameras and a landlord who didn't ask questions. Her financial records, pitifully thin, showed three jobs to make ends meet: Pristine Services, weekend shifts at a diner, and Thursday nights stocking shelves at a grocery store. Her mother's last known location, an address in Nevada she hadn't contacted in over a decade.
Photographs of her entering the women's shelter after she'd finally left Carter, her face carefully angled away from the security camera, her movements furtive and afraid. A full psychological profile, paid for by my company's discreet security firm, that used clinical language to describe a woman living in constant fear. Medical records I shouldn't have been able to access, but money could buy anything: A fractured wrist from "falling down stairs," a concussion from "walking into a cabinet." The classic lies of abuse, documented and ignored.
It was a blueprint of a fragile life. With a few clicks, I could unravel it. I could have her fired from Pristine Services, file a complaint about theft, something impossible to disprove. I could trigger an audit on her meager taxes; even a small discrepancy would bury her. The power was absolute, and it was hollow.
My eyes flicked between the two screens. The woman fighting tears in my kitchen, looking so achingly young and afraid. And my daughter, rocking alone in her room, the connection she'd briefly found severed by my own hand.
James's voice echoed in my head.This won't heal you. It won't heal Daisy.
