Your Hand in Mine (Blackbird Series Book 2) Read online

  “Could you come by this Sunday so I can see how you interact with Olivia? I mean, I’ve seen you interact with her, but to tell you the truth I was half out of my mind by the time I got to your office. Oh…And I’ll pay you for your time of course.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I insist.”

  “Ok then.” I pull out my phone. “I’ll give you my number so you can send me the address.”

  After he programs my number into his phone, he says, “See you Sunday at noon.”

  He turns to go, and I watch as he stops to shake hands with a few people and say his goodbyes. Meanwhile, I stand rooted in place long after he’s gone.

  What in the hell did I just sign up for?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Leo

  I’m standing in the kitchen, looking around wondering what’s the correct protocol for this odd job interview. Should I put out snacks, order some pizza? I tell myself no, that I’m not looking to impress this girl, but the truth is that I’m damn near desperate.

  I came home a few nights ago after that fundraiser to find Maureen snoring on the couch with some obscene reality show playing on the television. And Olivia? She was wide awake eating potato chips next to Maureen, watching with rapt attention.

  I had to take a few breaths to calm myself, because the truth is that I can’t fire Maureen. So instead I carried Olivia upstairs as she wiped her greasy fingers on my dress shirt and then left salty crumbs in my beard when she kissed me goodnight, went back down and turned off the television right before two deck hands were about to go at it in their shoebox-sized cabin, and then nudged Maureen’s shoulder. She woke with a start, looking around to orient herself.

  “What time is it?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

  “Just about eleven.”

  She shook her head. “Just about an hour after you said you’d be home.” Getting up off the couch, she yawned. “I’m past my bedtime.”

  I swallowed back my snarky retort because she was right, I did say I’d be home by ten o’clock. And maybe I shouldn’t be asking a woman her age to work nights.

  “What time do you need me tomorrow, Leo?”

  “I’m taking the next few days off, so…”

  “So call me when you need me.” Smiling as she grabbed her sweater off the back of the couch, she looked to me cocking her head. “Oh, and we had apples with peanut butter for snack, just in case you were wondering.”

  I wanted to shoot back, Was that before or after the Doritos? But again I held my tongue.

  “Honey, are you coming down? She should be here any minute.”

  I made the mistake of telling Libby on Friday that Skylar was coming over to see her today, and she’s been asking me, “Is it Sunday yet?” ten times a day every day since.

  I look up to the top of the stairs to see that Olivia has changed into her Halloween costume, a frilly pastel blue concoction that’s no doubt fashioned after some Disney princess. It’s still got chocolate smeared on it from last week.

  Nice.

  She’s also made an attempt to do her hair with what looks like twenty sparkly clips tangled up into a rat’s nest, and is that lipstick on her lips? Where the hell did she get that?

  Right as I’m heading upstairs to get her cleaned up and looking the way she did twenty minutes ago, the doorbell rings.

  Perfect.

  “Uh, hi.”

  Her smile is practiced and uneasy as she returns my greeting and hands me a plate wrapped in plastic. “I like to bake so, um, I made carrot muffins.”

  “I love carrot muffins!”

  Skylar turns in the direction of Olivia’s voice and then covers her mouth to stifle her surprise. And she’s good, I’ll give her that, because I’m finding it hard not to laugh at my daughter in her current state. She looks like a slightly deranged, washed-up Hollywood starlet looking to make an entrance as she saunters down the stairs.

  “Wow. That’s some dress, Libby.”

  “It’s my costume.”

  “It’s fabulous. And I like your sparkly clips.” Skylar unclips one from the side of her own head. “I have these boring old brown ones, same color as my hair. Maybe I should get myself some of those.”

  “I think you should wear purple.”

  “Yeah, I like purple. Maybe you can do my hair someday.”

  I notice that Skylar’s got a heavy bag slung over one shoulder so I gesture to help her with it. “What’s all this?”

