Small-Town Nanny

Working with the produce felt soothing to Susan. She’d grown up urban and gotten most of her vegetables at the store, but she remembered occasional Saturday trips to the farmers market with her mother, Donny in tow.

Her mother had tried so hard to please her dad, who, with his Japanese ancestry, liked eggplant and cucumbers and napa cabbage. She and her mom had watched cooking videos together, and her mom had studied cookbooks and learned to be a fabulous Japanese chef. Susan’s mouth watered just thinking about daikon salad and salt-pickled cabbage and broccoli stir-fry.

But had it worked? Had her dad been happy? Not really. He’d always had some kind of criticism, and her mother would sneak off and cry and try to do better, and it was never good enough. And as she and Donny had grown up, they hadn’t been enough either, and Susan knew her mother had blamed herself. Having given birth to a rebellious daughter and a son with autism, she felt she’d failed as a woman.

Her mom’s perpetual guilt had ended up making Susan feel guilty, too, and as a hormonal teenager, she’d taken those bad feelings out on her mother. And then Dad had left them, and the sense of failure had been complete.

Susan shook off the uncomfortable reminder of her own inadequacy and looked around. Where was Daisy?

Just then, her friend stood up from rummaging in her purse, cell phone in hand. “I’m calling Sam and telling him to give you an interview.”

“No!” Panic overwhelmed Susan. “Don’t do it!” She dropped the bundle of broccoli she was holding and headed toward Daisy. There was no way she could interview with a man who reminded her so much of her father.

“You can’t stop me!” Daisy teased, and then, probably seeing the alarm on Susan’s face, put her phone behind her and held out a hand. “Honey, God works in mysterious ways, but I am totally sensing this is a God thing. Just let me do it. Just do an interview and see what he says, see how you guys get along.”

Susan felt her life escaping from her control. “I don’t—”

“You don’t have to take the job. Just do the interview.”

“But what if—”

“Please? I’m your friend. I have no vested interest in how this turns out. Well, except for keeping you in town.”

“I...” Susan felt her will to resist fading. There was a lot that was good about the whole idea, right? And so what if it was uncomfortable for her? If her mom and Donny could be happy, she’d be doing her duty, just as her dad had asked her to do before he’d left. You have to take care of them, Suzie, her dad had said in his heavily accented English.

“I’m setting something up for this afternoon. If not sooner.” Daisy turned back to the phone and Susan felt a sense of doom settling over her.

* * *

That afternoon, Susan climbed out of her car in front of Sam’s modern-day mansion on the edge of Rescue River, grabbed her portfolio, and headed up the sidewalk, all the while arguing with God. “Daisy says You’ll make a way where there is no way, but what if I don’t like Your way? And I can say for sure that Sam Hinton isn’t going to like my way, so this is a waste of time I could be—”

The double front doors swung open. She caught a glimpse of a high-ceilinged entryway, a mahogany table full of framed photos and a spectacular, sparkling chandelier, but it was Sam Hinton who commanded her attention. He stood watching her approach, wearing a sleeves-rolled-up white dress shirt and jeans, arms crossed, legs apart.

Talk about a man and his castle. And those arms! Was he a bodybuilder in his spare time or what?

“Thanks for coming.” He extended one massive hand to her.

She reached out and shook it, ignoring the slight breathlessness she felt. This was Sam, Daisy’s super-traditional businessman of a brother, not America’s next male model. “No problem. Daisy thought it would be a good idea.”

“Yes. She had me squeeze you in, but you should know that I’m interviewing several other candidates today.”

“No problem.” Was God going to let her off this easy?

“It seems like a lot of people are interested in the job, probably because I’m paying well for a summer position.” He ushered her in.

“How well?”

He threw a figure over his shoulder as he led her into an oak-lined office in the front of the house, and Susan’s jaw dropped.

Twice as much as she’d ever hoped to make waitressing. She could send Donny to camp and her mom to the spa. Maybe even pay for another graduate course.

Okay, God—and Daisy—You were right. It’s the perfect job for me.

He gestured her into the seat in front of his broad oak desk, and Susan felt a pang of nostalgia. Her dad had done the exact same thing when he wanted to talk to her about some infraction of his rules. Only his desk had just been an old door on a couple of sawhorses in the basement. How he would have loved a home office like this one.

“I don’t know if you’ve met Mindy, but she has some...limitations.” His jaw jutted out as if he was daring her to make a comment.

“If you think of them that way.” The words were out before she could weigh the wisdom of saying them, and she shouldn’t have, but come on! The child was missing a hand, not a heart or a set of lungs.

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “I think I know my child better than you do. Have you even met Mindy?”

Rats, rats, rats. Would she ever learn to shut her big mouth? “I teach at Mindy’s school, so I’ve been the recess and lunchroom monitor during her kindergarten year. I know about her hand. But of course, you know her better, you’re her father.”

Sam was eyeing her with a level glare.

“We have a sign up at school that reads, ‘Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.’ I think it’s Richard Bach. I just meant...it’s an automatic response.” Stop talking, Susan. God might have a nice plan for her, but she was perfectly capable of ruining nice plans. She’d done it all her life. She fumbled in her portfolio. “Here’s my résumé.”

He took it, glanced over it. Then looked more closely. “You’ve done coursework on physical disabilities? Graduate coursework?”

“Yeah. I’m working on my master’s in special ed. Bit by bit.”

“Why not go back full-time? At least summers? Why are you looking to work instead?”

“Quite frankly, I have a mother and brother to help support.” Hello, Mr. Rich Guy, everyone’s not rolling in money like you are.

“Doesn’t the district pay for your extra schooling?”

“Six credits per year, which is two classes. I’ve used mine up.”

He was studying her closely, as if she was a bug pinned on the wall. Or as if she was a woman he was interested in, but she was absolutely certain that couldn’t be. “I see.” He nodded. “Well, I’m not sure this would be the job for you anyway. I go out in the evenings pretty often.”

“Really?” She opened her mouth to say more and then clamped it closed. Shut up, you want this job.

“I know, being young and adventurous, you must go out a lot yourself.”

“Don’t make assumptions. That’s not what I was thinking.” She looked away from him, annoyed.

“What were you thinking?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Try me.”

“I was thinking: you work super long hours, right? And you go out in the evenings. So...when do you spend time with your daughter?”

* * *

Sam stared at Susan as her question hung in the air between them. “When do I...? Look. If you’ve already decided I’m a terrible parent, this isn’t going to work.”