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  Cal found himself smiling down at his son for what might have been the first time that week. “Yeah. We can have waffles. I’m going to warn you, though, they might be shit. Or. Sorry. Poop. I forget that I can’t say that word in front of you.”

  “It’s okay, Cal,” Bobby said.

  “Anyway, I’ll try my hardest.”

  That was all he could do, right? His best, even if it wasn’t good enough. Who am I kidding? Cal thought to himself as he pulled out the ingredients to make waffles. I’m definitely going to fuck this poor kid up. Jesus help me.

  Chapter Four

  Antonia

  “Just…a little…more,” Antonia panted out as she lifted the heaviest box up the front stairwell of Mr. Amos’s residence. It was 6:50 in the morning, and she wanted to have everything moved into the house before 7, so time was ticking.

  “I can help, Mommy,” Daniel said from behind her, tugging on the bottom of her shirt to get her attention.

  Antonia leaned over after dropping the box down on the floor of the porch, gasping hard to try to get sufficient air in her lungs. It was time like these that she regretted being a smoker. “You okay, Mommy?” Daniel asked, grabbing her hand and squeezing hard like he was afraid she was about to slip away.

  “I’m fine, darling. I’m okay,” she said, breathing deeply a few more times before turning to walk back down the steps towards the car. “Mommy has to get these boxes in, okay? So just sit still for a few minutes and let me do this.”

  Over the next few minutes, she made quick work of the rest of their belongings. Their previous apartment had come fully furnished, so it really was just a few odds and ends, along with all of their clothes. She was just about to grab the biggest box again, preparing herself to carry it up the winding staircase in the entryway of Mr. Amos’s house so they could pick out a bedroom, when Mr. Amos appeared, tearing past them without even so much as a look.

  “Uh, good morning!” she called after him. He paused, turning back to look at her.

  “Oh, hey, um, here, catch,” he said, flinging his house keys towards her. Clearly he’d forgotten that she was coming at all. Antonia didn’t know whether to feel offended, or concerned that there was something wrong with the guy who’d hired her. “Food’s in the fridge, be home in, like, I don’t know, twelve hours. See you!” Mr. Amos took off into a run again, dashing to his driveway, where he hopped onto a motorcycle, then sped off down the road.

  “Okay…” Antonia said out loud, sighing a little apprehensively as she stared down at the clump of keys in her hand. There were at least a dozen keys on the keychain. She tried three or four for the door before she finally got the right fit, pushing open the huge front door to reveal Bobby standing there in his PJs.

  “Good morning,” Bobby said softly, yawning a little and waving at Daniel when he spotted him.

  “Good morning,” Antonia panted back, still not fully recovered from moving the boxes from her car. “Can you guys go sit on the couch for a minute while I deal with…all this?” She gestured to the pile of boxes and suitcases behind her on the porch. Bobby nodded and waved Daniel over to the couch, handing him his coloring book while they waited.

  It was another few minutes before Antonia had everything inside the house, and by then she was practically drenched in sweat, her tank top clinging to her chest. “Okay,” she said, more to herself than to either of the boys in the room. “Now to pick out a place to put this stuff…”

  “I have to go to the bathroom! Gotta pee!” Daniel suddenly announced.

  Oh, shit, Antonia thought, realizing that she had no idea where any of the bathrooms were. “Um….um…” she said out loud as she began marching down a hall, throwing open doors one by one looking for a toilet for her son, who only ever informed her of his need to urinate when his bladder was completely full. She didn’t have a whole lot of time to work with here, so after about thirty seconds of futile searching she started to resign herself to the idea that she was going to have to clean up her son’s pee within her first hour of her new job.

  “The potty is that way.” Bobby was pointing in the opposite direction, towards a nook hidden from sight behind the stairwell.

  “Oh, Jesus, thank you,” Antonia said in a rush, forgetting that she was talking to a four-year-old as she grabbed her son’s hand and dragged him to the bathroom. “Thank the Lord Christ, fuck,” she muttered under her breath as soon as her son made it to the toilet, shutting the door behind him.

  For a moment, she and Bobby just stared at each other, listening awkwardly as Daniel peed. But then curiosity got the better of Antonia, and she cleared her throat to ask Bobby a question, keeping her voice low so that Daniel wouldn’t overhear her.

  “So how have the past couple of days been for you, Bobby?” Antonia asked now that they were alone.

  “Okay,” Bobby said. “I mean, I miss my mom. I miss her a lot. Do you know when she’s coming to get me?”

  Antonia shook her head. “No, honey, I don’t. I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. The weight of the sadness in Bobby’s eyes crushed down on her. “But I’ll be here for you until she comes back, okay? I promise.”

  Bobby smiled a little sadly then, looking weirdly wise, like he was much older than he looked. “People always promise things,” he said, his eyes going hazy and unfocused as he stared off into the space over Antonia’s head, probably imagining things that weren’t there. Antonia felt a little twinge of pain, right in the center of her chest, as if Bobby had reached in with his tiny hand and given her heart a squeeze.

