Plan B when I opened the door to find a small child staring up at me. She had white-blonde hair tied back in a loose plait, a pink gingham dress with a strap hanging off one shoulder, both arms behind her back. Round green eyes shone through turquoise spectacles, and I noticed that someone had drawn pictures all over her hands and bare legs in red felt-tip. She surveyed me curiously.
“Are you my new nanny?” she said.
“I’m . . . I’m Sophie,” I said.
It sickened me to lie to a child, I swear, but I could hear Tom’s footsteps on the stairs.
“I’m Gaia,” she said. “I’m six. How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-eight.”
“My mumma’s in heaven,” she said.
This was a sucker punch to my heart. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
“This is my teddy,” she said, producing an old teddy from behind her back with floppy limbs, a tweed waistcoat, and a missing eye. “He’s not feeling very well today.”
It was clear that there would be no sprinting out the front door, so I crouched down in front of her and said, “What’s your teddy’s name?”
“Louis.”
“And why’s Louis not feeling very well?”
“He’s just feeling a bit sad. And he has a sore tummy.”
“Ah,” Tom said, reaching the top of the stairs. “I see you’ve met Gaia and Louis.” He winked at Gaia. “How are you doing, pudding?”
“Daddy!” She ran to him with her arms out, wrapping them around his legs and burying her face in his thigh. “Is this my new nanny?” she said, glancing back at me.
Tom scooped her up and grinned at me. “Well, that depends.”
“On what?”
“Shall we introduce Sophie to Coco?”
Tom gestured for me to follow him into one of the bedrooms and I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of I have to go now, but somehow I found myself in the sweetest child’s bedroom I’d ever seen, more a mini apartment than a bedroom, with thick cream carpet, powder-blue velvet curtains, and peachblossom walls, a crescent moon made out of twinkling LED lights, a miniature hot-air balloon as a chandelier, and enough toys to fill a crèche, including a plush, twelve-foot toy giraffe. The name Coco was hand-painted in fancy gold lettering across a wall, and when I looked over the white sleigh cot I saw a little girl in a Babygro hanging on to the bars, her legs wobbling as she looked up and threw me a wet smile.
“I’m Ellen,” a voice said. “How do you do?”
I hadn’t noticed the woman in a long green dress sitting by the crib. She was cross-legged, her arms held out in that absentminded way I’d seen mothers do when their babies were learning to walk. The nanny who Maren mentioned before. The one who couldn’t go to Norway.
“Sophie,” I said, uneasily. Coco let go of the bars and plopped down on her bottom, then turned around and started to crawl. Tom bent down and scooped her up. Blonde, downy curls around her neck, like a little duckling, the same wide green eyes as Gaia. She was adorable.
“And this is Coco,” Tom said, planting a kiss on her cheek.
I was struck by how young Coco was, particularly since her mother had passed away.
“She’s nine months old,” Tom told me; it was as though he was thinking the same thing. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then pulled himself together. I can tell when people do that. “She’s just learning to crawl,” he said then, his voice slightly loud. “And she can say Dada. Say Dada, Coco. Da-da.”
Coco smiled wetly at him. “Ma-ma,” she said. “Ma-ma. Ma-ma.”
The room was suddenly charged with emotion, and I felt my lies pressing down on me like lead weights. But just then, Coco reached out to me, both her hands open wide. Tom passed her to me and I took her, feeling the lovely warmth of her in my arms. I swear, I’ve never been remotely maternal or gooey over other people’s kids—quite the opposite, especially during the drool stage—but there was something different about Coco and Gaia. Or maybe I just related to their loss.
It was clear that Coco had an interest in my hair—she grabbed on to it and yanked it hard, and even when Tom stepped forward to undo her grip she did it again and laughed hysterically. I pulled a face and she clapped her hands together and laughed again. I pulled another face and she squealed in delight.