1. Conrad #3
No surname. No references. No explanation other than she loved kids and promised to treat them like her own. I had been desperate. She lasted one afternoon, took nothing with her but a half-eaten granola bar, and texted me three days later: I hope you find peace.
I never responded because what did one say to that?
“Maybe,” CJ said carefully, “we’re simply not nanny-compatible.”
“You’re children,” I said. “Not software. You need supervision.”
“We supervise each other,” CJ said.
I should have been firmer. I knew that.
There was a version of me, maybe the version that had existed before the house got too quiet when it had once been loud, who would have known what to say. Who would have taken the food away, sat them down, explained respect and consequences, made a plan, and followed through.
But that man felt far away.
This version of me watched CJ nudge extra ginger onto Bianca’s plate because he knew she liked it, watched Bianca wipe sauce from Billie’s chin without being asked, watched Billie lean her small body against my side while chewing.
All I wanted was one evening where nobody kept looking at the empty chair at the table.
So, I let them have floor dinner.
I let them order from three different restaurants and tell me a wildly inaccurate retelling of the flour disaster in which the ceiling fan, the HVAC system, and a “morally corrupt” bag of all-purpose flour were all equally at fault.
I also let Billie eat cheesecake with a spoon directly from the box.
After dinner, we played a board game that ended when CJ persuaded Billie to trade all her fake money for “future dragon rights.” Bianca objected on ethical grounds, but only after calculating whether she could profit from the dragon market herself.
Then we watched half of a movie, paused it so Billie could ask whether ghosts had bones, restarted it, paused again because Bianca needed to point out the historical inaccuracies, and finally gave up when CJ suggested we build a blanket fort instead.
By the time I looked at the clock, it was far too late. The responsible-parent part of my brain stirred weakly.
“Bedtime,” I announced.
All three children objected at once.
“Five more minutes,” CJ said.
“One more chapter,” Bianca said.
“I have to finish my cave,” Billie said from beneath three cushions and a throw blanket.
“You’re all going to bed.”
Billie popped her head out. “What about cheesecake?”
“You already had plenty of cheesecake.”
“What about an overnight snack? What if I get hungry and my tummy needs more cheesecake?”
I stood, stretching my back. “Upstairs. Now.”
They groaned, but not with any real force. They were tired and warm. Happy in that loose, Friday-night way that made bedtime both impossible and overdue.
Billie reached her arms up. “Carry me.”
“You have legs.”
She frowned. “They’re closed for the night.”
CJ stepped beside her and gave me a look. “Mine might be closed too.”
Bianca tucked her book under her arm. “I suppose I have no choice but to participate in this.”
Five seconds later, I had Billie tucked under one arm, Bianca under the other, and CJ clinging to my back with his arms around my shoulders.
“Absolutely undignified,” Bianca muttered.
“You asked to be carried.”
“I did not. I accepted the inevitability.”
Billie giggled into my shirt. CJ’s chin bumped my shoulder as he laughed, and for a moment, the house didn’t feel empty around us.
I carried them up the stairs while pretending it was no effort at all, though halfway up, I questioned every late-night run I had ever taken and whether any of them had prepared me for hauling three children to bed.
“You’ll all be delivered to your rooms,” I said.
“Royal treatment,” CJ said.
“Basic parenting.”
I dropped Billie first, because she was the most likely to escape. She landed on her bed with a bounce, then immediately tried to show me a beetle she had “temporarily relocated” into a jewelry box.
Bianca took longer. She wanted water, then socks, then a different bookmark because the one in her book “felt wrong.” I found her the blue ribbon she liked and tucked her in, and she allowed me to kiss the top of her head with the strained tolerance of a girl who still wanted affection but wouldn’t admit it.
CJ was last.
His room was dim except for soft glow from the bedside lamp, the light catching the mess of books, notebooks, discarded hoodies, and the model ship he’d abandoned three weeks ago.
He climbed into bed, suddenly quieter than he’d been all night.
I sat down on the foot of his bed. “You okay?”
He nodded, then hesitated.
I waited.
CJ had always needed a little space around the truth before he could step into it.
“It’s early spring now,” he said finally.
I glanced toward the window. “Yeah.”
“The flowers are coming back.”
Sadness washed over me before I knew why. Then I realized.
There were pale flowers along the far side of the property, near the stone wall where the sun hit first in the morning.
Jade had loved them. She’d planted them our second year in the house and told me they were stubborn little things.
She’d said that with approval, dirt on her cheek, hair falling out of its clip, Billie not even a thought in the world yet.
I hadn’t noticed they were blooming again.
I had driven past them every day that week. Maybe even two weeks. I’d been on calls, thinking through deadlines, checking messages at stoplights, rehearsing conversations I didn’t want to have. I hadn’t noticed them.
CJ had noticed. Of course he had.
“They’re Mom’s favorite.” His eyes stayed on the blanket, fingers picking at a loose thread.
I swallowed and looked down at my hands. “They are.”
“Could we take some to her tomorrow?”
I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t.
There were moments when the grief didn’t knock the breath out of me or send me into some cinematic spiral.
Sometimes it simply sat beside me in my son’s room after too much takeout, while dirty dishes waited downstairs and flour dried on the walls.
Sometimes it was the small shame of not noticing her favorite flowers were in bloom.
CJ looked up at me then, his expression uncertain. Older than eleven in one breath, still very much eleven in the next.
“To say hi,” he added.
My heart hurt so profoundly, I had to press my palm against his blanket to keep myself there with him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Of course we can.”
His shoulders eased. “Can we use the nice scissors? Billie cuts the stems wrong.”
“Billie cuts everything wrong. She’s five.”
CJ gave a small smile, and I leaned over to kiss his forehead before he could object. He didn’t. That nearly undid me more than him mentioning the flowers. Standing, I turned off his lamp.
“Dad?”
I paused at the door. “Yeah?”
“Do you think she knows that we’re okay?”
“I hope so,” I said.
He nodded once, satisfied enough or pretending to be.
“Goodnight, CJ.”
“Night, Dad.”
I pulled the door closed, leaving it ajar so a thin line of light from the hallway shone into his room. Then I stood there for a moment, hand still on the knob, and let myself feel the weight of tomorrow.
Flowers.
The cemetery.
Three children with questions I couldn’t always answer.
And me, trying again.
Always trying again.