“Then you’re golden.” I stepped closer until she glanced warily at me. “Really, what would help?” I asked.
Her gaze moved over my shoulder as she contemplated. “Some of the domestic details. Meal planning. An extra guardian on hand for the unexpected school stuff that pops up, like conferences and field trips. Short days and snow days. Getting her ready and to school. Packing her lunch and doing her laundry. Buying her new clothes as she grows out of the old. Getting her to eat things that aren’t neon colored. Picking her up and making her dinner. Wash, rinse, repeat, as needed.” She rubbed at her chest.
“Okay. Yes.” I nodded, ruminating. “Okay. Now George,” I asked.
“What about him?”
“This isn’t sustainable. You can’t do this.”
“I’ve been managing fine.”
“Have you? Because it feels to me that you aren’t.”
“Look, if you just came up here to tell me all the ways in which I’m failing, please feel free to keep that to yourself. I know that things are a mess but I’m doing my best.”
“I believe that you are,” I said. “I can tell you care. Deeply.”
She looked away. “I do. And for you to sit here and pick apart my life and sum it up to a few choices, as if I don’t spend every waking moment thinking about this, it’s insulting. I didn’t ask for your opinion. Or your help.” She wouldn’t look at me as she scowled, head turned to the side.
“That’s not what I’m doing here. I’m not saying I have the answers. I just need to break it down into steps so I can understand.”
“I don’t know.” Her head shook. “I don’t know how to do any of this. How do you figure out overnight how to raise a child who isn’t your own, care for a man who can’t remember who you are all while doing your job, and oh yeah, write a damn book based on faded memories and handwritten notes even though you’ve never done any of things before in your life and you absolutely have no clue what you’re doing.” She slumped at the end of her speech. Her head dropped into her hands.
“I’m sorry, Frankie.”
She glanced to me, and her eyes glistened.
“It’s fine. God. I’m sorry. I’m not like this. I was never like this …” She turned her head away, the upturn of her nose more noticeable in her profile. She was so delicately built yet carried a fierceness. “I have been doing everything on my own. I’m not a nurse. I’m not a mother. Yet I wear so many hats now I cannot even keep track. If you have a better way to do all this, then be my guest.”
I blinked. “Good idea.” I hadn’t even thought about the words before they flopped out of my mouth. The answer seemed so obvious.
“What?” she asked, exacerbated.
“You’re right. I’ll stay. And help.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You can’t be expected to do this all alone.”
“No. That’s—” She shook her head. “You have an entire life and career away from here. I’ll talk to George’s team. I’m sure they’d provide the funds for a caretaker.”
“How would he like that, you think? You just told me that he sometimes forgets who you are. Another stranger in his home? Two? Imagine how that will add to the stress. I make him feel better. You said yourself that he’s more settled when I’m here, less confused.”
“Yes but …”
“But what? I’m offering.” I shrugged with a cheeky Harrison Evans grin.
“This is a lot. The book is due at the end of the year. Collette …” She glanced up hesitantly. “I don’t know how long we will be caring for her.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine?” She shook her head with a guffaw. “What about your massive career as a film star?”
“I’ll take a sabbatical. I’ve been acting since I was born. I’ve earned it.”
“It wouldn’t be some fun vacation.” I glared at the ground as she spoke. Of course, she’d think that I took this as a fun little romp through the park. “I worry that you aren’t thinking this through. You can’t commit to-to them, and then leave when things get hard.”
I ground my jaw. “I’ll sign a contract then. I’ll tell my team I need a break. It’s true.”