  She didn’t have time to come up with a response, however, as the next second her son reappeared, a relieved smile on his face as he rubbed his tummy and walked over to sit on top of one of the boxes of their stuff. “What’s for breakfast, Mommy?” he asked.

  Antonia groaned a little and wiped some of the sweat off her forehead. “Breakfast is…not going to be for another couple of minutes, guys,” she said, fidgeting with the hem of her tank top just to get some cool air against her skin. She really needed to work out more if even a tiny amount of exercise like moving exhausted her this badly. In any case, Antonia considered it a small victory when she finally got all the boxes and various bags up the stairs to the second level, where she began searching for the most modest, unassuming room possible for her and Daniel.

  “Jesus Christ, this house is huge,” Antonia sighed as she headed downstairs again for the kitchen after picking out the smallest bedroom,.

  “Yeah, I got lost a couple times,” Bobby said almost apologetically, as if it was his fault his father’s house was so unmanageably large.

  “Has your daddy had time to show you around yet?” Antonia asked tentatively as she began to search through the cabinets for breakfast options, unsure if she was crossing some invisible boundary with the young child.

  “He’s not my daddy,” Bobby said, matter-of-factly rather than petulantly. He talked like he was much older than he really was. Antonia wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks burning a little in embarrassment. She pulled out some cereal and checked to make sure it wasn’t stale before pouring out two bowls for the boys.

  “It’s okay,” Bobby assured her. “It’s just that my mommy told me never to call him that. You always have to listen to your mommy. Right?”

  Antonia wasn’t sure what to say. How could she say to him that sometimes mommies weren’t always right? That was probably too much for a four-year-old to understand, even one as smart and sensitive as Bobby appeared to be.

  Instead, she just changed the subject. “Are you hungry? Do you want some fruit with your cereal?”

  Bobby stared at her for a long moment, his eyes looking almost calculating, like he was able to see right through skull into her thoughts. It was a little unnerving, keeping her pinned to the spot until Daniel came up behind her and tugged at her hand. “Mommy, I’m so hungry.”

  “Okay, baby,” Antonia sa
id, patting his head softly. She couldn’t help but notice that Bobby looked away from her then, dropping his gaze to the ground like it would be rude to stare at a mother and child sharing an affectionate moment. Antonia felt a deep, heavy ache in her heart.

  Oh, boy, she thought to herself. She was already starting to become attached. This couldn’t be good. Like Mr. Amos had said the night before, this wasn’t a permanent position. She would just have to enjoy it while it lasted.

  Chapter Five

  Cal

  When Cal returned home from his physical therapy appointments that evening, all he wanted to do was climb into a hot shower, and let the water wash away all the detritus of the day, all of the stress and worry and exhaustion. But Cal so rarely got what he wanted, at least nowadays.

  He was barely through the front door of his house before he heard loud shouting and the footfall of tiny feet. The two little boys were running through the house, and by the looks of it, they’d been playing together for the whole day, running into his expensive furniture, kicking up the sides of the rugs, and rearranging his meticulously organized pictures and knickknacks. What the fuck? Cal thought to himself, his jaw dropping as he walked from the entryway of the house into the living room and then on to the kitchen and dining area. It looked like a goddamn warzone. What the hell had happened here? He was only gone for a few hours.

  “Oh, hey there,” Antonia said, popping up on the other side of the kitchen, flour dusting the front of her jeans. “I’m baking cookies. Want to help?”

  “Uh, no I don’t,” Cal said stiffly, watching as Antonia shrugged and went back to her work, mixing eggs with butter and sugar in a bowl. His bowl. Clearly, she felt more than welcome in his house. “What exactly happened here?”

  Antonia froze and turned back around to face him, still stirring together the ingredients for her cookie dough. “What do you mean?”

  “The house,” Cal said slowly, trying to keep his anger restrained. He really didn’t want to yell at the nanny on her first day of work, but this was ridiculous.

  “Oh, you mean the mess?” Antonia asked. Cal nodded and stared at her some more, waiting for an explanation. “Boys will be boys, I guess,” she said before turning back around to focus on her work.

  “Uh, well, they can’t be ‘boys’ in my house,” Cal said. “Listen, I work hard all day at my office, and I really don’t want to have to come home to a disaster area at the end of the day. Did you just let them run wild or something? I mean, I’m paying you to actually watch the kid.”

  Antonia froze at that, slowly putting her whisk down on a paper towel on the counter. She cleared her throat and then spoke without turning around to face Cal. “Excuse me?” she said.

  “I said I need you to actually supervise him. I mean, what’s the point of you even being here if you don’t do anything? I’m not paying you to bake cookies,” Cal said, feeling his frustration rise as he looked around the kitchen to see various food items out of place on the countertops.

  Antonia slowly turned around, her brow deeply furrowed as she looked across at Cal. “What exactly are you paying me for? To take care of your house? Or to take care of your son?”

