“You mean, as a live-in?” I looked between the two of them, back and forth, not quite believing what I was hearing.
“Yes,” Doc insisted with a reassuring smile. “We want you to live here. We’ll give you the guest room upstairs.”
“Are you sure?” I looked down at Mrs. B’s hand in mine.
“We were already going to ask.” Mrs. B covered my hand with her other one. “You know we’ve been approved as a foster family and they’ll probably place a baby with us soon.”
A baby. I saw a lot of sleepless nights in my future. But I didn’t really mind. The Baumgartners paid very well already, and I was only with them part-time. A full-time position would be even better. And I wouldn’t have to worry about getting another roommate, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
“What do you say?” Doc prompted.
“Yes.” I smiled, squeezing Mrs. B’s hand in mine. “Absolutely. I’d love to.”
“I’m so glad.” Mrs. B sat back, looking relieved. “You’re already a part of a family. Now you’ll just be living with us too. It’s perfect!”
The perfect solution.
“You can stay in the guest room tonight.” Doc stood, yawning and stretching. “We’ll get your stuff this weekend.”
“Thanks.” I stood too, looking between them. “Really, you guys… thanks. You’ve saved me so many times.”
Well, twice. But who was counting?
“And you’ve saved us,” Mrs. B reassured me, standing and putting an arm around her husband’s waist. “You’re so good with Janie and Henry.”
“They’re good kids.” I knew that was true even more after tonight, having hung out with a bunch of other kids who weren’t anywhere near as well behaved. “Well, I guess I’ll go turn in. I’ll get up early so we can clean up this mess.”
“Goodnight, Gretchen.” Doc called as I headed toward the house.
“Goodnight.” I closed the French doors behind me, looking around the enormous family room with its cathedral ceilings, giant TV, brick fireplace. This was home now? It was hard to imagine.
I went upstairs, used the bathroom, undressed down to my t-shirt and underwear, and got into the big guest room bed. I turned out the lamp and snuggled under the covers, thinking about Ronnie, about the Baumgartners. About my life up until now and my life going forward. Was this it? Was I going to be a nanny forever? I wasn’t averse to the idea-and I was relatively good at it. And I did love the Baumgartners.
It wasn’t such a bad gig, really. At least until I found someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Until I wanted to start my own family, if I ever did. There was a part of me that longed for it, that one special someone. I had it, briefly, with Ronnie. I’d glimpsed what it could be like, when I looked at the Baumgartners. I just wasn’t so sure it was something I was ever going to find. My luck, so far, hadn’t been so great in that department.
I heard the Baumgartners come upstairs and get ready for bed. I’d left my door open a crack, just out of habit. I could hear them talking through the wall, but it was just voices, no real intelligible words. It reminded me of how I used to listen to my parents talking at night, the comforting sound of their voices lulling me to sleep. It had been a long time since I’d had a family, a real family. My parents had been gone for almost ten years. A car accident. My father had been drunk, driving them home from a party, and had killed not only himself and my mother, but another woman, and had paralyzed her six year old daughter. And of course, left her motherless too.
I’d spent the last two years of high school with my aunt, a very fundamentally religious woman who had introduced me to plenty of families with kids who needed caring for. That’s where’d I got all my babysitting experience, which translated into great references for my resume once I started applying for nanny jobs.
Which had led me, step by step, right here. Somehow, this job being a full time nanny for the Baumgartners seemed meant to be. I felt more comfortable here in the Baumgartners’ guest bed than I’d felt in a long time. I listened to the ticking of the big grandfather clock down in the foyer, the ambient hum of the house, a place I spent so much time but had never called home before.
“Well, I know, but… shhh, I’ll be back in a minute.” The door next to mine opened, Mrs. B’s voice and a slant of light spilling out onto the opposite wall. I saw her shadow pass, heading down the hall. Then I heard the bathroom door close. I listened to the sound of laughter and Jon Stewart monologing on the television in their room.
“Gretchen?” Mrs. B whispered from my doorway. “Are you sleeping?”
I kept my eyes closed, held still. Pretended to be sleeping.
“Hey, babe, can you grab me a glass of water?” Doc called.
I listened as Mrs. B went to the bathroom. I heard the sink running.
“So when are Dani and her boys coming?” Doc asked as Mrs. B returned with his glass of water.
“August.” Mrs. B snorted. “Dani and her boys?”
“Well, what do you want me to call them?” Doc asked. “Her husbands?”
“That would be more accurate.”
“She really sleeps with both of them?”
“Doc, she slept with both of us.”
I perked up, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling. Who was this Dani with two husbands who had slept with the Baumgartners?
“I remember,” Doc replied, sounding sly. “Think she’ll do it again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well not sleeping with her husbands,” Doc insisted. “And neither are you.”
“But you’re fine with another woman?” Mrs. B laughed.
“And so are you,” he reminded her. I heard her giggle. “You miss it.”
“You know me too well.” Mrs. B’s voice turned to honey.
“We need to find another woman for you,” Doc murmured. His voice was softer now and I hear Mrs. B’s low moan.
“That’s like searching for a unicorn.” Mrs. B laughed. “Isn’t that what they say?”
“We found Dani,” he said. “And we found Ronnie.”
“And look what happened.” Mrs. B sounded sad. “Ronnie wouldn’t even return my calls.”
So they had tried to contact her. Ronnie never said. I had wondered, but she didn’t talk to me about the Baumgartners, not anymore.
“But Dani stayed in contact,” Doc countered.
“Yeah, and she went a whole other direction.”
Doc snorted. “I’ll say.”
“So we have no real proof a woman exists who would be happy to be just our lover.”
“I’m sure she exists,” Doc replied.
“Like unicorns? Or dragons? Or narwals?”
“Carrie, narwals are real.”
“Really?”
Doc laughed. “Yes, really.”
“Besides, we just got approved as a foster family,” Mrs. B reminded him. “Can you imagine what they’d say if they knew we had a female lover?”
“Who says we have to tell them?”
“Doc, the kids…”
“We’re discreet. We’ve kept it from them so far.”
It was true, Henry and Janie had no idea their parents had slept with their former babysitter. And whoever this Dani was, I was sure they had no idea their parents had more than a friendship with her. Of course, they were young. Relatively innocent still. Things would change over time. Then Mrs. B spoke and it was like she had been reading my thoughts.
“Yes, but Janie and Henry are getting older. They’re understanding more and more. And kids always know more than you think they do.”
Doc didn’t speak for a few minutes. I sat up in bed, listening, leaning in, wondering what was happening. Had they gone to sleep? Then Doc spoke.
“There’s really nothing wrong with it, you know.”
Mrs. B hesitated, and then said, “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I mean, I know that in my heart.” She sighed. “But the rest of the world doesn’t seem to share our views. And we live in the real world.”
“You can’t change who you are,” Doc said softly. “I’d be an awfully selfish man if I insisted you deny your love for women too.”
“What if I wanted to love two men?” Mrs. B asked. “Like Dani?”