A Nanny's Secret

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Secrets plague many marriages
Sometimes those secrets are an attempt to save a doomed relationship. Despite what each party puts into their efforts to make it work, some relationships begin with a doomed status. Every now and then, those secrets are the result of an unforgiving society or the unfair expectations of our families. I never realized how much of an impact those expectations could make until I met a family who almost lost an amazing woman because of the fear she carried around about not being what others wanted her to be.
I remain grateful the timing aligned with my seeking employment before continuing on to the next step in my degree.
The listing for a nanny position was not what caught my eye. I was looking for office work, not babysitting rich kids whose parents see their offspring as precocious extensions of their own existence. No, it was the name on that listing and the location. The Miller family, Derek and Tori, were seeking a full-time live-in nanny to assist Mrs. Miller following the birth of their third child. I knew a Derek Miller and he had married a Tori. My Derek and Tori lived in the same area. What were the odds?
Convinced it was a coincidence, but unable to shake my curiosity, I applied for the position. In my mind, I would interview and find an old, gray-haired man and his svelte blonde bouncy wife who agreed to bear his heirs in exchange for access to his purse strings but had no interest in actually rearing the children. Should that be the case, I would turn the job down. But, I needed to know whether this Derek Miller was my Derek Miller or not.
Walking into the front room of a large Tudor-style house and seeing the graying hair of my friend as his wife ushered me to sit in the olive-colored wingback chair set the tone of the interview on my end. I hadn't properly prepared myself for the possibility of seeing him. I flustered easily as it was.
He and his family lived a short drive from the campus I'd be attending. This could work.
Derek stared at his hands or watched the ticking of a large grandfather clock to my right as his wife asked me about my training. It wasn't until she asked why I was applying for a job beneath my qualifications that his attention turned to me.
"The next step in my education is at Marriworth. A clinical job would have very rigid hours and the position you're offering includes housing with it. That gives me a lot of leeway I otherwise wouldn't have."
"It includes food, too," the beautiful, short-haired brunette quipped.
"An added bonus for a starving student," I replied with a smile.
Derek sat in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest as he looked around the room. He barely acknowledged my presence with a curt handshake when I arrived. He sighed and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
"Your qualifications are impressive," he said as he glanced at the paperwork his wife held. "What we expected to pay and what you expected to receive might be at odds."
"As I said, with food and lodging included I'm pretty flexible with that. Would I be on duty constantly when not doing my class requirements?"
"Only if you want to be. All we're looking for is someone to help me while Derek is at work. Once he's home he can take over helping me and the evenings can be yours to do as you wish."
"Are you offering any sort of medical coverage or other benefits?"
She looked at her husband, who nodded and finally spoke up, "We are. It's important to us that the person caring for our kids is being cared for as well. Medical, Dental, Vision, two weeks paid vacation, and two weeks of sick time. If you don't use either we'll pay it out at the end of the year."
"Am I to pay anything toward the medical plans?"
"No. We are covering the cost, it's part of the compensation package overall. We are hoping to not go over five thousand per month in costs, but..."
"Would two thousand a month in cash compensation keep you under that figure? That's all I would need to cover the rest of my expenses and obligations."
Mr. Miller turned to his wife before looking back at me, "It would. Are you sure..."
"I'm sure. Letting me set my hours around my course schedule and providing lodging and food takes a huge burden off my shoulders in finding employment. I'm not trying to get rich from this job, it's a means to an end over the next two years. If my needs change we can reassess down the line."
Mrs. Miller smiled, "We were planning on hemming and hawing while we pretend to think it over for a day, but Miss Owens, I do believe you're our front runner at the moment. We only have one more interview to do and we'll call you later this afternoon with our decision."
I returned the polite smile of my former friend's wife, "I look forward to hearing from you."
They didn't leave me hanging in suspense for very long. Two hours after I left my interview, I received a text, When would you like to start?
How Ankara bayan escort (http://ankaradost.com/) about Sunday?
Sounds good. Would you like us to empty the room so you can bring your own items?
