One Less Problem Without You (8 page)

I couldn't live like this anymore. This wasn't even living. It was killing me. It was time to let go. I didn't know if I had a chance at life at all, but I knew that as long as I was with Leif I would not be long for this world.

The problem was, I had nowhere in the world to go. My parents were gone; my sister, Meghan, was estranged (in part because she'd never liked Leif, though the truth was she wasn't much more likable than he himself was).

So the bare fact was that I was really all alone in the world without him.

In fact, maybe that was another reason I'd stayed so long. Once upon a time—when I was young, stupid, and madly in love with him—I had dreamed of the family we'd have together. I'd
planned
on it. After we got married, he changed his tune about wanting children, however.

Now I was twenty-nine and looking at a long, lonely life if things didn't change.

I spent a long, sleepless night thinking about it. I stayed on my side, facing away from him, even while my arm and shoulder cramped and grew sore. I could not face him.

I didn't know that I could ever face him again.

But I couldn't kill him, either. I wanted to say the idea had been tempting, but the truth was that it had only felt like a “solution” because it was theoretically possible, not because I'd actually
do
it. It was my cyanide pill, and, like all who carry a cyanide pill, I knew that eventually this situation was going to kill
me
.

I
was going to be the only casualty.

He would skate by, as he always had, looking out for number one and apparently having a great time doing it. The only price he ever paid was the occasional few minutes of mollification and seduction he had to spend on me.

I couldn't harm him.

I couldn't even faze him.

All I could even
try
to do was to save my own life.

*   *   *

IN THE MORNING,
as he got up and got ready to leave, I pretended to be asleep so he didn't talk to me. So I didn't have to look at him.

Partly, God help me, so I didn't weaken toward him.

It seemed like it took forever, but finally he left the room and I heard the front door slam behind him. I often thought he did that on purpose, slammed the door in a last-ditch effort to wake me up or make me uncomfortable. Just one more way to niggle at me.

This time, though, it just signaled relief. He was gone.

Thank God.

I got up and began to pack. I didn't know where I was going or what I would do. The shared bank account that I had access to had only a few thousand dollars left in it, but I would take everything I could. It wasn't like I was going to be able to use my credit cards. Or even my car. I was going to have to leave that behind as well.

I was going to have to leave everything I had and everything I knew behind.

And once he saw what I'd done, I knew, he'd never forgive me. This was a game-ending move, but I had no choice.

With my suitcase packed and my phone charged, until I could get a cheap TracPhone, I stopped in the kitchen one last time and poured myself a shot of vodka and sipped it slowly while I looked at all the choices he'd made that created
his
home instead of
ours.

All he had ever cared about was himself. Why had I thought I could change that?

That's when it occurred to me that there was one person in the world who
would
understand this. One person who might—just
might—
be a friend to me at this time.

I opened my phone contacts and dialed my best—and absolute only—hope for salvation.

 

CHAPTER SIX

Twenty-five Years Earlier

The party was beautiful. Glitz. Glamour. Glitter. Fancy. Champagne and hors d'oeuvres went by on silver platters. All the servers and the bartender were in black tie.

Unbelievable. And this was her
future
. She'd gotten the job! Not only did she get to live for free in this big, gorgeous house, but she'd be
paid
to do it!

Boy, for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Silver Spring, this was
living.

And it was living exactly the life she was meant to have.

She was born to be a mother. As a child, she had put her dolls to bed every night and played elaborate pretend games with them that involved feeding them, playing with them, and teaching them. In college, her friends had even jokingly called her Mom. She was always the caretaker, whether she was the five-year-old tucking in a plastic baby doll or the twenty-one-year-old emptying a water bottle down the gullet of a drunk friend.

Though suburban life—husband, 2.5 kids—was probably where she was headed (she didn't understand the disdain for it), she was sure going to enjoy the time she spent nannying for the Tiesmans.

Always a dreamer, Elisa felt like she was living out her fairy tale. Or at least a semi–fairy tale: the glorious house, no money worries (not that she'd be rich, but she was frugal anyway, and this position would include room and board), she wouldn't be hungry or cold …

The father, Charles Tiesman, was incredibly nice. Warm and kind. His friends even called him Charlie—wealthy and powerful as he was, he was Charlie! Imagine that!

His wallet, she had noticed when he pulled out a twenty-dollar bill to cover her cab ride, had a picture of his daughter front and center. Her name was Lillian, but he called her Prinny—short for Princess, he'd explained with a proud little laugh. Elisa had resisted giggling when she heard it. She had a feeling the nickname would stick well into Prinny's adolescent years—long enough that she'd probably feel too guilty ever telling him it embarrassed her.

Prinny was the kind of kid who walked around happily—and loudly—at all times. She was four, but had a spark in her eyes that made her look practically reincarnated from some hundred-year-old yogi from Tibet. Honestly, she looked like she truly understood everything in the world around her.

She had a belly laugh that was absolutely contagious, and bright eyes that beamed like lights, almost always happy and definitely always kind.

Charles's wife (she was Charles's second wife, after what Elisa had gleaned from the other workers was an acrimonious divorce from his first) was very thin and fragile-looking, but Elisa suspected that to be an illusion. When she
did
smile, which seemed reserved for genuinely happy moments, it was a big smile that reached her eyes. It was most often directed at her children, Prinny and, of course, the other—Leif. That would be the woman's, Ingrid's, stepson. She was so warm to him, but he was so cold back.

Leif was quiet and unsettling to Elisa. She couldn't figure out why exactly; he was too old to need a
nanny
per se, so her job was primarily to take care of the toddler, Prinny. But Leif was still there; he was around a good percentage of the time, and Elisa had never felt the same kind of discomfort with any other child. Something about that pale complexion and his utterly colorless eyes mixed with his almost constant, yet somehow
hostile,
silence was deeply unsettling.

