Page 26 of Your Hand in Mine

Looking over her schedule, I see that she only has one early morning class on Tuesdays. “Can you start this Tuesday? It would be great if I could get a full day’s work in.”

“Absolutely. I can be here by ten-thirty.”

Feeling some absurd need to assert my authority, I tell her, “Tuesday it is, but I just want to make it clear that everything is still on a trial period basis.”

She gives me a knowing smile, one that tells me she’s fully aware that I’m up shit’s creek but has decided to humor me.

“Did you hear that Olivia?” Pointing to the wall calendar she says, “I’m going to see you, not tomorrow but the next day. And we get to spend all of Tuesday together.”

My girl whoops it up in her little voice and claps her hands, which damn near breaks me.I can’t worry about every little thing, I tell myself. But it’s no use. When it comes to my daughter, it feels like it’s all I do.

Chapter Fifteen

Leo

I hardly ever check the thing anymore.

The first day she worked I was checking the nanny cam regularly, had the audio feed playing in the background all day as I tried in vain to get some work done. I listened in and caught myself smiling on and off all day as Olivia chatted happily, looking to impress this new person, and as Skylar listened patiently and then gently directed her charge through a range of activities that would have left me passed out on the couch.

With each passing day I paid less attention. I trusted in Skylar.

By the end of the first month I was letting out a giant sigh of relief while praying this ideal arrangement would last.

Now nearly three months in, it’s about as perfect as it can get, aside from a few hiccups. When I went to hand Skylar her pay in cash at the end of the first week, she looked beyond uncomfortable, insisting that it was too much. What she still doesn’t realize is that I’d willingly pay three times that amount for the peace of mind her presence gives me. A wire transfer makes it less awkward for her, so that’s what I’ve been doing. And the grocery thing was tough, but we got past that too.

She kept showing up with groceries, being that I don’t have what you’d call a well-stocked pantry, and I didn’t want her spending her own money. I felt guilty enough coming home to the most delicious dinners I’ve had since I was a kid living with my parents, so there was no way in hell I was about to let her shell out for the wild caught Pacific salmon she was buying. I told her I’d get her a credit card under my personal business account and register her as an authorized user. No big deal. But Skylar’s eyes shot down to the floor, she shook her head and gave me a flat-out no without an explanation. I let it go, and a few days later she came clean and told me why she wouldn’t be approved for a credit card once they ran her name and social security number.

I was speechless there for a minute, think I sank back down onto the couch but I’m not sure. This girl was now in my house more days a week than she wasn’t. I’d come to rely on her and my daughter basically thought Skylar hung the moon. But I didn’t know a thing about her. Not anything that mattered, anyway.

I didn’t know Sky lost her parents just six months ago. Both of them at once and in such a tragic way—I felt sick when she first told me. But to lose your parents andthenfind out that your father hadstolen from Peter to pay Paul, as she put it?

When I lifted my head from my hands and looked at her, she raised her chin in defiance and said, “My father was a good man. I know he must have been in a very bad place to do what he did.”

Nope, I don’t buy it. That’s what I wanted to say. As far as I was concerned, her father was nothing more than a lowlife, a con man. His crimes unforgivable because he conned his family, his own children, the people he was supposed to protect above all else. But what good would that do? I could see in Skylar’s expression that she was still wrestling with her own complicated feelings on the subject. She needed understanding from me and nothing more.

“I wish you would have told me.”

“It’s hard to talk about it.”

“I get that, but I hope to God that you don’t feel ashamed. Not in front of me.”

“I used to be proud of my family.” She was trying to be matter-of-fact about the whole thing, stoic, but her watery eyes gave her away. “I mean, we weren’t like the perfect family, but we had a nice house, my father was well-respected, my mother had a seat on the school board. It’s hard not to feel ashamed after everything gets stripped away and everyone can see all the ugly. And I guess I feel sort of ridiculous because I never saw it coming.”

“I think lying becomes easier the more you do it. Some people get very good at hiding who they really are.”

I know that from experience.

Leaning against the car I’m supposed to be working on at the moment, I’m thinking back to that night, remembering the way I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and give her some comfort the way a brother or a good friend would.

I go to pull up the app on my screen so that I can delete it. It doesn’t feel right to have it anymore. I trust Skylar with my daughter, and don’t want to give her a reason to ever think otherwise.

To be honest, there’s a part of me that’s a little bit afraid of that feisty girl too. I’m sure she’d understand. I mean, only an idiot would leave their kid alone with a caregiver they don’t know without a way to check up on them. But what if she did find out about that camera perched on top of the refrigerator that gives a full view of the open-concept first floor? Would she flip her shit? Would she quit?

The app opens on my phone but before I can switch to settings, I’m drawn in by the sound of some God awful singing. Two off-key voices in tandem butchering Adele’sWhen We Were Young. And I can’t help but laugh when I see my daughter using a wooden spoon as a microphone to belt out her own version of the lyrics. “Let me to-to-graph you in the light…” Damn, she’s adorable.

Skylar is singing along too, and then she breaks into a slow step, rocking her hips from side to side as she sings into a spatula, loud and off-key, just like Libs. It’s comical, watching the way Olivia keeps looking up at Skylar and then trying her best to imitate her dance moves. But when my eyes drift and then fix on Skylar, comical and cute is not how I’d describe the show she’s putting on. The girl may not be able to carry a tune, but she can move. She’s not doing anything provocative. It’s just simple and rhythmic, the way she’s moving her hips back and forth. But damn, she has me close to salivating inside of a minute.

She’s beautiful.

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