No, I've got nothing but clothes and such. I would be buying all new stuff and that seems wasteful for both of us if you don't mind me using your furniture.
We don't mind at all. It makes things much easier, actually. Looking forward to introducing you to the minions.
If Derek recognized me during the interview, he made no indication of it. Of course, He only knew me as Remy and the only image he'd seen of me was an image of me holding a note in front of my face. My once purple hair had since returned to its deep auburn roots, landing at my waist in heavy ringed curls, and my once svelte figure gained some substance, especially in the hip and butt area.
I met Derek right before he married Tori. Every night at midnight I ran a chat room I called 'The Sanitarium'. I was going through a bad breakup at the time and welcomed people struggling with life in general. I wanted people to feel seen and heard. Plus, their woes made great fodder for reports in a couple of early college classes.
The Sanitarium was a place of shenanigans and tomfoolery where an average night might see us discussing the ramifications of overthrowing Hell. (There were none. We would rule it in a way that would make even demons cry?as it should be when you have such haughty ambitions.) Though, it could also be as simple as discussing our own previously unspoken or unexplored sexual desires.
The chat was largely made up of men?at minimum a decade older than me?and they loved to play with the idea of letting me use them to live out my deepest desire. When I finally agreed to go on a mic and let them hear me it set them off in a whole new way.
The innocence dripping from the softness of your tone is intoxicating, your highness, Derek sent in a message to me one particularly steamy night.
At the time, I only knew Derek as Max, a name I'd bestowed upon him when he showed up night after night but never introduced himself.
Even though he couldn't see it, I smiled and sent him a private voice message, "Are you actually interacting with me, Max? I thought I scared you."
His written response was quick, There's no part of you I find frightening. Your banter is outlandish, but also amusing. The idea of a bubbly nineteen-year-old ruling Hell with a whip in one hand and a daiquiri in another seems oddly fitting.
"When do I get to call you something other than, 'Max?'" I asked, again unable to hide the smile he coaxed from me even though he couldn't see it.
He invited me into a video call and I accepted, where he quickly learned I put electrical tape over the camera on my laptop. He smiled and shook his head, a headset on as he lifted his eyes, "How am I supposed to know where to look if I can't see you?"
"You can see your camera, can't you?"
The dimples in his cheeks softened as his smile shifted to a smirk, "Well, how am I supposed to decide if I want to be your prince consort as you rule Hell?"
I laughed, "You don't decide that. I do. Besides, everyone knows the ideal position in the Queen's court is the jester. What do you say, Max, will you be my jester?"
He stood and bowed before lifting his eyes and giving away that smirking grin, "With great pleasure, your highness. Would you like me to dance?"
A sweeping motion blurred the camera as he mocked a slow dance in front of the lens. If he could've seen me, he would've seen a bright red blush across my cheeks as I took in his movement and the gentle hum of a song I wasn't familiar with.
The banter died out as he laughed and sat back in his chair.
"I'm Remy," I said in a gentle tone as he looked into his camera.
For someone unable to see where to look to meet my gaze, he did a great job faking it as he swept his hair from in front of his eyes and said, "My name's Derek, it's nice to meet you, Remy."
"So, Derek, what is it that you want in exchange for your service to me?"
"A photo of you. Clothed, nothing illicit. Holding up a sign with my name on it so I know it's you."
"And what do I get in exchange for this photo?"
"A friend, I hope."
I grabbed my phone and wrote out the message, holding the piece of poster board head-high to block out my face, and took a photo of myself. The note read:
Max unveiled his true name to me and encouraged I write it for the world to see. The secret powers a name may hold prevent me from being so unduly bold. A jester by night and knight by day, his secrets do with me stay. For if his name passes my lips, it shall be with his hands upon my hips. I hope this will suffice to pay my debt to you, D.