If Prinny seemed oddly tuned in to her surroundings, Leif seemed strangely detached from his. Yin and yang. And frankly maybe a little too much on both their parts.

The cook, Lena, whom she had grown to quite like over the past few weeks, had warned her not to get too close to the situation at all. Not from any angle. Apparently other nannies had tried and failed and ended up hurt and fired as a result.

Hurt.

That was definitely not the plan. Elisa just wanted steady work in this beautiful place until she couldn't stand the bliss anymore. So far she expected that to be never.

This was her first party at the Tiesmans'. She'd gotten the feeling it was going to be a pretty big deal, but had no idea how—and she knew the word made her sound like a rube—
fancy
it was going to be. She'd been to
weddings
far,
far
less extravagant.

Elisa arranged the slices of white cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers in a neat circle on the blue plate. She'd learned upon getting the job that this was one snack both children could agree on. Both of them were hungry, and neither of them was allowed out into the party, where tables were filled with caviar, salmon, oysters, filet mignon, lobster, salads, and a bunch of other fussy non-kid food.

To be honest, rather than building up a plate that would look like it was for herself (
nanny steals caviar, gets the sack
), she just went with what was in the fridge for the children.

Plus, this way she got to gawk at the party from the swinging doors without being in the midst of it.

She put everything away and took the plate back down the hall to where she had left Prinny quietly watching
101 Dalmatians.

Walking up to the door, she could hear that Leif was in there with her, and whatever they were doing, they weren't doing it quietly.

She quickened her step and pushed open the door.

Leif—fourteen years old and too tall and too old to have any disagreements with his toddler sister, much less physical ones—was standing above Prinny, who was on the ground clutching her face, her chest catching in silent sobs.

“Leif!” Elisa exclaimed, rushing over. “What is going—”

He smacked the plate and the sippy-cup of grape juice Prinny had requested from Elisa's hands before she had a chance to stop him.

She took him by the shoulders to calm him, but the effort lasted only a few seconds. As soon as she had a grip on him, his angry gaze shifted to behind her. He looked suddenly horror-struck.

Elisa turned and saw Mrs. Tiesman.

“What on earth is going on in here?”

Leif wriggled away from Elisa and backed up against the wall to point at his nanny.

“Prinny and I were playing—just kidding around! And then she smacked her and tried to wrestle me onto the ground!”

The impossibility of Leif saying this, making up such a lie on the spot, struck Elisa silent.

“Leif,
again
?” Charles Tiesman showed up at the door, and it was obvious from his urgent expression that the ruckus had been audible far beyond the room.

Prinny took in a sharp breath, her sobs now becoming audible. Elisa saw that a hot red had spread across one entire side of her face. Her heart twisted, and she longed to go to her and soothe her.

Her father did instead, before shaking his head in confusion at Leif.

“No,” he said. “Why would you—”

“Me?”
Leif's jaw dropped, and his arm shot out like a railroad gate, one boney index finger pointed at Elisa. “It wasn't me. I didn't do anything. It was her!”

“I beg your pardon.” Elisa straightened her spine. “Tell your parents the truth.”

His eyes shifted uncertainly. “I guess she thought
I
was trying to hurt Prinny, but I wasn't! I don't know why she had to get so”—he sniffed as though crying, but Elisa noted that he had no tears welling, and his pupils were like pin dots—“so
violent
.”

Elisa found her voice. “That is
not
what happened!” She was unable to keep the note of childish frustration out of her voice. As if she were one of the kids, too, and had to defend herself to the parent. “I just walked in and found him standing over the poor little thing, and she was sobbing her sweet heart out. Heaven knows what he was doing, or
planning
to do.”

“Ask Prinny!” said Leif, a look of disbelief on his face, and a posture that said
go right ahead
. But when he looked at Prinny, something in his expression shifted.

He looked scared of her
.

“Prinny, were you and I just playing? Having
fun
?”

Elisa and the Tiesmans all looked to Prinny.

Her tear-filled eyes looked to Leif, and then to Elisa. She looked confused and afraid.

After a long moment, she nodded and looked down.

“Told you.” Leif crossed his arms, noticeably not looking at Prinny again. “Plus, she spilled that stuff everywhere.” He indicated purple stains on the white wool carpet. “Is Prinny even allowed to have juice this late? I'm worried the sugar will interfere with her sleep.”

The next ten minutes were a blur for Elisa, who was unceremoniously stripped of her job and turned out onto the street with her purse in her arms. The boxes of pastels and colored pencils she'd brought were still in the house, along with a cardigan she'd left the day before, but none of those things had sprung to her mind while the unbelievable happened.

She walked to the bus stop, wondering why,
why
that fourteen-year-old boy had done whatever he had done to his sister to begin with, never mind what he'd done to Elisa. In the end, he had lied to protect himself; she supposed she understood that. Kids didn't understand the ripple effects of their lies. Neither did some adults, but he had time to figure it out.

But why was a big kid like him making a little girl like Prinny cry? It looked like it had been physical, its own heinous problem, but if it hadn't, if it had been emotional torture, could anyone say that was
better
?

She wished she could have told the parents the truth before she left. Wished she could have warned them, as what she saw coming down the tracks was far worse for more people than losing this one job was for Elisa.

For a moment, she'd even thought she'd seen sympathy and openness in Mrs. Tiesman's eyes. Certainly sympathy—the woman was always kind, but she was protective of her husband and the children to a fault. Inarguably
to a fault
. She seemed to just want a happy family, even though the truth was that the kid was troubled.