  “He’s not my—” Cal interjected, but Antonia scoffed, shaking her head a little bit until he fell silent. Cal felt weirdly reprimanded, like he was a little boy who’d disappointed his teacher, rather than a boss justifiably annoyed at his employee.

  “You know, I guess I didn’t understand at first,” Antonia said, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “You’re really new at this, huh?”

  “New at what?” Cal asked, confused.

  “The kid thing,” Antonia said. “Bobby. Your son. You don’t understand how this works at all.”

  Cal didn’t know what to say. His skim squirmed a little bit at having Bobby referred to as his son twice over the course of a single minute, but he knew better than to protest again. It was clear that Antonia wasn’t amused, to say the very least.

  “You know, kids are like little energy bombs. Two or three or sometimes even four times a day, they have to detonate, okay? They go off, running in every direction, and guess what? It’s healthy. It’s good. Otherwise, they’re just going to internalize all of that energy, and it’ll just come out in less healthy ways. Believe me, I’ve been there with my own kid. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “So it was your kid that did this?” Cal asked without thinking.

  Antonia’s eyebrows flew up towards her hairline, her eyes going wide with shock before narrowing in apparent anger. “Huh. I see. So you think I don’t know how to control my son?”

  “Well, do you?” Cal asked. He knew he was pushing the issue too far by questioning her parenting skills, but he couldn’t back down now. He wasn’t sure he was totally right, but he was certain that he wasn’t completely in the wrong, either. His house didn’t have to look like this, right?

  Antonia brushed some of the flour off her hands, wiping them down on the front of her already white-streaked jeans. “So you really weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “Not kidding about what?” Cal asked.

  “Not being a father,” Antonia said with a shrug. Cal almost flinched back from her words. They hit him right in the chest, like a great big iron fist, but he had no idea why. She was just repeating the truth back to him. He wasn’t a father. Antonia kept going. “It’s just…I really think Bobby might not even be yours. You’re so different.”

  “How’s that?” Cal asked, curious what she was going to say even though he knew it was likely intended to hurt his feelings.

  “Bobby’s free,” Antonia said, turning back around to face her cookie dough, finally combining the flour and cocoa mixture with the eggs, butter, and sugar. “He’s a really smart kid, you know. Doesn’t get hung up on the small stuff.”

  “And what, you’re saying I do?” Cal asked defensively.

  Antonia turned back around again, her wrist moving in slow circles as she whisked the dough into shape. “I’m saying you don’t know what you’re dealing with at all. He’s not just a piece of furniture that got dropped off at your house for a few weeks. He’s a person, a whole, live person with thoughts and feelings and needs. And I don’t think you understand any of that.”

  “What does this have to do with the house being trashed?” Cal asked, stepping a little bit closer. He could smell the sweetness of the dough from this closer distance, and he couldn’t stop his stomach from growling lowly in response.

  “Everything,” Antonia said confidently. “You don’t know what it’s like having a kid around. A real, live human kid full of energy and excitement, staying in a new place. He talked to me about it today. You tried to keep him pent up in the living room for days at a time. You can’t do that to a kid, especially not one as bright as Bobby. It boxes him in with his thoughts. He needs to be moving, to be active so that he doesn’t get trapped up in the bad memories.”

  “Bad memories?”

  Antonia sighed and nodded to herself a little sadly. “Right. You wouldn’t know anything about those either, because he’s not your son. Or so you say.”

  She pulled out a pan from one of the cabinets underneath the sink and set about putting little dollops of the cookie dough in neat lines on the pan. When she was done she popped the pan in the oven and then turned back to face Cal, who’d been frozen on the spot, watching her work while trying to come up with an appropriate response.

  “So you’re not going to try to clean up, then?” Cal asked.

  Antonia shrugged again, apparently unbothered by the question. “I’m a nanny, not a maid. If you want someone to keep this place spotless, then no, that’s not going to come from me. But…on days when I have more time, I will make more of an effort to get the boys to clean up after themselves. It’s a good habit to start young, anyway.”

  She turned back to start wiping down the stove and countertops, humming a little as she worked. Cal just watched her for a long moment, unsure of what exactly had just
happened between them. Did she win the argument? Or was it just a draw? Did Antonia compromise somewhat by agreeing to teach the boys how to clean up, or was she going to do that anyway? Cal had no idea how to feel. All he knew was that he felt like his world was off-balance. This woefully disorganized “nanny” had gotten the upper hand, and he wasn’t even sure how it happened.

  “Whatever,” he sighed out loud, speaking more to himself than to Antonia, who made no move to acknowledge him. He went upstairs and hopped into the shower for a few minutes before getting into more comfortable clothes.

  “I’m going out again. Be back in a few hours,” Cal called out to Antonia as soon as he walked downstairs.

  “Don’t you want to check in on Bobby?” Antonia asked, following Cal to the front door.

  “Can’t. Got to go. Business to do.” He had stuff to take care of at the Bone Breakers compound, but he didn’t feel like explaining all of that to Antonia at the moment. It’d take too long to get her to understand the MC lifestyle, and he really didn’t feel like being judged by her anymore tonight.