When Eliza hired a nanny to help while her husband was away, the woman seemed like a gift. But small things began to feel wrong in ways Eliza couldn't quite name. Then her husband saw the nanny on a video call and sent two words that changed everything. What did he know that Eliza didn't?
Julian had been gone for four days when I finally admitted I couldn't do it alone.
Theo was 10 months old and in that particular phase where he needed constant contact — picked up, put down, picked up again, never more than three feet from a warm body, or the whole building would know about it.
I was also three weeks behind on a work project, surviving on five broken hours of sleep a night, and had eaten cereal for dinner twice that week. I loved my son with every cell in my body, and I was drowning.
So I called an agency.
Mireille arrived on a Thursday morning. She was 29, soft-spoken, with a calm, unhurried manner that felt immediately reassuring. She had a gentle way with Theo that had him settled against her shoulder within ten minutes of walking through the door.
I remember standing in the kitchen doorway watching her and feeling, for the first time in days, like I could breathe.
