Chapter 4 #2
Trent immediately scooped him up in his arms. “We’ve had a lot of activity lately,” he muttered. “I think if you got a little bit of help to get home, that might not be a bad thing.”
Ricky looked up at him and replied, “Thank you,” but it was such a formal adult version that Naomi had to look away. She caught Trent’s gaze and shrugged, knowing there would be a conversation and a half once she got the boy tucked into bed.
By the time Ricky had a quick shower, changed into his pajamas, and was tucked up in bed with the teddy bear he had been missing since they had left, he was almost asleep.
She knew Ricky would request to get a new teddy bear because he had taken his second favorite with him, and he had lost it at sea.
That’s why he had left his favorite behind, so now he only had one. He was a boy who needed two, and tomorrow she would look to get another. Maybe tomorrow she could get some of this financial stuff straightened away. She said good night, gave him a big kiss, and stepped out of his room.
Ricky asked, “Will Trent come say good night?”
“I’m sure he will if you want him to,” she replied. She called out to Trent softly from the bedroom. Trent poked his head around the corner to see Ricky sit up with his arms open. Trent smiled, walked over, and gave him a big hug, whispering good night as he did so.
By the time they got back out to the living room, he looked at her and asked, “How in the hell can somebody treat that little boy that way?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what to say because clearly not everybody deserves a child.”
“Not every parent deserves a child, but every child deserves a parent,” he muttered.
“I know, and I have seen way too much of this,” she added.
He turned to her and asked, “Why are you even doing this job?”
She sighed. “I was a teacher, and I got burned out. There was never enough budget money to even do the basics, too many kids had no support from home, and I had no control over so much. No way to discipline to try to bring some order to the chaos. You couldn’t get them to do their homework without a confrontation.
And I caught them cheating using technology and even AI stuff every time I turned around,” she muttered.
“I just woke up one day and realized I was not living my best life, and there had to be something else I could do that was more fulfilling and worthy of my efforts.” She took a deep breath, remembering the depression and anxiety she had felt in those days.
“It wasn’t very long afterward that I met Ricky. ”
She got quiet, clearly thinking about the experience. “It was at an amusement park, and he was with another nanny or somebody. Not his mom and dad, and the woman was really struggling with him. I lent her a hand, and she told me that she was quitting.”
Naomi chuckled, recalling that interaction.
“I just didn’t know that she meant she was quitting at that very moment.
She shared how she couldn’t possibly do it anymore, and she didn’t know how anybody could do it on their own.
The man of business appeared, found me looking after Ricky, just as this other woman had told him.
She basically walked away. At least she notified someone other than me.
So I was hired on the spot. Ricky and I had gotten along really well, especially considering that he was fairly traumatized by the whole thing.
He was also three years younger,” she added.
“I’ve been looking after him ever since. ”
He stared at her, and she nodded. “I know, and a lot of people would say, Why don’t you have your own kids? Why don’t you do something with your degree? But,” she explained, “every time I think about leaving Ricky, my heart breaks because I know how traumatic it would be for him—and me.”
She lowered her voice and stared at Ricky’s closed bedroom door.
“If his parents were here and showed any signs of being overwhelmed with joy to finally have a chance to be with their son—and if he were overjoyed to be with them—it would be a different story,” she told Trent, trying hard to keep the anger out of her tone.
“Instead, what I have is a little boy who has been completely abandoned, and I can’t abandon him as well. ”
*
Trent had seen a lot of cases that broke his heart over the years, particularly overseas, where there wasn’t enough food to go around, and kids were on the streets, begging for just about anything to put in their stomachs. It just broke him to think about all those kids.
But to see Ricky right now, here in the Western world, with a well-to-do family who seemed to be completely callous and unmoved by his very existence?
… Trent just didn’t understand it. The more he heard, the less he liked it, and the whole thing made absolutely no sense.
How could somebody not want this little boy? Ricky was incredible.
The whole time they had been together, even in miserable conditions, Ricky had been polite, resourceful, and quiet. He hadn’t been a screamer; he hadn’t been bratty; he had been amazing. Now Trent realized that the bulk of that teaching had come from Naomi.
He could see why some people would say, Have your own kids instead of raising somebody else’s, but he also understood that she was caught in a way, simply because of the bond that had grown between them.
It would be hard on her, but it would be a lot easier if the family were to show some enthusiasm and were to say something like, Hey, we’re finally back.
Thank you so much for looking after him.
We absolutely appreciate all you’ve done, but now we are in a position to look after him ourselves.
Yet Naomi wasn’t seeing that, and frankly neither was he, and the whole situation was heartbreaking.
When he turned around, Naomi was in the kitchen, putting on the teakettle for a cup of tea, then handed him a stack of paperwork.
“This is what I have from the family,” she began, “and I know it’s not much, but the money comes in on a regular basis. They phone sometimes, sometimes … not.”
She hesitated, then admitted, “It’s more like once every month, usually when Ricky gets a little bit antsy and feels the pain, the loss, that whole it’s been too long kind of thing.
Then I send a text and ask them to call him and to help him to adjust to the fact that they’re away—and potentially that they will always be away,” she admitted.
“I don’t know how they expect him to even care about them when he’s an adult, and—”
She stopped, shook her head. “I don’t want to make judgments, but it’s very difficult for me to see a beautiful kid like Ricky and have it be so obvious that they’ve completely rejected him.
He came later in life for her, and she has two adult children.
So, it’s like Ricky’s an add-on, an afterthought,” she muttered.
“He’s not even an afterthought,” Trent corrected, staring at her. “I mean, in the last six months, how many times have you heard from them?”
She frowned, sat back a bit. “I don’t have the phone anymore, since that was lost in this fiasco, but I think we could pull up the records one way or another.
I can’t access them, since I don’t own the account, but surely you can.
” Frowning, she thought about what he had asked.
“As a guess, I would say maybe … four times.”
He stared at her. “Four times in six months?”
“Yeah, and usually only because I prodded them into making contact. So, if you take away those times, it’s probably only once or twice. They called one day because of some issue with the school, and I had to get some feedback as to how they wanted me to handle it.”
She took a deep breath. “Basically I think they just paid the school more money, and everything went away,” she grumbled, with a shrug.
“I am paid very well, and the apartment I have here, everything is taken care of. All my expenses are covered, and all his expenses are covered. I think the status quo works for them, until there’s a problem.
The minute there’s a problem, I can expect to be removed, and somebody else put into place.
Hopefully someone who won’t give them a problem. ”
Trent snorted. “Meaning that, when you took over from the other woman, you were just put into place because that was a simple answer?”
“Kind of,” she replied cheerfully. “I don’t know.
She left a little boy alone on the street.
Yes, I was with him, but, if I wasn’t there, it could have been anyone.
One thing she told me was that she was never supposed to be his mom.
It was supposed to be a nanny situation, not a 100 percent responsible parent situation. ”
Naomi continued. “So, for her, I get that it was definitely not a good fit. For me, it was different, strange, but it’s okay. I’m not about to leave him. Ricky obviously needs somebody, and I’m currently that somebody, at least until some other somebody shows up,” she pointed out, with a groan.
She scrubbed her face with her hands, obviously tired and looking for her own hot shower and bed.
“And I keep …” She gave a heavy sigh. “I keep preparing myself for the inevitable. I know this is not a permanent position. It can’t be.
He’s not my son, but, wow, it’s been three years.
I am here twenty-four hours a day, and it’s taken time, but we’re bonded now.
I can’t imagine somebody else taking that same amount of time or being removed from this post so that somebody else could come in. ”
He didn’t interrupt her, letting her vent.