Page 14 of The Perfect Mistake

It’s not a long car ride to my new home. I’d been there before heading to do pickup and familiarized myself with the layout and the look of the place. It’s a large Upper East Side apartment not far from the Greystone. The beautiful building has both a doorman and a concierge. The apartment itself… well... It’s huge, for one, and some might say that size doesn’t matter, but in New York City, real estate is one of the few things where it does.

Every square foot is another display of wealth.

After Mac drops us off, Sam leaves his backpack in the entryway and runs straight to the kitchen where Katja is preparing snacks. Willa sits down at the kitchen table and pointedly ignores me.

I stand in the doorway and have absolutely no idea what to do.

None.

Katja seems amazing, but her job is to cook food and prepare lunches for tomorrow, not to mention keep the apartment clean and do laundry. My job is the kids. Entertain them. Educate them. Help them with homework.

I sit down opposite Willa.

“Are you doing homework?”

She doesn’t answer me.

I peer over the table and catch a hint of the book she’s opened. English homework, it seems like. We sit in silence for a few long minutes. It’s not just that she is focused—doing her thing—her silence feels very pointed, and her eyes are glued to the pages.

I wonder if it’s a front of some sort. Look, I don’t need a nanny.

Fine.

I fill a glass of water and set it in before her, but otherwise leave her alone. Then I head to the kitchen island where Sam is chatting happily with Katja, who is preparing a ton of veggies.

Sam looks over as I approach. “This is Isabel. She’s our new nanny,” he says loudly.

Katja smiles at me. Her curly blonde hair is gathered into a low ponytail, and her expression is polite. “Yes, we’ve met earlier, actually.”

“Oh,” Sam says. He takes another apple slice and chews slowly. “Okay. I’m going to play now.”

“You do that. Do you want your apple slices with you?”

“Yes.” Katja hands him the bowl, and he scampers off toward his bedroom.

I breathe out a sigh. “Are they always this… independent?”

She shrugs and turns back to her chopping board. “Yes, mostly. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still need guidance. Sam often has big projects in kindergarten and he forgets schoolwork easily. Willa is… well, she doesn’t need much help with the school part. She’s great at that.”

I glance to where Willa is sitting at the kitchen table, her head bent. She looks engrossed in her work, but I suspect she’s listening to every word.

“I bet they both are,” I say. “Their dad told me wonderful things about them.”

Willa’s pen falters slightly. Yeah. Definitely listening.

“When is he coming home tonight?” I ask.

“Oh, I forgot to mention this to you earlier. Here,” Katja says, wiping her hands on a towel and walking over to the fridge. A tablet is stuck magnetically to the door. “We have a copy of his schedule here that his assistant keeps updated. Let’s see… Alec will be home at six tonight. In time for dinner with the kids.”

“Great,” I say. That leaves me three hours. “Thank you for being so welcoming, too. I can imagine it’s been hard for you and also Mac with such a high turnover of nannies…”

Katja’s polite expression softens into something more genuine, and she sighs gently. “It’s been challenging, yeah. But I have a good feeling about you.”

That makes me smile back. “Thank you.”

The next three hours pass with remarkable unremarkableness. Willa makes it clear—through ignoring—that she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I respect that. Maybe that’s step one in her process of vetting a new nanny, and if so, I won’t interfere.

Sam is much simpler. He’s happy to have a captive audience to explain his plastic building creations and his stories from school. I sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor of his bedroom and listen to all of it. He’s helpful when I ask him about his school projects, too, and even grabs the instructions for an assignment from his backpack. It’s a crumpled-up piece of paper.

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