“This will be your room, if you’re to take the job. Pippa, I really hope you do. We need you here,” Curtis had said. He had calmed down and though he wasn’t quite jovial, he was more pleasant to be around and was back to trying to win me over.
I wasn’t sold on the idea, so told him I would need a day to think about it, especially since he wanted me to start right away.
I got in the cab and gave him a short wave. Just as the cab was pulling away I caught a hint of movement on the second floor. My eyes traveled up to the window to see small, little Declan standing there. Not waving, but watching me leave. He was too far away to see clearly, but I felt a wealth of desperation and sadness in his eyes.
I didn’t know the full dynamic of the O’Sheas. I knew that my job would be a difficult one. But if I couldn’t be a mother to Ingrid, perhaps I could be to a little boy who desperately needed one.
Two hours later I called Curtis from the roach motel’s crackly phone line and told him I would take the job.
A day later, I was moved into the O’Sheas as Pippa Lindstrom, their new nanny.
CHAPTER TEN
I never regretted my decision to become Declan and Michael’s nanny. I hope you realize this Declan, no matter how hard it is to hear me rehash those troubled times. I never ever regretted a thing.
That said, as far as jobs go, I doubt you could find one more difficult. Especially at first as there was a large learning curve.
Curtis, as he had said, was rarely ever home. It wasn’t my business to ask where he was, even when I wondered how he could be doing business when he left at dawn and came home at 11 o’clock at night. I also didn’t ask where he went when he wouldn’t come home at all and for several days at that. He was either a workaholic or he was having an affair. Perhaps several affairs. Sometimes I would catch perfume on him and I could tell it wasn’t from Régine. The two of them never spoke, except in yells and slurs.
Oh, Régine. It’s difficult for me to summarize the way I felt about your mother Declan. I certainly know how you feel about her. I can understand your shame and anger at having such a woman for a mother. But though Régine frightened me, disgusted me and angered me, I could see she was a victim of her own mind and uncontrollable circumstances. There must have been a normal, good-hearted person somewhere in her soul, it was just a pity that by the time I came to the family, she wasn’t there anymore. In her place was an absolute monster.
Régine had two problems, the very ones that Curtis had warned me about, and they were so intertwined it was hard to see what problem came first. Was she mentally ill because she drank all the time or did she drink all the time because she was mentally ill? I suppose the same question could be said about us, too. Are we mentally different because we see ghosts or do we see ghosts because we are mentally different?
Notice I called her ill and us different. Maybe later the ill part could have been applied to me, but Régine was in fact a very sick woman. She couldn’t function or she didn’t want to. She spent most of the time sleeping in an alcohol-induced coma. She would then crawl out of her room around noon, wearing the same clothes she’d been for days, smelling like something awful. She’d walk unsteadily over to the kitchen and pour herself a small bowl of cereal and several cups of black coffee. This was the only thing she’d put down, other than booze. She rarely spoke when she was sober or sobering up. She would just mumble and shake.
Occasionally she would look at me and be confused, like she didn’t know who I was. One time she asked me if I was a ghost who kept following her around. I wanted to make something of that remark, but I couldn’t. She was just so lost in that head of hers and I was so desperate to find someone like myself.
She wasn’t mean, however, when she was sober. She was just distant. Michael and Declan both competed for those rare slots of attention, but she never gave it to them. Her eyes would glaze over, her face would go slack, and the boys would have to busy themselves. Luckily, Curtis was adamant they be involved in a lot of activities as possible, so there was sailing, hockey, lacrosse and a whole range of sports to keep the boys busy and distracted.
When Régine was drunk it was a whole other story and unfortunately she was drunk more often than she was sober. As the years went on, her violence and depravity worsened.
I won’t go into many details because I don’t think it would do Declan any good to remember them, but to give you an idea what a night at the O’Shea’s was like, here’s an example:
Declan was eight years old at the time and I was looking after him alone one weekend. Curtis was who knows where and Michael had gone to a science fair that was being held out of state. I normally would have gone with him and taken Declan with me but he was paired up with one of his classmates and his family wanted to look after him. I could see how much Michael wanted a weekend away from Declan and I. He wasn’t overly fond of his little brother and at times I think he might have even resented me. Maybe it’s because Declan had taken a shine to me and naturally I was overprotective of him. For whatever reason, Declan was the one his parent’s rage would always be directed at, a living, loving target.
It was a warm spring and Declan and I were out in their small back yard until the sun went down and the early mosquitoes came out to play. I was enjoying a small cup of espresso and the new lights we had installed over the garden while Declan was reading a book with a flashlight. It was a mystery novel, I remember that well, and I asked him if he’d rather go inside to read as it was getting so dark.
He looked up and shook his head. I recognized the fear in his eyes, exaggerated by the flashlight’s eerie glow.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“She’s in my room again,” he whispered back.
I got off my seat and kneeled on the cool grass beside him. I smoothed the hair off of his forehead, thinking he was due for another haircut.
“Who is in your room?” I asked.
“Mum. She’s tearing it apart.”
I looked over at the house. I couldn’t see his room from the back but all the lights in the house were off.
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “I just know. I get a feeling sometimes.”
He resumed looking at his book for a few seconds. Then he put it down and his eyes were watering.
Even in the worst situations, when Curtis would spank him, or yell at him, or Régine would call him names, nasty, terrible names, I never saw Declan cry. To see those brown eyes filling with tears brought my heart to my knees.