  She barely gives me a passing glance as she hands the bag off to me, turning her attention back to Olivia when she says, “Just some stuff to play with. Art supplies, flash cards…Lots of stuff.”

  Olivia comes over and peers into the bag. “Do you have dolls?”

  “No, but I bet you have some of those in your room, right?” When Olivia nods her head, Skylar says, “Me and my sister used to play school all the time when we were little. We’d sit our dolls up in chairs and pretend we were the teachers.”

  “I like to pretend.”

  “Me too.” Skylar finally looks up and makes eye contact with me. “Do you want to play, too?”

  Her question confuses me for a split-second before I understand that she’s asking me how this is supposed to go.

  “Uh, I have some work I need to get done if you two don’t mind playing without me.”

  Olivia is already trying to sling Skylar’s bag over her shoulder and lead her upstairs. “You wanna see my room?”

  Skylar looks back to check and see if it’s all right with me, and I nod my head once, feeling more than just a little uncomfortable. It’s not that I don’t trust Skylar, for some reason I instinctively do, it’s just that I feel awkward. I’m in my own home, interviewing her for this job, and yet I’m the one who feels off-kilter. It’s like I’m eager for her to approve of me when it should be the other way around.

  I do have work to do, but I spend the next twenty minutes moving about the house restlessly, wondering what it is that I should be doing.

  Should I be standing outside of Olivia’s open bedroom door, watching the two of them interact? I felt intrusive the one time I paused in the doorway so I moved on, pretended I had to put in a load of wash. Going downstairs and totally being out on the action doesn’t seem right either, and I certainly don’t feel like I can plop down on the rug and join in on this game of school they’ve got going.

  I settle on standing in the hallway out of sight like a creeper. And within two minutes I’m smiling, the sound of Olivia’s laughter lighting me up from the inside. She’s a happy kid by nature—it’s not like this Skylar girl is performing some kind of magic trick by making her laugh—but I have to admit that I like what I’m hearing. Skylar is kind to my daughter, she’s attentive and she’s kind of goofy.

  And seriously, my alternative is Maureen, so short of being an absolute mental case, acing this interview won’t be all that difficult. Maureen has set the bar pretty damn low.

  Poking my head in, I ask, “Libs, you want to help me with a snack? We can have Skylar’s carrot muffins.”

  When Skylar unfolds her legs from underneath her and stands, Olivia follows. “Muffins!” she squeals as she grabs onto Skylar’s hand.

  It’s a little embarrassing, the level of excitement Olivia is displaying. She’s not just holding Skylar’s hand, she’s clutching it like she never wants to let go. But Skylar takes it in stride, going downstairs with her hand in hand, telling Olivia that if she likes the muffins then they can make them together someday.

  “Do you want coffee?”

  “I’m a tea drinker, but thanks anyway. Water is good for now.”

  “I want water, too.”

  I raise my eyebrows at this but don’t question Olivia. I’ve been trying to reverse the bad habit I started when I swapped her baby bottle out for juice boxes a long time ago, and I haven’t had much success.

  “Good, you have a toaster oven. These taste so much better when they’re warm with a little butter.” Focusing on me
, Skylar asks, “Does Libby have any allergies?”

  “No. Ah, none that I know of anyway.”

  “Good. I was just thinking that back home I make this honey butter that can even make bran muffins taste incredible, but then I was thinking that, you know, honey, peanuts…I don’t know if anything is off limits.”

  “No. I’m glad you asked but I think she’s good.”

  “Olivia,” Skylar’s now crouched down, “you can get the butter out of the fridge and I’ll warm the muffins.” Looking up to me she asks in a way that’s not really a question, “You’re in charge of drinks?”

  I nod and I obey.

  Both of us do.

  I’m at the water cooler, you know, the one that dispenses purified, crystal-clear water that comes from the most pristine mountain spring in Vermont. It sits in a corner and I haven’t had to replace the bottle in ages because my daughter refuses to drink it and I’ve developed a nasty energy drink habit myself.

