Chapter 4 #4
Trent studied her. “So, here’s a question for you. How do you know that you were meeting his family? How do you know it was his family who made the arrangements? How do you know that it wasn’t something else completely, with some other reason for doing this instead?”
She frowned at him as she bit her bottom lip. “I’ve actually considered that,” she told him cautiously, “and I don’t have any way of knowing the truth. All I know is that the call came from their special phone number. You’ll see it in there if you can get the records. It would be on the call log.”
He nodded.
“It’s so annoying that I don’t have my phone anymore.”
“We can get you a phone,” he stated, “and that will allow you to have access back again.”
“But it won’t give me my call history, not without the SIM.”
“Right,” he confirmed, “but the call to go sailing was from that special number, the number only the parents used?”
“It was that number,” she stated, “and Ricky got really excited because he recognized it too. He was telling me all about the name of their yacht and how he absolutely loved the swimming pool in it.” Trent’s eyes widened at that, and she nodded.
“I have to admit, I was pretty excited myself. I was thinking, wow, this will be a really nice holiday. The two of us could use it. We’ve had a hell of a time at moments.
He’s been very good at school, and he’s improved tremendously health-wise.
He’s gotten stronger physically, and we’ve been working on his physiotherapy.
I mean, I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to shine for a change. ”
She was venting, and he let her.
“But still, I wasn’t sure how much shining he would be allowed to do in this situation because I don’t know what the relationship is actually like with the siblings, you know?
Sometimes in families, there’s no room for anyone else to shine because certain siblings have it all,” she pointed out.
“I’ve seen that happen a lot as a teacher, and it’s heartbreaking when there’s obvious favoritism, and yet you can do nothing about it.
I’ve tried to fix stuff like that before, and it doesn’t work.
Parents will be blind and see only what they want to see.
So, as a teacher, you can’t really do anything except sit there and watch as somebody else is hurt.
That’s a trauma the children take with them into adulthood and beyond.
It’s just ridiculous,” she noted. “I don’t see how anybody can play favorites like that. ”
“And yet you mentioned how Ricky was an unexpected addition to the family.”
“Yes, my understanding was that she was in her late forties, or something like that, and nobody was thinking pregnancy.”
“Of course not,” Trent agreed, “and that would be a shock. But then they had options, and they could have terminated the pregnancy. I’m obviously delighted that didn’t happen, as he’s such a great kid, but, if they’re wealthy, they could have made that happen anywhere.”
“Maybe, I don’t know.” She winced. “Maybe it was too late, and she didn’t find out in time. I don’t know,” she muttered, raising her hands. “I don’t understand any of it.”
“They’ve never called you looking for an update health-wise?”
“No, not since the first couple months,” she shared.
“I did get a couple phone calls in the beginning to make sure that I seemed to have a handle on things. Honestly, I think they were just congratulating themselves on having a teacher for a nanny because I could tutor him as well.” She just stared at him and shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“There’s nothing you can say,” he replied. “I mean, the reality is you were hired to be a replacement mother.”
“I guess,” she muttered. “The trouble is, there’s a certain amount of heartbreak to being a replacement mother, particularly if and when the family decides to come home and to take back that role. Even though I say I’m preparing for it—”
“You can’t prepare for that,” he declared.
“You know that the time will come, but it’s also not something you can sit and look forward to or can prepare yourself or him for that particular heartbreak.
You can’t sit there and say, Hey, now is the time, so let me just go deal with this, because obviously that’s not how life works. ”
“No,” she grumbled, staring off into the distance. “Early on, I did have a few times when, … let’s just say I did some second-guessing. Yet, over time, you just come to understand that this is how it is, and you do the best you can.”
She snorted. “And it’s not without its perks.
I mean, everything is paid for. So, my rather hefty paycheck goes straight into my bank account.
Thus, whenever this is over, I will be in a good financial position to go on to something else that I might want to do,” she muttered.
“But, my heart, on the other hand, will not be in good shape at all.”
She gave him a lopsided smile and asked, “So, can we talk about something happier now? I need sleep tonight, and this conversation is guaranteed to get in the way of that.”
He let it rest because she did need to get some rest, and the potential realities she now faced would keep for another night at least.