“You might remember this room.” I half turned to Jace as we walked down the hall.
“I do, but not with regular shoes on,” Jace smirked.
We found Ryla jumping on the bed. The very old, antique, four-poster bed that would cost a fortune to repair.
“Ryla! You’re not allowed to do that! Get down!”
Ryla landed on her butt. “Giselle let me jump on the bed.”
“Not this bed. And she’s not here.” At my firm tone, Ryla’s face scrunched into a mask of fury. She slid off the bed, then stomped past me, huffing all the way down the hallway and up the stairs, until I heard the familiar faraway slam of her door.
I glanced at Jace to explain away or apologize for what happened, but I found I didn’t quite have the words. It was embarrassing. And disheartening. My own daughter preferring an au pair to her own mother. My complete inability to control her. I opted to ignore what happened, straightening my spine and fixing a too-bright smile across my face. I purposefully didn’t meet his eyes, not wanting to see his expression, which was likely full of regret at taking this job, or worse, sympathy.
“This was my parents’ room. My room’s upstairs across from the kids so I can be closer to them.”
And to avoid the hazard of repressed memories that come with this room.
Jace was quiet as I continued to point out things around the room. “I don’t know the last time this actually held a fire, so I’d probably avoid that,” I explained when we got to the fireplace. My attention snagged on the rose window treatments my mom had loved, which were still draped from floor to ceiling. I reverently stroked one of the gauzy curtains, remembering hiding behind them, giggling while my mom looked for me. I felt tears threaten suddenly; since I’d come back to live here, the memories of my mother were harder to avoid, like they’d transformed themselves into gaping black holes, their gravitational pull threatening to suck me in.
“Polly?”
I blinked to see that Jace was leaning against a bedpost, watching me warily.
I pointed to the windows, trying to play off my tears. “You can keep the windows open or closed, whatever you like.” I started to walk back toward the bed, gesturing around the room. “Feel free to put your stuff anywhere.”
“Are you ok?” I could hear the concern in Jace’s voice. Unable to stop myself, I turned to face him and took in his expression. Kindness radiated from him. And I didn’t deserve it. I was a mess of guilt and anger and sadness, bone-deep tiredness, a thousand spinning thoughts, and it was my own stupid spineless making.
“Look,” I began, crossed my arms.
“Uh-oh.” Jace smirked, his teasing in his tone tempering some of my distress.
“What?”
“Whenever someone starts a sentence with ‘Look’, in that way it’s never followed by anything good.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s never a, ‘Look, I’ve inherited a billion dollars but can only spend half of it so I’m giving you the other half,’ kind of conversation. It’s always a, ‘Look, your buddy’s in jail and you need to bail him out, so give us all your money,’ type of conversation.”
I don’t know what kind of magic Jace possessed to diffuse the tension in my body in seconds, but he did. The stereotype of what I thought a young, twenty-something guy would be like was completely at odds with his calm demeanor, his patient concern.
Leah was absolutely right. He really was a unicorn.
Huffing a resigned laugh, I shook my head. He didn’t deserve this. I had to give him an out that I honestly hoped he wouldn’t take. But it would be borderline irresponsible to let Jace get mixed up in all of this chaos unknowingly.
“It’s nothing like that. Before you officially start, I feel compelled to lay it all out, all the crazy complicatedness of my life, and if you want to leave, I understand. No questions asked.”
Jace shrugged, looking almost amused.
I sat down in one of the fireplace chairs. “We moved here from Chicago at the beginning of June. My husband and I divorced last fall, after which he gave up all custody of the kids.”
Jace sat down as I talked, eyes narrowing, all amusement gone from his expression.
“Giselle had been with us for almost two years at that point. She was willing to stay on another year, but her mom got sick, so she had to go back to Italy shortly after the first of this year. It broke Ryla’s heart.”
I tried not to get stuck on the mental image of Ryla clinging to Giselle when she left for the airport, her little face crumpled and tear-stained.
“Two months after Giselle left, I had to quit my job to homeschool Max. His anxiety became so severe, he’d have panic attacks leaving the apartment and needed to go to an IOP, an intensive outpatient program, to receive the care he needed. All the money I had left, that money I’d hoped would eventually go toward a downpayment for a new house, needed to be used for therapy bills or monthly expenses. The child support payments I received were nowhere near the cost of Max’s health care expenses. Yes, I could have forced the courts to make my ex-husband split the medical costs, but my ex, David, was never supportive of Max seeking help for mental health issues. I didn’t want to risk David fighting me on it, so I didn’t even ask. Don’t get me wrong, I’d gladly do it all again. Max is much better, but I fear he’ll relapse at any point. And Ryla’s gone completely off the rails with all this change.”