The photo itself was unassuming, my body from the top of my head to my thigh was visible, my violet hair fell over the shoulders of a dark blue denim jacket, under which Escort bayan Ankara (http://ankaradost.com/) I wore a white halter-style dress with a cherry print across it. A similar cherry red adorned my long and slender fingernails. I watched him open the e-mail. His eyes scanned the image and his smile grew as his eyes adjusted back to his camera.
The blush on his cheeks was notable as he tried very hard to reign in his smile, "Remy, I have to be honest with you. Your appeal to me isn't sexual in nature. You've clearly got a beautiful body, but I'm only looking for a friend. You've brought a lot of joy in what has been some of the most stressful weeks of my life..."
I interrupted him, "It was only a joke, Derek."
His eyes closed as I said his name and he drew in a breath before his gaze turned back to his camera as I continued, "I don't want anyone from the Sanitarium to know what I look like, not even you. So, banter and a vague idea is all you get."
The Sanitarium was a place of fun, lighthearted ribbing, and goading, a much-needed escape from reality for everyone who participated. I found great strength in the support of our regulars and trolls didn't know what to do when we made a show of solidarity with their attempts to rile us. We were an unsinkable group of strangers.
Part of the challenge that was my life at the time, was hearing Derek gush about his fiancée. I learned more and more about him as time went on and with every new piece of information he dangled in front of me, the crush I'd developed strengthened.
I had no interest in destroying his relationship. He seemed happy and I wasn't about to throw a wrench into his happiness. There were many sleepless nights when he figuratively held my hand through a difficult mid-term study session or helped me edit a research paper to be more concise. I did the same, helping him write his vows to his future wife and reminding him of the positives he'd confided in me when the negative seemed to be front and center.
Then came the nights leading up to his wedding.
On one particularly stressful night for him, flowers were still in transit and one of his groomsmen decided to hit on a bridesmaid at a rehearsal dinner attended by said bridesmaid's husband, who turned out to be the brother of the bride-to-be. After a blow-up between his friends and her family over the ill-fated attempt to woo a married woman, the bride and groom ended their night away from each other after getting their respective halves of the party settled down.
Derek vented to me about the incident and, while I couldn't do much about what happened, I did get him laughing again as I horribly butchered a mash-up of "Stand by Me" and "I'll Stand by You," after which he thanked me for not asking to sing at his reception. Harsh, but accurate in regard to my skill level as a singer.
I developed a school-girl crush on him. Who wouldn't? He was an older guy and well on his way to getting his life together. He spoke of his fiancée often, so I knew I had no place in his heart and our friendship needed to stay at a certain level. It tore my heart apart a little more each time he talked about the upcoming wedding, but I tried to be a good friend and listen to his fears and worries over his relationship and upcoming nuptials. I talked him down from panic and encouraged him to marry the woman he loved.
To do anything else would have been selfish.
We stayed friends and we talked almost every day for the first couple of years. After a while, he told me he had to cut down on talking to me because he found it easier to confide in me than in his wife and that didn't feel right. I understood, so almost daily talking turned into a weekly conversation at best. Then his first kid was born and our conversations shifted to almost monthly.
It went on like that until we could go a year between chats, though I would often search him out on social media to see what was going on in his life as I harbored a crush I knew was never going to amount to anything but heartache on my part.
Oh, that makes it sound like I obsessed over him. I didn't. I wasn't looking in on him daily or stalking his internet footprint. My actions were more like a yearly, or seasonally, "I hope he's okay," check on an old friend. Checking up was an attempt on my part to not disrupt his life by sending a message he would feel obligated to respond to.
I saw his posts about the two newest kids long before he ever reached out and actually told me about them.
When I sat in on that interview, it had been over a year since we last talked and he still didn't know my real name. The entire time, I struggled to keep up the ruse of not knowing him. I was certain he would recognize my voice right away and write me off as a crazy internet stalker. Which would have been well within his right.
Instead, he looked at me as the ideal candidate to help his wife.
I was twenty-five and completed my Master's in Early Bayan escort Ankara (http://ankaradost.com/) Childhood Development the previous spring. I was already a qualified social worker, but I was working my way up to being able to specialize in research surrounding catching, diagnosing and treating mental health struggles accurately and safely in children.
