"Thank you for being flexible and meeting me here," Emily said with a polite smile as the other woman took a seat across from her in the coffee shop. Between taking care of Lindy and shuttling Alex between appointments, Emily had been struggling to carve out time in her schedule to interview potential nannies. She'd finally found a few spare minutes while Alex was seeing her OB/GYN and the only candidate who'd been able to make the last minute interview was, fortunately, the candidate Emily was most hopeful about.
The woman waved away her apologies with a good-natured smile. "Believe me, I understand how difficult the first few months can be," she said.
Emily couldn't help but laugh a little because difficult may have been the understatement of the century... Rather than get into that can of worms, though, she turned her attention to the woman's resume. "So, Jennifer, why did you leave your last job?"
"First of all, call me JJ," she said. "And in the interest of complete transparency, I left my last position because I had a miscarriage and I needed some time to work through the emotional fallout. It worked out okay because the boy I was caring for was going into first grade that fall, so the need for constant help wasn't as prevalent."
Emily felt her heart go out to the other woman. "I'm sorry," she murmured, reaching across the table to rest a hand on top of hers.
JJ's smile was soft and appreciative. "But I want you to rest assured that I've been through counselling and I'm fully capable and prepared to give your daughter the care and attention she needs," she insisted. "And I'm still on excellent terms with the family and they've assured me they'll give me a glowing recommendation. You're more than welcome to call them."
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, but remained silent for several long moments.
JJ must've mistaken her silence for doubt because she was quick to try and keep the interview going. "Your ad said your situation was a little unconventional?" she prompted. She smiled reassuringly, trying to convey that she wasn't about to judge or condemn. In her years working as a nanny, she'd encountered just about every kind of family situation imaginable, so it was extremely hard to shock her.
"Yeah, umm..." Emily paused, tongue flicking out over her lip as she debated how best to explain things. She'd purposely left the job posting rather sparse on details, not wanting to air too much of their dirty laundry for all to see. But something about JJ made her feel like she could trust her... "My wife is struggling with some postpartum mood concerns," she explained, remaining vague even now. "I'm getting her the help she needs, but it requires a significant amount of time and effort and I didn't want either her or Lindy to suffer for my being spread too thin, which is why we're looking for a nanny." A beat. "Well, I haven't actually told my wife yet, but that's neither here nor there."
Several long moments of silence followed.
Immediately, Emily was giving her an out, "I'd completely understand if, knowing that, you'd like to withdraw your application."
Anything further she might've said on the subject was cut off by Lindy waking up and squalling. Emily moved to tend to her cries, but JJ was quick to interrupt the movement with a gentle, "Let me."
Emily watched, stunned, as JJ was able to soothe Lindy's cries with practiced ease – as if she'd been looking after her since birth. "Wow..." she said on an exhale. She was Lindy's mother and she couldn't even soothe her quite so easily. "You're a miracle worker."
JJ just laughed, shook her head. "Years of practice," she said modestly.
Emily laughed as well, though hers was borne more of relief than any actual amusement. "How soon can you start?"
Alex had initially been, shall we say, rather irate about Emily's decision to hire a nanny for Lindy. Irate, in this case, meaning she'd said flown into a rage and said horrible hurtful things to her wife. Emily had done her best not to take them to heart, knowing that Alex never would have said them if she were in her right mind...but it was hard because Alex knew exactly how to push her buttons.
Once Alex had had some time to warm to the idea, though, and after actually meeting JJ and seeing how wonderful she was with Lindy, she seemed to begrudgingly accept the situation. (That didn't mean she couldn't hold a grudge against Emily, though...of course, that may have just been because Emily continued watching her like a hawk in spite of the many many times she'd insisted she was fine.)
Their definitions of fine, however, seemed to be drastically different.
Alex's version of fine seemed to mean gradually slipping into a depressive episode. She spent more and more time in bed and less time doing the things she used to love. Emily could see the light fading from her eyes little by little, though she knew it was still inside her somewhere...
Alex also remained convinced that someone or something was out to get Lindy and continued to be hyper-vigilant over her. She refused to allow formula to remain in the house and, as such, spent as much time as humanly possible pumping breastmilk.
(When Emily had asked her why she didn't just breastfeed – seeing as she'd been extremely insistent before the birth that she wanted to breastfeed as much as possible – she'd been unable to articulate a reason. Unable or, perhaps, unwilling...)
It wasn't just the breastfeeding, though...it was also that Alex seemed reticent to so much as hold Lindy where she'd previously been reluctant to set her down for even a second. It seemed to Emily that JJ's presence had created a vacuum wherein Alex either felt unneeded or unwanted as Lindy's parent.
She'd tried bringing it up on more than one occasion, but was only ever met with unyielding refusal to talk about it.