Chapter 10 #3
“Stella doesn’t need someone harsh right now, Aleksandr.” His name is a bullet fired from my lips. “Do you not understand what she’s gone through? How much she’s lost in the last several months? How do you think giving her a militant nanny is going to be what’s best for her?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” he says, and runs both of his hands through his hair, pushing it off his face.
“Well, you have to do better,” I tell him. There’s no nice way to say that, it just has to be said.
“That’s easy for you to say, isn’t it? Just waltz in here and make her care about you, then waltz right back to your life in Park City.
You don’t have to make the hard decisions.
No, when things get hard, you just leave.
You’re not the one here day in and day out with her.
I am. I’ve hired Irina based on her references.
She’s a well-respected nanny, and she’ll be good for Stella. ”
“How can you possibly say she’ll be good for Stella?” I ask, my voice rising.
I don’t get upset like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just want to protect Stella, and I can’t figure out why he’s not on the same page.
“Stella needs someone who’s constant. Someone who will be here every single day, taking her to school, picking her up, taking her to her after-school activities. I travel a lot for hockey. I can’t be here all the time. Stella needs someone who can.”
“You’ve literally described the role of any nanny. Are you telling me that out of the probably tens of thousands of nannies who work in this city, you couldn’t find anyone more caring and compassionate than that dictator?”
“It’s going to be fine,” he says, and his dismissiveness only riles me up more.
“You cannot possibly know that. Put yourself in Stella’s shoes.
She just told me that everyone she loves leaves her.
” I watch that sink in, and Aleksandr’s long blink is the only indication that it’s affected him.
“Now you’re going to go play your games and leave her with someone who not only doesn’t care about her, but doesn’t even seem capable of caring for anyone? ”
“You’re overreacting,” he says, and he knows how to push all my buttons in the same way I know how to push his.
I drop my voice low. “Do not tell me I’m overreacting.
These aren’t the hysterics of someone making something out of nothing.
I’ve been in Stella’s shoes. After my mom and Viktor died, my dad was distant and consumed by his own grief.
If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been all alone.
Please, Sasha. Don’t be my dad in this situation.
Be your teenage self. Be there for her, or make sure that when you can’t, you have someone here who’s going to care about her emotional well-being like she deserves. ”
“I leave for my first playoff game on Tuesday. There isn’t time to find someone else,” he tells me.
“So this is about you, then. Not Stella.”
He puts both his hands on the back of the chair in front of him, and the only sign that he’s as pissed at me as I am at him is the fact that he’s squeezing the wood so hard his knuckles are white.
“No, this is about needing to have someone living here with her when I can’t be here.
Natasha didn’t give me much notice, and I got lucky finding someone so qualified in such a short time frame.
She may not be all touchy-feely,” he says, “but she’s who we’ve got for the next year. ”
“I’m beyond disappointed in you,” I say as I cross my arms under my chest. “This is not how you treat people you love.”
“How would you even know?” A dark laugh tumbles through his lips.
I narrow my eyes at him. “What?”
“You never let people get close enough to love you,” he says, but he’s wrong. I don’t let people get close enough to hurt me. There’s a difference. “In your entire adult life, who have you ever loved?”
I loved you, I almost say, but I hold my tongue because in the end he walked away too.
“Exactly,” he says when I don’t respond. “I’m doing the work of loving Stella and raising her, even though I don’t claim to be qualified for either. So save your criticism for someone who wants to hear it.” His words are a dismissal and I know when to cut my losses.
“I’m going to go say goodbye to Stella,” I say as I turn and rush out of the kitchen before he can level any more parting blows at me.
I walk through the entryway and down the hall quietly, feeling like an intruder.
I thought I had Stella’s best interests at heart, and I thought I could convince him to find someone else.
Maybe I was wrong on both counts, which is just another reason why I don’t belong here.
It’s good that I’m heading home, where I can think about this situation and try to find a way to help him adopt Stella without having to be around him.
I approach the door to Stella’s room, and pause, listening to the nanny’s words. “No, you can’t go see your uncle. He doesn’t want to be around you when you’re crying like a baby. Get yourself together, and then you can see him.”
“He does want to see me,” Stella says, her voice heaving through sobs. I can’t tell if she’s trying to convince the nanny or herself.
“No one wants to be around a crying child,” Irina says. “You will learn to control your emotions or you will spend every moment in your bedroom alone.”
“No,” Stella wails. She sounds so scared that my heart literally hurts.
“How dare you,” I say as I step through the door to find Stella curled up into a ball on her bed, Irina standing above her.
Everything about Irina’s body language is threatening.
“You’ve been here for ten minutes and you’re already intimidating and threatening her?
This is how you care for the children in your charge? ”
She looks at me like I’m an annoying child. “I will not have my methods questioned,” she says. “Especially not by some outsider.”
I feel rather than hear or see Aleksandr behind me.
“She’s six years old,” Aleksandr reminds Irina.
“I know exactly how old she is. Too old to be treated like a baby.” Irina stands there ramrod straight, as if daring either of us to argue with her.
“You are threatening her with solitary confinement,” Aleksandr says. “That will never be okay with me.”
Finally, the man I know he can be shows up.
“I’ve had forty-eight different families reach out about becoming their nanny in the two weeks since I signed a contract with you,” Irina says to Aleksandr.
“Maybe you can call one of them back,” he says, his voice lower and colder than before, “since this is clearly not going to work.”
She walks past me and practically elbows her way past Aleksandr where he stands in the doorway. He turns to follow her into the hall and I hear his low words, in Russian, as he tells her he’s calling the placement agency to tell them about her threats.
I rush across the room to Stella, where I scoop her up into my arms. “Okay, Zaichik,” I say, the nickname from my childhood slipping out from nowhere. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
We head toward the bathroom and get her face washed off. Her eyes are so red and swollen she can hardly open them, but she looks at me so earnestly after drying her face and says, “Thank you, Petra. I was so scared I’d be trapped with her.”
“No way,” I tell her. “Your Dyadya loves you too much to ever let someone like her crush your spirit.”
I don’t know the first thing about raising a kid, but I know I could do a better job than that dictator Aleksandr tried to hire. All Stella needs is a little love, someone in her corner who’s got her back no matter what. That doesn’t seem like so much to ask.
I turn to head back into Stella’s bedroom and almost jump out of my skin when I see Aleksandr standing there.
“I’m leaving for my first playoff game on Tuesday, and I have no one to stay with Stella.” I can tell by his voice that he thinks this is my fault, even though he’s the one who fired her. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him, and I can feel myself frowning. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and even though I would do it all again, it does feel like I’m the one who put him in this position.
He lowers his voice and switches to Russian.
“The guardianship agreement is clear that I’ll have one person to stay with Stella when I have to travel for work.
The consistency is key for a child in her situation.
I can’t just not show up to work. I have a contract.
And I’m at the end of it, so if I don’t play in the playoffs, I can kiss my career goodbye. ”
“I . . .” I stutter. I guess I didn’t really think about the position I was putting him in, I only thought about what was best for Stella and I knew that witch Irina was not it. Even I would have been better than Irina. But I have a job, and a life, that I need to get back to.
Two thoughts war with each other in my head: Someone needs to be here to protect Stella, to help her become strong and resilient. And I don’t even like children.
I do the mental math—what I gain and what I have to give up.
The give up column is far longer, including seeing my best friend who I haven’t seen in a couple months, the last day of ski season, catching up with my team at work, and being there in person for two upcoming events.
What do I gain? Personally, nothing. But Stella will be safe and well cared for, and somehow that matters more than everything I lose out on.
“I could probably help you out for a week or two, just until you figure out a new childcare arrangement.”