When Winter Blooms

I almost turned back in the elevator.

I'm not even joking, I was standing there on the forty-second floor, watching the numbers climb, and I genuinely considered pressing the lobby button and telling the agency I got food poisoning or something.

But I needed this job badly, So I fixed my blazer, told myself to act like a person who had it together, and waited for the doors to open.

They opened directly into the apartment.

I stepped out and immediately felt like I'd walked into a photo shoot that hadn't started yet.

Everything was white and grey and expensive-looking.

A kitchen that had probably never been used. Furniture that looked like it had been placed with a ruler.

Not a single crayon anywhere. Not a small shoe left in the middle of the floor the way every child I'd ever worked with left their shoes in the middle of the floor.

I was starting to wonder if the four-year-old was fictional when I heard footsteps.

He came from a hallway to the right. Tall, putting on a dark suit.

He was looking at his phone. He didn't look up immediately, and I stood there holding my folder and wondered if I was supposed to say something or just wait.

He looked up.

"Miss Reyes."

"Yes, that's me. Hi." I almost put my hand out and then didn't because he'd already turned and walked toward the sitting area.

I followed him.

We sat across from each other at a coffee table so clean it made me feel personally judged. He set his phone face-down and looked at me properly for the first time.

"The agency sent your references," he said.

"Right, yes. I have copies if you...."

"I read them."

"Okay." I put the folder on my lap.

"Good."

"Mm." He looked at me wondering if I was the right person for the job.

"Previous experience, three years with the Harmon family?"

"Three and a half. I left when the youngest started school full-time."

"Before that you were training as a child counselor."

"I had to stop." I didn't explain further. He didn't ask.

"I appreciated that."

"Do you drive?"

"Yes."

"Any objection to an NDA?"

"No."

He nodded. Then he was quiet for a moment, and I had the sense that the interview portion was over and something else was beginning. He shifted slightly, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and looked at the coffee table between us instead of at me.

"Lily is four," he said.

"She's adjusting. This year has been difficult for her." He stopped.

"Her mother passed away fourteen months ago."

"I know, the brief mentioned it." I paused.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes." He said.

"The role is live-in." He glanced at me.

"I understand if that's not.."

"It's fine, I don't have anything keeping me in a specific place right now."

He looked at me carefully, but he didn't say anything about it.

"You'd have your own room, meals are separate, I don't expect you to cook for me. You're here for Lily, not for the household."

"Understood." I hesitated.

"Although I do cook, I mean, if it ever made sense, logistically. It's not a big deal."

His expression didn't change exactly.

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, which was clearly his polite way of saying he would not keep that in mind.

Fine. I stopped talking.

"I want to be straightforward with you, Miss Reyes." He looked at the window now. It was something I would come to recognize, when he had something to say that cost him, he looked somewhere that wasn't a person's face.

"I've had three nannies since her mother died, Lily is not a difficult child. She's a good kid." A pause, quiet and heavy.

"She just, she gets attached. And when it ends, it's hard for her. The last one left with very little notice and that was...." He stopped.

Started again. "That was hard."

I watched him for a moment. He still wasn't looking at me.

"Mr. Cole," I said.

"She's four years old and she lost her mom. I would expect her to get attached. That's not a problem. That's just her."

He looked back at me then. I couldn't tell if I'd said the right thing or the wrong thing. His face didn't give a lot away.

"I'd need a minimum twelve-month commitment," he said.

"That's fine."

"And I'd need you to understand that whatever boundaries exist in this house, Lily doesn't experience them. She is the priority."

"Of course she is."

He studied me for another moment. Then he seemed to make some kind of internal decision, because he picked up his phone and started to say something, and that's when we heard it.

Small feet, fast ones.

She came around the corner in a pink jumper and one sock.

Her left foot was completely bare and she didn't seem to have noticed or care. She had dark hair that was escaping whatever someone had tried to do with it, and when she saw me she stopped so suddenly she nearly tipped forward.

We looked at each other.

Then she walked across the entire room, climbed up onto the cushion next to me without asking, and stuck her nose against my arm.

"You smell like cookies," she said.

"Vanilla lotion," I told her.

She pulled back and looked at me very seriously. "I like vanilla."

"Good taste."

"I'm Lily."

"I'm Maya."

"Are you going to be my new nanny?"

I glanced at her father. He was watching her the way you watch something you love so much.

Every bit of the boardroom had dropped off his face, just looked like a man watching his daughter.

"We're still figuring that out," I said.

Lily looked at her father, then back at me.

Then she took my hand, picked it up and held it, her small fingers wrapping around mine like she'd done it a hundred times before.

"Stay," she said.

Just like that. Like it was simple.

I felt something move in my chest, Something I wasn't prepared for.

I looked at Ethan Cole. He was still watching Lily, but then his eyes moved to me, and for just a second I saw it. Something that wasn't calculation, wasn't assessment.

Something that was just tired, and hopeful, and trying not to be either.

"The position is yours," he said quietly.

"If you want it."

Lily squeezed my hand.

"Okay," I said.

"I'll stay."

Lily smiled at me with her whole face, and I smiled back.

When I looked up, Ethan Cole had turned toward the window again.

But I caught it, right before he turned.

The way his shoulders dropped, just slightly. Like he'd been holding his breath since before I got here, and he'd finally let it go.

I filed that away and said nothing.

Something told me this apartment was full of things people held onto and never said out loud. I supposed I was about to find out how many.