Chapter 1 #2
“I’m staging an intervention. A five-minute one, because that’s all the time I have.
” Rachel pushed off the hood and crossed the driveway to meet her, pressing one of the coffees into Melissa’s hand.
The circles under her eyes suggested another overnight shift at Redwood Hollow General.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a week. ”
“I was about to say the same to you.”
“We’re not on me right now.”
“I’ve slept,” Melissa said.
Rachel raised a dark eyebrow at her. “Sitting upright at your desk with your eyes closed doesn’t count.”
“I still think that’s more than you’ve slept from the looks of it,” Melissa muttered.
“Dr. Rachel!” Lila had extracted herself from the car and was already running toward them. Rachel crouched to embrace her, and the sincerity on her face stirred something in Melissa.
“Hey, bug. What’s that on your hands? Did you fight a marker and lose?”
Lila examined her purple-stained fingers with resignation. “I was coloring. Mom had to talk to a lot of people.”
“Did you draw me anything?”
“I made an elephant with six legs. Mrs. Anderson didn’t like it.”
“Mrs. Anderson has no vision.” Rachel straightened, keeping one hand on Lila’s shoulder. “Six-legged elephants are clearly superior. More stomping power.”
Lila giggled—actually giggled—and it made Melissa’s heart ache. This was what her daughter sounded like when someone said the right thing, which Melissa never did.
“Go wash your hands, sweetheart,” Melissa said, her voice off to her own ears.
Lila scampered inside, the screen door banging behind her, and the silence that followed was full of things Rachel wasn’t saying.
“I can hear you thinking,” Melissa said.
“I’m thinking you look exhausted.” Rachel sipped her coffee, studying Melissa over the rim with the assessing gaze she probably used on trauma patients. “And I’m thinking you’re going to run yourself into the ground this summer if you don’t figure out childcare.”
“I’m handling it.”
“‘Handling it’ is not a plan. ‘Handling it’ is what you say before you collapse in a heap.” She paused. “So, what is the plan? Couldn’t your parents take her?”
“I don’t want to send her to them for so many reasons,” Melissa said.
“Her dad, then?”
Melissa raised an eyebrow at her, and no more was needed.
Rachel softened her tone, reaching out to squeeze Melissa’s arm briefly. “I’m worried about you. Both of you. You’ve got that bill fight on your hands, you’ve just gone through a really messy divorce, and Lila—”
“Lila is fine.”
“Lila spent two hours coloring by herself in a corner while you worked the room. That’s not what kids are supposed to do. They’re supposed to run around. Giggle and play.”
“She’s well behaved.”
“She’s shrinking.”
Melissa opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
There was no point in defending herself to Rachel, who had known her for over ten years.
She’d been there through the worst of the divorce, had held her together through depositions and press leaks and the night Michael’s affair became front-page news.
Rachel had earned the right to be blunt, even when—perhaps especially when—it came to Melissa’s lacking parental skills.
“I’m interviewing nannies next week,” Melissa said instead.
“Good. Look for someone who can actually engage with her, not just supervise.” Rachel’s expression shifted into something gentler. “She’s a great kid, Mel. She’s just… careful. Like someone else I know.”
“Careful isn’t bad.”
“It’s not, but it isn’t supposed to be the first word that comes to mind about a seven-year-old.”
They stood in the driveway, the morning sun warm on their backs, the sounds of their little section of Redwood Hollow humming around them—a lawnmower somewhere down the block, birdsong from the old oak in the front yard, the distant rumble of a delivery truck.
Inside, Melissa could hear Lila’s footsteps, light and measured, moving through the house.
They hadn’t lived here long, she and Lila, but it worked.
“I don’t know how to fix it,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how to make her… lighter.”
“You don’t have to fix everything yourself.” Rachel finished her coffee. “Find someone good. Someone with a pulse and a personality, who’ll actually make the house feel like something other than a campaign headquarters.”
“That’s specific.”
“I’ve been in there,” Rachel said with a nod at the house.
“We just moved in a few months ago. I haven’t had time to—”
“Yeah, I know. Just… find someone warm.” Rachel’s phone buzzed, and after a quick check, she pulled her keys from her pocket, jingling them. “I’ve got to get back—I’m supposedly off shift, but there’s a staff meeting at noon. Call me later? I want to hear about the nanny candidates.”
“So you can veto them?”
“So I can make sure you don’t hire someone based purely on their resume formatting.” Rachel grinned, opening her car door. “Love you. Now go grab some good food and hang with your kid.”
Melissa watched her pull away, the familiar ache settling back into place behind her ribs. Rachel made it look so easy—the warmth, the humor, the casual affection that Melissa could never quite manage even with the people she loved most.
Michael had called her cold. Icy.
Back inside, Lila was sitting at the kitchen island with a glass of water.
“Are you hungry?” Melissa asked.
Lila shook her head.
Melissa didn’t know what to ask next. Should it be this hard to talk to your own child?
The house was quiet as Melissa moved through it, wiping down the counter that barely needed it, checking her phone again for the endless scroll of emails and reminders. Lila sat with her hands folded, still and watchful.
Find someone good, Rachel had said.
But good wasn’t just about qualifications and background checks and scheduling flexibility. Good was something Melissa didn’t know how to measure, didn’t trust herself to recognize. She’d thought Michael was good, once. She’d thought a lot of things.
“Mom?” Lila’s voice was small in the clean, silent kitchen. “Am I going to have a babysitter this summer?”
“We’re going to find someone to help out, yes. Someone who can do fun things with you while I’m working.”
“Oh.” Lila traced a finger along the marble countertop. “Will they stay?”
The question caught Melissa off guard. “What do you mean?”
“The last one didn’t stay. And the one before that. They always leave.”
“Well, this one will be here for the summer, at least,” Melissa said. “They are nannies, not… family.”
Lila nodded, though there was unhappiness in her eyes. Still, she didn’t fuss or demand, just sat there.
Melissa looked at her daughter, at the dark hair falling across her face and the too-old eyes and the small hands still folded on the counter, and felt the familiar weight of all the ways she was failing.
Someone with a pulse and a personality, Rachel had said.
Someone who could make Lila laugh, really laugh. Someone who could fill this house with something other than silence and obligation. Someone who could reach the parts of her daughter that Melissa couldn’t seem to touch anymore.
She pulled up the agency email on her phone, scrolled through the candidates. None of them looked particularly inviting, or warm, as Rachel had said.
Perhaps she should go a different route, trying to find someone. Because maybe, somewhere out there, was the person who could give Lila the summer she deserved.
If Melissa could find them.