“No woman will ever replace Mom.”
I knelt beside her.
“I know.”
“No woman,” she repeated.
“I promise nobody will replace her.”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Then don’t bring another woman into this house.”
I thought she was speaking from grief.
I didn’t understand then how seriously she meant it.
The first nanny arrived three days later.
She lasted four hours.
The second lasted one day.
The third quit after the twins filled her handbag with flour.
The fourth discovered a dead cockroach inside her coffee cup.
The fifth woke up to find all her shoes glued together.
By the time we reached nanny number ten, I stopped asking questions.
By number twenty, I stopped getting angry.
By number thirty, I stopped believing the situation could be fixed.
And then came number thirty-seven.
She lasted less than twenty minutes.
She ran out of the house crying.
Her uniform had been stained with green dye.