  I’m beating myself up over the bad example I’ve been setting when Skylar’s soft voice interrupts my internal chatter.

  “What’s up, hon? Having trouble finding it?”

  I turn to see her standing next to Olivia, both of them peering into the refrigerator, but it’s Skylar’s ass that catches my eye.

  The girl is beautiful in a way that would punch the air from any straight man’s lungs. The other night at that university fundraiser, I spotted her from across the room. Didn’t recognize her dressed the way she was, looking like one of the faculty, but I’m usually bored out of my mind at those events so I found myself watching her. She was going at the table of hors d’oeuvres like she hadn’t eaten all day, which amused me at the time.

  It doesn’t say much about me that I didn’t even recognize her until that simpering jerk Thompson practically dragged her across the room to meet me. Until we were face to face I’d been focusing on her mouth and the one hand she was using to fiddle with a pendant that fell right between the cleavage her low cut dress exposed.

  I’m not a caveman but it’s been a long time. So when a beautiful woman catches my eye, I look. I don’t do more than that because my life isn’t suited for meeting people, for dating—for anything that takes more precious time away from my child.

  When Skylar turns to me with a tub of something in her hands and a look of pure disgust, I snap out of it and remind myself that I cannot do anything to screw this up.

  “You use margarine? I didn’t even think they made this stuff anymore.” She turns back to the refrigerator, studying the contents for a moment. “Hmm…I guess the muffins don’t need butter this time.”

  Once the three of us are seated, Skylar turns the tables on me and starts conducting the interview herself. I have to rattle off the name of Olivia’s school, how many days a week and the hours she attends. Skylar nods in approval. When she presses me on Olivia’s routine outside of school, I shrug my shoulders like I just got caught without my homework because in terms of routine, there’s none to speak of. I’m wiped out by the time she asks about Olivia’s favorite foods. My daughter takes over at that point, and I just basically sit there cringing as she rattles off her favorite picks from every drive-thru window in the greater Pittsburgh area.

  Skylar is looking to me with wide eyes now, so I feel the need to defend the indefensible. “I don’t have time to cook. And she, uh, refuses a lot of foods.” Looking down to see Olivia picking up bits of shredded carrots and raisins off her plate, I feel especially ridiculous adding, “I wind up throwing good food in the trash when I make the effort.”

  She just nods her head, judging me in silence. I feel like telling her to have at it because I’m in full agreement. Lab rats would turn their noses up at some of the stuff I feed Olivia.

  “Do you know what my favorite thing to do is?”

  My little girl’s eyes light up. “Play dress-up?”

  “Oh yeah, I love dress-up, but my favorite thing to do is cook. But the worst thing about living in my dorm at school is that I have to cook everything,” she pinches her thumb and forefinger together for emphasis, “in a teeny tiny toaster oven. It’s nothing like this beautiful kitchen.”

  As Olivia asks questions about this teeny tiny oven situation, I’m feeling pleased with myself as I see Skylar take in the six-burner Viking range, the Kitchen Aid mixer that’s never been used, the Jura coffee maker, and the other ridiculously expensive appliances Olivia’s mother demanded when we remodeled the kitchen.

  “Mr. Hale?”

  My wife never set foot in the kitchen once it was done to her exact specifications. Well, except for when she was uncorking some rosé from the Zephryr dual temperature-controlled wine refrigerator. Jeez, I think that alone retailed for fourteen hundred dollars.

  “His name is Leo like a lion,” Olivia corrects her.

  “Uh, Leo?”

  “Sorry, my mind drifted for a second there. What were you saying?”

  “Just that if you don’t mind, and that if I’m going to be coming by in the afternoons sometimes, I’d like to start teaching Olivia how to cook.”

  “She’s four.”

  Skylar smiles. “I’m not talking cheese souffle or anything, just the basics. It’s amazing the things kids will eat when they have a hand in preparing it.”

  “I love to cook!” Olivia says this while looking up at Skylar as if Snow White herself has landed right here in our very own kitchen.

