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“What do you want to do?” I ask him after we’re secured in the car.
He studies me carefully, the way he always does when I ask him a direct question. I consider what Natalia said about giving him guidance and reassurance. I don’t want to admit that the flaws she pointed out in me were accurate. Despite what appearances might suggest, I have tried.
“You can tell me.” I soften my tone. “We can do anything you’d like.”
“Anything?” he asks hesitantly.
I nod.
“Can we go to the Great Wheel?”
Well, shit. I wasn’t expecting that. I know he’s visited there before with his previous nanny, Rose. As for myself, I can say with certainty I’ve never been on a Ferris wheel, but I did say anything he wanted.
“Okay. The Great Wheel it is.” I pull away from his school and head for Pier 57.
It’s a cooler day, so luckily, there doesn’t appear to be a horde of tourists when we arrive. I park the car, and Nino holds out his hand in offer. Another first. I take it, and something pinches in my chest when I feel how small his fingers are compared to mine. Logically, I’m always aware of how vulnerable he is. When I first took him in, I was admittedly petrified by the possibilities of something going wrong. I went overboard with Rose, directing her to babyproof the entire house and keep him safe at any cost. She was much older, and she told me not to worry so much. She had already raised many Society children by that time. But I never stopped worrying. I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do with a toddler, and I think perhaps I let those fears get the best of me. Over time, I realized he was in safe hands with Rose, along with Manuel’s observant eye, and I pulled back more and more, allowing them to actively participate in his life while I remained a passive observer. I was so concerned about screwing up I didn’t put myself in the game at all, and now I can see that was a grave mistake. I have missed out on so much.
Nino leads me toward the giant wheel, over the pavers, and through the small groups of people coming and going. He finds the ticket booth easily enough, and we wait our turn together before I pay. We enter the line for the Wheel, and Nino peers out over the water, eyeing the boats. It’s one of the things we both enjoy, and I decide that there’s no reason we can’t take the boat out every weekend. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility to charter a yacht in the summer and travel somewhere too. I think he would like that.
The attendant gestures us forward with a bored expression and helps us into the gondola. The seats are larger than I expected, but we get the cabin to ourselves because of the sparse crowd. Nino sits opposite me, close to the window, smiling as we slowly begin our ascent.
“This is my favorite,” he whispers. “Rose used to bring me here all the time.”
His confession dislodges something painful deep inside my gut, and I feel a need to address it. I’m not sure I know how.
“She was special to you,” I say. “I’m sorry that she’s no longer here. It must make you … sad sometimes.”
He looks over at me, and for the first time, I can see how much he truly does miss her. The woman was more of a grandmother to him, even more so than Gwen is, realistically.
“I do miss her,” he says. “But she’s in heaven now, and she told me someday we’ll see each other again.”
I nod, grateful that Rose found a way to comfort him even as she was slowly dying.
“You have Natalia now,” I add, curious how he might respond.
“I love Natalia,” he answers softly. “I want her to stay forever.”
I swallow hard, hoping he doesn’t see the tension on my face. He’s never said that about me.
“If you like her, then I suppose we’ll have to keep her.”
This earns me a lopsided grin. He presses his fingers against the glass and looks out the window while I try to figure out how to address what Natalia said.
“Nino.”
“Yeah?” He returns his attention to me.
“The other day, when Gwen was at the house, you didn’t want to hug her. Can you tell me why?”
A frown pinches at his lips as he dips his gaze, and I notice this is something he does quite often, presumably because he thinks he’s in trouble.
“It’s okay that you didn’t want to,” I reassure him, taking a page from Natalia’s book. “You did nothing wrong. I just want to know why you don’t like to hug her.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just don’t like it. She gets lipstick all over me and smells like wine.”
