“I like hanging out with her,” Annie says, and there isn’t a hint of the ‘polite-neighbor’ performance in her eyes. “She’s a special kid, Leo. She’s smart and funny and she asks questions that actually make me have to think. I know you’ve had a rough time with nannies and teachers lately, but I hope you know how genuinely wonderful she is. Because she really, really is.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. I’ve spent months being the recipient of a slow, diplomatic parade of failure.Emma’s too high-energy. Emma doesn’t sit still. Emma’s a lot to handle. Emma has a hard time keeping her hands to herself during circle time at pre-school.I’m used to people telling me that my daughter is a problem to be solved. And here is Annie, who’s barely been on the payroll, telling me how wonderful she is.
I want to say something profound. I want to tell her that hearing that feels like finally being able to take a full breath after a year underwater. But the words feel too big for this hallway, too heavy for one in the morning.
“Thank you,” I manage, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve said all night.
Annie smiles at me. “Goodnight.”
She steps out into the hallway, the fluorescent lights of the corridor catching the messy highlights of her hair. I watch herwalk toward the stairs and I realize I’m not quite ready for the silence of the apartment to rush back in.
“Annie,” I call out.
She pauses and turns around. “Yeah?”
“Will you call me?” I ask, and I can hear the sudden, unpolished edge in my own voice. “Just when you’re home so I know you haven’t been abducted by a rogue mime or whatever it is that wanders around Manhattan this late.”
She laughs. “You know, you’re remarkably prone to worrying.”
“I’m a father,” I say, leaning against the doorframe, trying to look significantly more relaxed than I feel. “It’s my job to worry.”
“I’m not your kid, Leo.”
“No, but you’re Emma’s favorite person,” I counter, my brain scrambling to find a more cynical, less vulnerable footing. “Which means if anything happens to you, I’m back in the interview circuit. I’ll be trapped in a room with people who want to discuss their Montessori-certified organic snack budgets and their feelings on finger-painting as a form of self-actualization. It’s a terrifying prospect.”
She’s grinning now, a wide, beautiful look that makes my own chest feel a little too tight for my ribs. “Ah. So this is purely about your own convenience.”
“Completely selfish motivations. I am, as previously established, a terrible person.”
“I’ll call you,” she says, her voice softening just enough to make me believe her.
“Thank you.”
She gives me a little wave—a brief blur of a hand—and then she’s gone. The door clicks shut with a finality that feels heavier than it should.
I stand there for a beat, listening to the fading rhythm of her footsteps down the hall, then I turn back to the living room.The apartment is a graveyard of our Friday night: grease-stained pizza boxes, a lukewarm crust, and the blanket fort, which looks less like a cathedral now and more like a pile of laundry.
I should clean up the mess. I should tackle the dishes. I should be a productive, functional adult. I should do a hundred different things.
Instead, I sit on the edge of the sofa in the dark, waiting for the phone to ring.
Chapter 12
ANNIE
I wake up and for a heartbeat, I don’t move. I don’t even breathe, because breathing might alert the universe that I’m currently the luckiest, warmest person in a five-mile radius and I’m not ready for that to change. There is a solid, radiator-warm body tucked against my back and a pair of arms wrapped around me, turning my tiny twin bed—a piece of furniture that usually feels like a temporary holding cell—into a fortress.
My room is an absolute icebox. These windows are ancient; they don’t so much seal as they do suggest a polite boundary between me and the elements. The cold air seeps through the gaps no matter how much newspaper I cram into the cracks, a persistent draft that smells faintly of old brick and damp pavement. In the corner, the radiator is performing its daily morning solo—clanking and groaning like a ghost with a grudge. It makes a staggering amount of noise for something that produces almost no actual heat. Outside, the sky is a flat, Manhattan grey that makes the city feel like a secret shared between the people still under their duvets.
October here is a completely different world than back home in California. In California, October meant maybe grabbing a cardigan for dinner. Here, it means I own gloves. I have adesignated “glove drawer.” It’s a level of adulthood I wasn’t prepared for—the logistics of staying warm.
The leaves in Central Park have turned these spectacular, impossible colors—reds so deep they look like wine stains and yellows so bright they feel like they’ve been saturated in a darkroom. Emma makes me stop at every single tree on our walks so she can collect the ones that have finally given up the ghost. She has a whole library of them now, pressed carefully between the pages of her picture books like holy relics. She’s so serious about it I’m starting to think she’s actually conducting legitimate research for some tiny university.
The whole city smells different in the fall. There’s woodsmoke drifting from somewhere invisible and the roasted-sugar scent of chestnut vendors on the corners. I’ve never actually liked the taste of a chestnut—they’re always a bit of a dusty disappointment—but the smell makes me want to buy a bag and start a new life as a person who wears silk scarves and knows things about opera. There’s also that sharp, metallic tang in the air that feels like a warning. Winter is coming, and it’s not going to be gentle. Even the way people walk has changed; they’re moving faster now, chins tucked into their collars, shoulders hunched against a wind that’s so cutting it feels like it has a personal vendetta against anyone trying to get to the subway on time.
The Halloween decorations in town have officially gone up everywhere. There are plastic skeletons dangling from fire escapes and fake cobwebs stretched across bodega windows, catching the soot and grime of the city. On every stoop, there are pumpkins in various stages of existential crisis. Some are fresh and proud; others are collapsing in on themselves, their carved faces melting from “menacing” to “deeply depressed.”
Emma, of course, is a total goner for it. A few days ago we spent ten full minutes in front of a brownstone because therewas a life-sized witch on a broomstick suspended from a third-floor window. She needed the whole story—the witch’s name, the destination, the feline companions.
