Chapter Seven
Gabriel
The drive home was a masterclass in restraint.
Every red light was a small mercy, giving me precious seconds to construct the speech I’d deliver once Megan was safely tucked in bed.
I’d mentally drafted seventeen versions, each more scathing than the last. By the time I pulled into the driveway, I’d settled on a tone somewhere between “disappointed headmaster” and “prosecutor presenting irrefutable evidence.”
Cate sat in the passenger seat, radiating guilt like a nuclear reactor. Good. She should feel guilty. My daughter—my brilliant, fragile, already-traumatized daughter—had a broken arm because this woman thought a skateboard was an acceptable substitute for a surfboard.
In the backseat, Megan dozed, her pink cast cradled against her chest like a trophy. At least she was happy. That was something. A very small, very irritating something that complicated my righteous anger considerably.
I carried Megan inside, her slight weight familiar in my arms. Cate trailed behind us like a condemned prisoner walking to the gallows, which was, frankly, appropriate given the circumstances.
Megan barely stirred as I changed her into pajamas and tucked her into bed, her new cast resting on a pillow.
I brushed the hair from her forehead, my anger momentarily eclipsed by the overwhelming relief that it hadn’t been worse.
A broken arm would heal. But the what-ifs circled my mind like vultures.
What if she’d hit her head, what if the break had been compound, what if, what if, what if.
I kissed her forehead and turned off the light, leaving the door cracked just how she liked it.
Now for the reckoning.
I found Cate in the living room, perched on the edge of the couch like a bird ready to take flight. Her hands were clasped in her lap, knuckles white. When I entered, she looked up, and I caught something in her expression that gave me pause—not just fear, but genuine remorse.
I ignored it. I had a speech prepared, dammit!
“Sit,” I said, though she already was sitting. I remained standing, arms crossed.
Height advantage: established.
“Dr. Lyon, I—”
“Let me speak first.” My voice came out harder than I’d intended, sharp enough to cut. “In the span of six hours, you managed to accomplish what I thought was impossible: you made every other nanny I’ve hired look competent by comparison.”
She flinched.
I continued.
“A skateboard, Cate. You put my daughter on a skateboard without a helmet, without pads, without any apparent understanding of basic physics or child safety protocols.”
“I know.”
“I’m not finished.” I paced because standing still required a level of calm I didn’t possess. “Do you have any idea what could have happened? Do you understand that I spend my days treating children whose parents made one careless decision, one moment of poor judgment?”
“I do now,” she whispered quietly, and something in her voice made me stop pacing.
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed; her mascara smudged. She’d been crying. Probably in the car while I’d been too busy mentally composing my termination speech to notice.
“Why?” I asked, and the word came out less accusatory than exhausted. “Why would you do something so monumentally stupid?”
She met my gaze, and I saw her spine straighten slightly. “Because she asked me to.”
“That’s not a reason. That’s an excuse.”
“No, it’s not.” Her voice gained strength, defensive walls rising. “She asked me to teach her because she wanted to be like the other kids. Because apparently, every other nanny you’ve hired has said no to everything she wants to do, and she’s desperate for someone to say yes.”
Her words hit like a physical blow, mostly because they were true.
“So your solution was to break her arm?”
“My solution was to make her happy!” Cate shot back, standing now, her own anger finally surfacing. “And yes, I screwed up. I know I screwed up. But at least I tried. At least I didn’t just park her in front of a screen and call it a day.”
We stood there, two opposing forces in my living room, the air crackling with tension that wasn’t entirely about Megan’s broken arm.
I should fire her.
Every logical bone in my body screamed that I should fire her.
But then I remembered something: she’d stayed.
When Megan fell, Cate hadn’t run. She’d scooped up my daughter, got her to the hospital, and sat through the entire ER visit even though she must have known she was facing termination.
She’d held Megan’s hand during the X-rays, distracted her with terrible jokes during the casting, and hadn’t once tried to minimize her own culpability.
Every other nanny had quit at the first sign of difficulty. Megan’s tantrums, her anxiety, her impossible standards inherited directly from her impossible father—they’d all run. Even Tonya had run, though she’d had the decency to wait until after the divorce papers were signed.
But Cate had stayed.
I sank into the armchair across from her, suddenly exhausted. “Sit down.”
She sat, wariness replacing her defiance.
“You’re right,” I said, and watched her eyes widen in surprise. “The other nannies said no to everything. They were afraid of liability, afraid of me, afraid of Megan’s moods. They treated her like a fragile piece of china instead of a child.”
“Dr. Lyon—”
“Gabriel,” I corrected, surprising myself. “If you’re going to continue working here, you should probably call me Gabriel.”
