Chapter 12
Nora
David Kingsley.
I’m on the couch in my pajamas with a glass of wine, a cottage-garden puzzle in front of me, and Archie’s head on my feet.
Which is to say I’m not dressed for social interaction of any kind.
Especially when the man who had me bent over my kitchen counter last Friday and then apologized like it was a misdemeanor is calling me.
On a Saturday. At night.
Holy hell.
I stare at the screen for two full rings while my brain decides whether I want to answer.
I should be mad at him. The mixed signals alone entitle me to a small claims settlement.
I answer on the fourth ring because apparently I have no dignity left to preserve.
“Hello?”
There’s a beat.
“Hi, Miss Nora. It’s Michaela.”
I blink. Sit up straighter, dislodging Archie, who gives me a look of wounded betrayal. “Michaela?”
“Yes. I’m calling from my dad’s phone because mine doesn’t have your number, and also because it’s technically in confiscation right now due to an incident involving unsanctioned FaceTime with Uncle Dominic during homework time—which I maintain was educational.”
“I see.” I set my wine down, because this conversation is going to require sobriety. “Does your dad know you’re calling me?”
A pause. That answers the question.
“Michaela.”
“He’s in the shower, and I’m supposed to be asleep.”
“So that’s a no.”
“It’s a ‘not yet.’ There’s a difference. One is deception and the other is strategic timing.”
I press my fingers to my lips to keep from laughing. This child—this ridiculous, brilliant, devastating child—has stolen her father’s phone while he’s in the shower and called her school principal on a Saturday night, and she sounds as composed as a Fortune 500 CEO scheduling a quarterly review.
“OK,” I say carefully. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a proposal.”
“A proposal.”
“Yes. It’s been vetted by Archimedes in absentia—I told him about it at the park today and he licked my face, which I’m interpreting as enthusiastic consent.”
“That’s a generous interpretation.”
“I’m an optimist when it serves my interests.”
I tuck my legs under me and lean back against the cushion. Archie resettles his head on my ankle, apparently having forgiven the disruption. “I’m listening.”
“As you may be aware, my nanny, Marta, is in Milwaukee taking care of her mother, who is sick. This situation is expected to continue for roughly six weeks, which is also pretty close to the amount of time until my custody hearing—a coincidence I find extremely inconvenient.”
“That does sound rather troubling.”
“Dad has been trying to find a temporary nanny. He’s made a spreadsheet.
” She sighs as though she’s already watched too many spreadsheets fail to solve human problems. “He’s been looking at agencies.
He spent forty-five minutes reading reviews tonight, then closed the laptop and stared at the ceiling. ”
“Michaela—”
“I don’t want a stranger,” she says, and the confident veneer cracks just enough to let something younger through.
The shift in her voice is tiny, but it lands hard anyway. Under all the courtroom language and the tiny-CEO cadence, she’s still a child.
“I know,” I say softly.
“I know strangers aren’t necessarily bad,” she continues quickly, like she’s trying to prove she’s being objective.
“Statistically, some of them are probably excellent. But I don’t want to explain everything again.
I don’t want someone new to know where my EpiPen is but not know that I hate it when people act weird about my mom.
I don’t want them to ask me questions in a special voice.
And I especially don’t want them saying things like ‘your mommy’ when they don’t know what they’re talking about. ”
Oh, honey.
I close my eyes. “That makes sense.”
“I think so too.” A pause. Then, more carefully: “And I think you would be better.”
Every muscle in my body goes still.
“Michaela.”
“I know,” she says again, sounding annoyed now—which is probably easier for her than sounding hurt. “You’re going to say professional boundaries. Dad already said professional boundaries. Apparently they’re very important and also very stupid.”
I bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh at that—because she isn’t wrong.
“They are important,” I say, aiming for gentle and landing somewhere near tragically earnest. “And in this case, they really do matter.”
“But you like me.”
My throat tightens. “I do like you.”
“So it’s mutual,” she continues. “Before we debate any further, I’ve prepared a list of reasons this is a good idea.
One: you already know me. Two: I already know you.
Three: Archimedes already knows me and would benefit from regular social interaction.
Four: you live close to school, which is logistically efficient. Five: you know about the cashews. Six—”
“Michaela.”
“I have nine reasons.”
