the baby formula, which would have been a felony to Zoe.
“She had her lying flat in her arms, not propped up as I showed her because of the apnea, and she wasn’t wearing the monitor.” Zoe was almost in tears as she said it, but it sounded reasonable to him. If Jamala was holding her, she would see if she stopped breathing, which had never happened again anyway, and he was sick of the malfunctioning monitor too, which constantly woke the baby, and all of them, out of a sound sleep. “She didn’t follow my rules. It could have killed Jaime.”
“She was holding her, Zoe. She could see what was going on with her. She didn’t leave her alone in the room in her crib.” Jaime had outgrown the Moses basket by then, and slept in a crib. They had an additional crib in their now cramped bedroom, so she could sleep in the same room with them, which Zoe wanted most of the time, so she could watch her. She didn’t trust their video monitors, which they had in every room, in addition to the six hidden nanny cams, which Austin felt was overkill, to say the least.
“I don’t care. She didn’t do what I told her. I can’t trust her. I want to fire her. I canceled my afternoon and sent her home. I told the office I had a childcare emergency at home and my nanny got sick.”
“Don’t fire her, Zoe. The Johnsons raved about her, and they’re careful with their kids.” He had recently learned that many people they knew weren’t, especially by Zoe’s standards. “You know how hard it was to find her. How many people did you interview? Thirty? Forty? Fifty? Give her another chance. You’ll never get back to work if you keep firing nannies.” He was discouraged at the thought and how rigid Zoe had become.
“I’m questioning if I even should go back. I’m not sure there are decent nannies out there.” She was appalled by the level of incompetence of the au pairs her sisters-in-law hired and had told Austin she wouldn’t leave a dog with them, if they had one, which they didn’t. She thought it would be unsanitary for Jaime, and cats were known to carry diseases that could be lethal to kids, so pets were out for the moment. Austin wanted Jaime to grow up with a dog, as he had. His brothers had a chocolate Lab and a golden retriever for their kids, but they were older than Jaime. Austin thought it was a great way to teach kids responsibility. But Zoe hadn’t had a dog as a child or as an adult, so she wasn’t sympathetic to the idea. He was planning to work on that in the future.
“Why don’t you give her another chance?” he said gently about Jamala. He could only imagine the commotion if Zoe had to take more time off to find another nanny, and he liked Jamala, and thought she was perfect with Jaime, loving, kind, and competent.
“I’ll think about it,” she growled at him, her voice shaking with anger. She was still livid when he got home that night, and was holding Jaime after a feeding, so she couldn’t put her down for another hour, and then put her in her crib. She sat in the kitchen with Austin to have the dinner he had brought home. He had worked late and was too tired to cook. She was too upset to eat, but she listened to his arguments in favor of Jamala, skeptically, and finally agreed to keep her and give her another chance. She called the woman at home, who cried when she answered and apologized again. Zoe told her to come to work in the morning and they’d start over, but she had to respect the rules Zoe set for her, and Jamala assured her she would.
Jaime squealed with delight when she saw her the next morning, and Jamala looked happy and relieved as she took her from Zoe, and apologized again. The atmosphere between the two women was chilly, on Zoe’s side, and as they left for work together, Austin could see that the handwriting was on the wall. Zoe had made her mind up, and at the first slip Jamala would be out the door, for good next time. It seemed inevitable.
She lasted a month, until Zoe came home and found evidence that she had given Jaime applesauce from a baby food jar