Always Then and Now

Chapter 11

LIAM

I was frustrated.  I’d felt like we’d been making real progress for a minute there; we’d shared a couple of jokes, and she’d actually made eye contact.  I’d felt like maybe we’d finally turned a corner, that I’d finally been given an opportunity to start to see the person Hannah really was.  But then Emily had attracted our attention, and it had been like the bubble had burst; she’d shut right down again.  No more eye contact.  No more smiles.  I didn’t know why it affected me so much. 

Maybe Kate was right; maybe I was just used to people seeking me out and trying to impress me.  Maybe I just didn’t know how to handle someone who wasn’t bending over backwards for me.  Was my need to engage Hannah and develop a working relationship with her borne of a need to ensure that Emily would be well-taken care of?  Or did Hannah’s aloofness and seeming discomfort around me spark a challenge in me to win her over?  It was a difficult idea to process. 

I thought it might be a bit of both.  I needed a good working relationship with her so that she could teach me how to best raise Emily, but the challenge was definitely there as well, especially after having a taste of a real conversation with her.  It made me want more.  It made me want to see if I could elicit more real conversations from her.

I sighed.  Kate had told me to keep trying to draw her out of her shell, and I was going to do just that.  I wasn’t sure how, but I would do what I could.  Maybe as she taught me how to be a parent, I could help her find her confidence.  It’d be a win-win situation.

My phone ringing snapped me from my thoughts.  Shaking my head to clear it, I picked it up and answered, turning my mind back to work, where it belonged.

*****
I’d decided by mid-afternoon that I’d had enough of work for the day; I’d found myself unable to fully concentrate on what I was doing anyway, and any other work that came up today could be done from home.  I was just about to head out when the door opened, and Roger walked in.

“Hey, where are you going?” he asked, checking his watch.

“Emily had kind of a rough night last night, so I’m heading home,” I told him, palming my keys in my pocket. 

“Why?” he asked, giving me a confused look as he moved into the room and sat down in the chair in front of my desk.  “Isn’t that Whatshername’s job?  That is why you hired her, you know.”

I sighed, then sat down again in my own chair.  We’d both been raised by nannies, but I’d at least gotten a taste of actual parental attention, unlike him.  I knew he wouldn’t understand.  “Yes, it’s Hannah’s job, but she had it rough last night too, and Emily is my kid.  I should be there when she needs me.”  I probably shouldn’t have come to work in the first place, now that I thought about it.  My paternal instincts were slow to set in.  I’d been thinking about the two of them all day, about how tired they both must be after being up for so much of the night, but it had taken me all day to decide that my place today should have been at home with them, being a parent. 

Roger scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “Please.  If that cow can’t take care of a toddler because of a little lost sleep, then why the hell is she a nanny in the first place?  Maybe she’d have more energy if he laid off the Twinkies and cupcakes.”

The memory of Hannah’s hurt expression when Roger had made his comment about me not being tempted by the nanny popped into my mind, and I shot Roger a cold look.  “Knock it off.  You’re just pissed because I chose Hannah over that 21-year-old college dropout you had in mind.  I never wanted to be a parent, but now that I am one, I need someone who can help be a good one, for Emily.  Which means hiring someone because they have experience with kids, not just because they’re hot.”

“She was hot,” he agreed, getting a faraway look in his eyes.  No doubt picturing this poor woman naked. 

“So then, you ask her to be your nanny,” I said dryly, standing up again.  This conversation needed to end.  Roger was brilliant in business and he was my best friend, but a sensitive guy, he was not. 

“Now there’s a good idea,” he said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on the edge of my desk as he considered it.

It was my turn to roll my eyes as I knocked his feet off my desk.  “Think about it in your own office.  I’m out.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”  I opened the door and gave him a pointed look. 

With a sigh, he got up and preceded me out of the office.  I followed and shut the door behind me, then turned on my heel and headed out to my car to head home.

*****

The house was quiet when I entered.  Every other day I’d come home this week, I’d been able to hear Emily’s high-pitched laughter and Hannah’s soft, melodical voice, so the quiet house today just sounded…empty.  Wrong.  That thought shocked me.  How had I gotten so used to having people in my house in such a short time?

I moved through the house, in search of Emily and Hannah.  Had they gone out for the day?  I’d come home earlier than usual, and I realized now that I had no idea what the two of them did during the day while I worked.  I’d have to change that.  This whole situation had been a shock to me, but it was slowly sinking in that it was permanent.  I hadn’t ever had plans to have children, but Emily was here, and she was mine, so I had to adapt to include her in my life.  And that meant getting to know her and actually raising her, not just leaving all the work to Hannah to do the raising for me.

I made my way to Emily’s room and opened the door, poking my head inside to see if they were in there.  They were.  Curled up in Emily’s toddler bed together, Hannah was fast asleep.  She had on her usual jeans and t-shirt (A Care Bears one today), her red hair still up in its messy bun, but she looked so peaceful, laying there, every ounce of tension absent from her face.  It made her look younger.  I couldn’t help but smile, wishing I could see her without that tension all the time.  It’d been like that for a brief moment this morning, when we’d seemed to click, but then the moment had passed, and all that tension had come crashing back in again.  It made me further resolved to do what I could to ease her discomfort around me.  She’d been really good with Emily so far; I didn’t want to jeopardize our working relationship because I always made her feel uncomfortable.

Speaking of Emily, she was just laying in the bed, snuggled up against Hannah, quietly playing with one of her dolls.  She looked up at me and gave me a big smile, and I smiled back at her, quietly moving into the room and pressing my fingers to my lips.  “Shh,” I whispered to her as I moved to the side of her bed.  “Hi Pumpkin.  Do you want to come play with Daddy?  Let’s let Hannah sleep a little more.”

She nodded and sat up, raising her arms to me, and I leaned down and carefully picked her up, making sure to keep from jostling Hannah too much.  We left the room as quietly as we could, and I closed the door gently behind me before bringing Emily out into the living room to play.