She was going to be the death of me.
Or drive me insane.
I thought I’d been on the edge of both things for the past two years—half in the grave, preparing for my daughter to leave this world, certain I’d follow her the second that happened.
I still wasn’t out of it. My grave. Clara’s. Still didn’t trust that tragedy wasn’t right around the corner. I had to stop myself from holding her at every moment, terrified that if I let her go, she’d just float away from me. I had to force myself to leave the house, go to work, and leave her with a fuckingstranger.
The coffee pot banged as I set it down harder than necessary.
Clara wouldn’t wake; the kid could sleep through a freight train passing through the house. The deepness of her slumber these days also terrified me. I’d just come from her room, where I’d spent five minutes with my hand on her chest, reassuring myself that her heart was beating. That she was here. She was healthy.
I had to repeat that mantra to myself many times a day. And even when I was feeling her chest rise and fall, sometimes I couldn’t convince myself. Sometimes, I was right back in that plastic hospital chair, clutching her tiny hand, watching her struggle to breathe while hooked up to machines, waiting for her little chest to stop rising and falling and for my entire world to end.
Everyone wanted me to be happy. Clara was okay now. She had a future.
Happy…
As if I was fucking capable of such a thing when I’d spent years thinking my only reason for existing was going to be taken from me, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.Happy…as if that wasn’t still a possibility. The leukemia could come back. She could get hit by a car, choke on a fucking Fruit Loop.
There were thousands upon thousands of ways my daughter could be taken from me. And I had to think of them all, simply because I hadn’t even considered leukemia a possibility. I’d been blissfully ignorant. I wouldn’t be blindsided again. I wouldn’t sit in a beige doctor’s office while my toddler played with blocks and she gently told me she had a 40 percent chance of survival.
No, I would never be powerless like that again.
The smell of coffee fragranced the air as I got out pans for breakfast. We’d have ricotta pancakes this morning. With a berry compote. I’d add hemp seeds and maybe some aloe vera juice to her smoothie. Every meal was a mission to make it exciting, appetizing, and full of the shit that would boost her immune system. Keep her alive. Healthy. Fight off any cancer cells, disease, the fucking flu—anything that could take her from me.
My brain stopped when I saw a figure move out of the corner of my eye.
A flash of pink.
I couldsmellher.
Even over the fucking bitter tang of coffee, despite being across the room from me, I could smell her. Vanilla. Sweet. I did not have a sweet tooth, but fuck, did I want to sink my teeth into her.
Hannah.
Clara’s nanny.
Clara’s nanny who was over adecadeyounger than me.
Of course, the first woman I wanted in over six years would be barely out of fucking college. Actually, she was technically stillincollege. She hadn’t graduated yet.
I was aware of her every single moment. I smelled vanilla when I jerked off in the shower, picturing her writhing underneath me as I finished.
It infuriated me.
But I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t stop it. My longing for her. Which was why I should’ve fired her. Which was why I shouldn’t have hired her in the first place.
Not turning, not acknowledging her existence, I thought back to the interview that changed everything.
Three Months Earlier
“How many do we have left?” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. I felt a headache coming on. I hadn’t interacted with this many people voluntarily in … months? Until recently, the only people I’d spoken to outside of my family were doctors and nurses. People treating my daughter. They’d long familiarized themselves with my hatred of small talk, of any kind of conversation that wasn’t pertinent to my daughter’s care. They didn’t ask me about my day, about sports, the weather, or the restaurant. They gave me news on Clara’s blood, her health, her response to treatment, and that was it.
My brother Elliot rightfully gave me shit for being a recluse, a grump. I didn’t give a fuck about that. I gave a fuck about how many times my daughter smiled at me. About how many days had passed since she was last in the hospital. How often she was out of breath. How many needles were stuck in her. I gave a fuck about how many times in her life my four-year-old daughter hadto “be brave” against pain, spinal taps… Whatever fresh hell we calledtreatmentfor her illness.
“She’s the last one.” Clara happily looked down at her clipboard. I’d given it to her to involve her during the process of interviewing nannies. The clipboard didn’t have much on it besides the names and stickers I gave her after each woman left. She’d doodled on the back with black crayon and written her name at the top. Her Rs were still backward.
They were all women, the applicants. I hadn’t even given the few male candidates an interview. Sexist of me? Probably. But I didn’t want a man taking care of my four-year-old daughter. Truthfully, I didn’t want anyone else but me. Sometimes, I’d let my father or my brother care for her, Calliope recently making the cut too.
