Page 38 of The Perfect Mistake

Sam looks from her to me, his eyes wide. “Really?”

“Really,” Isabel says.

“Really,” I say.

Willa leans forward. “And maybe, when you’re feeling better… you can teach us some new dance moves?” she asks. “But no spins.”

Isabel’s smile widens. “I’d love that.”

Isabel

What drives a person to the edge of madness?

For a long time I thought I knew. It was a challenging choreography with only five days to learn it. It was eleven-hour practice days before the premiere. It was the feet that bled through my pointe shoes. It was the time two girls had cut all of my leotards when I got a lead role in our middle school production of The Nutcracker.

I know how to handle that kind of madness. The mental strength it takes to push through, to paste a serene expression on your face, and go out there and dance until your body aches.

So, I thought I understood what pressure feels like. But being a nanny to two kids is a whole different kind of craziness.

Sam’s face is red with anger. He’s furious, and it’s all because Willa’s been poking him with a pencil in the back of the car. Mac is shaking his head in the driver’s seat, and I’m trying very, very hard to keep my voice calm.

The kids aren’t. Sam is reaching over and hitting Willa anywhere he can get to in retaliation, and she’s responding in kind. I’ve never seen them like this before. They rarely fight.

“Kids,” I say. “Kids! Stop it. Right now.”

They ignore me.

“Sam, stop that. Willa, I want you to apologize for—”

She lets out a shriek and aims a kick across the backseat. Surprisingly dexterous, considering both are belted into their booster seats.

“Enough!” Mac roars from behind the wheel. His baritone makes everyone in the car fall quiet, leaving the kids to watch him with wide eyes.

I sigh. Right. They won’t listen to me, but they’ll listen to the man they’ve known their entire lives. It shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, I probably still feel temporary to them. He’s permanent.

“No more of that,” Mac continues. He looks over at me with a nod, and I give him a grateful smile. I don’t know what I would do without him and Katja. The kids and I have grown closer over the past weeks, but it often feels like it’s a “two steps forward, one step back” process.

Sam accepted me as a fun new playmate, and Willa… I thought we had found a truce. She no longer fights me at every turn, but her walls haven’t dropped, either. I have a suspicion that she’s been going easier on me than she has with other nannies and that I have my friendship with her aunt to thank for that.

“Willa,” I say sharply, “put your pencil back in your backpack and apologize to Sam.”

She rolls her eyes but mutters a half-hearted “sorry.” Sam doesn’t seem satisfied, but he unclenches his fists and looks demonstratively out of the window.

Well. It’s a start.

I don’t know why they’re extra rowdy today. Willa had come out of school exploding with frantic energy, and it had quickly rubbed off on her younger brother. When I tried to ask her if anything had happened, she vehemently said no. Of course not.

Right.

The girl is a clamshell. A very smart, very spirited clamshell, and I haven’t cracked her yet. Maybe that’s the wrong approach. I need her to want to open up. Drop her walls.

Maybe she just needs to feel like she’s allowed to.

As Mac pulls up outside the building, I glance at my watch. It’s only 2:30 p.m. That means I have at least another three hours with them before Alec comes home. Three hours of trying to keep them from killing each other. Willa’s tennis lesson was canceled this afternoon, and I received a text from Alec that told me she should use that hour to practice the piano instead.

No rest for the wicked. Or for the next generation of Connovan kids, apparently.

I suspect that Alec, Connie, and Nate were all raised in this exact way. Drivers. Nannies. Housekeepers. Language lessons, sports pursuits, the arts, and a few formal family dinners.

---