“It’s not about the money!” Now she’s shouting, and I cringe because Mrs. Diaz across the hall has ears like a bat—she’s probably already pressing her ear to the door, ready to gossip with the super later. “It’s about the fact that your daughter is a tiny, blonde Machiavelli and I am just a college student who wanted to earn enough for a ticket to Lollapalooza! I quit. I’m done. Sayonara.”
I drag a hand through my hair, feeling it stick up in wild tufts that mirror the frenzy in my chest. “Tracy, please. Listen, I know she’s been a nightmare. Believe me, I know. But she’s processing a lot—her mom left six months ago with no explanation, no goodbye, and she doesn’t get why her world’s flipped upside down. She’s pissed and lost, taking it out on everyone, including me, and—”
“I get it. I really do.” Tracy’s tone dips, her shoulders sagging as she buttons her coat with trembling fingers. “But I’m ananny,Dr. Roussos. I know how to make macaroni and cheese and help with alphabet flash cards. I’m not some miracle worker or therapist. Emma needs more help than what I can give. I’m sorry.”
And then she’s gone, and I let her go.
The wordfailuredoesn’t appear anywhere in my vocabulary when I’m at the lab or teaching my students about neural pathways and synaptic plasticity. But standing here in my hallway, watching the sixth nanny in six months walk out, it’s the only word that seems to fit.
I stand there for a second, staring at the closed door, trying to do the mental math that’s rapidly becoming a crisis. It’s 9:47 a.m. I have a lecture at Columbia at noon. That’s two hours andthirteen minutes. I need approximately forty-five minutes to get to campus, another fifteen to review my notes and set up the presentation. Which means I need to find childcare in the next hour. Maybe less.
I don’t have childcare.
Shit.
I close the door and lean my forehead against it, taking a breath, a dull pressure building behind my eyes. The apartment is quiet, which means Emma is either hiding or plotting something destructive. Historically, both.
I push off the door and head down the hallway toward her room.
My place is nice—way nicer than my professor salary should allow, but my parents pitched in for the down payment because “Emma deserves roots,” and who can argue with that? I’m not above taking help if it means no dodgy neighborhoods or leaky faucets. It has two bedrooms with space to breathe, a corner office buried in my lecture notes and half-empty coffee mugs, floors that gleam when I remember to Swiffer, and windows that seal tight against winter drafts without rattling like maracas. Emma’s room is a sun-drenched sanctuary of butter yellow and there are toys everywhere—Legos scattered like landmines, dolls with wild bedhead from endless adventures, stuffed critters piled in a fuzzy mountain—thanks to my mom’s nonstop gifts, her love language. Her bookshelf is overflowing with dog-eared picture books I read nightly, even when she’s kicking up a fuss about lights out and her bed is a white wooden castle frame we scored two years ago when we moved in, back when the princess phase ruled her world and life felt like it might have a happy ending.
She’s not obsessed with princesses anymore. Now, she’s mostly obsessed with making sure everyone around her is as miserable as she is.
The door is closed, so I knock gently. “Em? Can I come in?”
Silence.
“Emma, I’m coming in.”
I open the door.
She’s sitting on the floor in the corner, arms crossed, glaring at me with blue eyes she got from her mother. Everything about Emma looks like Rebecca—the blonde hair, the fair skin, the delicate features. The only thing she got from me is the stubborn set of her jaw when she’s angry.
She’s angry now.
“Tracy left,” she says. It’s not a question.
“Yeah. She did.”
“Good.”
I walk in and sit down on the floor across from her, my back against her dresser. My knees protest because I’m thirty-two and sitting on the floor is not as comfortable as it used to be even just a couple years ago. “You can’t throw things at people, Emma. Ever.”
“She was mean.”
“What did she do that was mean?”
“She said no cookies for breakfast.” Her chin juts out. “You say that, too.”
“Because cookiesaren’tfor breakfast. They’re for sometimes.”
“Mommy gave me cookies for breakfast.”
There it was. The ghost at every meal, every bedtime, every minor conflict. A ghost with a sweet tooth and no rules.
“Mommy’s not here right now,” I say, keeping my voice level through sheer force of will.
“Where is she?”
