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Nurse Mary. Our very proper, sixty-something English nanny. With her cropped curly gray hair, pleasantly plump figure, and dowdy gray uniform, she is nothing like Nurse Marley. She came from a very reputable agency.
My sassy daughter doesn’t like her and folds her arms across her chest. “Mommy, no bed!”
Now a precocious, potty-trained toddler, her froggy little voice warms me from head to toe. I glance down at her, marveling at her beauty with her vibrant ocean-blue eyes, the exact color of Gabe’s, and halo of golden curls. She’s a cross between me and Gabe, his paternity affirmed by a DNA test conducted by the genetics lab called Endeavor. Though the earlier test I secretly did right after she was born, using a sample of Ned’s hair, proved that my late husband wasn’t her father—a 0% probability—I wanted Gabe to feel confident that he was Isa’s father. The results came back 99.9% positive. He couldn’t have been more thrilled (nor I), though he suspected the baby was his all along. The product of my sinful wedding night. Proving some sins are meant to be committed.
Nurse Mary takes Isa’s hand, ready to lead her away. Isa pouts.
“Sweetie,” I console, “Mommy promises to play Barbie with you tomorrow.”
Her face brightens.
“You promise to be a good girl for Nurse Mary?”
Nodding, she marks an X on her chest. “Cwoss my heart and hope to die.”
I shiver at her words. Where did she learn that? Pre-school? Nurse Mary? Before I can ask her, Gabe, handsomely clad in a tux, meets me at the front door. Though we’ve been married for two years, my heart still thuds at the sight of him. My endorphins rise. He wraps his arms around my belly and kisses my head.
“Doesn’t Mommy look beautiful?” he says as he sweeps our daughter into his arms.
Isa beams. She smells of little girl. Sugar and spice and everything nice. “Mommy like Disney princess!”
I look more like a blow-up doll. I blush.
“Daddy, read me book!” My daughter is so manipulative, but it makes me love her all the more.
Gabe chuckles. “Can’t tonight, buttercup, but how about two stories tomorrow?” He loves to read to her. “Deal?”
Isa’s face brightens. She high-fives him. “Deal!”
How I used to hate that word, but now I love it.
Kissing her, my husband tells Isa to be a good girl for Mommy and Daddy. My heart melts at both the sight of him and the unbridled love he showers on our precious little girl. The. Best. Father. Ever.
She gives him a hug before he hands her off to Nurse Mary.
“Cheerio,” our new nanny calls out, taking Isa upstairs.
Knowing our daughter is in good hands, Gabe and I, both dressed in black-tie attire, hastily make our way to the limo awaiting us. If you haven’t guessed, I’m nine months pregnant. Exactly two weeks away from my due date. Unlike my pregnancy with Isa, this pregnancy has been a piece of cake. I have loved every minute. Every pound. Every kick. And Gabe has been the best partner and father a woman could ever ask for.
Not all men are like Ned. Rich, white, and privileged. Gabe, now the head of IMAGE, rose from a middle-class background, a down-to-earth family, and has never forgotten his roots. My husband proves there are good men in this world. He’s warm, and funny, and loving. He’s a hands-on dad and an attentive husband. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s easy to look at and wonderful in bed.
I love him—and Isa—so much that sometimes it hurts. Our new addition is going to be another girl. I’m thrilled because I always wanted a sister. We’re naming her Dora, after Gabe’s paternal great-grandma, Dorothy. She lived until she was 102 and died while gardening in her yard. It means “Gift of God.” Gabe’s whole family will be out here in Los Angeles over Christmas to welcome her into the family. Isa is especially excited to meet her sister. Daw-wah.
I feel so incredibly fortunate that our children—and we’re thinking about one more—are blessed with an extensive family filled with loving grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and more. Sadly, I’m going to keep my side of the family a secret forever—all their evil doings buried six feet under. In addition to my father and Renata, I’m never going to tell them about Norah Bates, the shady nurse—my real mother—who gave me up and forced my parents to adopt me. There’s no point. Found complicit in my father’s wrongdoings, she was sentenced to ten years in prison, and shortly after an early parole, she died in a fatal accident. Hit by a bus full of school children. That’s karma for you.
A glamorous night awaits us. We’re off to see the premier of The Night Nanny, the movie Nurse Marley wrote in her spare time. I found the almost completed script on her iPad, among the possessions she’d packed to leave the country with Isa. Gabe and I both read it and were blown away as was the film division of IMAGE. Working with a contract writer, Gabe got it finished. The characters’ names have all been changed, and while it’s been marketed as a thriller, no one knows it’s based on a true story. Nor do they know anything about the anonymous screenwriter. The press was told that she had an unexpected accident that led to her untimely death. And that her writer’s fee was donated to a charitable organization that helps impoverished single mothers and babies in need.
As much havoc as Nurse Marley Manners wreaked on my life to the point of almost killing me and my baby, I feel a pinch of sadness every time I think about her. How much loss and suffering she endured. Had she not experienced so much childhood trauma, perhaps her life would have turned out so differently.
The caregiver’s battered body was found at the base of Ned’s hilltop house. Though she might have suffered cardiac arrest from the lightning or internal bleeding from the fall, the cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma. Giving her a proper burial with a priest’s blessings, I interred her in her family mausoleum located in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, along with the Baby Reborn doll, which suffered not a scratch. I didn’t want to keep it. It brought back too many bad memories. A night of horror that I want to forget but never can. I, however, kept her treasured rosary with the silver locket. Whenever I go to church, I take it with me and pray that she’s been united with her sister and niece. And her mother. That they’re all in a better place.
Often, I have wondered, was she really a sociopath? Maybe she was just an innocent woman—a victim—who wanted to right the wrongs done to her and her family. Tip karma in the right direction.
Justice or revenge? There’s a fine line between them. Or maybe they’re different sides of the same coin. Maybe it boils down to who is the avenger or who is the victim. Or is revenge the means to justice?
I’ve had to think about this a lot when it comes to what I did to the woman I once called my mother.
And when it comes to Nurse Marley.
