72. Mira
72
MIRA
“How can you not tell me anything?” I shriek into the phone. “I’m the one who dropped him off! I was enough of a family member for a doctor to talk to me, but you can’t tell me if Aiden is still there?”
This is the fifth person I’ve talked to in an hour. Everyone else at least had the decency to foist me off to another department.
This woman, however, is an impenetrable wall. No matter how I plead or threaten or explain my situation, she says the same thing.
“I hear you, ma’am.” The woman drones in a way that makes me think she stopped hearing what anyone on the other end of the phone line was saying many years ago. “If you have an issue with hospital policy, you can lodge a complaint online. The website is?—”
“I don’t want a website! I want to know if my son is okay!” The word slips out on accident, and I scramble to shove it back in. “My friend’s son, I mean. My employer’s—The boy I nanny…ed. Past tense.”
There’s a long pause before, “I hear you, ma’am. If you have an issue with hospital policy, you can?—”
I hang up and hurl my phone at Taylor’s couch. “This is ridiculous!”
“To be fair, you didn’t make a great case for yourself.”
I whip around to find Taylor standing in the doorway. She’s sporting sweaty hair and a matching spandex workout set and somehow still looks more put together than I do. The only thing worse than my man-repellent flannel pajama pants is my man-repellent flannel pajama pants on day three.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” she says. “But I got here starting around the time you called Aiden ‘your son.’ Things went downhill from there.”
I flop on the couch, which now has a dent of my lazy ass in it. “It was a slip. I was frazzled and the wrong word came out of my mouth.”
“Or… you love Aiden and are worried about him the way a mother would be,” she suggests.
I level her with a glare. “Even if that was true—which I’m not saying it is—I can’t do anything about it. Rubbing my nose in it isn’t nice.”
“Neither is rotting away on my sofa and eating all of my favorite snacks.”
I open my mouth to defend myself, but nothing comes out. It’s hard when I’m surrounded by all of the evidence Taylor could use against me.
There’s an empty chocolate-covered raspberry bag on the coffee table next to a half-full pint of caramel churro ice cream. I have an ice cream drip down my shirt from when it melted two hours ago and I started drinking it.
I’m big enough to admit that things have taken a bleak turn the last few days.
Taylor sighs and drops down onto the sofa next to me. “I love you, Mira. You know that. But sometimes, loving someone means dragging them off the couch and prying the high-quality snacks out of their hands.”
“To do what?” I grumble pathetically.
“Changing your clothes would be a good start,” she suggests. “Showering is another option.”
I glare at her. “Something that isn’t just about me being smelly, please.”
“Okay.” She thinks for a second. “You could call Zane like the adult you are and ask him how Aiden is doing.”
I shake my head so hard my cheeks jiggle. “No. Nope. Definitely not. No.”
I can still hear his voice ringing in my ears as it is; I don’t need a refresher course. The sooner I forget him, the sooner I can gather the strength to put on real pants.
“Glad to see you’re going to handle this with maturity.”
Taylor starts to get up, but I latch onto her arm. She yelps as she falls back onto the couch. “You could call him for me!” I plead. “Just call Zane and tell him you’re checking in on Aiden. He’ll talk to you.”
She jerks her arm away and stands up, brushing herself off like I have leprosy. “I’ll have you know, I already sent a bouquet of condolence flowers while Aiden was in the hospital. I’ve done what good etiquette requires and my hands are clean.”
“Next time you’re in the hospital, I’ll be sure to send one bouquet of flowers.” I narrow my eyes. “I’m sure you won’t be mad at me since I did what ‘good etiquette requires.’”
She snorts. “You’re just mad because I’m not doing your dirty work for you. I let you sleep in my guest room and crash on my couch—even though you still have an apartment of your own.”
I want to point out that my apartment doesn’t even have a couch, but that would mean losing the longest-running argument Taylor and I have. She’d yank me off of her sofa and have me scouring a furniture store for a living room set before the sound waves of her “I told you so” could even touch my eardrums.
Instead, I cross my arms and sink lower between the cushions. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”
“I get that, Mimi. I do. Believe me. But I think the time has come to figure out what comes next.”
That used to be what I was best at. Thinking several steps ahead was a reflex. I didn’t do anything without an exit plan and three options waiting in the wings.
Now, I try to imagine my life tomorrow… next week… and there’s nothing. Nothing at all.
A future without Zane and Aiden in it feels impossible.
I drop my face in my hands. “I don’t know what comes next.”
“Sit up.” Taylor wraps her manicured hands around my wrists and pulls me to the edge of the couch. “Come on, Mimi. We’re going to do an exercise.”
“I can’t exercise. I’m not even wearing a bra.”
She rolls her eyes. “ An exercise. We’re going to talk through hypotheticals, okay? So, first hypothetical: Zane knocks on the door right now and comes to apologize. What do you do?”
“Fling myself out of your window.”
She drops her chin, unamused. “Seriously.”
“I would seriously fling myself out of your window.” I glance down at myself. “You’re being judgmental, but you’re not wrong. I look insane.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “Hypothetical #1: You take a shower and do your hair and then Zane knocks on the door and comes to apologize. What do you do?”
‘Wrap my arms around him and never let go’ doesn’t seem like the answer Taylor wants, so I shrug. “I listen to him. I apologize for my part in everything.”
“And if he asks you to come work for him again?”
I open my mouth and… nothing comes out.
“Mimi?” Taylor presses after a second.
“I… I don’t think I could do it. Not after everything we’ve been through.” I heave out a sigh. “If he needed me to come back to make sure he gets custody of Aiden, then I’d do it. But he doesn’t need me anymore. Zane is such a good dad, Tay. He doesn’t need my help.”
She snorts. “Not according to Daniel.”
I snap my attention to Taylor at the same time she goes rigid. Her face flames with guilt. “Has Daniel been over to see him?” I demand. “I thought Zane wasn’t answering his calls?”
Taylor mutters something I can’t hear under her breath. I stand up and shake her shoulders. “If you have information, you better spill, woman!”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” she whimpers. “Because Daniel and I both agree that you and Zane need to sort this mess out yourselves. You need to talk to each other and communicate like?—”
I wave her away. “Yada yada yada. Has Daniel seen Aiden or not?”
She hisses like a wet gremlin. “Yes! Yes, okay? Daniel has seen him. Zane wouldn’t answer his calls, so Daniel went over there yesterday afternoon.”
“And?!” I press, eyes so wide I’m surprised they don’t pop out. “How are they? Is Aiden recovering? Is he back at school?”
I got so desperate this morning that I almost went to his preschool to see if he was there. But if those tiny babies had to go in a lockdown drill because some psycho ex-nanny was freaking out on the phone, I never would have forgiven myself.
“You know what?” She jabs a finger at me. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” she repeats. “If you want to find out how they’re doing, you can trot your childish ass to the shower, put on some clothes— bra included—and go talk to Daniel yourself. I’ll let him decide if he wants to tell you what he knows or not.”
I gape at her. “You’re not serious.”
Taylor grabs my shoulders. “I am very serious. Usually, you’re the responsible, logical one. But only one of us has brushed their teeth today, Mimi. As that person, I feel obligated to give you some tough love.”
I run my tongue over my teeth and she’s right. They feel gritty.
I’m disgusting.
I duck under her arms and walk towards the hallway.
“Where are you going?” she calls after me. “Are you mad at me?”
I bite back my first teeny-tiny hint of a smile in days. “I have a date with the shower.”