“I’m sure they’re all excellent.” I choose my words with the care of someone defusing something delicate. “But this is something your dad would need to decide, and it’s a bigger conversation than you and I can have on a Saturday night while he’s in the shower.”
“He’ll say no. But he’s wrong.” The distress in her voice makes my chest go tight.
“Michaela, I need you to listen to me,” I say, gently but firmly.
“I appreciate you calling. I appreciate the proposal and the nine reasons and the fact that you consulted Archimedes. I really do. But this isn’t something I can agree to without talking to your dad first. That’s not a no—it’s an ‘I need to talk to the grown-up who’s responsible for you. ’”
“That’s what all adults say when they want to say yes but think they’re not allowed.”
God. This child.
“Can you please put your dad on the phone?”
A very long pause.
“He might be mad.”
“He might be. That’s OK. Sometimes parents get mad, and it’s still the right thing to do.”
Another pause. I hear movement—feet on hardwood, the distant sound of a door, then Michaela’s voice, slightly muffled: “Dad? Are you still in the shower?”
Silence. Then, faintly, “Michaela, why aren’t you in bed? And whose phone is that?”
“Yours.”
“Why do you have my phone?”
“I was making a call.”
“To whom?”
The longest pause yet. I hold my breath.
“Miss Nora.”
The silence that follows is dense enough to walk on. I shift on my couch, wine abandoned, puzzle forgotten, listening to David Kingsley process the fact that his eight-year-old daughter has called her school principal behind his back.
He says something low and controlled that I can’t make out. Then Michaela’s voice, clearer now. “She wants to talk to you.”
More muffled conversation. A sigh that I feel in my own chest.
Then David’s voice, close and slightly hoarse, like he’s just run a hand over his face. “Nora.”
My whole body responds before my brain can intervene. A flush of heat. A tightening low in my stomach. The muscle memory of his voice saying my name in a very different context.
“Hi.”
A beat.
“I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“She stole my phone.”
“She liberated it. There’s a legal distinction, apparently.”
Something that might be a laugh or might be despair. “What did she say?”
“She presented a nine-point proposal for me to become her temporary nanny. She got through six before I stopped her.”
“Oh, God.”
“It was well-structured. She cited Archimedes as a stakeholder.”
“I’m going to ground her until college.”
“She’s eight. That seems excessive.”
“You haven’t lived with her.” His voice shifts—the embarrassment giving way to something more tired. More honest. “Nora, I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have called you. I’ll talk to her about boundaries and—”
“David.”
He stops.
I sit in the quiet. Archie has jumped onto the couch, his head resting on my thigh.
I run my fingers through his soft fur and think about the nine-year-old version of myself making packed lunches and walking her sister to school each day, carrying the weight of my parents’ struggles on my too-young shoulders.
And I think about an eight-year-old girl who doesn’t want another stranger. Who wants someone who already knows her struggles, so she doesn’t have to explain the big thing she’s afraid of to an adult who doesn’t understand.
I could let this go. I could say no problem, good night, see you at school on Monday, hang up, and go back to my puzzle and my wine and my one-plate, one-mug, one-chair life.
I could make it easy. I could be professional.
I could do what I always do—offer the institution instead of myself, lean on the resources of the school.
I could disappear.
“I’d like to help,” I say.
The words come out before the professional part of me can edit them.
David is quiet for long enough that I start to wonder if the call dropped.
“Nora, you don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” I pull Archie closer—not because he needs it, but because I do. “I’m not offering because I have to. I’m offering because Michaela doesn’t want a stranger, and I’m not one.”
“You’re her principal.”
“I know what I am.” I keep my voice steady, though something underneath it is trembling in a way I hope he can’t hear. “I’m also the person who was there when Kelsie scared her. She feels safe with me, and I think it’s important she has that right now.”
On the other end of the line, his breathing changes.
It’s a tiny thing. Barely there. But I hear it anyway, because apparently my nervous system has decided David Kingsley’s silences are a language I should become fluent in.
“You’re kind,” he says at last, and his voice has gone rough in that quiet way of his that never fails to hit somewhere low and unguarded in me. “But this would put you in an impossible position.”
“I’m not suggesting I move into your guest room and start color-coding Michaela’s lunch schedule.”
A short exhale. Closer to a laugh this time.
“Though,” I add, “for the record, I would absolutely dominate a lunch schedule.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second.”