“Continue?” Her voice was small, hopeful.
“On a probationary basis,” I clarified quickly. “With ground rules. Non-negotiable ground rules.”
She nodded so vigorously I worried about whiplash.
“No skateboards. No rollerblades. No activities that could result in broken bones without proper safety equipment and my explicit prior approval. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“If you’re unsure about something, you ask me first. I don’t care if I’m in surgery, you text me, and you wait for a response.”
“Okay.”
“And, Cate?” I leaned forward, holding her gaze. “If you ever put my daughter in danger again, there won’t be a conversation. There will just be a very swift exit. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the day settling over us like dust after a storm.
“She was happy,” Cate said softly. “Before she fell, she was so happy. She was laughing and proud of herself, and for just a few minutes, she wasn’t anxious or worried about doing everything perfectly.”
I knew exactly what she meant. I’d seen it in Megan’s face at the hospital, even through the pain, a kind of pride, a spark of the fearless child she used to be before her mother left, before the world taught her that taking risks meant getting hurt.
“Next time,” I said, my voice rough, “make her happy with something that doesn’t require an orthopedic consult.”
Cate’s lips twitched. “So... no bungee jumping?”
Despite everything, the broken arm, the hospital visit, the sheer insanity of the day, I felt my mouth curve into something dangerously close to a smile.
“Get out of my sight before I change my mind.”
She stood, relief evident in every line of her body. But at the doorway, she paused.
“Gabriel?”
I looked up.
“Thank you. For giving me another chance.”
I waved her away, unable to trust my voice. As she left, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
I’d just made either the best decision or the worst mistake of my parenting career.
Given my track record, it was probably both.
The next morning, I jumped into the shower as it was the only place I could think anymore.
Hot water, steam, silence. The holy trinity of single fatherhood. No patients demanding my attention, no daughter asking why clouds float, no nannies breaking bones on my watch. Just me, overpriced shampoo, and the vague hope that I could wash away the lingering anxiety from yesterday’s ER visit.
I was mid-rinse when I heard it: knocking. Persistent, rhythmic knocking that suggested whoever was on the other side of my door had either never heard of doorbells or was conducting some kind of psychological experiment.
Fantastic.
I shut off the water, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around my waist with the efficiency of someone who’d perfected the art of interrupted showers.
Water dripped down my back as I stalked toward the front door, already composing the speech I’d deliver to whatever door-to-door salesman had made the catastrophic error of disturbing my Saturday morning.
I yanked the door open.
Cate stood on my doorstep, hand frozen mid-knock.
Her eyes went wide. Then wider. Her mouth opened slightly, then closed, then opened again like a fish that had suddenly forgotten how gills worked.
She was staring. Blatantly, unabashedly staring at my chest.
I waited for her to say something. Anything. An explanation for why she was here, perhaps, or an apology for interrupting the one moment of peace I’d had all week.
Nothing.
Just staring.
“It’s Saturday,” I said finally, my voice flat. “You’re not scheduled today.”
She blinked at me. Slowly. As if I’d just spoken ancient Sumerian.
“Saturday,” I repeated, enunciating each syllable like I was explaining a complex medical procedure to a particularly dense intern. “Your day off. The day you don’t work.”
More blinking. I was beginning to wonder if she’d suffered some kind of minor stroke.
“Cate?”
“I—” Her voice came out as a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Saturday. Right. Yes. The day. That’s today.”
Was she malfunctioning? Had the stress of yesterday’s incident finally broken something fundamental in her brain?
A drop of water slid down my temple, and her eyes tracked its movement with the focus of a predator watching prey. This was getting ridiculous.
“Did you need something?” I asked, crossing my arms. The towel shifted slightly, and I watched her face go through an impressive spectrum of colors, pink to red to something approaching purple.
“No! Nothing! I just—I thought—” She gestured vaguely at nothing in particular. “I wanted to check on Megan. Make sure she was okay. After yesterday. The arm. The broken one. That she has now.”
“She’s fine. Still asleep.”
“Great! Wonderful! Sleep is important. For healing. And... existing.”
I stared at her. She stared at my collarbone.
This was, without question, the strangest conversation I’d had all week, and I’d spent twenty minutes yesterday explaining to a five-year-old why she couldn’t keep her cast forever as a souvenir.
“Cate,” I said slowly. “Are you alright?”
“Perfect!” Her voice hit a pitch that probably alarmed dogs in a three-block radius. “I should go. You’re clearly... busy. With your... towel situation.”
Before I could respond, she spun on her heel and practically sprinted down the driveway, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to escape.
I stood in the doorway, dripping water onto the hardwood, watching her retreat as if I’d just threatened her with a scalpel.
What the hell was that about?