The Nanny's Double Trouble

Monday, Daniel woke her with a tap on her door.

“Ugh?” She blinked and yawned. “It’s open.”

He peeked in the door, looking almost rested for once. “Sorry to wake you.”

She yawned again. “It was bound to happen sometime. What’s up?”

“I’ll get them up and downstairs if you’ll start the breakfast.”

“Deal.”

She was at the stove when he came down with the little ones. She glanced over her shoulder to see him wiping Frannie’s streaming nose. They stared at each other across the gorgeous expanse of the soapstone island. “Oh, no,” she whispered, as though if she didn’t say it too loudly, Frannie wouldn’t be getting the bug Jake had just recovered from.

“No fever,” Daniel said. He didn’t add yet, but it seemed to her the unspoken word hung in the air between them.

By that afternoon, Frannie’s nose ran nonstop. By dinnertime, she’d thrown up twice and a persistent cough seemed to rattle her little bones. By then, she also had a fever. It hovered at around 101.

Keely and Daniel spent another night taking turns waking up to soothe a sick baby. Really, they were getting the nighttime nursing care down to a science, as though they had radar for whose turn it was. Keely barely stirred when it was his turn, and the master bedroom door remained shut when it was hers.

Once that night, she woke when it was his turn.

“This one’s mine,” he mumbled when she stuck her head out into the hall.

“Unh,” she replied and went back to bed.

On Wednesday, a week and a half into the endless string of illnesses the twins had been suffering, Daniel had a timber owner he had to go meet with. It was a small grove of Douglas firs ready to harvest, and Daniel would walk the grove with the landowner, explaining how Valentine Logging would maximize each tree to its full potential. The landowner wanted to meet at eight in the morning and Daniel wanted the contract, so at a quarter after seven he staggered out of the house, bleary-eyed, armed with a giant travel mug of coffee.

Keely spent the morning alone trying to keep her eye on Jake while doing what she could to ease poor Frannie’s misery. She dosed the little girl with over-the-counter meds, kept the humidifier running and gave Frannie cold-water sponge baths at regular intervals.

The day never seemed to end.

Finally, at around two in the afternoon, she got both kids down for a nap. To the soft hissing of the humidifier, she tiptoed from their room with Maisey at her heels. Across the hall, both of her doors were open. She cast a despairing glance toward her studio room. As if.

Right now, her beloved Bernina was the last thing she wanted to cuddle up with. The bed in the other room, though...

Nothing had ever looked so beautiful.

She dragged her tired body in there and fell gratefully across the mattress as Maisey flopped down on the rug right beside her. Blessed sleep settled over her.

She dreamed of walking the foggy beach not far from her back door—with Daniel of all people. They didn’t talk, just strolled along the wet sand, side by side but not touching, the waves sliding in, foaming around their bare feet.

“Keewee! Da-Da!”

“Wha—huh?” Keely shuddered, instantly wide-awake.

“Da-Da!” Frannie cried from the other room, followed by a long wail of sheer misery.

Keely shoved herself backward off the bed, raked her hair out of her eyes and hustled for the other room. Frannie was standing up in her crib, sobbing and coughing, snot running down her flushed little face.

“Oh, honey...”

“Keewee! Ow!”

Keely ran over and lifted the poor sweetheart into her arms. “Frannie. Oh, now. It’s okay...” She settled her on her shoulder.

At which point, Frannie threw up. It went down Keely’s back. That caused Frannie to wail all the louder.

“It’s okay. It’s all right,” Keely promised, though clearly it was anything but. Gently, she peeled the little girl off her shoulder. “Shh. Shh. Let me...”

It was as far as she got. Frannie hurled again, this time down Keely’s front. “Oh, bad!” Frannie wailed.

“No, no,” Keely promised her. “It’s not bad, honey. It’s okay.”

That was when Frannie threw up again, all over herself. She wailed even louder, “Keewee, I sowwy. I sowwy, sowwy, sowwy.”

From his crib, Jake cried, “Fa-Fa? Fa-Fa, oh, no!”

“She’s okay,” Keely promised and wished it were true. “Jakey, she’s going to be fine.”

Maisey appeared in the doorway to the hall. She moaned in sympathetic doggy distress.

Keely carried Frannie to the changing table and quickly got her out of her soiled clothes. “Jakey, we’ll be right back,” she promised the increasingly agitated little boy as she grabbed the little girl and a clean diaper. Holding both out and away from her vomit-soaked body, she stepped over Maisey and carried baby and diaper across the hall to her room, moving straight through to her bathroom, which had a traditional tub-and-shower combination.

Shoving the shower curtain aside, Keely lowered the little girl into the tub. “Here. We’ll get you all cleaned up.”

“’Kay.” Frannie sniffed.

Keely turned on the water. Once she had it lukewarm, she grabbed a washcloth and rinsed Frannie off.

Frannie was quiet, sniffling a little, watching her through wide eyes, as Keely dried her off and carried her—held out and dangling—to her own bed, where she put on the diaper.

“You feel better now, honey?”

Frannie solemnly nodded, eyes wide and wet. Keely scooped her up again and put her in the playpen she kept set up in the corner for any time she needed to corral the kids in her room.

“Fa-Fa? Keewee?” Jake cried from the other room.

“Coming, Jakey. Just a minute!” Keely called back.

A plush pink squeaky kitten lay waiting in the playpen. Keely squeezed it and it meowed. Frannie took it and hugged it close.

“I’m just going to go into the bathroom to clean up. I’ll be right back. Okay, honey?”

For that, she got another somber nod from Frannie. Though still flushed, her eyes red and her nose running, Frannie did seem much calmer at least.

Thank God, the vomiting bout seemed to be through.

Jake called again, “Keewee?”