who was seated with Sammy at the far end of the room, where it was quieter—she couldn’t help but wish she’d found a way to keep her baby, to raise him herself.
Then she wouldn’t be caught in this web of lies, trying to decide whether it would be possible to live next door to her son without revealing her true relationship to him.
She barely realized she was staring dreamily into space until Florence waved a hand in front of her face. “I think Dr. Jack is trying to get your attention,” she said, her eyes alight with curiosity. “You’d better go talk to him.”
Arianna snapped to awareness, looked in Jack’s direction and saw that he was indeed beckoning to her.
Quickly, she finished her last bites of rice and beans. “It was nice talking to you,” she said to her extremely observant neighbor. She took both their dishes to the washing area and then headed over to Jack, mixed gladness and dread in her heart.
Any day she could see Sammy was a good day. But she was pretty sure Jack was about to turn down her nanny offer. And then she’d have to tell Penny she couldn’t take the apartment, and leave.
The thought of being away from her son after spending precious time with him made her chest ache, and she blinked away unexpected tears as she approached Jack and Sammy.
Sammy didn’t look up at her. He was holding up one finger near his own face, moving it back and forth.
Jack caught his hand. “Say hi, Sammy! Here’s Aunt Arianna.”
Sammy tugged his hands away and continued to move his finger in front of his face.
“Sammy, come on.”
Sammy turned slightly away from his father and refocused on his fingers.
“It’s okay,” Arianna said, because she could see the beginnings of a meltdown. “He doesn’t need to greet me. What’s up?”
“Look,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable.
Sammy’s hands moved faster, and he started humming a wordless tune. It was almost as if he could sense the tension between Arianna and Jack.
“It’s okay, Jack,” she said. “I get it. My being your nanny was a crazy idea.” Crazy, but oh, so appealing. She ached to pick Sammy up and hold him, to know that she could spend more time with him, help him learn, get him support for his special needs.
But it wasn’t her right.
“Actually,” he said, “that’s what I wanted to talk about. It does seem sort of crazy, but...I think I’d like to offer you the job.”
She stared at him, her eyes filling. “Oh, Jack,” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. Had he really just said she could have the job?
Behind her, the rumble and snap of tables being folded and chairs being stacked, the cheerful conversation of parishioners and community people, faded to an indistinguishable murmur.
She was going to be able to be with her son. Every day. She reached out and stroked Sammy’s soft hair, and even though he ignored her touch, her heart nearly melted with the joy of being close to him.
Jack’s brow wrinkled. “On a trial basis,” he said. “Just for the rest of the summer, say.”
Of course. She pulled her hand away from Sammy and drew in a deep breath. She needed to calm down and take things one step at a time. Yes, leaving him at the end of the summer would break her heart ten times more. But even a few weeks with her son was more time than she deserved.
“Would you like to go get a cup of coffee?” he asked. “Nail down the details? I think Penny would be willing to take Sammy for an hour or two.”
Arianna found her voice. “That’s okay,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt. “We can just talk it over at your house. Or here. Wherever.”
He frowned and cleared his throat. “I’d like to be a little more formal and organized about it,” he said as he started to collect Sammy’s things into his utilitarian gray diaper bag. “Draw up a contract, that sort of thing. We need to hammer out the terms.”
Hammer out the terms. What were the right terms for an aunt to become nanny to her secret son? “Okay, sure, I guess.”
“Meet you at the coffee shop in half an hour?”
“Sure.” Dazed, she turned and headed out to her car.
With God all things are possible. The pastor had said it, and she’d just witnessed its truth. She was being given a job, taking care of her son and had a place to live.
It was a blessing, a huge one. But it came at a cost: she was going to need to conceal the truth from Jack on a daily basis. And given the way her heart was jumping around in her chest, she wondered if she was going to be able to survive this much of God’s blessing.
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