Page 98 of The Billionaire’s Nanny

"Now?"

"If you want."

Carrington opened the drawer. The cream envelope was on top, with her own name across it in Clara's handwriting. Under it lay the letter from Family Services that had closed Grace's file, with Melinda Alvarez's name typed below the signature. The drawer had nothing else.

She slid the two sheets out of the envelope. The part about Grace's birthday was on the second page. She started to pull that page out so Grace wouldn't see it, and then she stopped. She adjusted the two pages on the desk.

"Parts of it are about me," she said. "You can read those too."

Grace got up and took the letter in both hands. She read the name on the front of it twice, standing there. Then she folded back into the doorway and bent her head over it.

Carrington didn't go back to the desk. She lowered herself onto the floor beside the tank stand, the empty envelope in her lap. She kept her eyes on the fish so she wouldn't stare at Grace.

The filter hummed. One of the orange fish nosed out from behind the plant and slid back. Grace turned the page. Partway down the second one, she snorted, just once, through her nose. That would be the part about the fish. Grace looked up at the tank. Carrington didn't look back at her.

After that, Grace didn't make a sound for a long time. Then she swallowed, and Carrington didn't turn her head.

"What did she say at my birthday?" Grace said.

"You were turning four. She had a private room at a hotel and she'd invited everybody." Carrington made herself finish it. "She told me you didn't need my money, that you needed an aunt. She said it in front of all the other mothers, and I walked out before the cake."

"Is that the one in Deborah's picture? With the crown?"

Carrington nodded.

"You're not in it."

"I'd already gone."

Grace found her place again on the page. "She says she shouldn't have said it in front of everybody."

"She was right to say it," Carrington said. "I'd stopped coming to see you."

Grace flipped the second page over to its blank back, then face up again.

"She knew she was dying when she wrote this?”

"Yes."

"She sounds normal." Grace smoothed the page on her knee. "I thought it would sound different. It sounds like her."

"You'd know. You heard her a lot more than I did."

Grace pressed the heel of her hand to one eye and held it there. Her shoulders came up around her ears.

Carrington got off the floor. The doorway wasn't wide enough for two. She wedged in facing Grace, sliding back down to the ground, her back to the other side of the frame, and their knees touched in the middle. Grace kept the letter out to one side, away from her face, so nothing would drip on it. Carrington took hold of the cuff of Grace's jeans at the ankle and said nothing. Grace cried. Carrington's throat hurt too. Then Grace wiped her nose on the back of her wrist and let her breath out.

"Is that why you got them?" she said. "Because of what she said about your tank?"

"No," Carrington said. "I wanted them."

Grace tipped her head toward the tank. "You can't even tell them apart."

"No."

Grace folded the pages along the old creases. Carrington opened the envelope for her and Grace slid them in, and then she didn't let go of it.

"Can I keep it?"