The question caught Melissa off guard. “What do you mean?”
“The last one didn’t stay. And the one before that. They always leave.”
“Well, this one will be here for the summer, at least,” Melissa said. “They are nannies, not… family.”
Lila nodded, though there was unhappiness in her eyes. Still, she didn’t fuss or demand, just sat there.
Melissa looked at her daughter, at the dark hair falling across her face and the too-old eyes and the small hands still folded on the counter, and felt the familiar weight of all the ways she was failing.
Someone with a pulse and a personality,Rachel had said.
Someone who could make Lila laugh, really laugh. Someone who could fill this house with something other than silence and obligation. Someone who could reach the parts of her daughter that Melissa couldn’t seem to touch anymore.
She pulled up the agency email on her phone, scrolled through the candidates. None of them looked particularly inviting, or warm, as Rachel had said.
Perhaps she should go a different route, trying to find someone. Because maybe, somewhere out there, was the person who could give Lila the summer she deserved.
If Melissa could find them.
Chapter 2
The Interview
June
Monday, June 8th
June Hollis had a theory that you could tell everything about a family by looking at their kitchen, and the Hollis kitchen said:we’ve been here a while, we’re not going anywhere, and we’ve given up on matching anything.
She stood at the stove, spatula in hand, flipping bacon in the cast-iron pan that had belonged to her grandmother. Mismatched mugs hung from hooks beneath the cabinets. The fruit bowl on the counter hadn’t held fruit in years—currently it contained three rubber bands, an AA battery, and her mom’s rarely used reading glasses. The wallpaper was the same faded yellow with sunflowers it had been since before June could remember, and the linoleum had a worn patch in front of the sink where her mother had stood doing dishes for three decades.
Outside, the neighbor’s sprinkler was already running, the rhythmic shush-shush-shush drifting in through the screen dooralong with the smell of wet grass and the promise of another hot day.
“You’re going to be late.” Laura Hollis bustled in from the hallway, already dressed for her shift at the medical office, her graying hair pinned back in the same practical twist she’d worn for as long as June could remember. June had inherited her mother’s warm eyes and the same scattering of freckles, though Laura’s had faded with age into something softer, like old photographs. “What time is the interview?”
“Eleven. I have two hours.”
“Two hours isn’t that long. You should shower, and do something with your hair, and—”
“Mom. I’ve got it.” June pushed a stray curl of honey-blonde hair out of her face, wishing that for once, her hair would stay in the ponytail she’d tried to trap it in.
Laura hovered anyway, the way she always did, straightening the dishtowel on its hook and adjusting the salt shaker by millimeters. She meant well. She always meant well. That was the exhausting thing about it.
“I just want you to make a good impression. This could be a real opportunity, June. A live-in position—that could be good.”
“I know.”
“And the pay is decent, especially since you don’t have to pay for food or housing. You could save up, get back on your feet, figure out your next step…”
Move out of our house for good this time, she didn’t say, but June heard it.
“Mom.” June transferred the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels, keeping her voice patient. “I know. That’s why I applied.”
Being a nanny over the summer. It sounded like a sweet job, if the kid in question wasn’t a total brat.
From the kitchen table came the rustle of newspaper. Gary Hollis hadn’t said a word since June started cooking, but shecould feel him listening, the way he always listened—absorbing everything without comment, filing it away for later. Her father was a man of few words and strong opinions, most of which he kept to himself. He worked at a plumbing supply warehouse on the edge of town, had for twenty-five years, and he approached conversation the same way he approached his job: efficiently and without unnecessary flourish.
“Don’t be late,” he said without looking up. He had a coffee mug in hand, and wore a faded flannel shirt he refused to change out of despite the June heat. “That’s the most important thing.”