As I began my job with them, Derek and his wife would know me as Esmerelda Owens while the minions referred to me as Miss Owens. In their attempts at saying Esmerelda it usually came out "Melda," or "Esmy," and a bashful little giggle from the one-year-old. I loved the nicknames the five and four-year-old came up with, but their mom insisted I was Miss Owens to them. She didn't want things to become too informal, too personal, and I understood.
The family consisted of Derek Miller age thirty-five, Tori Miller age thirty, Derek Jr, or DJ, age five, Clara age four, and Missy age one. The minions were amazing and Tori's recovery from a rough pregnancy and complications showed in her short temper and anxiety over the most mundane everyday things.
My first week there was trying, to say the least.
But, with my training, it was easy for me to see Tori was having a hard time with more than caring for her children. None of her outbursts were my fault, nor were they Derek's or the kids' faults. They weren't even her fault. They were the result of her brain pushing her to be the best when she wasn't capable of being as wonderful as she wanted to be. I know that sounds like I'm putting her down, but I'm not. I've yet to meet a person capable of being the absolute best they can visualize all the time. It's a self-defeating goal and sometimes "good enough" is where we thrive as individuals.
While my job was to assist her with the kids, I was also qualified to help her with counseling.
"Tori, stop. You're running on empty and doing the things you hired me to do," I finally said on my ninth day in the house.
Her hands trembled as she put the knife down, "I know, I feel like a failure for needing help."
I picked up the knife and resumed peeling then slicing the apple slices for the kids. "A failure would be allowing yourself to suffer in front of your children. What they see when you let me help is the setting of healthy boundaries. They learn from your example. You have the means of teaching them how to stress and take on more than they can handle or how to utilize their resources to benefit themselves. I'm a resource, Tori, use me to your advantage."
She smiled, a blush on her cheeks matched the flush creeping across my own when I realized how that sounded. As she opened up to me, I took on more of the daily burdens of rearing the kids from her, but the parenting was fully her doing. The biggest hurdle I faced was convincing her that it wasn't selfish to take time for herself.
Every time we spoke, she diminished her role. She was "only" a stay-at-home mom. To combat that, I made her list everything she had to do on a given day. Not the things that varied, just the basic expectations. We worked out that if she spent fifteen minutes on each item, she would be working sixteen-hour days every day.
The expectations were inhuman and unachievable. In no scenario could she achieve it all on her own. Even allotting Derek's help, keeping everything equal between them would mean twelve to fourteen-hour days five to six days a week and eight to ten-hour days once or twice a week. It took time, but I got through to her and she took a step back.
I don't think Derek intended to throw her into the deep end without a life preserver, but that's what was happening. She was in over her head and he was telling her to swim as if it was the easiest and most natural thing in the world. Taking that pressure off of her even for a few hours a day gave her time to catch her breath and check in with her body to focus on her own needs. Taking that step back was the life preserver she didn't know she needed.
I cooked and cleaned while Tori did the shopping free of crying kids hanging onto her. I put the kids down for a nap then sat with Tori and we discussed the things she needed in life, the things she was afraid to ask for. The way her hands grasped at each other as she bit her lip and looked over her shoulder told me this woman was nearing the edge of an emotional breakdown.
She needed another step back.
"Tell me, Tori," I said as I put my hand over hers, "What do you most miss about your life before you had kids?"
She drew up her lips and her inner brow curved inward, I interjected before she responded, "It's not a judgment on what your life is now, but a lot of women feel they have to give up some part of themselves to become a mother. Especially a good mother. I want to know what you feel like you had to give up?"
"Time to breathe," she said as her eyes lowered to the floor.
My hand squeezed hers, "Okay. So, how about you and I make time for you to breathe?"
She smiled as she looked away from me, "I have to make dinner..."
"Takeout for one night isn't the end of the world.. What you need is to set boundaries and expectations with the people in your life. You can sit back and endure life or you can live it. You don't strike me as the type to sit back."