being asked to fix everything. I’m not, really. But. It’s annoying. They want their perfect day.”
“Sam, I had no idea!” Elisabeth said. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Before she could respond, the baby started to cry.
Elisabeth groaned as she stood up. “Be right back. His new thing is throwing his pacifier out of the crib so I have to go in there and get it. Why couldn’t I have a thumb-sucker? You can’t lose your thumb.”
Sam sat on the sofa and watched TV. When Elisabeth still hadn’t returned several minutes later, Sam turned her laptop around to see what she’d been looking at.
The browser was open to Facebook. The page was one Elisabeth had made fun of in the past, full of overly analytical Brooklyn mothers, the type who started thinking about their kids’ Harvard applications while they were in utero.
Elisabeth must have been in the middle of writing a comment on a post when Sam came in. The cursor hovered there, blinking, right after the words So grateful to you, Mimi! You saved the
Sam scrolled to the top to see who Mimi was and what exactly she had saved.
The original post was Elisabeth’s. Sam’s eyes rushed through the words: My son’s incredible babysitter…one of the brightest young women I’ve ever known…It is her DREAM…Matilda Grey…Please help me stop her from making a colossal mistake and marrying her creepy British boyfriend and wasting all her talents!!
Someone had asked if Clive had bad teeth. Elisabeth answered in the affirmative.
Sam was shaking as she took it in. The job hadn’t just come to her. Someone was taking pity, at Elisabeth’s request.
Elisabeth had never let on for a second.
Sam got up, and stormed past Gil’s room. Elisabeth, in shadow, stood over the crib.
Sam ran down the stairs.
Elisabeth called after her in a whisper, “Where are you going?”
She didn’t reply. She reached the front hallway.
Elisabeth followed.
“Sam!” she said. “Wait! What’s going on?”
Sam spun around and faced her.
“Thank you so much for trying to stop me from marrying my—how did you put it?—‘creepy British boyfriend’?”
Elisabeth seemed to deflate right there in front of her. “Shit,” she said.
“You must think I’m a complete idiot,” Sam said. “Crying to you, getting so excited, and, all the time, you were the one pulling the strings.”
“I believe in you, Sam,” Elisabeth said. “I wanted to help.”
“By forcing someone to hire me?”
“Come on. I don’t have that kind of power. They hired you because you’re great. I only made the meeting happen.”
“I’m so sick of everyone thinking they know what’s best for me. What did Clive ever do to you, or to anyone, to deserve those things you said? He’s the kindest person I know.”
“Maybe so.”
Elisabeth’s voice was soothing, as if she were trying to calm a child mid-tantrum. “But I know you, Sam. You have this great family, you love kids, you’re super mature. You want to skip the big steps and be there. But everyone has to take those steps. It’s all the mistakes you make in the middle that determine how strong you are at the end. You can’t hide behind this thing with Clive forever.”
“Who made you the authority on my life?” Sam demanded.
“I’ve lived longer than you, that’s all. Clive is a sweet guy, but, Sam, do you really see a future with him?”
“What does that mean?”
“For one thing, he doesn’t have two pennies to rub together. A man that age should be able to put you up in a hotel.”
That she would take the details of Sam’s life and turn them into an accusation. It was humiliating.
“Maybe money doesn’t matter to me the way it does to you,” Sam said.
“That’s only because you don’t know anything yet,” Elisabeth said. “The people who know you best think he’s wrong for you. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Who?” Sam said.
“Your mother. Isabella. Me.”
“You’re not one of the people who know me best. You barely know me at all,” Sam said. “And I’m not sure where you got that about Isabella.”
“She told me.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’s worried. That nobody thought you and Clive would last this long. That she doesn’t understand why you’re marrying him. If I were you, I’d want to know why he’s so hell-bent on marriage. Something tells me he hasn’t told you everything about his past. I think Isabella feels the same way.”
“Have there ever been two greater experts on marriage than you and Isabella?” Sam said. “Don’t you have enough problems of your own to think about? Why