Tremble For Me

Ella

A loud banging at the front door woke me up from my sleep. I bolted upright in a terrible panic, my head whirling around towards the sound.

The landlord!

That was my first thought. He had come to kick me out of my apartment. Heart pounding, I stared into the darkness. My chest rose up and down. I glanced at my bedside table clock.

Four freaking am!

No way was it the landlord. Surely, they're not allowed to harass their tenants like this by law. I waited, hunched inside my duvet. Silence. Jesus, it had just been another nightmare. A nightmare so real, I had believed it was a banging on my door.

I fell back onto my bed with a sigh. This was no way to live. My life was in shambles. No wonder I was getting nightmares every night. The rent had been due two days ago and I had no money. My life which had been so orderly, now seemed like it belonged to someone else.

Fuck Stan. He had played his games, messed up my brain, and caused trouble at my workplace. Then I had to get a restraining order on him, but it was too late. I'd been fired from my last position in the real estate company I worked for. Which would have been understandable given the poor state of the economy, except I had been one of only three people laid off out of a hundred and ten.

And the other two were ladies in their sixties, and one of them had already mentioned wanting to leave.

There seemed to be no point in trying to sleep when clearly, my brain was done with any thoughts of sleep. I swung my legs off the bed and padded to my minuscule kitchen to make some coffee.

In my tiny living room, I opened my laptop and checked my email for job offers. Given the number of interviews I'd done, surely there had to be an invitation somewhere. None. Zilch. My heart pounded hard against my chest as the implications of this sunk in.

I would be kicked out of my apartment. I'd be homeless. Sweat gathered under my armpits. I wanted to kick something, but I restrained myself. The last time I'd given in to the urge to hit something two years ago, I'd ended up with a broken toe after kicking a brick wall.

Think, Ella. Think.

There must be something else I could do besides sell real estate. I thought of my dream to be a fashion designer. Then I shoved it out of my mind. Fashion design was for people who were born wealthy, not people like me who needed to work at real jobs to feed, clothe, and put a roof over myself.

I opened a browser and typed in 'available jobs in South Carolina.' I clucked my tongue at the results pages. Most were domestic cleaning type jobs, which I was starting to consider. If the pay was good enough why not? I wasn't too proud to be cleaning homes for a living. Then in the sea of domestic help needed ads, a different type of advert caught my eye.

Nanny urgently needed.

Excellent pay and benefits.

HMMM... interesting. What could be difficult about watching a child or children? I was good with children.

My sister, Angela's three children loved me. I was their favorite Aunty. Not that there were any other contenders. Still, I felt certain I would have been their favorite aunt if we had more sisters.

My interest was further piqued as I read the job description.

The child that needed minding was five years old, just like my niece Charlotte. True, I had rarely seen my sister's family during the last two years, but I facetimed or Skyped Angela a lot and always got to speak to the children every time too.