  I can feel the worry lines forming on my forehead.

  What if Olivia gets too attached? What if this doesn’t work out? What does this Skylar know about my baby? Nothing, that’s what. She doesn’t know that Olivia still cries for her mother, a woman she couldn’t possibly have any memory of knowing.

  “Be right back!” Olivia chirps as she scoots off her chair and heads for the stairs.

  “Mr. Hale, I won’t let her handle knives or leave her unsupervised. I just thought,” she looks behind her to the counter where I’ve foolishly left out the selection of sugary cereals Olivia prefers, “you might want her to develop a love of good foods.”

  “Call me Leo.”

  “All right.”

  “And the cooking thing would be great. I haven’t had much success in that department.”

  She looks back to the stairs. “Before she comes down, can you just give me a little background about your situation…Like, is her mother in the picture?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that if she brings something up in conversation, I’d like to know what I’m dealing with.”

  I feel like I’m choking on the words when I answer, “No, her mother isn’t in the picture. At all.”

  Skylar looks relieved to be done with that awkward exchange when Olivia bounds back into the kitchen full speed with something in her hand. “I did this. You look like the pea princess in my book.”

  “This is a beautiful drawing. I don’t think I know the pea princess.”

  I clarify, “The Princess and the Pea.”

  Skylar’s eyes go wide in recognition. “Oh, right. I used to love that story.” Looking to Olivia, she says, “Maybe we can read it together next time.”

  “Now,” Olivia decrees, looking to me as her humble servant. I guess this is where I’m supposed to hop to it and retrieve the book.

  “Libby, your dad and I have to figure out what days I’ll be coming to see you this week and then we’ll plan what we’re going to do then. Sound good? You want to look at the calendar with us?”

  “Sure!”

  Skylar grabs a sheet of paper from her bag and hands it to me. “This is my class schedule. I’m pretty flexible outside of that except for Thursday nights. I have a club practice that I can’t miss unless it’s an emergency.” When Olivia starts looking through the set of alphabet cards sitting at the top of the bag, Skylar leans in and whispers, “I mean, I don’t want to assume or anything but—”

  “No, you’re hired.”

  How’s that for sounding desp
erate?

  Looking over her schedule, I see that she only has one early morning class on Tuesdays. “Can you start this Tuesday? It would be great if I could get a full day’s work in.”

  “Absolutely. I can be here by ten-thirty.”

  Feeling some absurd need to assert my authority, I tell her, “Tuesday it is, but I just want to make it clear that everything is still on a trial period basis.”

  She gives me a knowing smile, one that tells me she’s fully aware that I’m up shit’s creek but has decided to humor me.

  “Did you hear that Olivia?” Pointing to the wall calendar she says, “I’m going to see you, not tomorrow but the next day. And we get to spend all of Tuesday together.”

  My girl whoops it up in her little voice and claps her hands, which damn near breaks me. I can’t worry about every little thing, I tell myself. But it’s no use. When it comes to my daughter, it feels like it’s all I do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leo

  I hardly ever check the thing anymore.

  The first day she worked I was checking the nanny cam regularly, had the audio feed playing in the background all day as I tried in vain to get some work done. I listened in and caught myself smiling on and off all day as Olivia chatted happily, looking to impress this new person, and as Skylar listened patiently and then gently directed her charge through a range of activities that would have left me passed out on the couch.

  With each passing day I paid less attention. I trusted in Skylar.

  By the end of the first month I was letting out a giant sigh of relief while praying this ideal arrangement would last.

  Now nearly three months in, it’s about as perfect as it can get, aside from a few hiccups. When I went to hand Skylar her pay in cash at the end of the first week, she looked beyond uncomfortable, insisting that it was too much. What she still doesn’t realize is that I’d willingly pay three times that amount for the peace of mind her presence gives me. A wire transfer makes it less awkward for her, so that’s what I’ve been doing. And the grocery thing was tough, but we got past that too.