help with the writing, you two can tell me what to write and then Hannah can read it when you get home.”
“Can we write about the big planes?” Pablo asked.
“Sure, that would be a great start. We’ll get a notebook as soon as we get to your grandmother’s. And I have my camera with me. We’ll take pictures so you can remember.” She pulled out a digital camera and snapped a few shots of the planes they could see, and also took a couple of the boys in the busy terminal. She loved keeping journals of the trips, both for herself and the children she watched.
“I can’t wait to go on the plane,” Juan said.
Before she could say more the first boarding announcement sounded and she smiled at him. “We get to get on it now.”
She nodded at to the other woman. “Have a good flight.”
The boys ran back toward their father, pulling on her hands. “We get to go inside the plane now, Daddy!”
“So I heard,” Luis said, rising. Laptop in hand, he motioned to them to precede him and in only moments they were inside the first-class cabin.
“Daddy, that other lady said we look like Stacey. We don’t, we look like us,” one of the twins said, bouncing up and down on his seat.
Luis looked at her questioningly.
“I think she thought they were mine. Blond hair, blue eyes. Not much of a resemblance beyond that.”
“Melissa, their mom, had blonde hair, darker than yours, more like honey. Her eyes were light blue.”
They had the four seats in one row, two each side of the aisle. “I’ll sit by one of the boys for part of the trip and you the other. We can switch halfway through,” Luis suggested as they matched boarding passes to seat assignments.
“Perfect,” she said. That’d give her time to visit with the each boy individually and learn more about them.
Juan sat next to her in the window seat. Pablo sat in the window seat next to his father. Stacey knew that Pablo was shy around strangers, though she hoped he’d warm up to her quickly. They’d be together a lot over the next three weeks.
As the jumbo jet made a smooth take-off, Luis leaned back in his seat and looked across the aisle at the new nanny. She was bent close to Juan, listening as his son regaled her with some tale. For a moment he wished he could capture the sight in a photograph. His boys were special. He wished they’d forever be as happy as Juan looked right now. He didn’t often see that expression.
It was at special moments like this he missed Melissa with an ache that seemed destined to never fade. She had missed every moment of their lives, dying of an aneurism before delivering Pablo. She’d never even held her sons. At every milestone, he offered up the hope that Melissa knew, somewhere, somehow.
Stacey enjoyed sitting by Juan, happy he was so easy to travel with. He talked her ear off non-stop from the time the doors closed until the flight was airborne. He’d loved looking out the window until land was left behind. He thought the ocean was boring. Once or twice she glanced over at Luis and Pablo. That twin was quieter. He seemed intent on coloring in pages his father produced from the packet Hannah had sent. Her own contributions to keep the children entertained had yet to be opened. Hannah had packed small toys they could play with in the confined space of their seats.
Luis settled Pablo then opened his laptop and seemed totally engrossed with whatever he was reading, his expression thoughtful, his eyes focused on the screen. His hair was a bit mussed. Had he run his fingers through when she’d not been looking?
And why was she looking? She was here for the children, not to watch the father. Had it been just over twenty-four hours ago that she had met him for the first time? She’d returned to her office after meeting the boys and studied the interview sheets with more intensity than normal. He was widowed. He was head of a very successful software development firm. And he was so good looking he should carry a warning label.
When she’d gone home, she’d looked him up on the internet, and found the article Stephanie had mentioned that listed him as one of New York’s most eligible bachelors. No mention of his kids. Several tremendous photographs, however, would have everyone in New York recognizing him if they met him on the street.
She turned back to Juan. How lucky Luis was to have his twins. She hoped they were making family memories for the boys to cherish in the future. She only had vague memories of her own mother and father. She’d been six when delivered to Grams, her sister Savannah only four. And her mother’s mother had been arthritic and grumpy and already in her mid-sixties. If Stacey hadn’t had her sister, she didn’t know what she would have done. Savannah and she had made the most of whatever Grams had offered, but they hadn’t had much materially or done much outside the home. No travel, no vacations. When she’d turned eighteen, she’d deliberately set out to change her future for the better.
Stretching slightly, she acknowledged her own good luck to spend the next three weeks at some Spanish villa by the sea. When growing up in Palmerville, West Virginia, she’d dreamed about the sea. Now her best assignments were the ones at the beach. Thankfully the rich and famous liked the beach as much as she did.
During the meal service, she assisted Juan in cutting his meat and helping with his beverage. Once the meal service ended, she asked if Luis wanted to switch boys. Juan protested about going to sit by his dad, he wanted to stay with Stacey. Since the seats were large, she agreed and Pablo joined them. Soon the three of them were engrossed in putting together a puzzle she’d brought. The boys had never done a jigsaw puzzle before and vied with each other to match pieces to the spaces, often trying to force them in until Stacey explained they needed to reconstruct the picture and pieces in wrong places simply would not do!
She glanced again at her new employer. He was still working on the laptop, but she knew the battery would be dying soon. Then what would he do?
Her years working in this job had convinced her business tycoons didn’t have a family gene. They might want a family, but it was mainly for show or to leave the family fortune to. Children were nice to have brought out to meet associates and then shunted off in the care of someone else.
Her grandmother had been sickly, but she’d done her best for Stacey and her sister. She’d read to them, and taught them how to keep house, cook, mend clothes. All of it accompanied with family stories about relatives who had died without Stacey ever meeting them. Still, those were her family memories of growing up. Poor, deprived of bicycles and other toys her schoolmates had enjoyed, she still had those cherished memories. She missed her grandmother.
Growing up poor, however, had fostered the desire to enjoy luxury, hence the idea of being a temporary nanny, where she got to travel to exotic locations. While not participating in the activities of the parents, the children still had wonderful amenities that she would have loved as a child and she did her best to give each child a wonderful memory of the vacation, whether spending time with their parents or not.
She wondered about her current boss. He’d mentioned spending summers in Spain. With his parents? Or had he been shuffled off to get out of the way for their own lifestyles? She doubted she’d ever find out. Curiosity had her wondering about him while his children played quietly. Soon she’d try to get them to sleep a bit. It was already dark outside. They’d be landing in Madrid early in the morning. Sleep was required!
Midway through the flight the boys gave up and she reclined the seat they shared, covered them with a
